No 2 | Spring 2015 | The Bartlett School of Architecture

Clairvoyance

Contents

Reception The Seminar Room The Crit Room The Library

8 Editor’s Letter Micro Readings of Macro Conditions: 84 Jus’ Like That? 116 The Clear Sight of Words by Regner Ramos Words by Alan Penn an Architectural Historian 53 Crowds and Power Words by Stylianos Giamarelos 10 Visions With Purpose Reprinted Text by Elias Canetti 87 PoohTown Profile by Regner Ramos A Project by Nick Elias 120 The Naked Architect 55 Civic Depth Words by Gregorio Astengo 17 Pushing Forward Reprinted Text by Peter Carl 90 Fragile Thresholds Profile by HLM Architects A Project by Eliza de Silva 122 Back to the Future of Formalism! Visions of the City and the People Therein: Words by Emmanuel Petit 93 Resourceful Fallibility The Exhibition Space 57 This is Water A Project by Wangshu Zhou and Jieru Ding 123 Historico-Futurism Words by Sam Jacob in a Clockwork Jerusalem 20 Approaches to Tomorrow 96 The Sublime Words by Sam Jacob Words by Patch Dobson-Pérez 58 The Unhappy Pursuit Wilderness Institute Words by Adam Nathaniel Furman A Project by Xuhong Zheng 126 Branding Remaking 23 Future’s Tense on the Urban Scale Words by Kyle Branchesi and 59 The City Scale Narrative Words by Neli Vasileva Shane Reiner-Roth Words by Giovanni Bellotti and Alexander The Staircase Sverdlov 128 Queering Architectural History 24 One of a Libeskind 100 Reversing to the Future Words by Stylianos Giamarelos Words by Regner Ramos 60 Depth Charge Words by Ilkka Törmä Words by Patrick Lynch 130 Far From Predictions 31 The Tabernacle 103 Déjà Vu Words by Blerta Dino Words by Joshua Broomer and Louise 61 La Foule Words by Laura Narvaez Bjørnskov Schmidt Words by Shumi Bose 106 A Forest of Experiences The Toilets 34 The Floating Cathedral 63 Seminar Discussion Words by Benni Allan in the City of Sleep James Taylor-Foster in conversation 133 Slow Metabolism A Project by Woojung Kim with Giovanni Bellotti, Shumi Bose 109 Learning From the Past Words by Nikos Magouliotis and Patrick Lynch Words by Fernanda Lima Sakr 36 Back to the Future and Back 141 Hide and Seek Words by Marcela Aragüez 112 Jane Jacobs Revisited Words by Max Colson The Lift Words by Martin Traunmüeller and Mrinal S. Rammohan 38 Night Sky Observatory A Project by Laszlo Dohnanyi 68 Ghost Landscapes A Project by Ivo Tedbury 40 Riots Words by Fani Kostourou 70 Going Dutch Words by Lachlan Anderson-Frank 42 Digital Detox A Project by Laurence Blackwell-Thale 72 Eye Catcher A Project by Lin Zhang and Ran Xie 44 Preparing for Apocalypse Words by Hannah Wood 74 Building Opportunities Words by Heidi Au Yeung 46 Seeing is Believing Words by Lachlan Anderson-Frank 76 Following Christian Norberg-Schulz Words by Anna Ulrikke Andersen 48 My Willy Words by Petr Esposito 79 No Guilt Words by Felipe Lanuza

Reception 4 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 5 Reception In the spirit of all things clairvoyant, we asked four of LOBBY’s team members to open Contributors up their third eye and give us a prediction: You look into a crystal and it reveals an image of London in 2115. What do you see?

Patch Dobson-Perez, Contributing Writer Yoranda Kassanou, Editorial Assistant EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Regner Ramos A third year undergraduate Yoranda studied Architecture in student at the Bartlett School Athens, Greece. Her eagerness to of Architecture, hailing all experiment with new technologies the way from Stoke-on-Trent, in architecture in a more inter- DESIGN AND ART DIRECTION studio 4 Patch is working with LOBBY disciplinary environment led her magazine for a second year run- to the MSc. Adaptive Architecture ning. And this practically makes and Computation at the Bartlett him a veteran. When he’s not School of Architecture in Editorial maniacally trying to print out September of 2014. She is a portfolio sheets the night before detail freak and is often being The Exhibition Space Regner Ramos hand in, he can be found in a referred to as a ‘Duracell Bunny’. The Seminar Room James Taylor-Foster kimono playing with Bonny, his pet royal python. Patch’s hobbies The speed at which she works at has led our Editor-in-Chief to The Lift Nito Ramírez include rock climbing and writing about himself in third person. describe her as having fingers that have “tiny little rockets attached The Crit Room Nahed Jawad-Chakouf “A monolithic concrete statue of Kim Jong-Un surrounded to each of them.” The Staircase Laura Narvaez by a huge stage on which a botox-ridden, immortal Justin “I look into a crystal ball, and I gaze through a window. The Library Stylianos Giamarelos Bieber mimes a dictatorially-approved anthem about world A man wakes up, has a shower. He eats breakfast, dresses up in The Toilets Mrinal S. Rammohan domination. The Shard is dwarfed by enormous nuclear his good suit and goes to work. He sits at his desk, starts working cooling towers and the London Eye has been modified to on his computer, has a lunch break and a cigarette. The hard- Editorial Assistants Ana Alonso Albarracín, become an enormous hamster wheel on which any opposers working man talks to a co-worker, whom he is secretly in love Yoranda Kassanou, Daniel Stilwell of the realm have to jog for all eternity.” with, and goes back to his desk. The time is now 5 pm—time to go home. He cooks and eats dinner in front of his TV. It is now 9 pm; time to sleep. The year is 2115, and it is an ordinary Contributing Writers Benni Allan, Anna Ulrikke Andersen, Cover Illustration Sara Andreasson Daniel Stilwell, Social Media day, just like any other day.” Lachlan Anderson-Frank, Gregorio Astengo, Marcela Aragüez, @danieljstilwell Heidi Au Yeung, Giovanni Bellotti, Louise Bjørnskov Schmidt, Published Student Work by Laurence Blackwell-Thale, Jieru As well as being a writer with Shumi Bose, Kyle Branchesi, Josh Broomer, Max Colson, Blerta Ding, Laszlo Dohnanyi, Nick Elias, Woojong Kim, Eliza de Silva, a keen interest on etymology James Taylor-Foster, Seminar Room Guest Editor Dino, Patch Dobson-Pérez, Petr Esposito, Adam Nathaniel Ivo Tedbury, Ran Xie, Lin Zhang, Xuhong Zheng, Wangshu Zhou Photography: (Daniel Stilwell) Josh Redman and lexicography, Daniel is a @J_Taylor_Foster Furman, Sam Jacob, Fani Kostourou, Felipe Lanuza, Patrick beard enthusiast and wannabe Although James has one foot Lynch, Nikos Magouliotis, Alan Penn, Emmanuel Petit, Shane Contributors Hussam Chakouf, Jorge X. Méndez-Cáceres, farmer. After graduating from in architectural research and Reiner-Roth, Fernanda Lima Sakr, Alexander Sverdlov, Ilkka Seda Zirek his under-graduate degree the other in writing, he also has Törma, Martin Traunmüeller, Neli Vassileva, Hannah Wood at Canterbury School of one hand in spatial design and Copyeditor Nicola Kavanagh Architecture, he now resides another in 20th Century art Photographers Anna Ulrikke Andersen, Marcela Aragüez, in the Garden of England history. He’s an Editor for Heidi Au Yeung, Max Colson, Patch Dobson-Pérez, Yoranda Social Media Assistants Madalina Hanc, Carrie Lai Tieng —aka Kent—where he works ArchDaily and currently works Kassanou, Jurgen Landt-Hart, Felipe Lanuza, Frankie Meinhof, Leong, Daniel Stilwell, Jacob Westmoreland in Conservation. Daniel’s work, as a practice researcher for Ben Sykes-Thompson, Josh Redman, James Taylor-Foster, both design and written, stems Mecanoo in Delft. In between, Märta Thisner Marketing Assistants Felicity Barbur, Shneel Malik from a fascination and intrigue into the notions and themes of he contributes to research context, ecology, nature, the environment and the multi-sensory. collectives in Rotterdam whilst Illustrators Giovanni Bellotti, Sam Jacob, James Taylor-Foster, With Special Thanks to Our Benefactors Factory Fifteen, He can usually be found not too far away from a nice slice of trying desperately to pursue a sideline as an art historian in Kaiser Ulla HLM Architects, KIRBY, Le Royal Hotels & Resorts, Mecanoo watermelon. London. People tend to wildly miscalculate his age (which we and PLP Architecture “At this rate just darkness from the million towers ego-ing won’t disclose here). James can also be found trolling art shops for light to shine like a bunch of wilting sunflowers. We would pretending to be wealthy enough to buy pieces he can’t afford. have run out of ‘good’ names for these buildings too so they’d “A country within a country, a place that it no longer The Bartlett School LOBBY is printed by Aldgate Press www.bartlettlobby.com be called ‘the Whisk’, ‘the Pizza Cutter’ and any of those resembles a capital city but more of an enclosed city-state. of Architecture facebook.com/BartlettLOBBY obscure kitchen utensil used rarely, like the pestle and A place where you can point at certain areas on a map and 140 Hampstead Road twitter: @BartlettLOBBY mortar—although those forms would be yet more travesty state: ‘I’ll never live there. It’s too nice.’ At least that’s the London NW1 2BX instagram: @BartlettLOBBY to the skyline.” dystopian nightmare.” [email protected] ISSN 2056-2977

Reception 6 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 7 Reception Editor’s Letter Fancy a Reading

Dear Reader, Oracle at Delphi to reflect on how the future can Please come in and have a seat while I light be so seductive for us, or we can simply think back the candles and the sandalwood. When we set on the days of playing Ouija (or perhaps even on out to produce ‘Clairvoyance’, we framed the theme those not-so-distant moments when we’ve dusted parting from the idea that architecture and urbanism off the old Magic 8-Ball). are inextricably linked to predictions of the future, More than a fantastical concept solely useful at a variety of scales. The end-goal wasn’t to to fortune-tellers or psychics, clairvoyance can be necessarily engage in a debate that relied solely an inspirational and critical tool for architects. But on technofetishistic longings nor one that obsessed its condition of being in a state of in-betweenness over catastrophic scenarios, but rather to hold makes it difficult to define precisely because it doesn’t a discussion that was inclusive and respondent have any borders. Clairvoyance’s nuances are what to this idea of ‘architectural clairvoyance’ through interested us from the beginning: the hybridity between its many manifestations. prediction and statistics, as well as prophecy and In reality, it’s quite rare to base a design solely on precedent is what makes it a fascinating lense to pure intuition or instinct—on solutions or predictions see through. based on a whim. Rather, architects are very much Now, after having worked on this issue, I almost aware of the past and of a historical context. With feel that you, dear reader, are expecting me to write that in mind, it’s funny how—even when an archi­ my own conclusions of what I think ‘clairvoyance’ is. tectural design is based on/mindful of the past—we But instead, I’ll treat the content of the issue as a set still talk about it in future’s tense, creating narratives of tarot cards—when the cards are laid out, their that revolve around speculations of how the space meanings are interpreted based on their positions will impact/affect/dictate the movement/experience/ and their neighbouring cards. Perhaps it’s best that life of the inhabitant. This future-oriented manner what you pick to read and the order in which you of conceptualising and thinking about architecture pick it in determine your personal outlook/‘reading’. is embedded in us from the very beginning. Though So, dear reader, shuffle wisely, be sure to concentrate at first I was inclined to condemn it, I have to wonder, and try with all your might to open up your third is there any fault in this? And if so, how much? eye—your reading on ‘Clairvoyance’ is about The ability to envision the future—whether distant to begin. or immediate—is what shapes our actions today, it

is part of our ability as humans to survive and adapt, Enjoy the issue, Bain News Service by 1910-1915, Prints & Photographs Lee, Published Division, Library on publication. ofFlorence Rights Advisory: restrictions No known LC-DIG-ggbain-18714. Congress, and it’s something that has enthralled us throughout history. We can engage in a discussion of the Greek’s Regner Ramos, Editor-in-Chief

Reception 8 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 9 Reception LOBBY flies to Delft, the Netherlands to visit Visions the offices of Mecanoo—Clairvoyance’s main Sponsor—and engage in conversation with With Purpose its Creative Director, Francine Houben.

15 minute train ride from orchestra feels at home. But perhaps it is Purpose’—which also happens to Rotterdam in the direction of the meeting room, located in a refurbished be the name of the firm’s book being

The Hague, lies the charmingly church-space complete with pointed arch published in July. How do you create THIS PAGE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY MECANOO Dutch city of Delft, home of inter­ vaulted ceiling, which was most impressive identity in a globalised world, and national architectural powerhouse and representative of the type of work how do the firm’s projects reflect that? Mecanoo. In 1984 its founding partner Mecanoo does. Each of their projects is That’s what I really like to do. I get and creative director, Francine Houben, approached as a unique design statement inspired by a sense of the local and then set up shop in this particular location, embedded within its context and orche- interpret it in my own way, and sometimes Photography: Harry Cock. Harry Photography: and it’s been the setting for their work strated specifically for the people who it can be very personal. I’d say that intuition ever since. Now, the firm has expanded use it; focusing on the process, not on is also very important. Intuition is very to a multidisciplinary staff of over 140 the form, the practice creates culturally much based on experience, the two go creative professionals who come from significant buildings with a human touch. hand in hand. I could not rely so much all parts of the world. Houben oscillates From single houses to complete neigh- on intuition when I was young. between calling them “mecanos”—a once bourhoods and skyscrapers, cities and Which Mecanoo project, outside of popular toy composed of various parts polders, schools, theatres and libraries, the Netherlands, do you feel most

THIS PAGE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY MECANOO BY YOU TO BROUGHT IS PAGE THIS essential to its construction, alluding hotels, museums, and evena chapel, strongly reflects the identity of to the playfulness of building—and Mecanoo’s list of projects is only rivalled the place/culture? her “symphony orchestra”, where each by the sheer variety of their typologies There are several of them but maybe person’s skill set is essential to producing and programmes. It’s no wonder that with at this moment—because it is almost an oeuvre. Architects, interior designers, the amount of work being done by them, finished—I’d say the National Performing urban planners, landscape architects, the firm’s popularity as a global entity has Arts Centre project in Kaohsiung. I think architectural technicians, visual artists led them to open new offices in Manchester, it will be an amazing project! It really is a and model-makers are all housed inside Washington D.C. and Kaohsiung City, series of spaces made for the city of Mecanoo’s charming little work-palace. Taiwan. Stepping inside Oude Delft 203 Kaohsiung, for this tropical, informal, Their studios at Oude Delft 203 gives the immediate feeling that you’re very pleasant harbour city in the south present a unique work environment, amongst a group of people that are on of Taiwan. Within it is the Banyan Plaza, composed of a collection of buildings the cusp of immortalising the firm’s an enormous public space between the —some of them spanning back to the name: each mecano headed in the same opera houses and concert halls inspired mid-18th century—that have been joined direction, conducted by Francine herself. by the structure of the local Banyan Tree. Profile by Regner Ramos together. The interior’s 40–metre long It’s about the space underneath the roots, corridor, along with its stairwell, ceilings ✦ the trunk and the tree’s canopy. I’m very and doors, are decorated with the stucco proud of it. work and carvings typical of the Louis Mecanoo isn’t focused on creating Do you think that Mecanoo’s potential XIV style. Garden spaces, nooks, crannies a brand identity in terms of your for creating new, distinct architect­ and a panopticon-like mezzanine affection- projects’ form or aesthetics but ures and not sticking to one particular ately called ‘the cockpit’ ensure that the rather uniting each project in terms aesthetic is one of the firm’s selling environment for each member of Francine’s of their focus on ‘People, Place and points for attracting new talent?

Reception 10 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 11 Reception THIS PAGE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY MECANOO

Reception a project in for the first time? in for a project to do something in New love I would where Rotterdam, Second cities like in the office, and that was a kind ofin the office, and that a shift that He was not famous at in some ways. in our working he was always but time, He also my home. in eat office, and he’d in me a new kind ofinspired formal free- the Modernist from dom so I could get away ofway TU taught in at thinking I was ofDelft (Delft University Technology). to do excited be you What city would We Also London. and Chicago. York just starting are which projects have ambition. more there’s in London, but specialists are we say I always However, capitals. in second cities over In second cities? and is the first city, Amsterdam I live. London is a is the second city. Rotterdam while Birmingham and Manchester first city, our is where which second cities, are our UK newest opened and where library about second I like What is located. office you what where places they’re cities is that but also talk about our philosophy. Being Being our philosophy. also talk about but ofthe director Biennale Architecture the of first one—was very Rotterdam—the obviously was there that, important. Before the start of was which the practice, was And then there residential. primarily Siza was working Alvaro a moment where

Contrast, Composition, Composition, Contrast, 13 was very important, because important, because was very The Library of Birmingham. Considering the vast amount ofConsidering the vast to Mecanoo every apply people that only There’s out? sticks what day, in a CV. can say so much you The is so international community and philosophy process, Mecanoo’s up until it started when design from this point? the book Writing disciplinary is there such a thing as such a thing as disciplinary is there an ideal, desirable that candidate to attract? want you but one ideal candidate, have I don’t people from different in our countries people from bring new skills. always office, because they is still quite broad. But I think that looking actively and I think we’re here, places. faraway from are people who for the United States want people from I now a lot on the Eastern working since we’re is also an important work Team Seaboard. so works everybody because one as well, I think, if here. together closely were you person you a single-minded, isolated well. not do very would in difference been the biggest What’s Complexity it put me in the position of to sit having projects my talk about and not only down With such a strong focus on being multi- on focus such a strong With be a good visionary would someone who’s a flow having We also like young of fit.

“sym-

because we have people people have because we 2

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they’re places places they’re what where do makes you a palpable difference.” I imagine honest, but to be know, I don’t “What I like “What I like second about cities is that Photography: Christian Richters. Christian Photography: range ofwith a whole and different skills, instance, For together. try to bring them we I started designing the Bruce when C. had I Center in Boston, Municipal Bolling on be so reliant brickwork it’d no idea that juggled with different mate- We in the end. were rials and had people in the officewho specialists in designing beautiful brickwork ofA variety patterns. people help us which pick You making music. like it’s I say is why song. particular the for need you people the N LOBBY it’s inspiring. I always call Mecanoo a call Mecanoo I always inspiring. it’s orchestra” phony

Photography: Kouzi Isita. 2

o LOBBY N LOBBY 12 National Performing Arts Center, Kaohsiung. ArtsNational Performing Center,

Reception THIS PAGE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY MECANOO BY YOU TO BROUGHT IS PAGE THIS Photography: Christian Richters. Photography:

St. Mary of the Angels Chapel.

do makes a palpable difference. In Nothing really! In our office about to each other with this size. I think we are Birmingham, what we did really mattered; 40% of the team are females; it is totally both big enough and still small enough we really helped to start to change the not an issue being a male or a female. But to be Mecanoo. cultural identity of the city. Also it’s what there is a difference when you run your Do you feel that in the next coming years we’re doing now with the new engineering own practice. I can tell you—it really you’re really going to show the world campus for the University of Manchester. means working seven days a week, 16 what Mecanoo can do and what it is? There’s the feeling that our cultural centre hours a day, 365 days a year. And to Yeah. I make unforgettable spaces. in Kaohsiung City matters, too. It’s not combine that with having three children And why not? yet open but the excitement is building. —and all that that entails—is a chall- {she pauses in contemplation} You recently won the AJ’s Women in enge, because I want to be a good mother. You can already see it. I think actually Kassanou. Photography: Yoranda Architecture Award. First of all, I think that women should be made more it’s about to go quite big—especially

THIS PAGE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY MECANOO BY YOU TO BROUGHT IS PAGE THIS is the whole idea of ‘Women in visible. But is attempting to visibilise this year, but you never know what can Architecture’ slightly condescending? the female architect by putting her happen. It also depends on the economy To me, honestly, I never spoke about in the spotlight truly breaking more and of having clients who want you. being a woman in architecture until I was boundaries between men and women Additionally, several years ago it became 50, and then I said, “okay—I am a woman.” than it is enforcing on them? very clear that to be creative you need I accepted the AJ’s award to do my part That is why I never talk of being a good organisation. We now have that, in putting women in architecture into per- woman myself; I understand this issue, and so I can totally focus on the visionary spective. Women architects certainly have which is partially why I never wanted part; on the creative part. I don’t know it more difficult than males. I felt that it to talk about it, but I also feel that I’ve what will happen. But we are prepared was important to support the research achieved quite a lot and so it’s part of for big things. that the AJ did. my responsibility to be positive and give In your acceptance speech you stated, “I something back. For a lot of female feel privileged to be a woman, to be a architects I am a sort of role model for mother and to be an architect, which them—or at least that is what they was not always an easy combination. tell me. […] I strongly believe that architecture In regards to the architectural field, is about teamwork, about being vision- is Mecanoo positioned where you ary and supportive at the same time. want it to be? Women are especially good at that.” I I am very happy with the office. feel like there’s more you can say to that; I don’t want it growing for the sake of what do females bring to the table that growth, I just want to have my symphony may not come as naturally to a man? orchestra. We’re able to work very close

Reception 14 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 15 Reception Pushing Forward

FEELING A SENSE OF DUTY, CLAIRVOYANCE SPONSORS HLM ARCHITECTS GIVE THEIR TAKE ON ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION IN THE UK

are once again flocking to study archi-­ Edward Luytens built for Queen Mary Profile by HLM Architects tecture. And yet we haven’t seen much of in the 19th Century as a symbol of true a change in the nature or content of the collaboration. When one of the Part 1 courses; we are still finding graduates graduates suggested the idea of abstract- coming out of universities with architect- ing, translating and reconfiguring the ural qualifications, while not having the programme of the Luytens house into a necessary basic skills to practice within 21st Century Doll’s House as a starting the profession. It apparently falls on the point, he was given the opportunity to profession to fill in these gaps, before then run with the project and develop the idea mentoring and developing these budding and concept into a product. architects into fully-fledged architects. What started out as a concept for While HLM is working to push and a doll’s house, soon translated into an progress ourselves as a practice with a interesting comment on cities through THIS PAGE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY HLM social agenda, we are extremely concerned an interactive tower for visually impaired with developing individuals—working children that represented both the urban to push each person so that they progress and suburban house; a series of domestic their careers along whichever path they spaces or urban events linked together choose. As a practice that believes in design by movement routes. While the movement autonomy, project architects are able to routes are represented through rough progress their own architectural invest-­ industrial negative spaces that speak igation, allowing them the freedom to of the underground, trains and streets, grow with the support of surrounding the event spaces are crafted as solid boxes Doll House by HLM design and technical experience. There is which each contain a different set of a particular focus with mentoring and architectural elements all created from he idea of teaching and training training Part 1 and Part 2 graduates differing materials. architects through apprenticeships within project teams, actively challenging Working with an artist to design and is not a new one but one which has them and providing opportunities to manufacture dolls for the house, a foundry been bandied about again in recent years, take greater ownership of their work and in Birmingham to cast the metal elements, particularly in response to the staggering develop ahead of Part 2 and Part 3, rather a carpenter to build the complex marble- increase in tuition fees. This increase has than only perform the tedious and repetitive machine tower and a very stringent budget brought about fresh scrutiny over the tasks they’re sometimes consigned to. and programme, meant working as a team quality and content of architectural When HLM were invited—alongside to push the vision forward and create a degrees and diplomas, with RIBA and 19 other architects—to re-conceptualise successful end-product. This provided the profession at large interrogating a doll’s house for the 21st Century, we very clear insight into the world of and questioning the skills and abilities of used this as an opportunity to really push architecture that many people don’t see those leaving the university environment. the creativity and skills of an extremely until later in their careers. While we In 2012, the Architectural Journal energetic and ambitious Part 1 graduate. may still be some time away from actual published a series of essays entitled The The brief was left completely open, with apprenticeship programmes becoming Big Rethink, in which Peter Buchanan the only directions being the size of the more mainstream and accepted, it is discusses the problems currently faced base and the premise that the house must extremely uplifting to see more practices within architectural education and, be designed and built for a child with a spending time and resources actively unsurprisingly, concludes his discussion disability. Discussing the project within training and developing young architects with the statement that there is a need for the office brought up many ideas and and helping bridge the rather extensive a dramatic shift in architectural pedagogy. concepts, but the more people that were gaps within the Part 1, 2 and 3 system. The dip in numbers caused by hiked fees involved, the more watered down the ideas has seemingly balanced out, as students became. The brief cited the doll’s house

LOBBY No 2 17 Reception

errr — of what the future

— ! What a shame Freud’s no longer with us! no longer What a shame Freud’s . And as you leave the Exhibition, partake the Exhibition, partake leave And as you No discussion on clairvoyance would be Intrigued, dear reader? Then by all means all means Then by Intrigued, dear reader? or perhaps misperceptions ego If you’ve ever seen a sci-fi film you know how, Ifhow, you know seen a sci-fi film ever you’ve perceptions can obsess over people as a species, — societies feeling uneasy entire leaving will bring, action. For and at times inclining them to take of Movement the Prepping some, like NYC, impending doom is not simply a depiction on the a prognosis that prepare they’ll but screen silver about a group read you’ll Similarly, atfor all costs. of doing their part who are researchers to make that whether by social chaos can be avoided, sure bettering the design of sending police or by cities to the locations offorces before riot outbreaks they happen. even gift ofin a debate on whether the architect’s clairvoyance their may or may not be cloudedby while also discussing ambitions and agendas, own of representations architectural the male complete without addressing the mysteries ofcomplete without addressing chaos them. can ensue from and how the future — open. proceed inside. This Exhibition is now 19 voilá

and Prepare the the Prepare the curtains drumroll, drawdrumroll, We’ll begin to Disney with a visit and NASA, We’ll A pit stop in the Israeli desert peruses the or allude to the past, each with their very own a grab dear reader, clairvoyant portrayal. Now, you As fingersdrink and let your do the walking. Exhibition will flick this issue’s through each page, journey on a reflective of you take gradually days past can impact our years our how to come. ways in which the future highlighting the different and approached. Shortlycan be foreseen after, a familiar come across face: in a conversationyou’ll between with Daniel Libeskind we dissect the link in the design process, memory and prediction one’s following while also discussing how individual paths intuition, forging and a little bit of luck outcome. can lead to a formidable role of God as a clairvoyant through architect ofthe architecture the Tabernacle. worry, don’t But heat under the scorching for you keep we won’t At the intersectiontoo long. between the sensorial a turn an exploration towards and the divine, take on the uncertaintiesof due to designing futures everyour inability variable. to predict Welcome to The Exhibition Space. In its pages Exhibition Space. In its pages to The Welcome of find a selection you’ll musings conversations, future the and designs that either interpret

Photography: Yoranda Kassanou. 2

o LOBBY N LOBBY 18 Reception Approaches Words and Photography by Patch Dobson-Pérez

t the expense of sounding like community of the future. He named it Disney said, “Tomorrow can be a to Tomorrow a kid, last November I went to Experimental Prototype Community wonderful age. Our scientists today are Disney World, a place in which of Tomorrow (EPCOT), also known opening the doors of the Space Age to the future is displayed as a prediction. as Progress City. He envisioned it as achievements that will benefit our children BETWEEN NASA AND DISNEY Disney World invites us to enter a world a “working city with commercial and and generations to come.” The space fever of infantile fantasy in which brushed residential areas that also continued to at the time, coupled with Disney’s evident metal and neon-purple fragments of a showcase and test new ideas and concepts interest in technology and society of the ‘world-to-be’ surround us. However, they for urban living.” When Disney died future, caused him to seek the help of per- are only (once impressive) façades, and in 1966, the idea was abandoned and haps the most obvious advisor on the topic: in 2014 they express the unsurprising EPCOT became another of the Disney Wernher von Braun. Disney was right to inaccuracy of Disney’s predictions. theme parks. consult this aerospace engineer and space By contrast, a visit down the road to the Disney’s ‘gift’ of clairvoyance extends architect on the design of this new world. Kennedy Space Centre displays the actors further into the theme park however, with of clairvoyance. Upon arrival, I entered a themed area called ‘Tomorrowland’. through the Rocket Garden, where Tomorrowland was not designed as a “Walt Disney, towering technological relics enforce community but was still a celebration the magnitude of the journey through the of the fast-approaching technologies was also a making of history which we’re witnessing. of tomorrow and “an opportunity to These were not façades; they were inhabit- participate in adventures that are a living technophile, able, meticulously constructed evidence blueprint of our future,” according to of humanity surpassing its current Walt Disney. The decor of this area has his dream was capabilities and entering the unknown. changed over the years to match popular NASA were actually creating the future, science fiction of the time. In the same to create an as opposed to only predicting and way that Fritz Lang’s speculative master- showcasing it. piece Metropolis turned out to be a much experimental Amidst the joyfully-awakened closer aesthetic prediction to the High- childhood memories and harrowing Tech architectural movement of today model community insulin-needle disposal bins every 50 than Le Corbusier’s Modular system from metres (diabetes is rife among the Disney the same time period, the way in which of the future.” World demographic), I couldn’t help ‘tomorrow’ was envisioned relied heavily but think about the temporal context on topical popular culture. Though there of Disney World’s inception. The 27,258 have been entire refurbishments of In the 1940s, von Braun had already been acres of land began to be developed in the area, fragments of Jules Verne, involved with the design of the Nazi V2 the 1960s, at a time when the Russian- Steampunk and Flash Gordon can rockets, part of Hitler’s plan for a 1000 American space race was already in full be seeing coexisting peacefully, like Year Reich—a Tomorrowland of sorts. throttle. Technology was advancing a catalogue of human foresight, coyly Disney’s is a world of playful specta- at a faster rate than ever before and correcting itself as time goes on. torial predictions, holding the future at the populous was genuinely excited Ironically enough, across from arm’s length. However, at the same time, by the almost weekly displays of Tomorrowland is Frontierland. On only an hour’s drive away, in Cape Canaveral, tangible progress. the face of it this is merely an ersatz the ubiquitous von Braun and NASA’s Walt Disney, it seems, was also representation of the US Western team of ‘scientific psychics’ were actually a technophile, excited by invention’s Frontier, but when juxtaposed with its acting out these predictions, and flying potential, and instead of simply futurist mirror-image, the human lust for them out of the earth’s atmosphere. duplicating the already-existing exploration becomes strikingly obvious. They were crossing from Frontierland Disneyland (in California), his dream One day we conquer the Wild West, the to Tomorrowland; they had begun to was to create an experimental model next the moon. act outside of our Earthly domain.

The Exhibition Space 20 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 21 The Exhibition Space Future’s Tense

AN UNGUESSABLE TRANSACTION

Words by Kyle Branchesi and Shane Reiner-Roth

hen describing the potential qualities of their work, architects typically prefer the future tense (it will be 1776 feet tall, they are going to incorporate the principle of mass­ production…). Models and drawings allow the architect to assume a unique position of foresight, but these presentation tools would seem to amount to little without the accompaniment of a language that argues for their full size versions in some distant future. While architectural presentation has historically The level of innovation we’ve achieved the world stand as triumphant monu- will paper over the cracks. I, for one, used the future tense, writing has famously practiced comes at a cost, however. Progress requires ments or as omens that plead with us don’t want to rely on the plan B of a the opposite, with the past tense (Mr. Bloom looked failure, and the Kennedy Space Centre’s to slow down. solar-shield or a space colony when our upon his sigh, glowing wine on his palate lingered history embodies this poignantly. Wes We are not strangers to disaster, in principal responsibility lies beneath our swallowed…). This method conveys realism by Jones’ polished black Space Mirror a world where the television informs us feet. What we need is a slight change of describing a carefully chosen sequence of events, Memorial was designed to mechanically of an enormous oil-spill in the Pacific, pace, a more measured mindset. We have leading to either the present or alternate present. follow the path of the sun and illuminate or of the “rigorously-tested safety a faith in progress, always assuming that Even The Time Machine, a book that travels roughly the names of the 24 astronauts who’ve protocols” of a nuclear power station the knowledge of tomorrow will correct 30 million years ahead of our own time, presents Photography: TALL given their lives in various US space failing and contaminating the area for the mistakes of yesterday and today. It is its story from the empiricism of a restful conclusion. expeditions pursuing the unknown. The many decades, we seem desensitised to it. acceptable for us to continue our valiant The past tense is cool, calm, and collected; the main question the memorial raises for me We do not heed these catastrophic ascension and consciously perpetuate future tense appears convoluted and shows signs is: was it worth it? The rusting remnants warnings, but instead we opt to maintain evolution, but perhaps with a more of insecurity. of Launch Complex 34 at Cape Canaveral the strange equilibrium between production calculating mentality, as well as looking Writing rarely makes promises about the future, serve as a reminder that we never get it and consumption. In fact, the very system up at the sky and wanting more, we cannot and at most ruminates over possibilities. Yet Georges right the first time and that sacrifices are we are a part of is propelled by the neglect the maintenance of what we Perec is a rare example of a writer that writes like an often made. On this site, in 1967, the certainty that from month to month, already have. The worry is that in the race architect speaks. Guiding with almost as many “will three members of the Apollo 1 crew a new ‘technology’ (be it an iPhone or to the top, the bottom of the ladder fades be’s” and “going to’s” as an architect’s proposal seven inches wide, but elsewhere it might be broken burned to death in their cockpit during a Lamborghini) will emerge—one step out of view and there’s less concern about for a tower and its considered influence over a into two, one larger than the other (perhaps the break a launch simulation. Their careers came closer to ‘perfection’ —and condemn its who’s climbing up behind you, or more neighborhood. His writing on ‘The Page’ treats three will start with ‘writing rarely makes promises…’). at a time of rapid change and ‘progress’, predecessor to its forgotten place in the importantly, what’s holding it up. half spreads like a developer treats land, constantly And as for the accompanying image, I can’t be sure and their Command Module had taken past as ‘dead-tech’. Things are not built Disney didn’t get us to the moon, anticipating the future as it appears on the very next that it will maintain the saturation level visible on a leap in design size and complexity since to last, and they become as comfortably but I’m sure 24 people didn’t die building sentence. His words seem to be the masters of their the computer screen, let alone the correct sizing the previous model. discarded as the one-use NASA rocket a roller coaster. In a world where ambition own fate, but this was only possible when he could or proportions. Any alteration, as it goes from one Was this a case of NASA biting off boosters floating down into their watery and innovation are the norm, we can learn oversee their treatment on the final editing board. pair of hands to another, could either strengthen more than it could chew in the frantic grave. In the pursuit of progress we’ve to balance the playful innocence and Otherwise, when trying to satisfy a second party, its message or place it in jeopardy. race to beat the USSR to the Moon? In become irresponsible, and it seems as if naivety of Disney and the completely writing about architecture takes as much clairvoyance An unguessable transaction between parties is a story reminiscent of Icarus falling to we are now accelerating entropy, relentlessly necessary daring pragmatism of NASA. as it does to produce it. not unique to architecture, but, with the exception his death on account of his father’s using whatever resources we can to keep Perhaps it’s worth pondering whether it’s In submitting these words, the mix of vision and of a writer like Perec, the use of the future tense as creative daring, I wonder where one enacting our own clairvoyance. time to take a calm breath and apply some unease that comes with the future tense will also be a coping strategy might be. Those involved must is to draw the line when it comes to Contemporarily, humanity can (speculative) clairvoyant means to our applied: I can only guess how this writing will occupy know that a place can be a different place within quantifying the justification of risk. be categorised as a ‘high-risk’ species, (physical) clairvoyant ends. the spread it will be assigned to, or if the very piece the time a building is planned and a plan is built, Of course, progress is intrinsically where we tend to embrace the gamble of paper this is written on has another author’s yet a more considerate use of our inherited tense admirable, but I wonder if the piles over precaution. We blindly take from writing on the other side, possibly contradicting my will make the future seem clearer. of high-tech corpses in landfills around the earth, confident that geo-engineering own. This text is currently in one column a little under

The Exhibition Space 22 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 23 The Exhibition Space How related is an architect’s sense of clairvoyance to an esteem for the past? A conversation with Daniel Libeskind, touching on the importance of memory alongside optimistic One of a predictions, attests that whether you love him or loathe him, Libeskind’s in a league all of his own. Libeskind Words by Regner Ramos

f you haven’t heard of Daniel Today, I’m scoping out the lobby Nina looks over my shoulder and Libeskind, chances are you’ve been and courtyard of London’s Savoy Hotel, enthusiastically exclaims, “Hey!” It was living under a rock, a huge, angular, attempting to find a suitable place to talk Daniel. “I’ve ordered myself a coke with concrete and steel-plated rock. The Polish- to Mr. Libeskind, when a woman wearing lemon,” she says. “So I’m bestowing it born architect has taken the design world a green silk, Japanese-inspired blouse with upon you. Have fun!” As she gives him Illustration by Ulla Illustration Kaiser by storm for over two decades with a bright pink sleeves, catches my attention. a kiss and walks out, Mr. Libeskind and successful practice that seems to have Her name is Nina Libeskind, and she’s far I exchange beaming smiles, banter and blossomed over night. In 1988, after more than Daniel’s wife of 46 years; she’s introductions, which fostered a relaxed, having worked in academia for 16 years, also his business partner and the COO friendly ambiance that contrasted highly Libeskind entered an architectural of their practice. Upon exchanging with how stony some interviews can be. competition to design and build the hellos, we decide on a spot to conduct the Perhaps I got a bit too comfortable Jewish Museum Berlin. The winning interview: a pair of high-back chairs with complimenting his smile and how of that commission paved the way for brass studs lining the tanned leather, unfeigned it was. “No, no, what you the formation of Studio Daniel Libeskind, placed next to the glass wall that separates see is what you get,” he tells me. “A lot his architectural practice, and for the the lobby from the garden/courtyard will of architects are very self-impressed, massive amount of criticism as well as do the trick. Nina kindly sits with me as but you have to be humble!” praise that ensued. Now, not having ever we wait for her husband and partner And indeed humble he’s got to be; heard his name is like not having heard to finalise a business-related phone call, as much as he’s been awarded and praised, of a tiny, modest place called Manhattan; and she confesses that they’ve been on Libeskind’s work has also been highly after all, at this point the two are nearly a whirlwind of flights in just one week, criticised and questioned. Perhaps some synonymous—for architecture aficionados making appearances and travelling for of this has to do with the fact that he had at least. As the master planner for the new business. London is their final stop before a career as an architectural theorist and World Trade Centre at Ground Zero, his the couple flies to Italy to meet up with professor before making the jump into design has been as controversial as it’s their three children. practice with his own firm, unlike so many been anticipated and, because of the nature “I always knew he was special, his architects who dive in to practices as soon of the site, the media has had their eyes on professors and peers held him in high- as they graduate. After receiving his it since day one. I confess that I was living esteem, and I knew there was something undergraduate degree from the Cooper under this rock up until 2008, when in one about him,” she tells me after I ask if she Union and his post-graduate degree of my undergraduate courses we watched was living the life she always envisioned. from the University of Essex, Libeskind CNN’s ‘Daniel Libeskind Documentary’ “But I thought I was marrying a quiet worked for Richard Meier and Peter focusing on his Denver Art Museum. More academic!” The seemingly passive life Eisenman, resigning almost immediately. than the visually strong presence of his alongside her academia-oriented husband For Libeskind, the path to success was architecture and the abundance of cold would end up with a notable practice non-linear. His approach to architectural materials like glass, concrete and steel, what with—among many designed products practice contested the status quo, making struck me most about Libeskind was some- —39 architectural projects, 26 of which time his ally, not his foe. And so, at the age thing completely unexpected especially have already been built. But our conver- of 52, construction was finalised on his among architects of his ranks: his smile. sation is suddenly brought to a halt as very first building. The Jewish Museum

The Exhibition Space 24 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 25 The Exhibition Space Berlin catapulted Studio Daniel Then would you say that’s the project Libeskind to astronomical heights, that has shaped you the most? throwing the Libeskind name in the Definitely! It taught me to be patient, public eye and placing its reputation it taught me not to do too many things amongst the ranks of the most and not to run with the crowds. well-known practices of our time. I want to talk about your views on

All photographs except on p. 29 courtesy of Studio Daniel Libeskind. on p. of except All photographs 29 courtesy pessimism in architecture and critique, ✦ because a few years ago you said that architecture can’t attract a cynic. To First you were an academic and then you me, from our very first experiences in became a practitioner. How is Studio Daniel Libeskind’s work different from other architecture practices “The Jewish because of this? You have to study before you can Museum taught practice. It’s good preparation, and it took me a long time to get from my me to be patient, drawings to my first building; I was more than 50 years old when I built my first it taught me not building! But you have to be patient and love what you do. I think of architecture to do too many totally differently from others. I followed a strange path. According things and not to the Greeks, the first part of life should be active, the second half should be the to run with the reflection on what you’ve done; I did it the other way round. If you forge your crowds.” own path it’ll certainly lead you to other places. I’ve always thought that the gurus of business say you have to have a goal. I have the opposite idea. Don’t have any architecture school, the profession goals, instead have a path and make sure seems quite cynical! Have your views you’re not swayed from the path. It’s changed, or do you still believe that going to take you somewhere, but be Jewish Museum Berlin. Archipelago 21 master plan, Seoul. even through the impending cynicism, true to yourself. architects are optimists? I think that’s really important, to be able mother of the muses is memory. How To do music you have to work very very close similarities between architecture located in the centre, where railway lines I think true architects are optimists! to adapt to what’s thrown your way, clever were people in the past? They hard. You have to practice every day. and music. Plus, music’s ultimately not used to be. It’s a very different project from There are architects who might be cynics, because if you’re focused on one understood it better than we do! The Every note is precise; it can’t even be off just for the mind, it’s for the soul. I mean, Ground Zero, which is also a very specific who may even run successful practices. thing… mother of all these things is to remember. by a single vibration otherwise you’d be if it doesn’t touch you, it was then just project with a very specific programme. But I think you have to be authentically …On one goal, you’ll… Humanistic disciplines have been very playing the wrong note. But at the same a bunch of notes played. What are your hopes for them? optimistic and believe in the future. Every …be absolutely lost if or when that path much discredited by a lot of people in time, you can play all these notes correctly Two of your biggest projects thus far That they will thrive by enlivening time you do architecture it’s a projection is blocked! the 20th Century, when they thought yet perform no music. Music needs an have been the Ground Zero master people’s experiences. My hopes are that of something; it’s not an instant gratifi- I remember Emily Dickinson’s technology would take over, and these emotional component. There are a lot plan in New York City and the they’ll contribute in a good way, make cation. Some projects may take ten years beautiful line of poetry, “Success is things weren’t necessary to move forward. of similarities between what I did as a Archipelago 21 master plan in Seoul. people think, make people feel something or more! It’s a long term process, and it’s counted sweetest by those who ne’er Funny you should mention music, as a musician and what I do now. I think only What do you imagine will be the and that will make people enjoy being there. even longer when you consider that art succeed. To comprehend a nectar requires past musical virtuoso, you were very I changed instruments! Drawings are biggest difference in the way people You’ve had quite a successful career. To itself cannot be judged in its own time. sorest need.” Ah, so beautiful! much a performer. Do you enjoy having a code, just like musical notes. They’re will inhabit each design? this day, which project has given you Look at who we consider to be important {I chuckle as Daniel lets out a loud an audience’s attention? With such composed of lines and points of meanings. Well, they are site-specific projects. You the biggest sense of satisfaction? architects of the 20th Century, for instance. laugh} a distinctive style and brand, is your Whatever the instrument, these codes have can’t impose the same project on another Well the fact that I was able to build You’re of the belief that architecture is You mention that you have a different architecture your new performance? to be readable to somebody who’s able place. I’ve always found it strange that my first building, the Jewish Museum Berlin, about memory. I think that although way of thinking about architecture. It’s true, you’re right! Architecture is to interpret them in their own way and some people take a plan of one city and allowed me to build other buildings. To me memory is part of it, architecture’s Tell me more about that. a performance. If a building performs perform them according to your accurate go to the desert and try to impose the plan that was, “Wow what a breakthrough!” a discipline that’s primarily driven I believe that architecture is grounded well it’s just like a musical, but it’s a notation. Even as a master planner there. You have to derive a city’s design Otherwise, I might have never had that by predictions and speculations—and in the humanities and the liberal arts. Of lasting performance. Unlike a symphonic I’m not the one building. I’m more of from its own sense of place and history, so chance if it hadn’t been for the competition. it’s terribly complicated. To design course it has a scientific basis, you have work performed in a hall, which ends two a conductor of a huge performance I think the projects are very different. The subsequent work you do relates to a building by predicting a way people to have mathematics and science. But you hours later. A piece of architecture has —which many people have to interpret I think the Korean project is really about that first thing that you did, it sets you will inhabit it, which will in turn be also need literature, dance, music, and the to stay there. according to the plan. There are very, Seoul—a 700 year old city. The project’s on a certain path. affected by their past experiences

The Exhibition Space 26 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 27 The Exhibition Space and memories. How do you design a architecture discipline is a battle- discredited and people would think I’m a historians and architects were all saying physical, unchanging space with so ground for rogue egos! Talk to me lunatic for saying that these words mean how horrible the building was, that it many unknown variables? about where conviction in one’s something. But I think there is more to it. couldn’t work, that if it got built nobody First of all memories don’t just come idea crosses the line into narcissism. Shakespeare, one of the smartest people would go see it. Before I even started from some private recollections. There’s I’m a great critic of my work. But you who ever lived, in Hamlet, writes, “There building it, there was an entire issue of a whole tradition of how important the should do what you believe in; even if you are more things in Heaven and Earth, a German magazine full of famous people memory of a city is, so it’s not just about lose a competition you should lose it in Horatio, than are dreamt of in your talking about it! the private recollections and reflections. the right way, and that’s with your own philosophy.” Wow! I think that’s a good {We laugh} I do consider memory a ground of ideas rather than trying to win because check on the vanity and on the hubris And I read it, and I said, “Well I think architecture in many ways because you want to have the job. I don’t want to of people, not just of architects. And they’re wrong. People will come.” When lose, I want to win. But I’ve never entered maybe that’s the part where we call a competition simply to win it. I want to it mystical. There’s more to life than “Architecture win because I believe in it. what appears to architects. “I wouldn’t So let’s talk about pride and ego. From our early formational years, archi- is an ethical Have you witnessed cases where an tects are taught to design based on design without architect’s ego has breached ethical predictions. Our designs are rooted obligation. behaviour? on speculation of where and how a an epiphany. Oh yeah. Thousands of times in user will engage with the space, how It’s about countless buildings in countless cities! they’ll move through it, how and Without that Well you know that several months where they’ll interact with others, people. It’s ago the architecture field under- how they’ll feel, and how they’ll moment you’re went a discussion about the ethical inhabit it. But as I mentioned, these obligations of architects regarding are mere predictions. So if we design about context, Photography courtesy of Silverstein Properties. just a hack.” the welfare of construction workers. based on uncertain, intuitive predic- fairness and Where do you stand on that? tions, and these ideas then mould our For my first building in China, the built environment, we must begin to I designed that museum my client, the about justice.” first thing on my list was to make the site wonder, are our architectures the Senate of Berlin, said, “Mr Libeskind, safe. How do you assure that no one gets solution or the problem? How much no more than 30,000 people will come injured on this site? That’s not easy for of our optimistic prophecies to help to this building per year.” And I said, without memory you couldn’t really have a country that doesn’t have any of these society end up creating social and “I believe more people will be interested.” a future—without knowing where you’ve laws, but I made sure that was number ecological nightmares? He responded, “No, sorry. Build a mecha- been, who you are. You can’t have a city one. So I must say, I think architecture You can’t be a prophet in architecture, nical and heating ventilation system for with a kind of Alzheimers condition, is an ethical obligation. It’s about people. you have to be an architect. To do archi- 30,000 people.” A few years later I had operating as an anonymous non-entity. It’s about context, fairness and about tecture you have to be very practical, very World Trade Center at Ground Zero, New York City. to rip out the entire mechanical system In truth you’re right. One has to be able justice. Without it it’s just, to me, some- pragmatic, but architecture involves because hundreds of thousands—and to harness that memory and also be able thing totally different from architecture. another art, which is the civic idea Do you believe in epiphanies? dentist, accountant or even a professor, by now many millions—have come to this to put it forward into new constructive If I found out that the construction of incorporating tradition and history. I wouldn’t design without an epiphany. but you need to have some moment of museum. So they had to reinvest, make a uses—especially in architecture—because one of my buildings was endangering One has to be able to master these in some I wouldn’t touch a single building without ‘inspiration’, let’s call it, to build a whole new mechanical and air conditioning architecture is about laying foundations people’s safety, I would not work on those way without making a fool out of oneself. one, and I’ve given up some buildings building, write a piece of music, write system. One should never be too contemp- for new things. It’s a privileged field projects. Furthermore, I don’t want my Different kind of projects create because of it. You have to have an epiphany. a beautiful book, make a film or choreo- tuous of buildings that don’t look like the because it deals with memory—not in projects to be a source for people to different kinds of moods; they bring An epiphany is not just a eureka moment, graph a dance. There’s got to be a other buildings that are being built. a sentimental way, not in a metaphorical be exploited, people whose safety is a different kind of spirit. I don’t think because you can’t wait for a revelation to passionate moment of intensity that You’ve previously expressed that way—but by living out that memory, compromised and whose lives are in every project has to be loved. Sometimes come. You have to work hard, and some- somehow breaks through something, architecture’s intended for future which is the future. You have to really put danger or could be hurt. I would rather it takes a long time to fall in love. Other thing has to happen between you and this enabling you to see things afresh. And it generations, which is why some of your head deep into the ground and listen do nothing in architecture than do that. times a project can be something that project. It suddenly transforms your idea. should be something fantastic that you’re the greatest architectural works to the voices that are whispering to you. You often make spiritual allusions when doesn’t initially meet your expectations. It’s been the case that I’ve worked on a excited about. Without that moment acquire value through the passing of You have to see things that are difficult speaking about the architecture Look at the Eiffel Tower. All the greatest project with a fantastic team after a long you’re just a hack. time. But do you think the designers to see. You have to see the exceptional discipline, using phrases like “aura writers, musicians, philosophers in period and ended up saying, “Just forget And once the building is completed, how of these timeless buildings, such as things in a site. of the building” and “the sacred France—Goethe, Maupassant, it. Drop all of it. I just realised that we’re does the outcome compare to what the Eiffel Tower, Santa Maria de Fiore, You once said that architecture has to nature of the site”, when you speak Degas—wrote a manifesto take it down. on the completely wrong track.” you ‘predicted’? the Pantheon, had a clear vision about evolve on the basis of a powerful about Ground Zero, for instance. To ‘Please take down this ugly thing, we {I laugh} It’s an adventure. It’s never just a what these buildings would do for idea. Now, this goes without saying, what degree do you see architecture don’t want it in our city’. How lucky I don’t call them mystical revelations, predictive thing. You have to go with it their cities? What I mean to say is, do but you’re no stranger to design as something mystical? that they didn’t manage because the Eiffel but you have to have a moment of some- all the way, which sometimes involves you think the buildings’ historical/ competitions where hundreds of That’s a great question. Architecture Tower is now France. This crazy invention thing that strikes you. That’s the most critics and colleagues. That’s where the social success were due to the archi- firms participate, each convinced has to be a very empirical art; it is based is now Paris. So you have to let things difficult thing to comprehend, because it’s vulnerability lies. When I designed the tects’ accurate predictions or do you that their idea is the adequate on something far deeper. I know that the brew in architecture, let time tell you your regular job. You don’t need to have Jewish Museum—my first building think it was just a matter of luck? solution, and it’s no secret that the words ‘spiritual’ and ‘mystical’ have been where it goes. a revelation to be a doctor, lawyer, —every famous critic, the famous {He laughs loudly}

The Exhibition Space 28 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 29 The Exhibition Space The Tabernacle

SENSES AND SYSTEMS

Words by Joshua Broomer and Louise Bjørnskov Schmidt

acred architecture is often known for its grand spaces of light and material, suggestively bringing us, as in the spiritual mind, closer to 18.36.54 House, Connecticut. the heavens and the realm of the non-

, Published by P. de Hondt in The Hague in 1728. No known restriction on publication. restriction de Hondt in The Hague 1728. No known P. by , Published physical. Many of us will now experience Great question! I don’t think it was by behind the curtains, how do you It’s not all about working hard. Luck has the grandest of religious buildings as chance. I mean we know how controversial convince your many clients? What to be a part of it! I’ve also had a chance tourists or wander into an empty church buildings were that we now love. There’s tactics do you use? How much of it to work with fantastic people in my office, on a rainy Sunday, yet much sacred always controversy because it’s a public is facts and statistics and how much who are really creative and fantastic architecture finds its roots in bringing us art, and I think it’s not by chance that of it is visuals, drawings and other young architects. Also, I would never de la Bible Figures comfort and enlightenment. Clarity of these things emerge from what they are. forms of graphic seductions? be able to build anything without my thought and a view beyond our ordinary Look I’ll give you the best example, my How does Daniel Libeskind’s gift wife, Nina, who is my partner. She is surroundings is a core element that we can favourite one. When Picasso painted the of clairvoyance convince those not the woman behind me but the appreciate in great religious architecture, famous portrait of Gertrude Stein, which who seek him? woman beside me. I would never have whether grand or small, and whether is now in the Metropolitan Museum, Stein You have to be an advocate for your any idea how to run an office if she was —in our often secular society—we are in the Old Testament, God took the role effectiveness of the Tabernacle. It should turned to him and said, “You know, projects. I don’t do slick presentations. not the person who did it. So how lucky Hoet, in Gerard , by there to worship or not. of the architect and gave precise detailed also be noted that whilst the Tabernacle Mr. Picasso, it’s a very nice painting, I don’t try to wow them with animations can I be? That’s good luck. A strong foundation of this architecture description on the construction of the may not have adapted to specific user but it doesn’t look like me.” You know and with great, wowing renderings, comes from a key moment in the story in Tabernacle to accompany the Israelites needs it was able to adapt to different what he said? “Don’t worry; it will.” even though that’s kind of the way of Monotheism: that of the Tabernacle in the on their journey through the wilderness. locations through the clear vision of And sure enough, 100 years later it the world right now. I don’t try to do book of Exodus. Unlike the great foci to its architecture. Importantly, the passage looks like Gertrude Stein. That’s the only something fake. I try to do what I believe religion, which formed core spaces within “Let them construct a sanctuary states that this was an architecture in Gertrude Stein. Forget the photos; that is good! Now that doesn’t always succeed! the fabric of modern day cities, the users for Me, that I may dwell among which the divine would “dwell” and is Gertrude Stein! That’s the power of art. I have to be honest, very often you’re of the Tabernacle were constantly on the them. According to all that I am therefore its treatment had to be one At a lecture at NYIT last year, you spoke rejected. You think ‘Did I do the right move. Nevertheless the architecture of the going to show you, as the pattern creating something beyond the ordinary. about your first house commission, thing? Or should I really harness all these Tabernacle still formed a core stronghold of the tabernacle and the pattern Vital to the design of the Tabernacle was the house in Connecticut, and what slick materials and give them the print in its shifting settlements, displaying a of all its furniture, just so you a series of rituals to be set up and used grabbed my attention was that you out of all the economic benefits of the different form of monument: that of shall construct it.” with accurate instruction. said that one of the great things project?’ Maybe I’m old fashioned in that procession, ritual and order. Exodus 25:1–9 about that house is that you didn’t way, but I think you have to be yourself From an outside perspective the “They will thus make all that need to convince large amounts and have clients that believe in you. Tabernacle seems nothing more than an This initial idea, an absolute order I have ordered, the Communion The erection ofThe erection the Tabernacle Vessels and the Sacred of politicians or other influential I’m such a lucky person really, I have enlarged tent, but it was an architecture —divine and unchangeable—may not Tent, the Ark of the Covenant, entities who are present in city to make that clear. I’ve got projects in of divine order, and remnants of its be seen as desirable today (when adapt- the ark cover to go on it, all the master plans for instance. I’m South America, Asia, Europe and the design are still at play in our current ability is a key word in much contemporary utensils for the tent, the table and going to ask you to let us peek United States. I’m a very lucky person! times. According to The Book of Exodus, architecture), but it was essential for the its utensils, the pure menorah and

The Exhibition Space 30 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 31 The Exhibition Space all its utensils, the incense altar, plated acacia chest containing the Ten objects’ to reconsider our ‘bare know- the sacrificial altar and all its Commandments passed down to Moses ledge and experiences’, ‘ordered essence’, utensils, the washstand and its at Mount Sinai. and architecture as one of the few ways base, the packing cloths, the sacred This ritual gave an order for religious to realise ‘cosmic order on earth’, all vestments for Aaron the priest, practice, while also using light, smell, in a reconsideration of ‘the system the vestments that his sons wear touch, taste and spatial sequencing as part of architecture’. to serve, the anointing oil, and of the functions that were practiced. This One of Superstudio’s most well- the incense for the sanctuary.” use of experiences in light and procession known and controversial projects was Exodus 31:1–11 are still part of the essential qualities their 1969 Continuous Monument, of Churches, Synagogues and Mosques. a massive blank gridded face monument These specifications take up six chapters Further to this some of the elements in unchanging in any circumstance. For the in The Bible and range from instructions the Tabernacle such as an Ark containing designers it embodied the world rendered of the Elements of the Tabernacle to its Holy Scriptures and a wash basin for “uniform by technology, culture and the dimensions and materials. The book of ritualistic cleansing are still essential other inevitable forms of imperialism”. Exodus even details how the curtain veils parts of any Synagogue. In a way, the tabernacle is both the used to separate its spaces should be hung. The Tabernacle was also directed continuous monument and its antithesis. to the fundamental relationships of the It was continuously the same, no matter cosmos: one would enter from the East what site, and was monumental in its “This com- of sunrise and would progress to the West manner of practice—and perhaps in of sunset. Additionally, Judaism uses comparison to the other mobile structures bination of the position of the Stars for the Hebrew around it. Yet, it is the resistor of cultural Calendar. Therefore those using the values being lost, it gave its users a clear Earthly and Tabernacle would have used the position sense of self in a time of anguish and of the stars for its timing and orientation. uncertainty during their wandering human elemental This combination of Earthly and human through the desert. elemental properties attest to an archi- The Tabernacle held within it the properties attest tecture which laid at the absolute core essential ordered placements for those of a particular society. using it to separate themselves from the to an architecture Architecture reduced to its funda- lost world around them. It does this mental properties is not a subject through order, ritual, sensual experiences which laid at the reserved only for ancient books, it was and its own self purity. The Tabernacle also an active conversation in influential was the instruction of order, from its absolute core architectural discussions of more recent structure to the furnishings it held. These times. Examples of this include elements have been passed down into many of a particular Archigram’s ‘Walking City’, the of the great and small religious buildings architecture of a city that was able to that surround us. What is interesting is society.” move, and Cedric Price’s adaptable ‘Fun that it is not necessarily the formal shapes Palace’: an architectural system allowing of the Tabernacle that have survived or its users a structure that could change been reproduced, it is the structure of The elements above not only gave a ritual with use and time. With both projects its practices and experiences aimed at order to the Tabernacle but, as described, the reduced elements of context and a heightened state of being. On the other they had specific sensory experiences. place are reconsidered and their adaptable hand it holds relevance as an architecture First, one (a Priest) would enter architecture may seem contradictory to that was able to face different contexts, through the gate on the Eastern side and the absolute order of the Tabernacle. Yet, whilst keeping the basis of its architect- pass the alter of burnt offerings. One like the builders of the Tabernacle, they ure and the practice of its society. Through would then use the Lavar (wash basin) were able to keep their architecture whilst the Tabernacle, it is not surprising that to wash ones hands; this would be done changing context. For the Walking City, we find great experience, peace and clair- in combination with particular prayers the context is location, whilst for Price voyance, for it is an example of two Henry, by Schile, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of on publication. - 04125. Rights Advisory: restrictions - DIG pga No known LC Congress, as an act of cleansing oneself before God. context was inclusive of time. vital strongholds in architecture: that Following this, the person would enter An architecture to suit a changing of sensory experiences and a system Moses into the ‘tent’ of the Tabernacle which context is also at the core in the work of for its users. was lit by candles, smelled of incense Superstudio, a group of radical thinkers and featured a table of bread that could who burst out of Florence in the 1960s. only be eaten in the Holy part of the For them the changing context is grouped tent. Finally, and past a veil, was the with a changing society, that of a hyper Holy of Holies: the space containing consumer society that they had become the Ark of the Covenant—a gold critical of. They called for ‘a life without

The Exhibition Space 32 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 33 The Exhibition Space THE FLOATING CATHEDRAL IN THE CITY OF SLEEP

TOWARDS INHABITABLE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE PILGRIMS IN THE UK

A Project by Woojong Kim

hen people think of medieval pilgrimage, usually ‘the road to Santiago de Compostela’ comes to mind. It’s no wonder that these remarkable journeys and pilgrimage cathedrals offer exciting potential for transforming spatial qualities, but in general, the lack of architectural magnificence of local shrines has, in fact, resulted in indifference to them on behalf of architectural and art historians. In his book, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England, renowned historian Ronald C. Finucane has made the point that most of what we know of medieval pilgrimage shrines comes from the collections of miracles that were recorded at them. Thus, pilgrimages and their cathedrals have an epic grandeur and a transformational potential that speak directly to impulses that are still felt by pious and adventuresome souls today. habitat and produce energy from their wastes. Each The main material for the chamber is similar The project ‘City of Sleep’ seeks to examine the of the bird towers has an anaerobic digester at the to a freeze tank, so a continuous flow cryostat spatial quality of the historic pilgrimage cathedrals, bottom of the structure, so the digestion process can transferring liquid helium into a typical laboratory to then transform these into a habitable floating begin with bacterial hydrolysis from the resources of cryostat is proposed to be installed in the chamber. infrastructure at Minehead, UK. In line with this, the guano. These acidogenic bacteria convert the amino This is fundamental equipment for maintaining symbiotic relationship between historic pilgrimages acids into carbon dioxide, so it finally produces the cryopreservation procedure, and the chamber and cathedrals within the historical context of Europe methane gas which can be used as a source of should be made of a highly insulated light concrete and England was first investigated through studying renewable energy. and aluminium, two metres thick, so that the the concept and patterns of pilgrimages in the In addition, cryonic technologies and the concept cryopreserved body can be maintained for over medieval period. The project also investigated the of medical culture were investigated to make an 100 years before being recovered by highly historical and contemporary precedents of floating experimental place for freezing pilgrims inside the advanced technology. structures to understand the principles of naval floating cathedral, and the technological uses of The notion of the pilgrim’s journey has long architecture. Specifically, the technological challenges the main structural component on the exterior of cryonics were adopted by exploring a long lasting been considered as a religious pursuit, so the of Kansai Airport, in Japan, and floating houses have the building. In this way, the main structure is derived freezing facility for pilgrims who hope to transform location between the floating cathedral and the offered clear evidence of shaping the whole structure from a galleon, which enables floating on the sea. themselves after the long sleep. The concept of accommodation shows the religious relationship of the floating cathedral under the aspects of heavy Another main architectural feature is the ‘sleep’ here is portrayed as metaphor for the way in this proposal. The long walkway provided by the weather, tie differential, materials, buoyancy and cathedral’s towers. It is believed that Minehead is in which medieval pilgrims transformed throughout suspended bridge leads to the last space the pilgrims stability. These investigations have been thoroughly one of the habitats for migrating birds in the west their journey, in a desire to escape the ordinary will traverse before going to sleep. The bridge then applied to the project. of England, so hundreds of thousands of birds world. Hence, the notion of immortality within not only harvests wave energy from the Bristol The process of constructing the main floating stay each year on the seashore of the region. In fact, the context of cryonics is adopted and adjusted. Channel, providing clean energy to the building, structure—which will accommodate pilgrims for guano, which is the excrement of seabirds, is possible The ‘Cryonics Unit’ is intended to maintain the but it also provides a sense of spatial pilgrimage meditation, living and cryopreservation—can be to use a source of renewable energy, so the bird human body in a state of refrigeration in a huge in line with Christian beliefs in medieval ages. achieved with precast light concrete and by delivering towers in the floating cathedral can provide a seabird chamber located in the middle of the cathedral.

The Exhibition Space 34 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 35 The Exhibition Space figures like Frei Otto, Paolo Soleri and the Japanese highlighted the current validity of his ideas towards Metabolists. Although apparently the audience the limited role of the architect in the design Back to the —mostly students—started to express their of housing spaces. Similarly, the analysis of the disillusion for these never-built architectural ideals, architecture of Lacaton & Vassal was posed as the event certainly constituted a congregation of an example of architectural efficiency by means architects who shared this necessity to think about of non-definition, with projects like the Maison des Future and Back an ‘uncertain architecture’ capable of changing Sciences de l’Homme, the Library in Angoulême and over time. This hope for a better world rooted in the School of Architecture in Nantes. In these projects technology, within a highly unstable society, was the architects act rather as facilitators to provide the kind of common perspective that we, decades the maximum surface allowed by budgets and later, associate with those times. regulations. This way they get extra spaces which Architects love freedom and delight in space are not to be filled by any building requirement; —‘let me do what I want and let me do it happily.’ in the case of the School of Architecture in Nantes, ‘Let me decide.’ However, architects should not these spaces are formalised as double-height THE PRODUCTION OF UNCERTAINTY determine the end of times, but new beginnings communal areas where no programme is specified, —Interaction, participation, community. Are these and where improvised ways of use and practices concepts out of date? Old-fashioned? Clueless? might be accommodated in the future. Other One would rather think the opposite. Nowadays, educational buildings, like The Rolex Learning Centre parallel to the course of the digital revolution, it in Lausanne by SANAA and the new Ravensbourne Image courtesy of Lacaton & Vassal. Lacaton http://www.lacatonvassal.com of Image courtesy seems that the golden decade of technological College in London’s Greenwich Peninsula by FOA, optimism and that idea of open-endedness is living seem to achieve a certain degree of ‘indetermination’ a second youth. What sometimes has been referred by following this idea of free-learning, non-hierarchical to as ‘Talkitecture’ seems to keep acting repetitively organisation and multidisciplinary education. Thus, as an inspirational tool in this century, and the a loosely defined program provides ideal conditions production of a non-defined architecture is to test flexible and adaptable spaces. For instance, becoming less and less utopian. in the case of the Rolex Learning Centre, a continuous At this point, two different periods in the recent non-defined and undulated space acts as a kind history could be distinguished to explain some of substitute to walls, and it is disposed to the contemporary approaches towards uncertainty. inhabitants to be used as pleased, generating The first one is what we can call the ‘happy early informal practices in public rather difficult to be 2000s’. With publications like Mutations and Far observed in a standard academic environment. From Equilibrium, led by gurus of the megacities One of the attendees to the IDEA conference, and unstoppable globalisation such as Rem Koolhaas Cedric Price, used to claim that architects’ three- and Sandford Kwinter, the uncertain was very much dimensional awareness should make them capable focused on the urban realm—which was understood of accelerating social progresses by the creation of Nantes School of Architecture by Lacaton & Vassal as both product and producer of possibilities of spaces that generate and enable people’s personal an ever-changing system, adaptable to the existent growth. To some extent, the production of an conditions but also generator of new realities. uncertain space might provide this potential of proposed an incomplete structural logic which In these compilations of texts, the city got rid of growth and social development, inasmuch as people Words and Photography by Marcela Aragüez would have the capacity to hold unequal growths. geometrical impositions and the unforeseen was are allowed to set their own spatial rules. One would The possibility of an architecture with an inexorable posed as an inevitable, and desirable, condition tend to think that some of the ideas born in the support of technology to adapt itself to new times —maybe because the urban was starting to be sixties are finally seeing light in the material realm. his past autumn, the Institute of Contemporary constituted the ideal image of a decade that has seen as a body of work in which the utopia is, Perhaps it is time to revisit those ideas which saw, Arts in London (ICA) has retrieved one of its been many times acknowledged as ground-breaking in fact, to control everything. in the lack of clairvoyance, an answer to contem- landmark exhibitions, ‘Cybernetic Serendipity’. and revolutionary. The second period, commencing with the global poraneity. The ICA has already made its contribution Curated by Jasia Reichardt in 1968, it showed the British group Archigram, which stood up for economic crisis, has somehow shifted the point with the Cybernetic Serendipity’s revival. Maybe the promising possibilities of an emerging technology a transformable architecture to be controlled in of view towards productive uncertainty. Far from next step should be to organise an IDEA conference which, operating by feedback information and control real time by its users, organised The International being dismissed, indeterminate design is conceived at Folkestone in order to reinterpret those pioneering systems, aimed to revolutionise a wide range of Dialogue of Experimental Architecture (IDEA) to take as a convenient strategy to adapt architecture to positions and revisit their feasibility in today’s fields, including art and architecture. The exhibition place in Folkestone, England in 1966. IDEA sought the unexpected and changing political and social architecture. illustrated what Simon Sadler considers in his book to congregate the avant-garde figures whose works situation also in the building scale. With this respect, Archigram Architecture without Architecture as one integrated this technological vision. The organisers OASE magazine brought together in 2011 a range of the first times in which the term ‘indeterminacy’ intended to seriously address, as the advertisement of positions “to pose the question of how the was applied in the built environment—as in the claimed, experimental projects and “as many of their designer can put this uncertainty to productive use.” case of John Weeks’ project for the Northwick Park creators as possible”. Thus, guests included Cedric Several authors questioned the role of the architect Hospital. Conceived to accommodate unforeseen Price, Paul Virilio, Claude Parent, Yona Friedman and in terms of change, chance and process. Among changes in future user’s requirements, Weeks Hans Hollein, among others. Exhibits came also from them, a revealing interview with John Habraken

The Exhibition Space 36 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 37 The Exhibition Space NIGHT SKY OBSERVATORY

A CONTINUATION OF THE LANDSCAPE

hen arriving at Gravesend’s surrounding marshlands, the first impression is that of disassociation and a feeling of the sublime due to the vastness of the horizon. The most prom- inent features of the marshlands are the feeling of isolation accompanied by sweeping vistas. This is a place that hints at its historic importance in fragmented moments and then confronts you again with the enormity of the landscape. Due to the area’s geostrategic relevance one can stumble across many relics from different times of war in England, from abandoned bunkers—reminders of the Second World War—all the way to slowly decaying Viking ships lying in the shallow waters of the river environment around the Cliffe marshes means usually Thames. It is a place with a particular aura. clear views of the night sky for both unaided and The site that I identified for my building is located telescopic stargazing. The unspoiled natural on a little hill, deep within the marshlands between environment of this area is precisely what gives the two villages of Allhallows-on-Sea and Isle of it potency as a site for an observatory, so it was of Grain. Two distinct features of this hill made it an key importance that my design both respected and advantageous location: the hill’s specific ground reflected the intrinsic aura of the marshes. I wanted conditions, and the levels of light pollution on the to maintain the visual appearance of horizontality hill are some of the lowest within the UK. Being of the site and avoid the placement of a large a former flood zone to the river Thames estuary, monumental structure into this untouched the surrounding landscape is very flat with little environment. The observatory was therefore to no topographical changes and very little built designed to be entirely underground, with the roof infrastructure, which marks the site’s unique acting as a continuation of the landscape. By having relationship to the sky, allowing people to gaze parts of the roof-shutters opening up to the sky, and for miles in every direction. platforms and rooms rising and sinking in and out Amateur astronomy is one of the fasted growing of the ground, a subtle interplay is created between hobbies in the UK today. The building is an astro- the landscape and building. nomical observatory and has been designed to Envisaged as a hands-on teaching astronomical act as a regeneration hub for the Gravesend area, observatory, the building provides research and providing educational facilities such as a lecture educational facilities for permanent as well as theatre and library for visiting astronomy novices, temporary residents, allowing visitors to retreat as well as professional research equipment for the into the ground and connect back to the night sky, permanent astronomers in residence. The initial servicing as a celestial retreat for stargazers. There design concept was based on the shape of the star is an interesting dialogue, with the building being constellation ‘the Big Dipper’, which is typically almost pressed into the earth’s surface by the sky an amateur astronomists introduction to the night and the inhabitant’s intention to simultaneously sky, as it can be used to find the Polaris star. look up and study that same sky. A Project by Laszlo Dohnanyi The building is strategically located within the Cliffe marshes, capitalising on the unique relationship of the area’s sky. The absence of any built

The Exhibition Space 38 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 39 The Exhibition Space In summer 2011, in light of riots breaking out in involved in the riots than any of his affluent neigh- London and other UK cities, a research group at UCL’s bours, says Hannah Fry, based on data from the Riots Centre of Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) teamed police records of all offenders’ arrests. According up with the department of Crime Science and the to other research conducted in 2011 by the London- Metropolitan Police to study the action of rioting in based consulting company Space Syntax Limited, IDEA, ACTION AND FORM an effort to understand the why of the riots, as well the majority of convicted rioters lived on large as the spatial patterns that can emerge from a group post-war housing estates. of rioters. By simulating rioting with mathematical But the idea of rioting is related to form. In formulas and drawing analogies with other well- his early work Bill Hillier, founder of Space Syntax, studied behavioural models, the researchers tried to has suggested that the relationship between rioting Stop Thief predict how riots spread to inform policy makers and and large housing estates may not be result of police strategies to prevent rioting from happening deprivation but of design. A complicated, unintel-

, Published by Frederick & Co. Warne in again. As a matter of fact, the team lead by Sir Alan ligible and segregated form discourages use, and as Wilson found that there’s an analogy between the a result encourages the idea of an anti-social action. act of rioting and the everyday act of shopping. For Moreover, where CASA research argues for a strong instance, according to Hannah Fry’s film,Can Maths correlation between rioting, retail attractors and Predict a Riot, more than 30% of rioters travel less poverty, Kinda Al Sayed and Sean Hanna’s research than 1km from where they live—as in the case of on ‘How city spaces afford opportunities for riots’ as London—but are willing to go further if there was part of a PROXIES project on data, crime and the city, a large sized riot—as in the case of Manchester—or suggests that riots were determined rather by the little chance of getting caught. The action of rioting form of the street network and the natural through- had not only distinct spatial patterns but also these movement, making certain locations more likely to patterns were shared with the action of shopping be chosen than others. They think space best

The Alexandra Picture Alexandra Book The —which space makers know much about. The forecasts where rioters live and act. In fact, they patterns correlate to findings indicating that people argue that both actions of rioting and shopping are usually prefer to go shopping close to their home similarly susceptible to form and this is why analogies but are willing to travel further away for a big were found in the first place. department store or an outlet centre. One way or another the conclusion is the same: UCL research also observed that where police form affected the idea of rioting as well as the action were absent, rioting thrived—making certain itself, even before riots actually occurred. So knowing locations more attractive than others for rioters how the idea and action are prone to the form is

. Rights Advisory: No known restrictions. Rights Advisory: on publication. to get involved, much like the case of a contagion. essential to understand the action. Information on Not only was the action contagious but so was the action is not enough. We need information on the decision to riot which goes way before rioters the form that has predisposed it. Hence, the research actually get out on the street. According to the data, on UK rioting can help architects understand, firstly, the way the idea was spread was similar to that of the susceptibility of an idea, an action and a form a disease. The way a virus contaminates a foreign individually and together, and, second, how archi- organism has certain similarities with the London tecture as a form-shaping-science has the opportunity riots, acting as a sort of infection. Both need to create enormous spatial and social consequences causative agents and usually—if not always—both only by privileging or impeding actions. Maybe the produce noticeable signs of disorder, which in turn riots weren’t the real problem all along; maybe the into a global urbanism, media are changing the city, stimulates more agents. However, in both cases the real trouble arises from the probable failure of Words by Fani Kostourou infrastructural models generate forms of polity spread can be avoided or proven powerless in front architects, policy makers and planners to establish and spatial formulas are created to model activities of an immunised system. So which rioters can be a link between ideas, actions and forms. and relationships, architecture and information immunised against the idea of rioting? “Action causes more trouble than thought.” are inextricably intertwined. It’s naïve to disregard This is where the problem shifts from the action Jenny Holzer information when making architecture; it’s naïve to to the idea—and to form as well. We can argue that overlook actions when making form. The information the idea of any kind of action is potentially carried f Victor Hugo came back to give a TED of these actions is what matters the most. The by all of us. It pre-exists within us but only acquires talk,” says Keller Easterling, an architect and purpose of any kind of spatial model is to capture visibility by those that decide to act. In this sense, the professor at Yale University, “he might assert these actions that take place in the built environment, idea of rioting constitutes a disposition carried by all that architecture, which he once claimed had been translate their patterns into information and attempt of us of a know/how to act. One doesn’t need to act killed by the book, is reincarnated as something more to understand the idea behind them so as to inform to know how to act. Yet, in the case of rioting, as the powerful still—as information itself.” If architecture the design of the built environment, meaning the research argued, certain people are more likely to is information, then human actions are the carriers form. However, when space turns out to perform riot than others, and these tend to come from some of this information and those that shape architecture. poorly, the question is, what causes more trouble: of the most deprived areas of the city. A resident of In a world where broadband communications lead the idea, the action or the form? a council estate is seven times more likely to be

The Exhibition Space 40 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 41 The Exhibition Space from the camera, looking for its blind spots that could hide them from being recorded; consumer districts DIGITAL DETOX see shops move to a progressively extrovert display of their own brand culture; cities might morph into a territory of Venturi ‘ducks’ where companies assert HELIOLITHIC CENTRE their branding directly as a physical manifestation of the buildings they inhabit; and factories shape themselves into the product they produce: sweet shops into giant lollypops and pet shops into enormous animals, all as an attempt to stop rivals from buying up imagery from the Google camera and placing their name on an ambiguous city structure. The undeniable nature of the form a building takes stops it from loosing its inhabitant’s identity. Yet physical methods for evading digital theft and a loss of a physical identity are underpinned by a more human conflict with the technologies we produce. The device, a piece of kit aimed at the individual, not the collective, governs our techno- logical world. Cities as centres for human interaction become obsolete as an obsession with ones’ online profile seemingly takes priority over relationship with the direct environment, nature and people. Set in Chicago, The Heliolithic Community Centre acts as a prosthetic to a population over-exposed to this technology. The architecture is an interface, but instead of one futuristic. At a simple level the building structure also confined to a phone screen, it is an all encompassing acts as a series of light filters, at a complex one they and a collective experience. Using the influence of utilise only recently found properties of natural, light wavelengths given out by personal technologies, organic molecules that alter highly specific wave- the building seeks to revert, subvert and accentuate lengths of light. The centre is thus an organically the natural through biologically influencing your powered, naturally technological sanctuary away daily cadences. An articulated roof-scape alters from the digital dystopia of modern life. A place the surrounding Chicagoan light conditions through that promotes regaining a sense of the real and the lenses, materials and filters, to create zones of visceral, rather than becoming lost in the 2D plane circadian rhythm within the building. The building of augmented, personalised realities within a provides a number of different amenities, all attuned company controlled, limited infrastructure. to a particular wavelength of light, and the effects The project suggests that our use of technology this causes in a person’s physical and emotional has become too focused on the individual; a need reaction fosters a new sense of community at the for collective experience is being undermined and block scale of the city. leading us to see spatial forms as a series of ‘actions’ Shorter wavelengths, created through an embedded mimicking that of a cursor on a screen rather than as a latent and online content suggests a digital semiconductor resin filter, promote concentration and an object set in space. An atrophic existence and A Project by Laurence Blackwell-Thale world that seeks to redefine the physical, as represent the exposure to a computer screen. This heightened self-obsession has led to a population digital advertising becomes an aggressive form leads to a reduction in serotonin and keeps the inhabi- wide disengagement with local communities; an act for controlling a consumerist city. Companies are, tant awake and focussed in areas defined for working. that not only destabilises urban spaces but therefore igital Detox originates in the continually theoretically, able to buy rivals shop fronts online, Opposed to this, gradient light filters accentuate calls on architecture to force us to re-connect, not increasing, pervasive influence of technology placing their branding onto Streetview in order to the golden-hour of evening sunlight and long-wave only with our wifi routers, but also with our physical on the city today. Through redefining notions of cover up what is there in reality; a move that would light exposure, heightening serotonin secretion and worlds. identity or security in the face of these technologies, openly question the rivalry between ownership on re-engaging a population with the biologically the project examines how an architecture might be a digital and a material platform. educed social influence of such lighting. designed to counteract, challenge and manipulate As a result, urban spaces would seek to protect The climax of the building is the main hall, which changing conditions within the city. themselves from the digital. The Google Streetview includes large, hollow cast solar sampling funnels that In 2014, Google announced new legislation camera would become the enemy of the real, an retain sunlight through photovoltaic caps to illuminate allowing real-time advertising to be secreted onto opposition that promotes digital consumerism and the building in relation to points on the solar azimuth. the buildings and billboards within Google Streetview. stealing space from a physical reality. Businesses The technology used in the building aims to blur This move to blend the present and the real with and buildings would begin to camouflage themselves the boundaries between being primitive and

The Exhibition Space 42 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 43 The Exhibition Space York Times, alludes to the endless unfolding of plans grey water, the clean water and use them accordingly. and possibilities as a form of neurosis. “Prepping for We have a full medical staff… we can survive indefinitely Preparing for Apocalypse the sudden end of civilisation is paranoid, weird, and at this facility. It’s that kind of a compound. So if most of all, delusional.” The readiness of a Prepper, there was a nuclear exchange, it would take us and their prestige within the movement, is determined around 25 minutes to get to our location. Then we AN INITIATION INTO THE PREPPING MOVEMENT OF NYC by the contents of their ‘bug-out’ bag, a case of would have to secure the perimeter and get every- pre-packed essentials to aid a smooth escape in the body in there… It’s about survival.” event of an emergency. For those on the outside, The US is known for nurturing the outliers. it is an exercise in neurotic hoarding: iodine pills, In the land of opportunity, people aspire to be ready-start fuel cubes, UV steriliser, maps of the independent, live outside the mainstream and Photography: Neil A. Miller/National Geographic Channel, www.nielmiller.com. Geographic Neil A. Miller/National Photography: Tristate region, ammunition, dried food with a be critical of governance, all ideas that lead to the 25-year shelf life, Silver Eagles as an inflation formation of many right-wing isolationist movements hedge, the list goes on and on. during the ‘80s. This ‘us vs. them’ mentality was very As is the American way, this emerging market common among the original Survivalists and often has been seized by a new wave of opportunistic spurned from a deep-rooted distrust of authority. entrepreneurs. A gourmet range of bug-out bags They feared the jurisdiction would fail to act quickly including the ‘Covert Defender’ ($629.99) and the and effectively if a tragedy were to get out of hand, ‘Tactical Traveller’ ($439.99) can be ordered directly harbouring a strong suspicion of the disarmament to your door. Rising stars in the prepping circuit, program as a premeditated tool to strip agency from such as Aton Edwards, are also beginning to offer the individual. How would they defend themselves consultations to wary new recruits. “Your worst- when their neighbours turn sour in the cutthroat case scenario is that something goes down at reality of the post-apocalypse? Indian Point,” he tells a young couple, referring It is this threat of vulnerability that today’s to the nuclear reactor in Buchanan, “you’re in the Prepping nouveaux cite as their primary source peak injury zone. You’d get a pretty serious dose of anxiety. The complex web of global trade in of radioactive particulates.” which many New Yorkers remain heavily intertwined Whether Armageddon is to assume the form of splintered during the credit crunch of 2008. This an electromagnetic pulse that knocks out the power left their dependency exposed, to companies, the grid, a cataclysmic eruption of the Yellowstone Internet, to outsourced others to take care of their Caldera or an unstoppable rise in quantitative easing, basic needs. Fiscal instability predicated on a singular the overwhelming consensus is to vacate New York. volatile element such as peak oil could plunge whole Doug, a sworn Prepper and many-time summer communities into darkness and within three weeks resident at self-preservation survival camps, informs even the food supply would grind to a halt. In this Olkowski of plan A: “get you a paintball gun with sense, crisis no longer seems so distant. pepper-spray balls, then get to New Jersey, steal a From an aspect only possible from an Indian plotting escape routes, hoarding supplies, construct- car, and head for the mountains.” The fundamental garden, it seems a more lasting reassurance perhaps Words by Hannah Wood ing underground bunkers and broadcasting their geography of the city, as an archipelago of islands, could be attained by taking refuge between the frustration of the layman’s ignorance through various defies this approach. Long Island for example is a extremes of paranoia and mindless complacency; social mediums. If a situation was to occur, Preppers dead end to the Atlantic Ocean and the destruction a place where current fragility is recognised, or even “For as long as movies have been made, New count on having the best chance of survival. of just one of its bridges may leave it eternally addressed, but the worry of immanent catastrophe York has been attacked by every imaginable As a movement born out of suburban science severed from the mainland. Even if the Preppers does not become all-consuming. It is this fear of near foe: giant spiders and robots, zombies, aliens, fantasy, Preppers were once sidelined as a marginal did manage to escape on a stand-by raft, satellite impossible futures that drives the Prepping industry an ice age, meteor strikes and debris falling community of delusional conspiracists latched on to communities may not be so welcoming. Dr Redlener, and pits people against each other and the authorities. from the moon…” the occurrence of almost inconceivable events. In the Director at the National Center for Disaster Prepared- However, if respondents to 2012 survey published aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, economic ness, issued a statement from a neighbouring sheriff by the National Geographic are to be believed, 41% t’s a hazy midsummer afternoon and a distant collapse of a scale unseen since the Great Depression who proposed to block a highway junction with of US citizens cite prepping for sudden disaster to be voice crackles through a worn-out radio in the and Superstorm Sandy reaping havoc along the sandbags to prevent vehicles entering his town more worthwhile than saving for retirement, it seems Tibetan garden of Majnu-ka-tilla, New Delhi. Eastern Seaboard, their concerns may no longer seem in the event of a mass evacuation from the city. America is not going down without a fight. Tuning the dial, I am immediately transported from as farfetched. This anxiety of impending doom has Some New Yorkers are taking matters into their beneath the breezy prayer flags into a fascinating now filtered past the cosmically conscious into the own hands. I listen with astonishment to the slow microcosm of frantic stockpiling and apprehension, lives of everyday New Yorkers, swelling the ranks of drawl of a gym owner from Long Island, relaying to a world inhabited by the ‘Preppers’ of New York City. organisations such as the ‘NYC Preparedness Network’, Olkowski details of the secret compound where his It was Lu Olkowski’s BBC World Service broadcast initiated by a concerned fireman from the Bronx. group plans to re-convene and take refuge during through which I was first plunged into the Prepping’‘ Despite the increasing visibility of the movement, an emergency. “We could fit at least 100 people scene, a small yet growing community of New in part due to televised series such as the Doomsday there, no problem. We learn the hard things, how to Yorkers who believe that looming disaster projects Preppers, mainstream media does not seem to share daisy chain truck batteries, so we can get an electrical far beyond cinematic apocalypse. They can be found their concerns. Alan Foyer, in a report for the New grid going; how to purify water: the dark water, the

The Exhibition Space 44 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 45 The Exhibition Space Seeing is Believing

THE ARCHITECTURAL COMPETITION

Words by Lachlan Anderson-Frank

ome mornings during my internship at a well- in a design competition for a new national museum known Dutch architecture firm, I would scan in the capital city of a small European tax haven, the online tender lists, looking for opportunities Andora. Foster withdrew from the competition when to participate in that most peculiar of architectural it was revealed to him that participating meant institutions; the design competition. Wading through extensive and invasive filming for the documentary. countless calls for entries from across the world, The film follows the foibles of these five firms in I started to wonder why architects pursue this depth, allowing the audience an almost satirical level project format when it is so often vilified for of insight into the extreme working conditions, and producing spectacularly wasteful, publically resulting projects, which architectural competitions unpopular and even highly dysfunctional buildings. often create. The film ends with the message “the The most recent uproar about competitions surrounds the Guggenheim Helsinki, an open competition (unpaid, that is) for which 1,715 entries “Architectural competitions were submitted. Apart from the depressing reality of how much work was done by these architects for preclude a productive, the tiny chance of being selected for the competition’s Standard Show Printers, St. Paul, The brilliant psychic star, Newmann the Great, 1956. second round (recently calculated by one Archdaily evolving dialogue between writer to be collectively worth around 18,336,780 In other words, they offer us the freedom to even recycled design solutions as responses. euros) one wonders, can anything positive actually client and architect via their imagine the future in some unconstrained way. But Competitions offer architects a way to imagine the be drawn from the situation? The general belief is I would contest Moussavi’s claim that competitions future to be sure. But are they really the best way that competitions promote design innovation and standalone, one off briefs.” create an environment free from the demands of the to do so? In the evolving dance between architect raise the standards of design quality regardless of market; competitions are in themselves a competitive and client over a building brief, can we really rely on whether they are built, particularly within a firm itself market for designs, where participants design their them as a source of innovation? Isn’t (architectural) but also in the world at large. But is it an architect’s jury was voted out of office before deciding the project with the aim of winning the contract. Far design an open and collaborative process between reaction to a singular brief which really produces results of the competition and the project was from being free from market constraints, they actually client and designer, which requires more scope for innovation as so many competition promoters claim? dropped.” It is an all too familiar fate for a create their own market. Indeed competitions create the elaboration of its goals than the competition Do competitions create an environment where competition entry, and one which provoked me an environment where the buildings of the future are system provides? architects perform at their very best? And do the to question the cult of competitions which exists designed according to a given set of constraints, with I’m still not sure of the answer. And while I’ve short time spans and visual nature of competition in the archiworld. What is the point of so many no opportunity for dialogue or negotiation, creating been figuring it out, I’m sure a few hundred more materials actually promote high quality architecture unrealised projects, visions of a future not realised? off-the-shelf solutions to design problems, usually young architects have poured their blood, sweat and result in high quality buildings? Farshid Moussavi, formerly a partner of Foreign made in a just a few short weeks. and tears into a competition entry, with the hope My interest in assessing the worth of architectural Office Architects, who famously won the competition Architectural competitions, unlike other forms of making it big. Maybe that’s all that competitions competitions was piqued only further upon seeing to design a ferry terminal in Japan and made their Book and Special Collections Division, Library Rare of from; LC on publication. - USZC4 13482, Rights Advisory: restrictions Transferred No known LC Congress, of project format, preclude a productive, evolving are in the end, a big ole’ PR tactic. Not so much an the filmThe Competition, at the Architecture Film name in doing so, claims that “competitions are dialogue between client and architect via their unconstrained vision of the future as a cynical Festival Rotterdam. The Competition, a documentary driven by the desire to go beyond what already exists standalone, one off briefs. While the brief may be business move. Who knows? of sorts, follows Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry, Zaha —unthought-of architecture—whereas commissions written by the client, perhaps even in collaboration Hadid, Dominique Perrault and (rather abortively) are mostly demand-driven and often by those of the with a team of experts, it equates to just a single Norman Foster (all Pritzker Prize winners, a market…. architectural competitions are invitations meeting between architect and client, a single burst requirement of the competition) participating to make conceptual leaps and to open new frames.” of ideas and requirements leading to expected or

The Exhibition Space 46 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 47 The Exhibition Space My Willy

EGO AS THE ENABLER OF GREAT ARCHITECTURE

Words by Petr Esposito Photography: Frankie Meinhof.Photography:

y willy is, I hope, of adequate of cloud penetrating gems for us six claiming crudeness, and snigger and size to match my ego, but inchers to gawp and look on lustfully. laugh and tweet about symbolism more I suspect my need to exercise Stiff and hard from London to Vladivostok, obvious than a shoe, swathes of manly some sense of presence within the archi- Calcutta to Harare, the dicks are every- men are stomping on, chewing through tectural community may cloud a vision where, glistening in their own awe. The projects and erecting more flags to his of a better future. The shadow of envy question however remains, were they name than sperm in a single emission. never lurking too far away, my genitalia erected for the titillation of their masters? have become a phallic fusion of confusion. Or were they the finite answer to challen- I am an architect in waiting, yet laden ging ‘opportune’ architectural puzzles? “Sexism ain’t with a willy. We wonder if architects are Easy adaptations of this notion may anointed the power of clairvoyance, but bring to mind almost any tower, made dead yet, and as a man I am also loaded with man genes more perfect if they have a defined tip. and tendencies that flicker between the The Gherkin is an obvious choice. us men are doing lack of multitasking, a lower pain threshold Shuttleworth, is now ashamed of his and a Neanderthal compulsion. My power own guile, lamenting “architects are a fine job of of clairvoyance is therefore clouded. egotistical”. It’s a therapist’s wet dream, Penis envy might just be a simple- if therapists have wet dreams. I’ts archi- keeping it alive.” minded idea from a silly little Austrian tecture screaming Oedipus, but this is with ample beard and a disposition for perhaps all too much 101. We claim Greek Mythology, but penis envy in the that skyscrapers look like willies, and the Perhaps unsubstantiated, but with only context of male competitiveness, as well arrival of a certain vulva laden starchitect around 12% of practice partners being as in its original intention, might also is too producing genetically appropriate female there is a good chance that women have triggered some architectural genitalia, or so has been pointed out. have fewer opportunities to make their blunders so massive (Anish Kapoor’s The real vulgarity of penis envy architectural mark. The fight for women Orbit, Prince Charles’s Poundbury, takes place in the universities and studios, to join their male counterparts is a downtown Dubai in general) that the where female numbers drop from 44% in continued struggle; sexism ain’t dead power of clairvoyance is no more relevant education to 34% as architects, according yet, and us men are doing a fine job of to architects of the male persuasion than to Architects’ Journal and RIBA. Though keeping it alive. In teaching architecture, loft insulation is to the homeless. Then not universal, it is not a struggle to hear the willies are winning, in practicing archi- again, the drive for giant, girthy throbbing the discussion in studios of ‘which side it tecture, the willies are winning, and the willies may have blessed us with all sorts swings’. Whilst most point to the towers projected future of the mismatched

The Exhibition Space 48 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 49 The Exhibition Space Actor William Smith, late 1950’s. Courtesy of William Smith, www.williamsmith.us. 1950’s.Actor William of Smith, late Courtesy The simplest questions often provoke the most crowded answers.

What is urbanism? Moreover, what are the form of social psychology, otherwise known as implications­ if designers lose the ability ‘mob-mentality’. Although the correlations are to think collectively about our cities? In this clearer now more than ever, his texts are rarely incarnation of Seminar Room we read, write and read in relation to architecture and urbanism. speak about architecture and urbanism through The second essay, written in 2014 by Peter Carl, the lens of the contemporary city. In that order. sheds a more focused light on how we perceive To do this, we throw ourselves headlong public space in the contemporary city. Whereas into the past into order to attempt to lend some for Canetti the city is people, and people are currency to the present situation at large. The space, Carl argues that there are more levels of discipline becoming matched is about as his AT&T model is all things Freudian, And here’s the crux of the issue, I’m construction of a city is certainly not about total-­ ‘urban depth’ at play that we shouldn’t ignore. hopeful as the rebirth of past voyeur and as Arthur Drexler says, “the AT&T a self-confessed man with penis wanting itarian­ planning, just as it’s not about erecting Moving on to the written responses of the Oscar Niemeyer. building is too big to be a joke.” Today’s to write an article about architecture scattered novelties and one-hit-wonders. As urban texts, our contributors interpret and uncover I would say, the importance of gender Johnson is the gloating of overreaching for architects pontificating about the territories expand and densify, the spaces in which five very different understandings of the same equality in architecture is no longer just firms charmed by their influx of money confused nature of men. Is this an article we spend our lives have, in many cases, become core theme, through five very different essays. about gender equality; it is about employ- —$1 billion architecture companies on clairvoyance, or am I the voyeur on a a playground for the dull-fantastical—the isolated Following this—and in true seminar form—you’ll ing more people that might bring an operating in dubious corners of the world journey of self-gratification? I’m putting novelties, each ‘spectacular’ in their own right that, ‘take part’ in a round-table discussion between authentic gift of foresight, about and short-falling their interns; the power my dick on the table as it were and socking when placed all together in a single urban environ­ four of our contributors, which swiftly threads its employing reason and quality without of the male ego turning to a pulp the it to them… a sod it and to hell with ment, become mundane. Against this backdrop, way through the history of architecture in relation being swayed by an end declaration of idealised student petrified before a it. Yes, I want to fight this penis thing, this seminar tackles our understanding of civic to the aforementioned texts. This is accompanied “my willy is bigger”—unless of course we pin-up. Maybe a touch sentimental, but what do I do about my own? I do belonging along different written trajectories. by a drawing which visually narrates our spatial get to a point where it’s all women and penis but the clairvoyance so anointed to us have one. As you enter the space and take your place journey from Rome, through Moscow and Klippan, envy may then take a more intense form. architects—if it does exist—is not in the Seminar Room, you’ll be presented with back into the heart of Westminster! The struggle for men is about being necessarily something to behold and extracts from two texts written five decades apart. So, dear reader, settle into the Seminar Room: aware of their own inability to be com- dream and long for. Perhaps the power Elias Canetti’s Masse und Macht (Crowds and our little archive of observations and predications, pletely subjective, or at least to detach of foresight does exist, but it is simply Power) was penned in 1960. In it he proposed provocations and convictions. We think you’ll themselves an adequate length from their to reproduce our own little 1:1s that a framework which examined the behaviour of enjoy this seminar—it helps that you’re not ego, a suggestion of thumb tip to index are erected and razed on a daily basis crowds in urban environments—a very early being marked on it. finger tip might do the trick. The image for the benefit of our own goals of of Philip Johnson clutching the shaft of intimate gratification.

The Exhibition Space 50 LOBBY No 2 51 Micro Readings Crowds and Power Crowds and Power was originally published in German by Claassen Verlag in 1960. These Words by Elias Canetti, 1960 extracts are from the 1973 Continuum edition, translated by Carol Stewart. It has been reproduced with permission of the parent-publisher.

THE OPEN AND THE form it is a sensitive thing. The openness THE ATTRIBUTES of Macro CLOSED CROWD which enables it to grow is, at the same OF THE CROWD time, its danger. A foreboding of threat- The crowd suddenly there, where there was ening disintegration is always alive in the Before I try to undertake a classification nothing before, is a mysterious and universal crowd. It seeks, through rapid increase, of crowds it may be useful to summarise phenomenon. A few people may have been to avoid this for as long as it can; it briefly their main attributes. The standing together—five, ten or twelve, not absorbs everyone and, because it does following four traits are important: more; nothing has been announced, nothing so, must ultimately fall to pieces. 1. The crowd always wants to grow. Conditions is expected. Suddenly everywhere is black In contrast to the open crowd, which There are no natural boundaries to its with people and more come streaming can grow indefinitely and which is of growth. Where such boundaries have been from all sides as though streets had only universal interest because it may spring artificially created (e.g. in all institutions one direction. Most of them do not know up anywhere, there is the closed crowd. which are used for the preservation of what has happened and, if questioned, The closed crowd renounces growth closed crowds) an eruption of the crowd have no answer; but they hurry to be there and puts the stress on permanence. The is always possible and will, in fact, happen where most other people are. There is a first thing to be noticed about it is that from time to time. There are no institutions determination in their movement which is it has a boundary. It establishes itself by which can be absolutely relied on to prevent quite different from the expression of accepting its limitation. It creates a space the growth of the crowd once and for all. ordinary curiosity. It seems as though the for itself which it will fill. This space can 2. Within the crowd there is equality. movement of some of them transmits be compared to a vessel into which liquid This is absolute and indisputable and itself to the others. But that is not all; they is being poured and whose capacity is never questioned by the crowd itself. It have a goal which is there before they can known. The entrances to this space are is of fundamental importance and one find words for it. This goal is the blackest limited in number, and only these entrances might even define a crowd as a state of spot where most people are gathered. can be used. The boundary is respected absolute equality. A head is a head, an This is the extreme form of the spon- whether it consists of solid wall or of arm is an arm, and differences between taneous crowd and much more will have some special act of acceptance or entrance individual heads and arms are irrelevant. to be said about it later. In its innermost fee. Once the space is completely filled, no It is for the sake of this equality that core it is not quite as spontaneous as it one else is allowed in. Even if there is an people become a crowd and they tend to appears, but, except for these 5, 10 or 12 overflow, the important thing is always overlook anything which might detract people with whom actually it originates, the dense crowd in the closed room; those from it. All demands for justice and all it is everywhere spontaneous. As soon as standing outside do not really belong. theories of equality ultimately derive it exists at all, it wants to consist of more The boundary prevents disorderly their energy from the actual experience people; the urge to grow is the first and increase but also makes it more difficult of equality familiar to anyone who has Sam Jacob, The Architects Regard The Model, 2015. supreme attribute of the crowd. It wants for the crowd to disperse and so postpones been part of a crowd. to seize everyone within reach; anything its dissolution. In this way the crowd 3. The crowd loves density. It can shaped like a human being can join it. The sacrifices its change of growth, but never feel too dense. Nothing must stand natural crowd is the open crowd, there are gains in staying power. It is protected between its parts or divide them; every-­ no limits whatever to its growth. It does from outside influences which could thing must be the crowd itself. The feeling not recognize houses, doors or locks and become hostile and dangerous and it sets of density is strongest in the moment of A five-decade void: extracts from Elias Canetti’s those who shut themselves are in suspect. its hope on repetition. It is the expectation discharge. One day it may be possible to ‘Open’ is to be understood here in the of reassembly which enables its members determine this density more accurately 1960 Masse und Macht (Crowds and Power) fullest sense of the word; it means open to accept each dispersal. The building is and even to measure it. everywhere and in any direction. The waiting for them, it exists for their sake 4. The crowd needs a direction. It and Peter Carl’s 2014 essay, Civic Depth. open crowd exists so long as it grows; it and, so long as it is there, they will be able is in movement and it moves towards disintegrates as soon as it stops growing. to meet in the same manner. The space is a goal. The direction, which is common From just as suddenly as it originates, theirs, even during the ebb, and in its to all its members, strengthens the feeling the crowd disintegrates. In its spontaneous emptiness it reminds them of the flood. of equality. A goal outside the individual

The Seminar Room 52 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 53 The Seminar Room Civic Depth

Originally an introduction to Lynch Architects’ Civic Architecture: Words by Peter Carl, 2014 The Facades, Courts & Passages of Westminster (2014). It has been reproduced with permission of the author.

veryone is generally in favour of to board rooms). At the most ceremonial housing-estate). On this depth-order ‘Public Space’, but it is not well level—therefore the most profound in a proper urban life depends, meaning understood. It tends to connote terms of civic self-understanding, at least a proper spectrum between social life, crowds going about their business or potentially—would fall law courts, parlia- commercial affairs, political and legal relaxing, or very occasionally protesting ments and religious settings. debate and opportunities for reflection. (e.g. Occupy). These spaces comprise When they are not simply flows of ‘Reflection’ may seem to be a fragile a plateau of granite, parks, streets, anonymous individuals commuting or or even elitist concern. Aristotle was the shopping malls and transport arrival shopping (lost in their mobile phones), first, and is still one of the few to ask, halls (the last two often combined). crowds offer ephemeral moments of what is the ultimate purpose of a city? Under these conditions, the public is seen intensity—at events such as rallies, He argues that a city grants the possibility as aggregates of individuals, exercising marches, sit-ins, riots football matches of profound understanding of one’s their freedom. To be sure, there is much or New Year’s fireworks. However, it is collective place in reality (not simply the Patrick Lynch, Urban Rooms, 2014. of life that conforms to this vision of the deeper institutional structure of transaction of goods and prevention of mass-culture, mass-consumerism and public involvement that accounts for the crime). The civic rites and ceremonies, “Density The nature of these is often not predictable. mined manner and are passed on from one so forth. However, the more this is the persistent civic ethos. This ethos is not the which persisted until quite recently, Each of these four attributes will be found dancer to another. Density is embodied case, the more distant is this conception wandering and relaxing under blue skies accomplished the same thing: reconciling is embodied in any crowd to a greater or lesser degree. in the formal recurrence of retreat and of public space from the political and usually favoured in the renderings of history with the cosmic conditions. How a crowd is to be classified will depend approach; equality is manifest in the ceremonial agora, forum or piazza, to ‘public space’ by architects, but proper Aristotle elevates this kind of insight, in the formal on which of them predominates in it. movements themselves. And thus, by the which present-day ‘public space’ is often involvements: conflict, negotiation, via tragic drama, to philosophical I have discussed open and closed skillful enactment of density and equality, compared. We should distinguish between accommodation, collaboration. It is contemplation; but this is only the most recurrence crowds and explained that these terms a crowd feeling is engendered. These the crowd and the public, reserving therefore necessary to rethink ‘public articulate end of a spectrum that has its refer to their growth. The crowd is open rhythmic formations spring up very ‘public’ for situations of political import. space’ as a continuity of different settings; origins in the primordial spatiality of of retreat so long as its growth is not impeded; it quickly and it is only physical exhaustion It is common to oppose ‘public’ with and rather than the bald distinction the civic topography. This depth-order is, is closed when its growth is limited. which brings them to an end. ‘private’, and the use of figure-field plans between private and public, we should at present, virtually powerless against the and approach; Another distinction is that between The next pair of concepts—the slow by architects and planners suggests that think in terms of an urban depth. This monofunctional developments (‘mixed- rhythmic and stagnating crowds. This refers and the quick crowd—refer exclusively public is outdoors and private indoors. is most obvious in the understanding use’ is generally a euphemism for shops) equality is to the next two attributes, equality and to the nature of the goal. The conspicuous Accordingly, urban life is often wrongly of the street, and in particular the high and their wind-blown plazas. density; and to both of them simultaneously. crowds which are the ones usually mentioned understood to prevail between these two street. Instead of thinking of it as The fuss about high-rise proliferation manifest in The stagnating crowd lives for its and which form such an essential part of modalities. In fact, there is very little a canyon between façades, filled with in London is less about the banality of discharge. But it feels certain of this modern life—the political, sporting and of a city that is purely private—except vehicles and crowds, we should imagine translucent phalloi, an aesthetic problem, the movements and puts it off. It desires a relatively long war like crowds we see on the news are all perhaps the domestic loo. This is even it as part of the institutional order of than it is about the loss of the depth- period of density to prepare for the moment quick crowds. Very different form these are truer of the cities of less developed the city, as the seam between the depth structure that gives proper place to, themselves.” of discharge. It, so to speak, warms itself the religious crowds whose goal is a heaven, countries. We should think in terms of of what lies behind the façades. and therefore empowers, the manifold with its density and delays as long as or crowds formed of pilgrims. Their goal a spectrum of public situations that pene- This depth is marked by narrow streets activities too easily generalised as SMEs possible the discharge. The process here is distant, the way to it long, and the true trates the whole of urban life. Firstly, and courtyards, which serve the diversity (small and medium-sized enterprises) members and common to all of them starts not with equality, but with density; formation of the crowd is relegated to domestic affairs should not be thought of lower-rent activities such as ateliers, and affordable housing. Their inclusion drives underground all the private, and equality then becomes the main goal a far off country or to another world. of as a refuge from urban conditions, clinics, colleges, libraries and archives, in the spatial order of a city is a civic differing goals which are fatal to the of the crowd, which in the end it reaches. Of these slow crowds we actually see only but part of them. Beyond family politics galleries, travel agents, eateries, specialty responsibility, which many—if not crowd as such. Direction is essential for Every shout, every utterance in common the tributaries, for the end they strive (never simple), we meet our neighbours shops, churches, mosques, synagogues, all— institutions appear incapable of the continuing existence of the crowd. is a valid expression of this equality. after is invisible and not to be attained in living rooms, kitchens, doorways, yards dwellings, the semi-legal entities, etc. understanding, preserving or cultivating, Its constant fear of disintegration means In the rhythmic crowd, on the other by the unbelieving. The slow crowd gathers and streets. At the next level of public These are also the settings whose archi-­ despite the advent of ‘localism’. Accordingly, that it will accept any goal. A crowd hand (for example the crowd of the slowly and only sees itself as permanent in meeting, we encounter friends, colleagues tecture entertains happy and unhappy it is wholly commendable to see at Victoria exists so long as it has an unattained goal. dance), density and equality coincide a far distance. and new acquaintances at pubs or cafés, at accidents, as well as material and spatial Street, London, this sort of understanding There is, however, another tendency from the beginning. Everything here This is a mere indication of the nature clubs and associations and at places of phenomena, that tend towards gardens emerging from the initiative of Land hidden in the crowd, which appears to lead depends on movement. All the physical of these forms. We all have to consider work (which would range from hair-salon (there is more ‘garden’ in Paddington Securities, Westminster Council and to new and superior kinds of formation. stimuli involved function in a predeter­ them more closely. gossip through to shop floors and offices Station than in the lawn of the average Lynch architects.

The Seminar Room 54 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 55 The Seminar Room explanations, we can never really know the architecture This is Water or the city as the complete material-socio-political- Visions of the City cultural- systemic thing it really is. We’re too close —our view is always partial, obscured, cropped. So we always remain inside. There is nothing outside of this imaginary-real world that we have invented anyway. and the People Therein Unlike the fish’s water, the city is our own invention. It is an artificial habitat of our own design which, as a measure of its total success, feels completely natural. We believe in roads, homes, schools, rooms so utterly and completely that they become—to borrow the fishy phrase—‘waterlike’. Yet architecture and the city came from within us. Both are the products of our own imagination projected into the world, our collective interiority made exterior, made into the world. In other words, space Words by Sam Jacob is us and we are space. The thing we are ‘inside’ is the real-fiction of our own imagination, as though we Giovanni Taylor-Foster, Bellotti and James have been turned inside out and made into the water. Here’s a joke David Foster Wallace used to tell, “There Yet at the same time we are so often excluded are these two young fish swimming along and they from it; excluded on economic grounds, because of happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, class, race, sex or a thousand other reasons; excluded who nods at them and says, ‘morning, boys, how’s precisely because the architectural worlds that we the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, have projected into being map our own internal and then eventually one of them looks over at the political psyche so exactly. This is why, for example, other and asks, ‘What the hell is water?’” public space is both an entirely generic term, encom- The young fish are unaware that they are ‘in’ passing us all, and a highly contested term because something. They might feel currents, temperature of the realpolitik of space as we have imagined it. and other qualities that the water might have. Architecture makes little worlds, thousands of little But the water itself remains intangible because, worlds, that are multiple and simultaneous. From Conversational SkeletonConversational as Wallace explains, “the most obvious, ubiquitous, the scale of a room to a horizon (and even larger important realities are often the ones that are the than that too) like a proliferating Venn diagram of Illustrations by KaiserIllustrations Ulla. by hardest to see and talk about.” fish- bowls. These are the worlds we inhabit, the ones Architecturally speaking, we might know we are we can never escape from. Each is its own environment ‘in’ something by the fact that we are warm, comfortable, with its own artificial conditions, its own prescription that the rain that’s falling is not making us wet. But of the possibilities of our existence, and each

, 2015. we too are often also unaware that we are ‘in’ a determines what (or who) is included and excluded. substance, a thing that envelops us quite as completely The point of this recursive, Russian-doll-like, as a fish in water. That substance is the very abstract late-night-stoner talk is to try and think about and very real idea of architecture, which remains as architecture as an act of collectivity. Architecture, invisible to us—or at least as unnoticed—as water I’m arguing, is the product of human community. It’s is to DFW’s talking fish. through architecture that we imagine the possibility The city is the ultimate expression of society. It of being public and it’s how we become social. is the synthetic product of our collectivity, our shared But we should never mistake this water as some-­ culture, economy, dreams, our conflicts and fears. thing natural. It’s entirely manufactured, a supremely It is a live document, simultaneously the map and artificial construct (in both senses of the word). And the territory of our democracy, continuously in a it’s important to remember this, important even for state of being re-written, a document written over architecture to advertise its own synthetic origins thousands of years by millions of people. A document in order to distinguish itself from an inert, as-found, Giovanni Bellotti, Alexander Sverdlov, Shumi Bose, that organises us, arranges us, socialises us, separates immutable nature. us, punishes us, rewards us; nothing less than a see- Only by recognising and remaining aware of its Adam Nathaniel Furman, Sam Jacob and Patrick Lynch thing political entity rendered in concrete and stone. fundamental unnaturalness can architecture continue We are in it so deep that not only can we not see to make us public and social creatures. And to do weigh in on the relationship between architecture it, but we can’t escape it either. So deep that we can’t this, architecture should remind us forcefully, over detach ourselves from architecture, we can’t separate and over, even as it makes the world, that “this is and urbanism in the contemporary city. ourselves from it, can’t look at it objectively from the water, this is water.” outside. Which is why, despite its apparent logics and

The Seminar Room 56 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 57 The Seminar Room whatsoever with the physical reality of the building, refashioned as constitutional oligarchies in which If Manguel stepped into a library today he would The Unhappy are related solely to how the customer is meant to the many may be democratically represented but, be confronted with far a more diverse array of positions. feel about their purchase. in economic reality, spend their lives servicing the Someone might be laying on a window sill, the thick- On the other hand there is a yearning for the wealth of land owners and lenders. ness of the wall informally inhabited, wherein they Pursuit opposite of luxurious isolation—a search for its That does not lead to the kind of city that have constructed a self-sufficient camp in which every- therapeutic amelioration in urban form through the embodies the values most citizens hold dear, even thing is within reach. Books and devices may be spread connection with something specific to a given place. when judging only by those values emphasised by casually on some pillows, the soft surface of the couch It is the instrumentalisation of this kind of artificial the adverts for the tools of economic concentration refusing orthogonal order; the body relaxed, buried authenticity that has seen the greatest proliferation themselves. It is not leading to happier cities, nor deep in a soft armchair, a coffee table by the side where in recent years, with videos of local markets and is it leading to cities which encourage vigorous phone, glasses and keys are deposited—a soft boundary galleries jostling against phrases about how you will meritocratic competition. It is instead moving rapidly separating this settlement from the next. A pair of “be enriched by the alluring tapestry of culture and towards the total consumption of both the private sneakers visible from within a ‘cocoon’, the interior flavours bursting from every direction”, and even and the public realms by the ominous forces of illuminated from within by LED lights, the surface of tabula-rasa behemoths like London’s Battersea speculation. This can only lead to one thing: the the shell stretched under the guest’s weight and only being “designed to nurture interactions and inspire death of the liberal city. dimmed voices coming from within. It appears that enduring relationships.” They even go so far as to the modern library, compared to Manguel’s report, claim that “in and through community lies the can welcome a richer catalogue of readers. salvation of the world.” In the library, reading is as much a private exercise Words by Adam Nathaniel Furman Through these campaigns it is possible to read the The City Scale as it is a public performance, and the aura of the desire for perfectly acceptable—even civic—forms of library derives from the balance and composition of socially beneficial human fulfilment, whose realisation the two. Modern libraries combine these opposing “1324a5: [Is] the happiness of the city the same is being perpetually deferred. Contentment can Narrative vectors—that of the invisible reader, hidden, free within as that of the individual, or different? The answer rarely be achieved through advertisements offering the capsule, and that of the exposed one, whose gestures is clear: all are agreed that they are the same. ‘fulfilment’. Yes, it is laudable to aim for excellence. are part of a whole, his position and behaviour being Those who believe that the well-being of the Yes, it is a wholly positive impulse to be part of a the result of subconscious collective interaction (and individual consists in his wealth, will also believe community and to participate actively in the ballad his understanding of the existing library protocol). that the city as a whole is happy when it is wealthy. of perpetual happenstance that we call a city. Yet The plain surface of a collective reading table Those who rank the life of a tyrant higher than any purchasing a home in one of these developments frames its participants. It requires personal objects other, will also rank the city which possesses the means that you are not achieving either one of those to be displayed in public, arranged for others to see, largest empire as being the happiest city. Anyone things. In fact, it is the very object you are purchasing requiring people to act interdependently upon a who grades individuals by their goodness, will also which, in its numerical accumulation across our cities, common surface. Reading or studying together on regard the happiness of cities as proportionate is gradually eradicating those very things it purports one unified working plane requires more discipline, Illustrations by KaiserIllustrations Ulla. by to their goodness.” to embody. No-one may uniquely excel in a town in more attention to the regime of silence, more Extract from Chapter II, Book VII of which everyone is identical, of the same income level, restrained movements. And yet by imposing these Aristotle’s Politics with the same kinds of jobs and the same kinds of restrictive protocols, concentration becomes a backgrounds. Any form of ‘community’ or ‘singularity’ collective act. The capsule, on the other hand, by The analysis of advertising provided a window into is eradicated by the disappearance of those who concealing the reader, doesn’t demand an under­ the libidinal underpinnings of the 20th Century’s require coming-together to subsist and those who Words by Giovanni Bellotti and Alexander Sverdlov standing of one’s position as part of the whole. In irrational consumer mind, while marketing for run small, unfashionable enterprises. the capsule, people complete the design, just as residential-led developments has more recently Societal pressure to purchase properties of such books complete a shelf. proven itself to be an inadvertent insight into property hyper-inflated value means that people are effectively Alberto Manguel, writer and bibliophile, introduced In the process of modernisation libraries have buyers’ desires. Because of the yawning gap between enslaved to a bank for the rest of their lives, servicing his 1996 text, A History of Reading, with a collection been devoted to finding new ways of engaging the the stratospheric prices of many flats in London and debts that correspond little to any income they are of photographs. All were of readers; one, a heavy public. There has been a marked transition from an their disappointing reality, the intensity and psycho- ever likely to achieve. It is, therefore, a sophisticated hardcover on the lap, the body slightly bowed, open archive to a place of personal production and logical brio of these marketing campaigns has reached form of crowd control—one of enslavement and an index finger stroking a beard whilst repeatedly individual creativity. Beyond giving access to know-­ a fever-pitch of ideological clarity in a vain attempt at pacification. The populist demagogue of home- scanning the same paragraph. Another, head leaning ledge, good libraries are expected to create new reconciling their valuations and their mediocrity. ownership is herding the crowd towards a destination down so as a curl of hair touches the paper, turning networks and build new communities. A list of Their approach can be roughly divided into the that is wholly against its own self-interest. We are the page of the folio with a slow regular curve. additional features, delegated to the initiative of the targeting of two areas of desire. On the one hand witnessing a vast restructuring of our society with Suspended one metre above the floor, another’s librarian—computer classes, language courses, music there is the drive for uniqueness, the need to feel the cost of housing fuelling a new rentier class of hand clutches the railing of a rolling ladder, nose lessons, etc. has generally been implemented in order special or better than everyone else, as was debtors, shareholders and land owners. buried in the fold of the thick pages. Another, to broaden its audience. traditionally embodied in the notion of ‘luxury’. Recalling Aristotle’s Politics, the happiness of standing by a lectern with legs crossed, the litho- This transition requires spaces that defy the trad- When appealing from this perspective, L’Oréal-style a city has much in common with the happiness of graph illuminated, hands lightly touching the page. itional setting of the library, promoting the periphery exhortations of indulgence and singularity—of both the individuals that constitute that city. The form These photographs, replicating famous readers in of the room instead of the centre, darkness instead the buyer and their prospective home—are now a city eventually takes will be governed by the the historical narrative of painting and sculpture, of light, concealment instead of exposure, clusters commonly used. Phrases like “but if it was easy, characteristics that its populace value most highly. are combined to construct a universal reader instead of lines, couches instead of chairs, capsules then it wouldn’t feel as good”, which have no link Our cities, and London in extremis, are being through postures, books and furniture. instead of tables and desks. The atomisation of the

The Seminar Room 58 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 59 The Seminar Room library floor in isles is now synchronised with the of appropriateness, decorum and scale tend to concern also repress activities as much as welcome them (to diversification of what it offers. The chair and the table and even to vex the general public, planning autho- paraphrase Robin Evans), just as a city can obscure La Foule have given way to other, more playful and informal rities, English Heritage, etc. whilst architects tend to its latent civic depth. This depth is repressed mainly modi of learning and gathering. The design practice remain largely oblivious to the civic character of their via buildings disconnected from the civic realm and contributed to this change with an array of witty and designs. Whereas newer cities, such as Dubai, are not by road engineering that severs connections between colourful designs, proving that the library is, first and (yet) faced so noticeably with the issue of decorum, urban hinterland and high streets. foremost, fun. As the assortment of independent, in most instances architecture is almost always a Built objects alone are relatively powerless against replaceable fragments wins more weight over the fundamental part of the problem of the city. the destruction of civic depth, regardless of the integrity of the whole, library rituals are gradually A city is not just a collection of abstract rhythms presence or not of signage or colourful banners on replaced by a multiplicity of library experiences. (as Lefebvre suggests in Rhythmanalysis), nor simply façades, which is why Venturi and Scott-Brown’s At the level of the city, the public municipal library the confluence of social and political “networks” (as Learning From Las Vegas fails to address the real functions as part of a network. It is through the Latour suggests in Actor & Network Theory). Despite issues at stake in urban design and in modern repetition in different contexts (up to several hundred the social complexities of any artistic commissions architecture—what Peter Carl calls ‘civic depth’. libraries spread through big cities) the library is —particularly evident in architectural ones—architects Revealingly, perhaps, Scott-Brown describes the elevated from a shared reading room to a civic space. continue to be educated to maintain a solipsistic, and city “as a crowd of strangers”. The predominance The repetition brings forward the importance of the even narcissistic, commitment to ‘personal’ missions. of pseudo high streets with more or less decorated common denominator, the basic set of rules, essential The obverse tendency is to try to divine design sheds—modern functional-monotypes such as Words by Shumi Bose for the integrity of the system as a whole. At that solutions in information flows, data charts and the casinos e.g. the Las Vegas Strip—is a specific dimension furniture and, consequently, the posture supposed ‘wisdom of crowds;’. The results are urban phenomenon that has been replicated across of the reader prescribe the grammar of the city strangely similar—design ‘methods’ are increasingly the world as a development model based on the Épanouis, enivrés et heureux. scale narrative. Intimacy of reading, and the way it taught in isolation in terms of metaphors cribbed servicing of large retail units, not on any architectural Entraînés par la foule qui s’élance is staged, becomes an urban operation. The choice either from the natural sciences (emerging technologies, principles that one might derive from a picturesque Et qui danse Une folle farandole of spatial protocol of the library room balanced etc.), art history (style, type, etc.), neo-community reading of billboards. Nos deux mains restent soudées between collective ritual and emancipated, individual- action (‘consultation = participation’) or bad imperson- Yet façades are not just billboards to be glimpsed Et parfois soulevés ised experiences will make a definition of what the ations of art practice (‘what I want, etc.) and in each at speed from cars or only there at night, rather, they […] library is. case what is at stake in an urban commission is are thresholds between inner and outer life, linking Emportés par la foule qui nous traîne largely obscured by rhetoric. What I mean is, architects and relating public and domestic realms, individuals Nous entraîne Nous éloigne l’un de l’autre have a problem of their public image, and also one of and crowds; ultimately revealing the situational Je lutte et je me débats self-image, arising, I’d suggest, from their resistance character of civic depth. Mais le son de sa voix Depth Charge to the directed nature of architectural work. “Mass Ornament” (to cite Krakower) is the out- S’étouffe dans les rires des autres However, identifying architectural problems does ward expression of the whole range of situations Et je crie de douleur, de fureur et de rage not imply narrowly ergonomic responses to a client’s that constitute popular life (e.g. the law, religion, Et je pleure Illustrations by KaiserIllustrations Ulla. by needs, nor uncritical reactions to what the late sport, etc.) which we see represented not only Entraînée par la foule qui s’élance Townscape Consultant Francis Golding used to call in popular culture (i.e. crowds at football matches, Et qui danse Une folle farandole “Banausea”. The act of “problematising” something cinemas and theatres—relatively passive groups is imaginative, pragmatic and interpretative and it of people, in fact) but also in situations where people Fulfilled, drunk and happy. necessitates critical thinking about the constraints are actively committed to something together and Driven by the rushing crowd and opportunities inherent in a particular situation, actively participating in it (seminars, religious Which dances, a mad ‘farandole’ the meaning and potential of events. services, legal cases, planning meetings, all sorts Our two hands remain welded Critical thinking about cities encompasses the of committees etc.). It is the background structure And at times they were raised mundane and theatrical aspects of urban life. For of the city that supports spatial and cultural […] example, in his famous essay, Naples, Walter Benjamin continuity and which enables spontaneity and Taken by the crowd which dragged asked “how much of each weekday is there in each renewal. Architects order and orchestrate spatial Us further away from each other Sunday?” and “how much Sunday in each weekday?” situations in respect to this, or they don’t. This, for I fight and I struggle Words by Patrick Lynch By suggesting that each are imbricated in the other, me, is how we can assess the quality of city life and But the sound of his voice Benjamin reveals that city life is intrinsically transform- the architects’ contribution to this, and this is really Is drowned in the cries of others ational, intimating that civic architecture should be what is at stake in architecture today. And I scream in pain, in fury and in rage “Our job is to give the client, on time and on cost, too. Balconies enable individual contributions to the And I weep not what he wants but what he never dreamed he everyday drama of city life, whilst grand porticos act Carried by the crowd which rushes wanted and, when he gets it, he recognises it as as urban theatres. The structure of the city reveals Which dances, a mad farandole something he wanted all the time.” layers of civic depth. Naples is a city of everyday Denys Lasdun, 1965 crowds and sacred festivals, the buildings acting as Edith Piaf / Michael Rivgauche, La Foule, 1957 an agglomerative stage set. This is why the Modernist (my translation). “Beauty is mixed up in issues”, Eduardo Chillida concept of ‘function’ cannot describe the theatrical claimed, suggesting, somewhat more obviously character of urban architecture. The lines of Edith Piaf’s La Foule (The Crowd) advance perhaps, that so is the practice of architecture. However, it’s not enough to say that any sort of like a juggernaut, like a manic ferris wheel, a cargo of Although definitions of beauty differ, questions life can exist anywhere and of course architecture can crazed souls being carried along an inevitable wave.

The Seminar Room 60 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 61 The Seminar Room The crowd—or mob, or horde—is often romanticised, of common land, to the unabating use of glass in its fluid unity associated with moments of elated new ‘civic’ buildings (allowing a porosity for those intensity and shared experience: we bond in the face within and without), to the skirt-lifting expose of Discussion held on of the impossible goal or the all-together rock concert domestic intimacies on airbnb (that first port of chorus. More recently, its forced contact counteracts call when visiting a foreign city). Our public spaces our existential solitude viscerally, and donating our are becoming more private, and we choose to share bodies to the crowd (or even looking at others who our private spaces more than ever. This strange 17 January 2015, have) reassures us that some sort of solidarity is interpenetration—the private control of ostensibly possible, that the atomisation of life can occasionally, public space against the urge to share even the most and often in response to atrocity, be alleviated. sacrosanct of privacies—is currently obscured in Yet here in Piaf’s song is something terrifying in the city. Most of us do not know where we stand in 140 Hampstead Road its dissolute facelessness, in its blind surge, its mad space, either physically or morally. And this is where ‘farandole’. Suddenly she is alone as she never was we are, together alone. before, and in the featureless mass of people her loneliness is all the more profound. You know what’s weird about the crowd, or being in one? The contact with other bodies almost causes you to dissolve; you are not you, you are part of the crowd’s fluid fabric, existing only on the ecstatic surface where it touches you and the rest of you is smoke. Yet in that liberation, that deliverance from self, there is simultaneously an intimacy which reminds us of our bodily limits. Within Patrick Lynch, Giovanni Bellotti, Shumi Bose the crowd, you are at once given over to the common cause and more conscious of your own skin; the skin, and James Taylor-Foster met up to discuss being the very site of the contact-high, is a reminder of one’s individual fragility. Canetti, Carl and the five essay responses. Have you ever been groped in a crowd? It is one of the strangest, most disturbing conjunction of feelings. By deciding to enter the crowd your body has been wilfully crushed against others, just as one enters the sea expecting to get wet. In so doing, you have surrendered your privacy in order to join James Taylor-Foster What did you Patrick Lefebvre’s Rhythm Analysis Patrick Yes, I don’t think that Peter’s a certain public, to become it, to let go. And so in think of the Elias Canetti texts? also has this dichotomy. It’s not really about just talking about London. His idea of this letting go, it is not only the physical violation Patrick Lynch I think that like people, nor is it about buildings—it’s ‘depth’ is something that can be imme- of being groped, but rather the singling out which a lot of 20th Century writers, Canetti about the movement of people which seems diately recognised as lacking in certain seems to be disturbing. Here we are, trying to is certainly political, but there’s a tension to elude direct statistical analysis but urban situations. I think it’s something forget ourselves among each other in the cause between his individual politics and an which, nonetheless, has patterns and cycles. that you can see in Asia, for example, of something bigger—a crowd which has amassed ideology. He’s a kind of a canonical James I chose these two chapters in par- where the towns that are being created either in joy or in protest, or in some form of common figure, but not really spoken about in ticular because in them Canetti makes his out of petrochemical dollars are creating interest, transcending individual interests. Yet terms of architecture, so I can see why position most clear. Namely, that a crowd has a new form of urbanism. What is not hands which search, trespassing beyond the already- it’s a good counterpoint to the typical to have a goal. For him, if people are just immediately clear is that it’s actually lowered boundaries of physical contact, are explicitly architectural discourse. engaging in senseless movement then the act a 20th century form of urbanism; it’s of an individual interest; worse still, they force you to James The tone of his writing is of ‘crowding’ becomes completely pointless. car-based, it needs air-conditioned return from a potentially ecstatic plane back to your certainly strange; it’s very metrical and Shumi My immediate parallel in images buildings. So there’s no real ‘depth’ to own individual interests. sterile in the way he talks about people is a corporeal one. The flow of blood doesn’t the relation between the building and Suddenly that absenteeism, that dissolution that and crowds which, incidentally, he describes really have a goal, it has a cyclical nature. any civic realm. allowed you to join the throng, appears menacing. as ‘packs’. He’s essentially likening human There isn’t an end per se… Shumi The infrastructure in the end If one loses oneself by the act of joining the crowd, society to an organism with flows. It’s James Absolutely. And Peter Carl’s is the organising principle in that context. then has responsibility and conscience dissolved almost a scientific model for urbanism. essay is quite different, not only because it There are already several organising too? The comfort provided by being able to join Shumi Bose As a subject you certainly was written fifty four years later in a very principles which are laid on top of each the amorphous mass is flipped; now there is no one do feel removed, as a subject, from the different political climate, but also because other which perhaps produce what Peter to hold to account, no perpetrator (and no victim, situation that he’s describing. it directly tackles the question of archi-­ describes as ‘depth’. Another thing, which because there is no you; you are part of the crowd). James Yes, so I wonder, is he talking tecture and urbanism in relation to civic I couldn’t quite extract from this text of Increasingly I would note the decline of both about crowds of people in relation to the rites and ceremonies, or the ritual use of Peter’s on which I’ve heard him speak on publicness and privacy, and instead a confusing city and to architecture, or is he simply public space. He uses London as a case- it before, is the political depth of the city fudging together of the two. This occurs in the city describing them as spatial movements study in this instance, but are the ideas he and the opening up of layers of homo- in many ways: from the coffeeshop commodification (or flows) that just inhabit the city? puts forward more universal? geneous political situations.

The Seminar Room 62 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 63 The Seminar Room Giovanni Bellotti Yes, certainly. Infra- Shumi He was talking about the James And also next to some relatively structure—trains especially—enormously pace of development in a positive way? deprived areas. affected Italian cities, for example. Take James Yes, he was suggesting that Patrick And then Jean Nouvel has also Venice: the creation of Santa Lucia (train the layers of ‘urban depth’ move quicker, just built an opera house which, according station) meant that visitors entered from I suppose, which creates quite complex to the architect, is designed to summon the back of the city after passing across a infrastructures—especially when the youth from the banlieues to come to long bridge across the lagoon. This led to densification is happening on such an high culture. I mean, there seems to be an the creation of roads above filled-in canals, enormous scale. He was ultimately saying urge to do something good. The problem such as Strada Nova which was built under that it’s a different form of urbanism but is that if you can’t find the architect who Austrian rule. Venice has always been both one that shouldn’t be dismissed. There knows what that should be and the state lived in and organised as islands in the are also things to learn from it. has negated any responsibility for it, way it has dealt with people and commun- Patrick The Ospedale degli Innocenti what do you have? ities. I think that the train station completely in Florence is a really good example Shumi Do you think that in the changed this—it added a completely new because what the guilds were doing in impetus of those buildings there actually flow. The only future resource it had was medieval culture was challenging is a desire to do something good? to become a leisure town. aristocrats—up until the advent of Patrick I think so. Ultimately, people Patrick It’s completely changed in the capitalism, banking, industrialisation, want to spend money. And this attitude is sense that the lived experience of people etc. Workers were making the most of has changed, but in terms of the archi- their financial and cultural capital, they tecture it’s the same because there was were challenging the hegemony of the “That’s my always such richness. Like all catalytic church and the aristocracy. urban events, you often have a gradual Different models of development favourite bit change and then a massive one. The Medici sprung up all over the place. In Venice it family arguably had an enormous effect was the scuole, something that in England of London upon Florence. The creation of banking would be called an Alms House, or college. and the ability to have credit were concepts They educated people and promoted history—they that were quickly transformed into a semi- cultural organisations. The Guilds of the industrial product. City of London still exist and are still basically said It was no mistake that the first gene- very powerful. When Norman the ration of the Medici immediately funded Conqueror came to England from France that ‘This where an academy to train artists and architects. he had his first court in Barking and he They understood that the relationship had to go into the City of London and we make the between industry, technology and wealth ask them to allow him to become their were integral for the rebirth of the idea King. They said, ‘Yeah, you can be our money, don’t of the city as a ‘moral spiritual good’. King but you can’t ever come in our city!’ James This idea can perhaps be encap- Shumi That’s my favourite bit of get involved!” sulated by what happened in Florence. You London history—they basically said that mentioned Lorenzo il Magnifico and the ‘This where we make the money, don’t formation of the garden of San Marco, get involved!’ one which has built a number of the great which can also be connected geographic- Patrick Following World War II universities in the US for example. There ally to Piazza della Santissima Annunziata architects in Western Europe, alongside is certainly a whole philanthropic aspect and the Ospedale degli Innocenti—the local and national governments, seemed to culture but the collapse of a social first hospital in the world designed to care to share in a belief that a social demo-­ democratic paradigm in Europe has led to for orphans and foundlings. Although it cratic government should be more or less this strange situation where people don’t was a Servite institution, it was primarily capitalistic. St. Peter’s Church in Klippan, quite know how to be a philanthropist. funded by Florentine Guilds pumping Sweden (by Sigurd Lewerentz) was partly Shumi When it leads to the creation their excess cash into the creation of a funded by local government and partly of exclusive spaces that are built on public new sense of urban civic pride. And this funded by the state, in that case the land, as I understand the Louis Vuitton all happened in a very short space of time. state church. Foundation in Paris is, it becomes quite I was listening to a podcast recently This is why I find theLouis Vuitton sinister. Especially when it’s a reasonable James Taylor-Foster, Ospedale degli Innocenti, 2015. in which Rory Hyde was asked about what Foundation (2015) in Paris hilarious. amount of money to actually get in he thought about the pace of densification Frank Gehry has created a building for and the project itself subverts multiple in contemporary cities. He argued that the guy that started Hermes bags. It’s planning rules, including height. It’s cities like Shenzhen and Dubai have an an attempt to be a philanthropic, to be supposed to be a single-storey building understanding of speed that is “completely someone with a public sense of the civic. and it seems like a sneaky move to use unattached to the past” which is, he argued, But it’s sat in the middle of a park—it’s ramps to build a 50 -metre building fundamentally liberating. completely isolated and totally exclusive! and get away with it technically being

The Seminar Room 64 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 65 The Seminar Room ‘single-storey’. The architect seems ✦ At the altar-end of the Basilica della desperately to be trying to create public Santissima Annunziata sits a spatial space by creating these ramps around it In our seminar we discussed a number of interpretation of Antonello da Messina’s but they don’t go anywhere—they’re not spaces and places, many of which didn’t 15th century painting of St. Jerome connecting to anything but itself! make it into the fragment that you have in His Study. At the very heart of this James This top-down approach to just read. Instead, we created a drawing knotted network of rooms and fragments creating civic, public architecture and which contains the architectural spaces sits the Garden of Eden, as envisioned urban space—masked as philanthropy and urban fragments that would other- by Atanasius Kircher in his Topographia —is arguably becoming more and more wise have existed only in our conversation Paradisi Terrestris. ubiquitous in large cities. [see page 56]. Mirroring the format of Patrick I agree, and I think that the the Seminar Room itself, this drawing is library is the battleground for all of that. a cadavre exquis (or ‘exquisite corpse’) The typology of the library has thematised —a method by which words or images are the enlightenment that books give you, assembled into one homogenous object. In not as something spatial but as a kind of this context, it is a visual narrative of our Doors opening. symbol of you rising up from ‘ignorance’ conversation which has been folded and coll- to being educated. It’s not just a façade apsed into a single, surreal, imaginary city. To give you an indication of what it all means, we enter this fictitious world Lift going up. “It’s not just a from the very bottom, in London’s Paternoster Square. Passing beneath façade of what Temple Bar Gate, we enter Sigurd Lewerentz’s Church of St. Peter’s at a building looks Klippan, before arriving at the southerly end of Victoria Tower Gardens. Passing like—it’s the by the Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey we bear left along sense of a joyful, Victoria towards the octagonal outline of the Baptistery of San Giovanni in spatial, spiritual Florence. Heading north, Buckingham Palace comes into view where, in place ascent.” of the Victoria Memorial, sits the Talponia semispherical residential complex (Ivrea), and the Mall beyond. of what a building looks like—it’s the At this point, continuing north, we sense of a joyful, spatial, spiritual ascent connect to the church of Santi Apostoli that is crucial to giving it recognisable… in Venice and wend our way along the Shumi …libraryness? Strada Nova towards the train station of With only a few seconds to go before our Lift ride person standing in front of it in the most playful, Patrick Yes, libraryness! Santa Lucia. This connects to the Ponte comes to an end, we’ll keep it short and sweet, unthreatening of ways. The two engage in a visual Giovanni But the library also needs della Libertá, opened in 1933 by Benito dear reader. And although you probably prefer and facial back-and-forth dance that opens up a lot to survive. This is even truer when Mussolini, as it stretches out across the the awkward silence that’s so common between techno-social possibilities for human-machine you have an expansive weak, diluted net- Venetian lagoon. Along this viaduct sit strangers inside one of these contraptions, let’s relations. Read on through—smart phones at work of them. The key is in hierarchy. If five Soviet-era Muscovite libraries. The tip remedy that by not being strangers; there’s a lot the ready—and scan the QR code for ‘Ghost the library becomes everything all at once, of the bridge then connects to the urban to talk about, after all. Landscapes’, to see how technical innovation and we continue to hang more and more void between Piazza San Pietro (Vatican The brevity of lifts and their fundamental relation can reveal the ghosts of the past. How’s that things on it, it surely loses something? The City) and Via della Conciliazione (Rome), to movement inform the content of LOBBY’s Lift. for clairvoyance? main thing which attracts people to the which was itself a Fascist intervention In it, design projects usually involving machinery, As The Lift ascends, you’ll be taken on a narrative library is the complexity between what is completed in 1937. Heading south east, movement and vision are coupled with essays of that spans from South America to Europe, as our public and private, I suppose. Yet everything past Castel Sant’Angelo, we join the Via far-away cities, narrated by writers who share the writers set out to explore Rotterdam, Rio de that happens in the library can also happen Papale (also known as the ‘lost road of the experience of visiting outside locations as they’re Janeiro, Hamburg and Venice. If this trip weren’t somewhere else, so the entire concept is Popes’) —a processional route that once lifted away on an airplane or propelled forward only in print, you’d be racking up those frequent innately fragile. connected the Vatican to San Giovanni in on a train. flyer miles like a jet-setter, dear reader. We apolo-­ James I think that’s also a good way Laterano. At this point we are reoriented In this section, peek into ‘Eye Catcher’, a project gise for that. of summarising the relationship between into Piazza del Duomo, Florence, passing whose forward thinking shows how a mechanical Doors closing. Lift going up. civic space and public architecture—intrin- along the Via dei Servi towards Piazza entity can mimic the facial expression of the sically vulnerable, perhaps more now than della Santissima Annunziata, site of ever before. Brunelleschi’s Ospedale degli Innocenti.

The Seminar Room 66 LOBBY No 2 67 and education in the existing city. Of particular interest was a small but vocal ‘favela’ community, GHOST Vila Autodromo, located on the site for the proposed 2016 Olympic Park on the north shore of Lagoa de Jacarepagua, which protested tirelessly to keep their homes. This conflict prompted the idea of a dual LANDSCAPES spatial experience of the site, whereby the two urban fabrics, pre- and post-redevelopment could be seen simultaneously: with the user’s naked eye, they VISIBILISING A LONG-GONE URBAN PAST would see the new Olympic Park; with a camera, they would see the ghost of the favela. Luckily, despite other advancements in technology, the act of taking a photo—the relationship between the camera operator, sensor, lens and the scene —remains the same, leaving this process susceptible to interference by optics. Like any other scripted process it can be hacked. If the light value coming from a point in the original ‘Olympic’ scene is replaced by a light value from a point (with the same spatial relationship to the viewer) in the ‘Ghost’ scene, the camera is fooled and records the ‘Ghost’ light values as they reach the sensor so the camera records an image of the ghost landscape. A Project by Ivo Tedbury To maintain the subversive aim of the spatial duality, the key driver was the need to be extremely subtle in the way the devices would appear when the n this age of digital, social communication net-­ ghost landscapes were not specifically trying to be works and internet-enabled cameras have given viewed. Influenced by Sao Paulo’s ‘Clean City’ Law new freedom to the everyday user to autonom- of 2006, where each advertisement could only ously record and transmit their visual experience occupy a certain small proportion of the building of cities and architecture. At the same time, the built façade it was on, the size of the ghost landscape fabric of cities is also changing quickly but is image was cropped to a single vertical strip. being driven largely by corporate greed and political Positioned on a rig in front of a camera, this strip scuffling. To set the scene, on one side of the camera moved across the photographic field, depicting each lens there is media revolution; on the other side, a corresponding vertical slice of the ghost image as it disconnect between city inhabitants and city planning. went. When captured in a long exposure, the whole Acting as a secondary technological mediator in the ghost image was made visible. user’s experience of the city, ‘Ghost Landscapes’ is As a spatial proposal so reliant on an experimental a proposal for an optical interference installation which application of technology, the built device is not would form a large scale subversive architectural a design for the installation itself but a demonstrative protest through the hacking of photographs taken tool to simulate the specific conditions which in the 2016 Rio Olympic Park. the installation would create in reality: the device A starting point for the project was to consider simulates a single LED strip at a 1:1 scale, programmed how cities and architecture perform to this new media with a black and white sampled façade from the same revolution, both in celebration and protest, on the Favela, testing the devices within an urban context one hand, large scale, ‘spectacular’ constructs, such (Tottenham Court Road) and with members of as the Olympic Games or the World Cup have a specific the public. intention to be consumed in this way: stadiums, monu- If the installation was enacted fully, the hardware ments and plazas, emblazed with sponsors’ logos can would be higher spec (high resolution and full colour) be pasted over existing fabrics, forming a seamless and compacted into a discrete street ornament. Instead, microcosm of the city ‘fit for publicity’. On the other the device itself, designed as a demonstrative proto- hand, Rio’s preparation for the events in 2014 and type, happily shows its inner workings. In targeting 2016 have been marked by ongoing protests against a specific ‘scripted’ architectural interaction—the act the massive investment in construction of these of taking a photograph, Ghost Land- facilities on land acquired in the name of ‘urban scapes questions the role technology regeneration’, using money which many local people could or should play as mediator in feel would be better spent on housing, healthcare the built environment.

The Lift 68 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 69 The Lift government, best exemplified by the derogatory comments made by former schools minister Michael Gove that schools shouldn’t be designed by architects because that would just be “mak[ing] Going Dutch architects richer”. It’s a sad day when our government thinks that architects are the ones who are ‘creaming off cash’ from the public sector through their efforts to design schools. So what can we do to improve our chances of contributing to Britain’s future? A COUNTRY WHERE THE FUTURE STILL EXISTS The profession has to get back into cahoots with the government. That is, to establish networks and links which lead into the corridors of power, a kind of nepotism even. The only way that Words by Lachlan Anderson-Frank, Photography by James Taylor-Foster architects can envision future ways of living, working and getting between the functionality. While at the time, the work two, the three most heavy duty functions recently moved back to Rotterdam to was decidedly elitist and avant-garde, that our cities must bear, is to have govern- escape what I found to be the stifling it planted the seed for architects and ment support. If not in funds, then in a climate of architectureland in designers to imagine new ways of living. tacitly open door, an ear cocked ready to Britain. Despite the British economy The involvement of Dutch architects in hear what we have to say. The Dutch have being back on track, and housing prices planning their country’s future continued done this incredibly successfully through continuing to rise in a way which defies “Today, Dutch after World War II; not least because their Rijksbouwmeester, or Official reality, architects have not exactly cashed so much of their built environment Government Architect post, whose in on the boom, let alone been called upon architects are was razed to the ground and required responsibilities include urban planning, to be its champions. Culturally, something rebuilding. While British architects the government estate, architectural has gone amiss. Architects have lost their actively involved sought to preserve every scrap of education and design quality in buildings. chance at becoming seers of the future, history left intact by the bombing, This master architect presents a figure- perhaps having overstepped it in some in government the Netherlands undertook massive head for architects to rally around. earlier era with grand visions of tower rebuilding and housing programs, So, it’s good to be an architect in blocks set in parklands which collapsed spending plans, continuing the evolution of European Rotterdam. In the Netherlands, we’re into slums. Even more than this, the Modernism’s visions for a better future. valued contributors to discussions about general mood of doom and gloom in from infra- This interest by architects and urbanists economic and social development, and politics and the media bars pretty much in future planning was as much in grand, how it pertains to spatial planning. We’re any discussion of the future beyond the structure and sweeping visions for social improvement involved at every level, from the creation next election cycle, let alone visionary and change as in the details of the of building regulations regarding thinking. But here in the Netherlands, transport, to everyday. Housing was designed with minimum window sizes in homes, to the future is a place which still exists in large windows and gracious proportions, structural development plans for the city’s the country’s collective mindset, and it’s housing and which continue to be used to this day, so growth over twenty year periods. Both a space which architects can still enter much so that even new homes in Britain through a long history of collaboration and imagine for. public spaces: offer just 65% of the space of Dutch new between architects and government in It’s worth going back a little way builds for the same price, according to imagining collective futures, and through in history to understand the origins they have a a 2007 RIBA survey. contemporary policies such as the office of Dutch architect’s role in shaping their But it’s not the price of housing that of the Rijksbouwmeester, the Dutch country’s future. In 1917 the founding place at the cuts architects out of the imagining of have managed to maintain a connection of the Dutch artistic movement de Stijl our collective future, nor simply a reaction between architects and government that marked the radical proposition of a new discussion table.” against past failures of central govern- has otherwise been lost in Britain. Indeed, way of seeing the world and indeed ment. Today, Dutch architects are actively maybe British politicians could improve living in it. The Rietveld Shroder House, involved in government spending plans, their ratings and their engagement with a gesamkunstwerk (comprehensive body from infrastructure and transport, Britain’s disaffected young voters, by of work), proposed the idea that everyday to housing and public spaces; they have involving architects in the creation life could take on the modern aesthetic a place at the discussion table. But in of future visions for society. of industrialised production, not merely Britain, an enormous gulf has emerged utilitarian but emancipating in its between our profession and the

The Lift 70 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 71 The Lift EYE CATCHER

AN EMOTION-RESPONSIVE, EXPRESSION-MIMICKING, INTERACTIVE FRAME

very primitive movements, we carried out experi- “Every-day products need ments in public spaces around UCL to identify people’s responses to specific movements. Gradually to be more understanding we started to create more complex responses, based on the feedback we were getting from our experi- interacting with them. The height and position of of users’ emotional states. ments. We also noted that people were changing A Project by Lin Zhang and Ran Xie the viewer are calculated by five ultrasonic sensors facial expressions too quickly for the machine to attached at ceiling level. This information is then What if they had a life react and therefore we had to account for that on communicated to the robotic arm located behind the the computational side of the project. ye Catcher is a project that explores the wall, which drives a magnetic setup behind the frame of their own and could We also consider the implication of art that possibilities for building non-verbal interaction to align ‘face-to-face with onlookers using ‘Scorpion’ can react to people’s emotions. To a certain extent, between observers and objects, through —an open-source robotic control software also understand how we feel people’s emotions can be read through bio-feedback mimicry of specific anthropomorphic characteristics. developed at the Interactive Architecture Lab (IAL). technology, such as brainwave sensors, heartbeat It asks to what extent can such mimicry be deployed A wireless pinhole camera in the frame transmits emotionally?” sensors and facial recognition software, which are —specifically utilising eye-like stimuli—for establish- video footage to a computer, which assesses 12 increasingly becoming more reliable, cheaper and ing novel expressive interactive interfaces. Research characteristics of the person’s facial expression, such easier to interface with. We believe that in the shows that humans perceive dots specifically as eye- as the width of their mouth, the height of their eye- viewers. However, these technologies are being near future, every-day products need to be more like stimuli—a hardwired ability which is inherited brow, and the location of the faces in the camera view. developed in other fields such as robotics, understanding of the end-users’ emotional states from birth. At the age of two months, infants show Different value combinations will trigger the controller computer vision and material science. and intent. That is what this work implies, what if a preference for looking at the eyes over the rest of for the fluid eyes, which is controlled by magnets. The biggest challenge of the Eye Catcher was everyday objects had a life of their own? What if the face, and by the age of four months, they develop There are material and software limitations, both to design the movement of the frame and the dots, they could understand how we feel emotionally? the ability to discriminate between direct and averted in the sensing and actuation part of the project. in order to make them appear more animate, as if For the next stage of the project, we would like gaze. Therefore, our work addresses the eyes as the Facial recognition has been around for a while now, they are alive. Through a series of experiments, to read more than facial expressions from the viewers foundation of human interaction upon which we build but still there is room for improvement in order for we concluded that a sensitive responsiveness is and intend to include body movements. We also more complex social interactions. it to be more reliable and consistent. We are also key in maintaining the viewer’s interest. Fabrication would like to build a more permanent piece using A kinetic picture-frame containing a magnetic fluid limited with the range of movements that the ferro provided quite a challenge as well due to the a two-axis rail rather than a robotic arm as a drive is placed on a wall, with the fluid forming the shape fluid ‘eyes’ can obtain, since it is all magnetically high-precision and low-tolerances required during mechanism. In theory the frame could then of two eyes. Upon detecting a person’s presence, the puppeteered. The robotic arm that we are using at the making process. work on a much longer wall which would frame moves towards their location for a face-to-face the moment is not one of the fastest in the industry, Similarly, designing the emotional responses was allow all sorts of new types of interaction encounter, and the two eyes will start performing and we realised that it cannot always keep up with another big challenge, which involved a series of to take place. depending on the facial expression of who is the swift and unpredictable movements of the iterations informed by experiments. Starting from

The Lift 72 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 73 The Lift RIO DE JANEIRO n front of us was an infinite horizon, with the waves of the South Atlantic Ocean breaking into splashes at our feet. Beside us were sunscreen coated bodies, stretched across beach towels, tanning under the blue sky and hot summer sun, even though it was BUILDING already late November. Behind us were neat rows of six storey hotels/apartment/offices with large windows opening up to this priceless sea view. Wide streets lined with lush green trees cut through these OPPORTUNITIES neat rows of buildings, forming the grid structure of this planned city. We looked a little further down these streets, turned our gaze a little further up onto tow- ering mountain and the real heart of Rio—the favelas. Like an invasive plant, these favelas climb up the hills of Rio. Red bricks, concrete, plastic sheets and corrugated steel have been craftily patched together over the years to build favela homes. Fearlessly they conquer the heights and dangers of the steep slopes onto which they are built; every unoccupied piece of land is an opportunity for a house. Unregulated and unrestrained, they are built beside and on top of one another, forming an urban maze. Favelas are the set of many crime scenes, the origin of rising murder rates, the unmarked places on national maps. And these are the places that 22% of the Rio population calls home. “Welcome to Rocinha favela” says Maria, our favela tour guide. And with an afternoon chat with their neighbours, looking a strong Brazilian accent, rolling her tongue at each after one another’s children, watching out for each word as though it was a song, she explained, “The other’s home. Although they lived in separate self-built favela is in poverty, not misery”. homes, life spills onto the streets from their doorsteps From the rich neighbourhood of Gavea, we —they were one, big family. crossed the road and entered Rocinha, one of Just as we were captivated by the scene around the most established favelas of Rio de Janeiro. us, Maria turns into a smaller street on the side and Immediately we were caught between people on leads us through narrow corridors formed by the bicycles, motorbikes, vans, lorries and pedestrians gaps between homes. We were now sandwiched carrying bricks and cement for their home, new between graffiti covered walls that painted the hopes batches of clothes for their shop, cans of Guanabara and dreams, anger and frustrations of the favela (the local fruit soft drink), books from school or the residents. Cables and wires, wet clothes pegged on latest mobile phone. We easily blended into this to drying lines weaved into a web above us, filtering lively crowd as we hurried along with the tour. the sunlight that lit the path. The occasional opened The favela homes that rise above these busy streets windows and doors invited a peep into the cosy are continually under development, morphing and home of the residents. Despite the desperate-looking adapting to the exact need of its residents. The first exterior walls, they contained comfortable rooms with floor is usually built by the grandparents, the second sofas, refrigerators, television and beds accompanied floor built a few decades later by the parents as the by a collection of accumulated goods bought with family grows, and the top floor waiting to be built the owner’s hard-earned money. upon by their children—each favela home becomes We continued climbing the steep narrow steps, the history record of each family. carefully following the footsteps of the person in The ground floor of most homes have now been front of us, trying not to slip or hit our heads on converted into a shop: barbers, car mechanics, snack the low-hanging objects. “Remember, poverty not shops, clothes stores, groceries stores, cafes, bakeries, misery”, Maria says as she reaches the top of the electronics, etc. Shopkeepers shout behind their counter, stairs. In front of us were many homes, densely trying to seize every business opportunity they can. packed and turning to one another. But in front of Words by Heidi Au Yeung Students stand on the corner, reluctant to head home us were also opportunities; opportunities to build Photography by Heidi Au Yeung and Ben Sykes-Thompson as they gossip away. Boys kick a ball around in any relationships, to build friendships, to build a family, ‘residual’ space between the favela homes. Elders to build a home, to build a business… opportunities bring their chairs out to the side of the street for to build better lives in a rapidly developing city.

The Lift 74 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 75 The Lift HAMBURG FOLLOWING CHRISTIAN NORBERG-SCHULZ

recently came to realise that I’ve been following Christian Norberg-Schulz for years. Not literally, of course; the architectural theoretician died in 2000, and I never met him in person. But my tedious, year-long research into his life and author- ship—that I had considered as a harmless, even important endeavour—was perhaps better explained as following. This in the sense of admiration, or coming after, but also as myself being a physical body of a follower, of walking behind. Historians must be dedicated to their object (or subject) of study, and posses an urge to find answers to their questions. If not, academic life would be quite boring. where the contrasts of the complete chaos of But as my dedication had led me to a recent project Germany and peace of neutral Switzerland, where old (titled Following Christian Norberg-Schulz), in which, structures were still standing, made it clear to him the through filmmaking, I was re-enacting several impor-tance of the built environment in creating a of Norberg-Schulz journeys from Norway to Italy, meaning-ful existence for human beings. Hamburg re-enacting events and frames he himself constructed, was perhaps the journey’s turning point (or perhaps Words and Photography by Anna Ulrikke Andersen I started to wonder: what was my position as a a low point?) where the world as he knew it was lost follower? What would following entail? and confused in the rubble. The itinerary of the first stage of my journey, I possessed this knowledge as I was approaching focussing on his 1945 journey from Oslo to Zürich, Hamburg, looking through photographs from World was constructed from archival material, journals, War II. Structural iron arches, stripped of their cladding, private photographs, a television appearance from piles of bricks, roads obstructed. I imagined his journey 1992, all backed up with interviews with people who as shocking and dramatic. “What will I encounter?” knew him well. Only 19 years old, he travelled with I asked myself. But it was an odd question, this over 100 other aspiring students of architecture was far from my first visit to the city. Actually, through a Europe in ruins. They stopped in Hamburg, my first ever journey abroad started at Hamburg where the damages of war must have been over- Hauptbahnhof, when I as a five-year-old. I travelled whelming, and continued south by car. Their destination by train with my grandfather from Norway to was the ETH (Federal Institute of Technology Zurich) Düsseldorf, to bury my great grandmother, the and Sigfried Gideon’s promise of a Europe rebuilt. last remaining of the erstwhile vibrant German Norberg-Schulz discussed this journey in a lecture, branch of the family.

The Lift 76 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 77 The Lift VENICE NO GUILT

and perhaps obsession lead me into considering things from a perverted and disturbed perspective? I wondered if I’d become as disturbed as Sophie Calle’s project Suite Vénitienne from 1979, where she follows a stranger from Paris to Venice, stalking and secretly photographing him, crossing all boundaries of what is socially acceptable. To me, my own grand tour had similarities to her twisted version by my foll- owing and re-enacting Norberg-Schulz’s experiences. My project, my following, my research could perhaps be described as clairvoyance. As the architect embodies and imagines how the user will experience Arriving in that enormous station made a huge and use spaces, so did I as a historian visiting geo- impression on me at that time, and I remember it graphical locations and re-enacting events to get vividly. But somehow following Norberg-Schulz made closer. But to me, travelling made distance from, me forget what I already knew, expecting something not get closer to, history and protagonist apparent. different of the city and its station. Arriving was there- Re-enactment was shockingly inaccurate; following fore a major disappointment, even quite confusing. was perhaps questionable. There was no war. No damages. The motifs from the photographs I wanted to recreate with my own camera were no more. The places were unrecognis- Words and Photograhy by Felipe Lanuza able. Hamburg Hauptbahnhof was busy, even cheerful. With my camera I filmed the station, yet the footage was nothing but bland and un-eventful. I zoomed in on a structural detail, parts of a window, without really knowing why. The framing was poorly constructed. The Hamburg Norberg-Schulz had experienced no longer existed. I felt nauseous. In Human Space, phenomenologist Otto Bollnow argues how daylight conceals the world that is experienced in darkness. Did my Hamburg—rebuilt and vibrant—conceal that Hamburg of 1945? Or was that a questionable way of looking at the tragic event of a city destroyed? Had my following, engagement

The Lift 78 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 79 The Lift A comment on the city touristic purposes, the frozen (or up-lifted) beauty of Venice seeks to remain identical to its own idealised enice gives the impression of having accu- image. This pleases the eye, of course. mulated its history in the damp and decayed surfaces of its buildings. When in her book Paradigm Islands: Manhattan and Venice, Teresa An impression of the city Stoppani refers to the “layered reality of Venice that condenses at once a plurality of times”, she On that Wednesday morning, the third of November accurately describes the loaded atmosphere of 2014, I walked from the Tolentini library to the Istituto the city as an outcome of that aggregation produced Universitario di Architettura di Venezzia (IUAV) main throughout centuries. Nowadays, however, that process campus, in the Southwest part of the city, an area of formation seems to come close to a freezing point. separated from the main touristic spots that are The conservation and restoration efforts to preserve so crowded by visitors. What drew my attention the the built heritage of Venice are starting to prevent most was the dense fog that covered the city and the natural processes of ruination and change from made the buildings appear as if they were being transforming the city and keeping it alive. absorbed in a soft white light. There were no shades, Indeed, one could even think that the ultimate only variations of blurriness and textures, alternating effect of modern times in Venice wouldn’t be a yellow and red stuccoes with naked brick walls. radical transformation of its urban fabric as it is All of that was reflected on the green surface of the in many other cities. On the contrary, it would be canals, and the breeze and the movement of boats an immobilising force turning the city into a frozen drew different vibrations on that inverted cityscape. scenario that pretends to be almost identical to the The fog also seemed to soften the noise in its shape it had when it was found to be worth preserving. more dense and humid atmosphere, together with Or at least that’s the feeling I left with after living the odours coming from the water and the dark there for a month, while doing research at the Venice alleys. But as the hours came closer to noon and Biennale in November 2014. I moved to the Cannaregio West area. A stronger Does the identity or the value of a city like Venice sunlight gradually penetrated that immersive and lie in its actual materiality or on its making throughout contained environment, opening up to a clear sky. time? Rather than taking one position in an already The façades of the buildings started to glow in the well-developed academic debate, I just want to hazy air, as did their reflections on the water. At the acknowledge that the first is clearly taking over the same time, the increased depth of vision revealed an second. Either following authentic cultural interest irregular accumulation of skewed walls, disorganised or due to the commodification of heritage for windows and leaning towers appearing in the distance.

The Lift 80 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 81 The Lift Passion about architecture and design runs in our blood.

I’m not site writing. I’m only engaging in a retro- Many architectural discourses deem romantic spective description of my memories, inevitably merged views as useless, uncritical and only based on with my imagination and dreams of a place visited, aesthetic considerations. There are plenty of but one that’s now away from me. contemporary accounts on ruins reflecting that, Some of the photographs I took that morning are while claiming that such nostalgic and sentimental presented alongside this text. They capture different approaches need to be overcome to gain a more moments of that walk, but they are partial views of productive understanding for sustainable develop- one single experience. The last image is an overall ment of cities and societies. Although they can be impression of that place and time, superimposing my true to some extent, I feel suspicious about most of photographs. Their transparency allows the illusion them. They are normally partial visions tending to Doesn’t it, dear reader? We breathe it, we think the inability of the architect to truly be critical of a passing time to come forward as different images obliterate alternative meanings and richer inter- it, we hate it and we love it all at the same time. where it counts. We then open up the doors and corresponding to different moments, becoming evident pretations of place in order to meet quantitative Some believe that one is either born an architect pull out a chair for Heatherwick Studio’s Jorge in simultaneity, not covering but revealing each other. indicators and standards. or not and that clairvoyance comes as second X. Méndez-Cáceres and Bartlett School of Archi- The fog, the water, the walls and windows of the city I embraced romanticism during my stay in Venice, nature. But if there is such a thing as clairvoyance tecture tutor Seda Zirek. With four unique and are condensed and intensified. and I did in a similar manner when representing it in in architecture, then it surely is a skill that needs imaginative projects before them, we asked them I would like to think that the different times of Venice, this text and images. I feel no guilt about it. I’d rather to be developed and trained, and nowhere is this to grab their Moleskines and discuss: a vision of layered in its urban fabric, are perceived in a similar like to think that efforts like this could help in looking more evident than in a Crit Room. a happy society called ‘PoohTown’, an endeavor manner when getting lost in its streets and canals. at the city anew, drawing attention to issues over- In presentations, tutors and critics drill student to save artifacts in the Louvre in preparation for looked by more dominant modes of thinking, and projects to the ground to get to root of the design. a predicted flood, an alternative method to tradi- going beyond the easy kind of vacation romanticism Architecture is always about reviewing the past, tional woodcrafting involving digital fabrication, A final statement being served by heritage policies in the city today. assessing the present and envisioning the future and finally, a look into the blending of boundaries —where the skill of critique is extremely significant between architecture and wilderness. For long now, Venice has been a place of romantic All photographs presented here were taken by the author of this text in Venice, in materialising future visions. And LOBBY’s So dear reader, come in to the Crit Room. imagination. Painters like JMW Turner and Canaletto on the 3rd of November 2014. The composite image was also made by the Crit Room is no exception. whether it’s to participate and critique, to gawk author, of a selection of 20 superimposed photographs taken the same day. have portrayed this paradigmatic city at different For this issue, Professor Alan Penn, Dean of and marvel or simply to walk through on your way times, capturing its beauty and somehow extending The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, out. But please watch your feet, and don’t step it to its representations. On the contrary, pragmatic gives us his take on the role of the architect in on the models. views on the cultural and economic value of its built the supposed ‘predictions’ of future visions and heritage are starting to turn Venice into a frozen representation of itself.

The Lift 82 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 83 The Lift Jus’ Like That?

THE ILLUSION OF CLAIRVOYANCE

or the uninitiated, architects Architecture, when it works, casts a complex design problem, often defies seem to require clairvoyance. the architect as clairvoyant. Clairvoyance rational explanation. We have to fall back They envision a world that has of course is an illusionist’s trick. At the on the idea of the creative genius and so yet to exist and then they conjure it into risk of being thrown out of the Magic the ‘great man’ theory of creative talent. reality. At its best, architecture creates Circle, I will now ask Teller to show Our professional organisation, its systems life in a wilderness, havens of peace in a you how it is done. maelstrom. It connects these into complex Like illusionists, the best architects networks of space that are moved through depend on exacting observations of “The result is and appropriated for use by many people the world, understanding the way things in different ways, forming the warp that function and interact, and predicting that architects supports the weft of individual and the ‘what-if ’ consequences of the many collective experience; the narratives things that they could possibly do. are among the we weave out of this compose the rich Since architecture is firstly a social art, tapestry of culture. the illusion depends upon the reactions least able to This process of plucking an idea of people to each other and their environ- out of one’s mind for what a piece of the ment. In this sense, architecture is not explain how they living world could be, inhabited as it will only the mother of the arts, but mother be by people and communities, and then of the social sciences as well. What seems work and tend to simply through the placement of material like magic and clairvoyance is actually stuff—concrete, stone, ceramic, wood, the result of practiced observation and fall back on a near plaster, metal and glass—make it happen the training of one’s intuition to predict for real, appears close to magical. Unlike the consequences of complex combinations mystical account.” the gardener who works by planting and of design moves on human subjects. transplanting, fertilising, training, Illusions are built using dexterity and pruning, digging and burning—where misdirection. Dexterity in this instance of prizes and awards, the critical press Words by Alan Penn the process of life and growth can be relies largely on the way we apply intuition and the celebrity culture surrounding Photography by Jurgen Landt-Hart seen and responded to over time—with in design. Just like the conjuror’s sleight ‘starchitects’ all conspire to support a near architecture it all happens at once. We of hand, it seems to be a personal and mystical status for the individual designer. go from idea to reality, in the immortal subjective skill. Identifying the origins Design education is little better. Design words of Tommy Cooper, “jus’ like that”. of the creative step that resolves elegantly is taught through a process of osmosis,

The Crit Room 84 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 85 The Crit Room POOHTOWN

HAPPINESS IN SLOUGH

A Project by Nick Elias Winnie the Pooh explores serious moral and political Course MArch Architecture, Unit 10, Year 5 teachings such as love, friendship, keeping active Academic year 2014 and inventive. Supervisors CJ Lim and Bernd Felsinger In A.A.Milne’s Winnie the Pooh a happy world is constructed fictitiously from an unhappy, real, re you happy? Is the world happy? The world Christopher Robin. During its publishing in the may be happy to an extent but the media 1920s, industry took off in Slough after the war and and disputes between closed denominations the town quickly became a place of unhappiness arguably encourage the perception of a darker world. and social exclusion. For the project, 1920s Slough Happiness is most often subjective and perhaps more is revisited to capitalise on the economy of ‘happiness’ widely spoken of as ‘inner peace’, suggesting it is as an alternative industry, using Winnie the Pooh as a very personal venture. The purpose of architecture a metaphorical protagonist for happiness. is often debated and is becoming something of Slough and many cities like it ache to be peaceful, a laying-on of hands, of demonstration distractions that surround architectural All too often I must admit, jus’ like an emotional prerogative. Architectural projects are happy and socially inclusive. Slough has long since of how rather than why, all pervaded by culture and its continuously evolving Tommy, the illusion fails. The architect increasingly responding to emotional objectives and been perceived as being home to much deprivation ill-defined language. This is of course fashion. Of course these features are misdirects so effectively that they distract there is a logical argument for this. Research suggests since the industrial sprawl of the 1920s took place, how it must be. In a process of training in central to the culture itself, but they serve themselves from the task at hand. Style, that happier people generally require less objects, where hard industry and poor living quality inspired intuitive dexterity, in reacting without the to distract attention from those aspects surface features and aesthetic concerns or ‘toys’ for comfort so if architects design for many artists, such as Ricky Gervais and John Betjeman, need to think consciously, understanding of architectural design which inhabitants dominate and the central plank of the happiness, our emotional state, then users may to evangelize against it’s potential. Through my intuitively what the effect of a physical appropriate for use and which in this illusion, the life they envisioned and ask less from the world to satisfy our physical state. research on Slough I believe an architectural proposal reconfiguration of a spatial design will way appear to create spontaneous life. promised, fails to materialise. Then Architecture may not necessarily cure personal could condition a positive perception, a perception be on the individuals and communities Complicit in this too often are the we don’t get architecture, we may get unhappiness, an individual’s emotional state, but that could be replicated in any city. who will, also subconsciously, act and critics. Hampered as they are by the building. If it wasn’t so important it it may provide the framework for it. ‘PoohTown’ PoohTown, aims to re-evaluate existing responses react to it; what other way might there inadequacies of language to describe might, jus’ like Tommy, be funny. establishes the grounds for this, not in a literal manor, to socio-political exclusion by proposing ‘happy’ be? The result is that architects are among either the experiential world of subjects but in a thought experiment to question current architectures where residents can live, work and the least able to explain how they work and and groups, or the complex relational covert responses to socio-political exclusion in cities play together in a sustainable economic network. tend to fall back on a near mystical account. and configurational aspects of the way such as Slough and other ‘depressed’ cities. It uses PoohTown also philosophises over today’s cities’ Misdirection involves the dominant architecture affects people, they too fall a simple ‘happy’ premise to explore this potential. potential to prescribe policies of happiness along- concern of contemporary architectural back on surface features and cultural ‘isms. Within the fictional spectrum, children’s stories side familiar amenities; a concept worryingly absent culture—with material and aesthetic Distracted in this way by material surface offer strong personal experiences. Their worlds are in today’s city planning. Through empirical research factors. Faced with an inability to explain features, we miss the dextrous manipulation explored at an imaginative and suggestive time in conducted on people from Slough, including children, rationally their science, architects point of space and configuration, which the our lives and studies show they are an important and other industry towns, it was clear that most instead at the surface features and trained intuition turns to effect. mechanism to help us understand the ‘real’ world. people are happiest when playing an idealised,

The Crit Room 86 LOBBY No 2 87 Jorge X. Méndez-Cáceres: Seda Zirek: fictional, representation of themselves—from putting ways which represent Christopher Robin’s tears This project uses Winnie the Pooh as the driving force to The project plays with the observer’s sense of scale, particularly make-up on to proving their organic credentials at in plan (refer to plan drawing), reminding us of re-think the idea that design can effect, in a positive way, in the aerial perspectives. It makes it difficult to grasp the space the farmers’ market. Guests to PoohTown indulge this potential to experience happiness through how we experience architecture. and surprises. There is an incredible amount of work in this in this tendency and become the fictional, happy fictional stories. This has been an area of study for many years and yet project. While appreciating the graphic design qualities, I believe Christopher Robin by visiting Pooh and friends on After the interactive pilgrimage to ‘happy’ sometimes we think that, as designers, we have the power the designer could concentrate more on the architectural design a proposed pilgrimage. destinations, guests take to the air in balloons to control all of these feelings. I believe that Poohtown has from material and structural points of view. Some of the Each of Pooh’s friends in the book represents a of Pooh’s friends and see the friends below in plan positively nailed the idea of thematic urbanism, from its designed pieces, like bottle boats, are explained in detail with specific type of happiness and become a destination before landing in the Emporium to purchase ‘happy propaganda posters which successfully ‘take us there’, to the sections and perspectives. However, there are no structural in the city. Research shows that reading fictional books products’, these products are researched from environmental graphic representations of this town which explanations combined with its materiality. One keeps asking, make us happy because we entertain our imagination surveys and various papers and take the form of really make you understand that there is a new way of are they really buildable or just cartoonish fantasies and massage our potential (eg. wanting to be super- certain ‘toys’ (for both children and adults). This looking at and developing these sites. hero), and Owl is an advocate of reading and education Emporium is effectively a gift shop at the end of the in the story. ‘Owl’s Library’ represents this happiness happy museum to remind us that PoohTown is an in a designed forest with various ‘Ministrees’ (sic) as industry of happiness. PoohTown therefore argues sections of the library. Each ‘friend’ is explored on a that designing for happiness may be lucrative system, five day pilgrimage in PoohTown and are reached by and that architecture can indeed facilitate this. Boat Bottle (a metaphor of friendship and connection, PoohTown explores methods of applying for in the story Piglet sent a message in a bottle during knowledge rather than relying on transient technical a flood to Pooh for help!). The boat bottles are dorm- knowledge to facilitate design. Such a process may itories that dock into kitchenettes and adventure areas, expose transferable methods and reasoning that specific to the characters, around the renovated Slough may be applied in other contexts and cities to test Industrial Estate. The bottles meander flooded water- the purpose of architecture in a changing world.

The Crit Room 88 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 89 The Crit Room FRAGILE THRESHOLDS

THE ANTICIPATION OF THE NEXT GREAT PARISIAN FLOOD

romanticism through the simple means in which Parisians overcame a dire situation. At present, the rising waters of the River Seine continue to tease Paris as the city sits in anticipation, awaiting the next great flood. The growth of the French capital as an established centre of culture and history has since provided it a charismatic identity, related in part, to its associated housing of global collections. However the hardline separation between nature and building has left Paris unable to accom- modate future flooding, remaining inadequately prepared to deal with a flood of large magnitudes and leaving museums that contribute heavily to the A Project by Eliza de Silva Parisian identity and economy little choice but to Course MArch Architecture, Unit 23, Year 5 redistribute its collections. The Musee du Louvre itself urban city through performative interventions. Academic year 2014 has resigned to relocate 90% of it stored collection A deconstruction of material thresholds in turn Supervisors Bob Sheil, Kate Davies and Emmanuel Vercruysse outside of Paris, bringing up questions about the develops a language of fragile skins, enveloping art appropriateness of isolating artifacts in the act of within pocketed structures that allows the flood to arsh winter weather and heavy rainfall set Paris preservation. In opposition of this defensive response, travel within chambers, affecting individual buoyancies up for a series of catastrophic events that would could we instead create conditions that integrate that reposition work beyond or within the flood. begin to unravel the shortcomings of the rigid both cultural commodities and people within the Unlike the existing organisation of artifacts, which urban city. Remembered as ‘The Great Flood of uncertain timescale of an impending deluge? displays work by region and time period, the relation- 1910’, this centennial event intertwined the River The project explores an alternative landscape ship between art and flood is made central to its Seine with a complex network of infrastructure, of climate change through choreographed infra- preservation. The values and unique material prop- culture, and people that subsequently left behind a structures that accept the changing water levels as erties of each art piece provide context where new legacy of surreal images of a city under water. What the new norm, allowing for spaces to be reassigned narratives are constructed, allowing artifacts to made this particular deluge unique, and all the more and adapted to four flood level scenarios: the become protagonists of the flooded landscape. unpredictable, was how the flood rose from beneath ‘everyday’, ‘warning/mobilisation’, ‘general flood’, The marble statue of the Venus de Milo is, in this the ground as opposed to overflowing from neigh- and the ‘worst case conditions’. By addressing the narration, encapsulated within a shell of protective bouring riverbanks. With excess water having nowhere way in which museums could continue to operate surfaces with specific openings allowing us to view to go but up through urban cavities such as sewer in the delicate intersection between the river and the her in the state of flux caused by the river. The multiple grates and metro stations, there was little locals city, the current boundaries between the two must internal layers then provide support or reallocate could do to reduce flood levels except to wait for be re-envisioned to allow both systems to co-exist water to let Venus lift above the flood. This intrinsic a natural subsiding, a process that ultimately lasted without an oversimplified separation of the two. weaving of nature and museum forms a subsequent a month. Hence Parisians faced a critical decision; to Orientating the Musee du Louvre as a focal point series of bespoke anticipatory spaces, a careful orche- leave Paris in temporary abandon or, as the majority of interventions, analogue and digital experiment- stration that operates in an indefinite timeline. Whether of people did, continue life within a flooded cityscape. ation are used to develop permeable skins and it is a heroic rise of Hercules or a romanticised sacrifice Looking through a catalogue of black and white actuating structures that—through variable of Cupid and Psyche, these spaces respond in slow photographs released as postcards in memory of buoyancy—allow for museums to actively reorder movements, straddling the intersection of a very the flood, the continuation of the everyday is revealed collections in relation to the rise and fall of water physical disruption with the mythical status of key through the integration of adaptive structures, boats, levels. The resilient yet dramatic quality evident in cultural commodities. From a re-curation based on and the resilience of the human spirit. Hard to ignore ‘The Great Flood of 1910’ is an important driver new values and retelling of the stories behind each in these frozen moments are the evocative images of in establishing testing stations that interrogate form masterpiece, we are thus reminded that we preserve, a flooded city not in despair, but instead in a state of and surfaces, aiming to blur the boundaries of an not through isolation, but through remembrance.

The Crit Room 90 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 91 The Crit Room RESOURCEFUL FALLIBILITY

RESEARCHING WOOD-MILLING FABRICATION AND ARCHITECTURAL APPLICATION

Jorge X. Méndez-Cáceres: Seda Zirek:

Humans have always attempted to go against the current and Considering the consequences of different degrees of flooding alter the flows of nature. In this case, we humans have affected brings a level of sophistication to this project. The archive these flows, indirectly causing a chain reaction to occur. This photos are great in terms of imagining the overwhelmed A Project by Wangshu Zhou and Jieru Ding Based on the material study, this project explores project tests ways to preserve culture by scanning items and effects of a flood in this well-known city. In my opinion, each Course MArch Graduate Architectural Design, RC2 the relationship between the material properties of defining ways of individually protecting and preserving them. encapsulation—designed to protect the artwork in case of Academic year 2014 solid wood and the CNC milling technology. Generally I’m curious whether this idea could have been explored via other flooding—creates a room-sized museum rather than freeing Supervisors Isaïe Bloch and Moa Carlsson in the CNC milling process, the unexpected wastes items with relatively similar or additional cultural value, one the artwork. This is due to the distance between the artwork and inevitable traces will be left on the materials. This example being the built environment. In general I believe it is and the observer. Consequently, the form of the proposed niversally, because of the limitation and fault- ‘misfit’ universally exists in industrial manufacturing a great proposal but I wonder if there was space to understand capsules could be reconsidered to unite the two. As it might iness of the manufacturing technology from and the common solution relies on increasing mech- other ways of remediation, on the macro scale, which current not be possible to place each artwork in a capsule or some traditional crafting to mass production and even anical accuracy to avert these by-products and technologies already utilise, in order to preserve overall spaces. flood-proof platform, what are the criteria to choose which digital fabrication, there is always some dissonance punishing afterwards. However, digitally, as we can work is saved and which will be sacrificed? between the design performance and the process easily control the parameters of the CNC machine of making which is named as the ‘misfit’, existing in and shrink the gap between design and manu- producing, assembling, fabricating, structuring and facturing process through CAD/CAM technology, sometimes in the material behavior and properties it is very possible and essential to design the misfit themselves. Therefore, realising its designable and apply certain meaning to them rather than possibility, we have focused on studying these refining the flaws, which is costly. ‘misfits’, bringing them into the design process In our material study, by means of the prompt and turning the defects into merits. feedback on the physical effects of the drilling

The Crit Room 92 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 93 The Crit Room water to specific locations of the temple, where new hydroponic vertical gardens are located, and third, to battle the increased wear of the temple due to tourism, provide new interior spaces and a new circulation path with the blossom of milled ornaments. Therefore regulating the movement and aggregation of rainwater threating the original wooden buildings on the site become the fundamental morphologic generator combining with the result data in the early experiment. In detail, as considering about the priority of water-guiding effect which means the motion and trail of rain flow will influence the design form directly, the morphologic hierarchy of design geometry are systematized and standardized. Firstly, the overall geometry function as the rough guidance of water flow connecting to the existed buildings evolving roof, brick wall and their foundations. And secondly, the basic geometry for the milling process, which is distributed deliberately and digitally to control the expected ‘misfits’. And lastly the ‘misfit’ itself including traces and wooden wastes which are essential for enhancing the water-guiding effect and absorbing high moisture for fostering the vertical garden. These conceptual proposals, with the mutual influence among the hierarchical geometries, are later tested both in the physical experiments and digital simulations. For constructing and assembling, the modular system of wooden components ensure the morphologic flexibility and aggregated dexterity for design form. These customized cellular wooden bricks embed with milling geometries shape the overall design form and meanwhile determinate the Jorge X. Méndez-Cáceres: Seda Zirek: process, computational control and digital modeling, distribution of milling by-products. Comparing with a design system is proposed to convert these the application of CNC milling to wooden material in The cross between linear units and unitised bricks successfully This project creates a strategy which can be applied to different uncontrollable ‘misfits’ into designable elements large scale, the modular system aims to challenge addresses the current site issues and brings the idea of custom- sites with different architectural forms. This versatility is due within their size and distribution. In the early physical the typically high material wastage of milling, as well isation to the table by adding another layer of information. to components with different axis and lengths. The component- test, firstly, aiming to present and assess the capability as the relationship between buildability on site and The use of the standard unit brick is (conceptually?) stronger based structure is successfully reflected in the interior as well of the CNC milling effects with different morphologic mass customization. than the linear units since post-customisation alters the topology as exterior of the project. Visually, the project is successful properties of traces and wooden wastes, varied From this project, we believe the wooden fabrication rather than the length of the piece. However, it is understandable in creating an extension which is greatly harmonious with the parametric setup in CAD/CAM technology including plays a significant role in digital fabricating domain why the combination of linear and unitised options were used, existing temple. However, there are some decisions which shape the ‘max step-over’, the ‘max step-down’, the size of to mediate the great leap from crafting to digital age. considering the selected unit shape and the different adaptations the overall form of the temple extension, that are not explained drill bit etc. are sent to the milling machine. Meanwhile, Our role as designers in the twenty-first century is to the components have to go through in order to adapt and react in this project. we try to relate the geometric properties of the renegotiate the relationship between the technology to the current conditions on site. The project has two different surface patterning. The first milled object characterised by the successive slopes of digital fabrication (that struggles with predict- At the micro scale, it is interesting the way that the units one is a puzzle-like joint system of wooden bricks, and the with varied scale and space between each adjacent ability and a lack of materiality) and the notions of are morphed in order to accommodate vegetation and flows of second one is a surface carving for water flow. These two patterns geometries with the outcome and conditions of the craftsmanship (which are too time consuming and water. This morphing gives rise to a new overall geometry which integrate in some areas, where there are hotbeds for plantation, milling surface. exclusive). Therefore, we treat the traditional wood elegantly mutates and blends the content with the context. It would but the integration of these two patterns could be reconsidered After legible mastering of the milling process with material, combined with digital fabricating, as a have been interesting to see more information regarding the diff- and developed further. For instance, the pattern of the water following by-products, we approach further to the guidance to give true spirit of craftsmanship to the erent digital simulations that informed the final morphology in order flow is disintegrated with the existing brick walls. These areas architecture domain. Applying these material system digital age, namely bespoken manufacturing but to gain a better understanding of the decision-making process. could be designed while considering the connection points to the extension proposal of the Hanging Temple, in with profound precision and less cost consuming. within the walls. Shanxi province, China which consist of the delicate wooden structures, we mainly aim to achieve three architectural purposes. First, to reconstruct the roof structure to regulate the motion of water flow from water damage due to rain. Second, to guide rain

The Crit Room 94 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 95 The Crit Room THE SUBLIME WILDERNESS INSTITUTE

EVOKING AN EXPERIENCE OF THE SUBLIME IN LANDSCAPE AND ARCHITECTURE

pits have become a vegetated, seasonally flooded landscape with qualities of the sublime. As land lies fallow, it may recuperate. The landscape architect Gille Clément describes these brownfield sites as “a paradise of weeds, an artificial ground for unexpected evoke an experience of sublime wilderness through from inhabitable spaces, moving away from the assemblages of species and new aesthetic formations.” manipulations of light and colour, as well as its Modernist idea of architecture as a sealed enclosure A Project by Xuhong Zheng They become islands of biodiversity and abandoned relationship with the natural elements. by bringing elements such as water and wind inside. Course MArch Architecture, Unit 12 sites of wonder and enchantment. The journey towards the Wilderness Institute Jonathan Hill’s Weather Architecture argues, “The Academic year 2014 Situated on the edge of one of the fallow pits begins from a distance, by leaving the village of climate and weather were important to the archi- Supervisors Jonathan Hill, Matthew Butcher of Stewartby, the Wilderness Institute houses Stewartby on foot and passing by the neighbouring tecture of sensations because the Burkean sublime and Elizabeth Dow a community of researchers, environmentalists, cultivated fields. Then, one is led by a meandering depended on the drama of natural forces.” In this ecologists and artists who inhabit the wilderness path through the existing deciduous woodlands way, the building is greatly affected by the changing round the 17th and 18th Centuries, there was of both the landscape and the architecture. A series before turning to approach the building from its weather, allowing for a mixing of elements much like a profound transformation in attitudes towards of layered spaces form varied levels of enclosure, northern corner. Turner’s approach to nature in his paintings. Layered wilderness, which was partly due to its increasing certain parts inhabitable to animals and birds. The The journey through the building is constructed ambiguous spaces along this inhabited wall vary scarcity as more and more land became cultivated. building forms an inhabitable wall around the pit, as a journey through a landscape, a sequence of in their levels of enclosure, at times dramatising Through transcendent portrayals of wild nature by controlling entry and views into the site whilst acting ambiguous spaces that expand and contract as one the experience of weather by funneling wind and Romantic painters and writers, previously feared as a catalyst for wilderness to develop—through moves through, varying in juxtapositions of light and allowing rainwater to linger and reflect inside. wilderness landscapes became ever more celebrated. actions such as seed release by wind, rainwater darkness, openness and enclosure. The fluctuations By bringing the sensations of ‘otherness’ This was followed by increasing concern for the collection and release. The Institute also becomes are orchestrated in order to elicit feelings of the associated with wilderness into the architecture, protection of nature, with the establishment of a new centre for planning decisions regarding tension and release, terror and exhilaration associated the experience of moving through this new building/ nature reserves and national parks. developments for generating wild landscapes across with the Sublime. Spaces concerned with obscured landscape is one where natural and constructed As a reaction to the failures of the current Green the Green Belt and a seed bank and seed exchange views, dark reflections and colour immersion, aim to elements blur and collide. Proposing an architecture Belt policy and as a strategy to offer intense pockets centre for the region. disorientate the visitor and give suggestions of the that engages with sublime sensations of wilderness of wildlife, this project proposes the re-use of brown- The project investigates the Sublime as a quality outside without direct views. Along the same journey, is an attempt towards an architecture that embraces field sites (wasteland) across England to become of both landscape and building. The Sublime engages a series of spaces offer views out towards the land- the fact that we exist in nature, always subject to islands of wilderness, by allowing the land to lie with the darkness, obscurity, vastness and terror scape of growing wilderness. These act as points natural forces and elements. Rather than expecting fallow and for diverse ecologies to flourish. There often associated with natural elements and the of orientation that help the visitor or occupant to architecture to act as neutral, stable enclosures, are 62,000 acres of brownfield land in England wilderness of landscapes. These key aspects of the relocate themselves in relation to surroundings. the project argues for spaces that are stimulating alone. This is the new alternative to the Green Belt. Sublime are discussed by Edmund Burke in his 1757 Whilst the viewing of the landscape is important to the senses and evocative of emotions. The disused clay quarries of Stewartby, treatise, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of to the project, the relationship between the building Bedfordshire become key test sites. Since the our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. The project and nature extends beyond the purely visual. The brickworks closed in 2008, the surrounding clay investigates the ways that architectural spaces can building challenges conventions of what we expect

The Crit Room 96 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 97 The Crit Room One step at a time… tread by tread, riser by riser… up and down…

Jorge X. Méndez-Cáceres: Seda Zirek:

The graphic representation is outstanding in this project but What are the implications of the current green belt policies and lacks one of the main reasons for which the project was imagined why does the designer not agree on them? in the first place: Green-ness. The boldness of the proposal Does the designer get involved in the transition from a Most of us have experienced the act of going up car, as we explore how such an automobile successfully revises the idea of controlling issues of urban sprawl wasteland into a wilderness area? Where does the wasteland go a Staircase. The beauty of stairs is that they have would impact urban mobility and user experience. and urban density with a new green pause in a sort of mediaeval if it is replaced with wilderness? Don’t we need them anymore? no boundaries, they can be endless, and they have Continuing up the stairs, we’ll take you on a journey way which I find highly successful. It would be interesting to see Did the designer look at the qualities of the land in such areas? infinite possibilities that allow us to move fast or to explore the sensorial properties of a forest how different beings would inhabit the spaces created, how the Is it more poisonous or actually more nutritious? How does slow, to take one or two steps at a time or pause when seen as a city of trees. We’ll let you pause vegetation will grow out of control, expanding into cavities the transition from a wasteland to wilderness work? between stairs. Behind the pages revealing LOBBY’s and take a breath, before we take you south of the where the sun hits. One might ponder how the user and the Some of the sections of the project are quite interesting in Staircase lay the overlaps between architecture and River Thames, to see how Herzog and De Meuron interface between basic architectural elements and concepts could terms of understanding the project’s relationship with environ- other disciplines. Different ideas layer themselves used transitional spaces to connect their newest be affected. This ambiguity leads us to interrogate: what happens mental factors, such as light. A human figure could have been onto the study of the built environment, where annex at the Tate Modern to the main museum. in the system if this differentiation of chambers ends up being useful to understand the scale. A large-scale landscape plan could each staircase metaphorically leads to a different And as we make our way up the last flight of experientially monotonous after one mile of walking? have been useful to experience the size of this wilderness area. floor, a different strata. stairs, we’ll explore the urban implications of Up first in this issue’s Staircase, we’ll uncover an innovative system for mapping crime activities what the indigenous population of the Andes can through the use of mobile phones. teach us about the logic of spatial changeability. Keep a steady pace, dear reader. And don’t We are then beguiled by the idea of what it would forget your water bottle. be like to take a spin in the not-so-distant-future’s

The Crit Room 98 LOBBY No 2 99 Reversing Photography: Commons. SzabolcsWith permission Arany (modified). from Creative to the Future Nakagin Capsule Tower.

hen speakers of Aymara in the society points out in The Technological computational tools. Models that remain Andes talk about the future Society (1967) that planning, by definition, changeable till the very moment of their they point behind their backs. aims at fixing things, therefore flexible realisation could replace fixed plans. The past they position is in front of their plans tend to rigidify or never become I second the idea, with caveats. Often times eyes. It is culturally unique, but makes reality. Few past experiments that manifest computation-inspired designs extrapolate sense; the past is eye-witnessed. From the changeability have indeed fulfilled their the ideal changeability from digital model Altiplano, the Euro-American modernity promises. No capsule has been moved in to the tangible world, blurring the bound- must appear strange, obsessed with head- Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin famously ‘fluid’ ary between the two, like in Zaha Hadid long technological advancement as in the Capsule Tower. In many of the mid-20th Architects’ One North Masterplan, whose image of ‘American progress’. After the century flexible designs, resurfacing in organic forms are claimed to be ‘free’, while CHANGEABLE PLANS AND ANDEAN LOGIC discontents of 20th century function- today’s paper architecture, technology strictly controlled to achieve a particular alism, avant-garde architecture has turned offers an illusion of freedom in the form city-image. Like the experiments of the from revolutionary to evolutionary and of replaceable or mobile modular elements, late 20th century, an adaptable model now ‘involutionary’, as Emmanuel Petit, for instance, but it is in fact a vehicle of appears as an organic, scalable system, a visiting professor at The Bartlett, technocratic control; it constrains the a deceptively natural and compelling Words by Ilkka Törmä describes it. Laying bets on technological user to predetermined scenarios and instrument of mastery—but the reality progress anew, now in the name of sustain- particular technical systems. Even planned is different. A clairvoyant cultural critic, ability, comfort and security, contemporary spatial indeterminacy, independent of Walter Benjamin, brought out that architecture shows symptoms of intro- particular technologies, does not guarantee montage is truthful as a technique because version and resignation from the context changeability. Centre Pompidou, designed it renders the denaturalised state of the as too complex and hostile to deal with. for flexibility, growth and change, has artwork explicit. The same applies to a How can architects remain, in the words been rigidified. In the words of the archi- building. Reality is messy. Any future- of Koolhaas, “foolishly optimistic yet tectural critic Giles Worsley (The Telegram, proof design must allow the inevitable relentlessly critical about the future?” January 26th 2002): “The very freedom bricolage. Dana Cuff, in conversation The radical 1960s conceptualised it offers seems to sap the creative juices… with Tom Verebes in Masterplanning the changeability as a future-proof alter- radical architecture is not of itself cond- Adaptive City in 2013, stresses that a key native to the inadequacy of functionalism. ucive to artistic creativity.” challenge in computational urbanism Designing changeability is paradoxical. The concept of changeability has is whether one can “build in enough Jacques Ellul, a fervent critic of modern re-gained momentum from contemporary uncertainty and contingency… to avoid

The Staircase 100 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 101 The Staircase Photography: einalem (modified). With permission from Creative einalem (modified). With permission Photography: Commons. Déjà Vu

Bolivian Altiplano.

it becoming a gaming strategy.” What is adaptation over time. Above all, the study needed now is the Ayamaran view; looking asserts how spatial changeability is a LOBBY meets designer Joe Simpson to talk about back to understand the future, radical complex and dynamic phenomenon, but knowledge to understand changeability, some of it can be grasped. Parameterised, how future of movement in cities look like and excavations into the material past of such information can create fuzzy spatial how things have actually changed and models where contingency is embedded. how new, exciting creations of mobility might “No matter how they have given rise to new forms and No matter how successfully spatial typologies. Architecture and urban design change is parameterised, there are seem more familiar than we think. how successfully have always been about playing with cultural obstacles. The Euro-American

parameters, only their ideals have changed culture is intolerant to uncertainty. the collection of 1958. From Motor Company, Ford The Henry, by Ford. spatial change and their processing power and available It values certitude highly, that is how information has ballooned. commissions are won. The Aristotelian is parameterised, Uncertainty is not randomness, but bivalent logic dominates natural languages, Words by Laura Narvaez a question of difficulty—discernible logical conclusions cannot be arrived there are cultural organised complexity. With this challenge at from doubtful premises. Aymara I started my dissertation, Morphology and is different. Its speakers must express Adaptation: Case Studies on Demolition, whether they have witnessed a topic t’s 2015. While we can still imagine tricycle invented by Nicolas-Joseph the growth of suburbs and allowing people obstacles.” Nucleon Scale Model Ford Modification and Use Change, in 2014 at or whether it is hearsay. Iván Guzmán Doc Brown’s mind-blowing creation Cugnot, to the first gasoline-powered to work in the city without needing to live The Bartlett’s Space Syntax Laboratory. de Rojas, a researcher into Aymara, has of a DeLorean sports car transformed automobile by German Daimler’s moto- in them. Lastly, the automobile has given I demonstrated how spatio-functional demonstrated the trivalent logic of the into a time-machine device from 1989’s rised carriage, to Henry Ford’s mass us the freedom to travel when we want to factors influence demolition, modification language. Using various linguistic moda- Back to The Future, where a car having production of the car in the US in 1920, and where we want to. That freedom of and change of use in suburban building lities, Aymara can express a variety of the capacity of reaching a speed of 88 or Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Car in mobility makes us wonder, what will the stock and how their influence changes probabilities of an action. Incredibly, miles per hour is fuelled with a plutonium- the early 1930s, the vehicle has been the future of the automobile in cities look like? dynamically as the areas develop. Certain an Aymara speaker can draw precise powered reactor that achieves the “1.21 object of design that has had an effect on To discuss this, LOBBY met with urban forms are more robust or adaptable conclusion from uncertain premises. gigawatts” of power necessary to travel city life, freeing us from any limitation of designer Joseph Simpson, who gives us than others. Notably, some conclusions I wish I could present my plans through time. But the truth is that all this any geography. It has created mobility on a glimpse of how technology has enabled were against simple deductive reasoning: in Aymara. fiction contrasts heavily with the reality a scale never known before taking effect new options for mobility in cities and while spatial centrality is a prerequisite of what our cities have become today and on living habits and social customs. what we can expect from the future of of adaptation, the two are not coupled our role within them. This, in turn, has Looking back on its history, the car the vehicle. Joseph Simpson is Research linearly, but physical adaptation appears changed our expectations for the future has shown us the possibilities of growing Lead at Car Design Research and a Tutor to be higher where centrality is not extreme; of our built environment. infrastructure. It has narrowed the gap at London’s Royal College of Art in such a location maintains its rate of From the first 1769 steam-powered between rural and urban life, changing the Vehicle Design department.

The Staircase 102 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 103 The Staircase us transport services which bridge the gap “For me one between private car vs public transport. Whether these services can reduce of the questions congestion and make cities less car- clogged, walkable places, I don’t know. is, what are you Finally, we know that talking about future models is hush-hush, but actually going is there anything we can expect from the future of the car? Are we ever to be doing in to see a kind of ‘modern’ DeLorean, with an electrical ‘flux capacitor’ a car that’s taking us to see our cities from the past (or the future!)? driving itself ?” One of the ironies of the car industry is that it’s deeply secretive, but rarely brings out a new model which really looks you—the occupant, your devices, the different or is a surprise to anyone! physical environment around them and Future cars are going to become much obviously the cloud. Leading brands like techier, they’ll be lighter and more BMW and Tesla are already a long way efficient and likely to run on fuels other down this road. than petrol and diesel. But your readers Architects and planners nowadays argue probably knew that already—most people that younger residents demand for have heard of Tesla by now, I suspect? more walkable, bikeable, transit- If not, check them out. Beyond that, friendly communities. At times, even the big deal today is around autonomous the car is taken as something that cars. Audi just had an A7 drive itself from goes against these demands. Do Silicon Valley to Vegas—the tech for cars you think that the future of urban to drive themselves is here and a reality mobility will depend on the com- now. The hurdles to overcome are going petition between the innovative actors to be regulation, the sort of smart-city Lamborghini Marzal. (designers) who support alternative tech infrastructure we talked about transport systems? How does the before, but most importantly our own ✦ ‘cars are evil, let’s keep them out and ignored or simply never thought about. we’ll really begin to see the form of the future of the car ‘fit’ into the future psychological issues with not being in discourage them’ approach in cities. There are exceptions though. The first car change both inside and out. That’s of urban mobility? control. That’s what my company’s now Your area of expertise is on green techno- That argument’s simplistic—cars do Smart car and the Renault Twizy are a long-term vision though. It’s a very complex question and involved in helping car companies research logy and integrated transport policy. create clear issues in cities but I think we two examples where I’m pretty sure the With the advent of new digital media I don’t see a silver bullet answer. I think and analyse people’s attitudes towards In your own perspective, what would need to be careful we don’t over compensate designers were thinking about the city that has taken part largely in we’ll need both, but then I probably cars that drive themselves, and how they Photography: Tom Wood, Courtesy of RM Auctions. TomPhotography: of Wood, Courtesy the future of the car in the city look for the mistakes of the past. I’m thinking and how people move around them, from architecture, such as the renowned would say that! But honestly, I really hate gain gradual acceptance. For me one of like? 60s urban planning and, as you say, some the first time they picked up a pencil. Smart City or ‘smart urban growth’, the car vs public transport debate. I think the questions is, what are you actually I think the major change—at least of middle America’s cities. The way people How does changing technology affect do you think that the new generation most people use both constantly, it’s not going to be doing in a car that’s driving in the medium term—won’t be a radical live and behave is changing—with techno- the design process of the vehicle? of car is responding to these new an either-or debate. To me the key things itself ? If you’re just wasting time watching change in the look of cars, but in that logy leading the push—and I think the Like architecture, the biggest change technologies and ideals? are reducing car dependency—continuing another cat video on Youtube then maybe fewer and fewer people will have the need built environment and mobility services, over the past few decades has been the Absolutely, the car companies are to build sustainable cities where people I’d prefer to still be driving! When that or desire to own one. You’ll just access including the car, must respond to that. move to cars designed with CAD. This possibly even more into this stuff than can live in or close to the centre, not out happens cars could radically change their transport ‘on demand’. Mobility providers Cities and cars don’t need to be thought has reduced the development cycle and has those in the built environment. There’s in suburbs where their only choice to get look and become much lighter and there- such as DriveNow and Zipcar have a huge out and used in the same way as they were made cars a lot safer and more reliable. lot’s on the horizon, from car’s being around is in the car. But that depends as fore more efficient—so that’s exciting. But part to play. in the 1960s. But I fear that’s how some If we think of a couple of the techno- able to talk to your house and turn your much on building doctors surgeries, while there’s lots of interesting tech on In what way do you think the future of city planners and car designers still think. logies on the horizon—electric cars and heating on remotely, to communicating primary schools and homes where families the horizon, sadly I don’t think Doc Brown’s the car has an impact on the built When a new car is first sketched, do autonomous cars—then they have the with one another and the built environ- can live, as much as it does integrate going to be popping up and whisking us environment or the way that cities you have to think years ahead to potential to massively change the car, ment in order to alleviate traffic congestion transport. I speak from the experience back to 1985 or forward to 2035 anytime are planned/designed? For example, what design might work in the city? because you’re no longer having to and find you parking. The whole‘smart of someone who, for years, lived in a city soon. I did hear a rumour, however, that some American cities are designed In general no, because most car package an internal combustion engine cities’ revolution is something that you’ll but now lives on the edges—something hover boards are closer to reality than largely based on the automobile. companies—and car design studios up front and, potentially, if cars can’t see car companies really try to take I had to do in order to find space for anyone thinks! For now, I’ll content myself This question is one of the reasons —are outside major mega-cities and crash you don’t need all the masses of advantage of. While the first consumer- a family, find a school for my kid to with the nearest we can get to the Delorean I jumped over to car design. I was finding, are designed for global markets, so the heavy crash structure modern cars have. facing stuff might be banal, cars are go to, etc. What I find exciting is that for 2015, which has got to be the BMW particularly in the work I did on urban specifics of what might make a car work If we do eventually get to a situation going to become massively more sentient, technological connectivity and the i8—it’s even got gull-wing doors! (That’s design and planning, that there was a better in an urban environment is often where cars are uncrashable, that’s when intelligent and communicative with collaborative economy are bringing doors that open upwards to you and me).

The Staircase 104 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 105 The Staircase A Forest of Experiences

VISUALISING SPACES IN NATURE

Words by Benni Allan Benni Allan Visualising forests as built spaces.

hat do you see when you look appreciation of the built environment. believed to be for the punishment of our definition of a forest in this context? What great hall-like space, lined by trees falling through the canopy above rapidly up through the trees? Try to With the advent of cities and human sins. Likewise, when nature appropriates kind of spaces can emerge from this? In obscuring the view beyond. Through faded away, bringing a sense of fright as imagine this moment in a habitation, the relationship between a building, it is as if the architect is order to draw a picture of the fascinating the sea of trees I stumbled beyond the light was eliminated. The labyrinthine pretended place or part of a journey nature and the landscape with society being reprimanded for his actions. This qualities of forests and the capacity they barriers and descended into ever-greater corridors continued to twist and turn through a particular sequence of spaces. is one that has been unequivocally broken re-emergence of nature as a punishment have to trick one into constructing very darkness. A path leading to a narrow as the darkness enveloped me. Openings How does one describe this experience? down through the processes of city build- against humans reminds me of the different visual imagery, the following tunnel defined by an array of arches, like through the walls led to nothing but What is it about spaces in nature, for ing. By continuing to colonise the planet paintings by JMW Turner of the ruins account will explore my own experiences passages through a church, seemed to small rooms like archives and stores of example forests, which make them fascina- we risk endangering and damaging the at Tintern Abbey, at a time when he of nature in the New Forest, a once form the silhouette of a vast cathedral. a library that had been darkened to ting yet at the same time unsettling places natural world’sits supremacy and its fetishised over nature’s power versus man populated area in the city of Detroit. The shapes of the trees created a typology preserve the pages of precious books. to inhabit? A forest offers a place of refuge ability to offer good health and oppor- and the ability it had to reclaim its of spaces that I had never experienced or The blackness of these spaces gave a sense and natural beauty where surprise is all tunities for incredible spatial moments. land. The return of this phenomenon ✦ could have never really encountered in the of complete loss of orientation, absent of part of the experience. Nature in archi- Interestingly, however, as we experience in contemporary society generates a built environment. Because of my lack of any glimmer of the scale and size of the tecture is something that at times we the decay and abandonment of contem- misunderstanding of a heterogeneous I approached the edge of the New Forest, understanding of these new spaces I was rooms beyond. experience on the periphery and regularly porary cities, one of the most apparent space left in the wake of urban decay. framed by two large trunks standing only able to make sense of them through My route followed down along a as something subversive. Much of our transformations we witness is not just the Similar to the misconception of nature tall—like the entrance gates to a newly images in my mind of other comparable boulevard of trees and through its screens world, particularly in the architectural obvious perception of neglect but more in architecture, we are left with spaces formed urban jungle. It had clearly once forms in built places. I could see light like streetlights through discipline, fails to engage with the study the reintegration of vegetation and that have no clear definition and no real been under the ownership of the city, with Illumination of the ground was inter- blurred windows, allowing me to regain of nature, and in particular in forest natural ecologies. With negligence, grass intention to be experienced spatially. So the skeletons of built structures left as mittent, while the sharp shadows cast a sense of direction. The tracks in front environments—on a spatial level—choosing will eventually grow. It has been recalled the question here is, how can we associate evidence of the past. As I entered the from naked branches tried to catch me as of me began to brighten as the high roof to only consider nature as a mere aesthetic that the notion of ‘nature taking over’ is or change our understandings of the undergrowth I was welcomed into a dark, I fled. The smallest glimpses of sunlight once again allowed bursts of light to

The Staircase 106 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 107 The Staircase “Associating what we know Learning From the Past to new forms of experiences ENVISIONING THE NEW TATE MODERN is a way to engage with a particular place and give new meaning to unfamiliar surroundings”

forms of space. Another trick at play here is the almost fictional feeling of the New Forest—an almost illusory setting, inspired by a combination of real and imagined occurrences to create the narrative for understanding different kinds of spatial experiences. As architects, All images copyright Herzog & de Meuron and Hayes Davidson. & de Meuron and Hayes Herzog copyright All images we are not trained to understand or define these kinds of places. One has to imagine ways of relating to the changing typology Tate Modern, London, UK, Herzog & de Meuron. of spaces experienced to get a sense of the place. In order to do this, we try to associate new environments with already experienced spaces, using a familiar vocabulary in order to describe a new By looking to a series of visual field movement and occupancy. My curiosity account of the place. Associating what Words by Fernanda Lima Sakr diagrams, even the most visible access to took me to Moore & Ryan’s book, Building Benni Allan, Spaces in Nature. we know to new forms of experiences in the building—entering from the River Tate Modern: Herzog and De Meuron with our built environment is a way to engage Thames—makes an intriguing statement, Giles Gilbert Scott, in which Herzog & de penetrate within. The shelter above me a sudden realisation of the psychological with a particular place, therefore giving hen Sir Giles Gilbert Scott first whereas the other entrance to the museum Meuron express their intention of having worked like a refuge that understood its power of the spatial experiences I had new meaning to unfamiliar surroundings. designed the Bankside Power is less visible to the public, yet has the the ramp as the building’s main spatial need to protect from the effects of both just witnessed. So, given that we all have different kinds Station, no one imagined grand opening of a large open space. element in combination with the monu- harsh winters and blistering summers. My attempt to define this forest of lived experiences, let me ask you again, how the box-shaped brick building would I must say that the building doesn’t mental open space of the Turbine Hall: The feeling of coolness gave the sense environment offers a visual understanding what do you see when you look up be reinvented successfully into a piece of seem the greatest work of art at a first “We conceived the building as something of a virtuous space, although the silence but doesn’t do the place justice. Unlike through the trees? architecture that would move away from sight, but the moment I enter I began to permeable, something you walk through, made an unnerving, unfamiliar spatial buildings and architecture, the ever- being just another museum of modern admire how remarkable its spatial layout and as something that literally attracts experience. The crack of snapping branches changing qualities of forests make them art, but towards a conceptualisation of is composed—with spaces that can be people, a public piazza. And the turbine sounded like stepping over broken glass captivating spaces yet frightening at the a building as a place to be explored revealed in different ways, connecting to hall was the obvious place to make that on a hard floor. Every sound reverberated same time. The obscuring of sight, a entirely as an entity itself. This was my one another and, in particular, the variety connection between the outside and the like echoes down long corridors. The blurred sense of direction and an unclear thought when I first visited Tate Modern. of routes with which to go through the inside, the galleries, the people, the art feeling of someone watching me was more bearing of escape can create both dis- Whilst having the site of the River building. What intrigues me the most is and everything comes from that idea. (...) present than ever, as if the mere act of orientation and even unexpected panic. Thames in front of it, with the buzz of the architects’ (Herzog & de Meuron I think the ramp was very important.” exploring the unknown forest landscape All together they provide excitement people walking along and enjoying the were charged with the reinvention of Currently the museum is passing through was akin to trespassing into private land. and the thrill of uncertainty. scenery of London’s towering skyline, the building) vision to show the impact a process of transformation where spaces Finally, breaking out into what appeared What is clear to me is that a forest is a the enigmatic presence of the Tate Modern of Tate’s circulation on the visitor’s will be added and new circulation will be to be a square in an opening of trees gave site that tricks the mind. It is a place that exercises a powerful attraction to people, experience and how the outside-inside created. According to Herzog & de Meuron, me the sense of safety and at the same time allows you to perceive and interpret new inviting the passers-by to visit its spaces. spatial relationships shape patterns of the addition of a third entrance to the

The Staircase 108 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 109 The Staircase “The stairs, lift and ramp in both designs will not act only as connectors, but as transitional territories capable of producing unpredictable activities.” building, combined with the ramp, the Turbine Hall and the bridge, will complete the Tate’s main public space. For the archi- tects, the configuration of the internal spaces as well as its monumental form aims to engage visitors to experience the building by walking, moving and occupying every connection in its own way. The architectural elements—stairs, escalators, lift and ramp—will not act Tate Modern, London, UK, Herzog & de Meuron. only as connectors but also as places to meet and to create unexpected events. Turbine Hall. This intention is perhaps that connect and permit movement to Based on previous research I conducted associated with the function of the ramp, happen without a pre-defined programme. in the Tate Modern, the key architectural which links the western outside spaces to They both act as connectors but also as element that seems to act as the transitional the inside Turbine Hall; the ramp being distributors of activities that can happen connection from the ‘old’ and the future an extension of the outside—a covered simultaneously. But the interesting thing building of the Tate Modern is the bridge. piazza—is a transitional space, as with is that they do not define a particular use. The bridge in Tate’s current design functions the bridge, an extension of the open air On the contrary, they exist to support the as an inhabited space where one has the northern and new southern piazzas. power of conceiving events. Would it be overall visibility of the Turbine Hall, The presence and absence of people, the case that Herzog & de Meuron’s success- much like a place to be or to be contem- the ambiguity that exists in the Tate’s ful design of the ‘old’ and the ‘future’ plated; it is an empty arena capable of internal spaces may be based upon the fact Tate lies in its elements of transition, The Tate Modern Project, London, UK, Herzog & de Meuron. generating someone’s presence, maybe that in the new building, the bridge and the circulation as the key element of without any pre-defined reason to be the ramp are both structural elements the building’s programme? I’m looking there. In the ‘future’ Tate, the bridge will that articulate fluxes of movement and forward to find out how people will be converted into a passageway—a place they are, at the same time, spaces in- perceive the new spaces when strolling of in-between spaces, a structural element between spaces, transitional territories around the new Tate and what other that articulates peoples movement flow capable of producing unpredictable interesting experiences we might be from a certain origin to a destination activities, both transcending their able to find in its transitional spaces. —generating different spatial perceptions. functionality as circulation systems and From the intimate riverside entrance and turning into two powerful event glazed shop to the open air piazza, visitors incubators. The ramp and the bridge will smoothly shift scales along the grand reveal themselves as transitional spaces

The Staircase 110 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 111 The Staircase Jane Jacobs Revisited

THE USE OF MOBILE PHONES TO EXPLORE URBAN CRIME

Words by Martin Traunmüeller

Crime activity all over Greater London for Dec 2012–2013, where the darker the shade of green, the higher the crime. rate in that area.

ith the rise of mobile technology, geo- using open crime data records and anonymised mobile widespread in less central boroughs. I observed other places. For ratio of female population, findings located data from various online sources telecommunication data for Greater London within generally a higher female population ratio in the south do not support Felson’s theory, which suggests that offers architects, urban planners and computer the course of three weeks in December 2012. From of London, compared to the north part. Finally, a a higher ratio of female population leads to less crime. scientists novel ways to (a) analyse phenomena found the former, I extracted quantitative information about higher concentration of young population was found I found quite the opposite, in fact. The higher female in the urban environment and (b) use findings to crime activity as it happens across different urban in the centre of London, spreading outwards the east population within an area is more likely to lead to inform design processes. Such phenomena are found areas. Raw crime numbers (crime count) were found —which is known to be popular amongst young people. crime. Furthermore findings support the theory that for instance in the relationship between people to be higher in the centre of London, with some other a higher ratio of young population leads to crime. dynamics and crime, which has been researched hotspots spread out all over the city, whereas crime The method outlined here has both theoretical extensively in architectural and urban studies over activity (that is, crime count divided by people present “Makes me wonder and practical implications for urban studies. From the last decades. Most influential theories informing in that area) is much higher outside inner London. a theoretical standpoint it offers, besides the invest- urban design decisions all over the world lead back From the latter, I extracted metrics which act how from a simple device igation of past crime theories, the development to the 1960s and 1970s—and sometimes appear to as proxies for previously developed urban crime of new ones through re-application in other cities conflict with each other: In her workThe Death and theories that link people presence in an area with carrying on in your pocket around the world and over time to detect possible Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs suggested crime. I defined a total of six metrics and associated changes. From a practical standpoint the method that population diversity, activity and a high mix of hypotheses which lead to urban safety. Metrics are can offer an exceptional shows how new technologies, such as mobile phones, functions lead to less crime for an area through based on Jacobs (diversity of people, ratio of visitors allows us to gain better understanding of our cities ‘Natural Surveillance’, a natural policing mechanism and workers), Newman (ratio of residents) and amount of information through a fresh perspective. Mobile phones can work through the people on the street. Oscar Newman findings from crime science studies (Marcus Felson). as predictors of how urban crime may occur in the hypothesised in Defensible Space the opposite, Felson suggests that a high ratio of female population to understand crime in future whilst we can also comprehend the causes that supporting clear separation of public, semi-public found in an area leads to less crime, and a high ratio generate urban crime. Beyond presenting a method and private areas towards urban safety. Each theory of young population to higher crime—both metrics design practice.” that can be beneficial to architects and city planners, has been evaluated and indeed supp-orted by means were added to the selection. I argue that the different conceptions of crime in of qualitative research methods. However, such Looking at the spatial distribution, I observed design practice have become increasingly necessary methods are very expensive and time-consuming to that the population’s age diversity is generally low To validate urban crime theories at scale, I analysed with the advancements of new technologies. Mobile run so that studies are usually restricted to a rather for Inner London, while it increases towards the edges. the relationship between crime data and the six phones are just one of the most common cases small number of people and constrained geographic A high ratio of visitors is found within the centre of defined metrics. For diversity of people and ratio of such technologies. It makes me wonder how a areas; furthermore, they are almost never repeated London—which offers points of interest such as of visitors, the results support Jacob’s theory simple device carrying on in your pocket can offer over time, to observe potential changes. It becomes attractions and retail, and in some parts of the edges suggesting that higher activity in an area leads to less an exponential amount of information to view thus very difficult to collect sufficient evidence to towards the north and the east. Ratios of residents crime, whilst results for ratio of workers was found to crime patterns in relation to the reality of our built explain under what conditions a certain theory holds. and workers show a clear opposite picture between less likely impact an area. It was also found that urban environment in its physical and social aspects. I am proposing here a new method to quant- them: while workers concentrate in the central areas with higher ratio of residents were associated itatively investigate urban crime theories at scale, business districts, residents were found to be more with a higher probability of crime occurrences than in

The Staircase 112 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 113 The Staircase

The Staircase including the —

But don’t be mistaken, The Library is not only be mistaken, But don’t of“The yard the new station smells strongly bound to open you up to a wide range of up to a wide range bound to open you archi- scales tectural histories and theories in multiple thatand voices parables sometimes start like then turn into manifestos. historyabout architectural and the queerly diverse ways of writing it. These historiographical enquiries on complemented with thoughtful pieces are books that help determine the extent and nature of from the days ofchange architectural Vitruvius prospects ofall the way to the future our current in practices and the cities we live of and re-branding perpetual remaking London our clever writers through Trust you to guide itself. it! will enjoy you them, and we can safely predict of damp wood: tomorrow it will rain over Bouville.” At the end of Antoine the novel, clairvoyant. Roquentin is obviously And we will be too. hope you 115115 ,

Nausea ‘Tenir ‘Tenir pour y y pour can you sense sense can you — voir clair.’ voir un journal ; that is what the French ; that is what the French 2 Library o yes, you who are just about to who are you yes, ! And if it is clairvoyance are you — 2

o So, please do come in and join us as we discuss please do come in and join us as we discuss So, Keep a diaryKeep to see clearly of historian protagonist Sartre’s Jean-Paul Antoine Roquentin, notes as he starts chronicling Blimey! experience in his newhis recent diary. Dear reader N enter the LOBBY the importance of his act? If is right, Roquentin then historiography is the medium of clair’ ‘voir par excellence the Librarycongratulations, then is indeed after, the right place to be! the implicationsand explore of future the past for theory a look at architectural and practice. Have ofour select group interlocutors first. It includes and practitioners historians architectural renowned and Sam Jacob, Emmanuel Petit Adrian Forty, like of generation along with a younger researchers, Pilkey. Brent by here indicatively represented on historiography are Their personal takes LOBBY N LOBBY

Photography: Märta Thisner. 2

o LOBBY N LOBBY 114 The Staircase have written pieces that were nothing to which was locked into an internal discourse Words by Stylianos Giamarelos do with to my work, yet corresponded within architecture. Although it claimed to my interests. I have always liked thinking to be a Marxist project, it seemed to of objects in relation to theories—what be more concerned with interpreting The Clear Sight drian Forty needs no intro- does the theory say about this object, but architecture within its own terms. Some duction. Almost synonymous also what does the object say about the of what they said was interesting, but with the Architectural History theory? I think that the book manages to it didn’t strike me as the way to go. & Theory programmes at The Bartlett reflect the fact that my work has been neither How did you embody that programme of an Architectural School of Architecture, his research and entirely empirical, nor entirely theoretical. in a certain academic curriculum? teaching trajectories have certainly left How did you see your own work evolving What we did was to look at many his unmistakeable mark on the discipline over time? Do your three major books different things, you know, I didn’t want at large. Recently retired after more than form part of a common research to teach an orthodoxy, but instead to Historian four decades of intense academic activity, project? Is there a common thread rethink critically the possible alternatives. Forty agreed to be interviewed by LOBBY that goes through all of them? I have never been doctrinaire in the sense on the occasion of the publication of the My work has always been about that ‘no, you have to do it like this’. I have aptly titled Forty Ways to Think about situating architecture within some kind tried to be open, looking at different Architecture anthology, compiled and edited of a social process, and trying to figure by some of his many distinguished coll- out what goes on in that process. All eagues, friends and students over the years. the books I have worked on have really “I wanted to been about that. It’s true that I have also ✦ sometimes looked at architecture as a find ways to practice in its own right, but that has Did this book really come as a surprise never been a primary concern of mine. think about to you? I always wanted to know how architecture I knew nothing about it until I was operates as part of the glue—or is it the architecture in Photography: Frankie Meinhof.Photography: rather mysteriously led into a room one lubricant?—of social life. For everyone, evening last June. I thought I was being whether they are producers, users or the expanded taken to something organised by the consumers, what are its consequences? students of the MA programme. But What does it say about relationships cultural field.” instead the room contained about between people, between people and 20 people, many old friends, and I was objects, and about people themselves? presented with this book. I never guessed I have never seen the study of architect- schools of thought in addition to those that they had been putting this together ure as being just about buildings. of traditional architectural theory and —it was one of the nicest surprises I have Does this approach relate to your history—and not to fix upon just one, ever had in my life! All those people had original academic training as ultimately restricted point of view. written such generous, thoughtful pieces. a historian? I never found that appealing. I was overwhelmed! Partly, yes. Never having formally And how did you approach teaching What do you think of the book itself? studied architecture, I suppose I always first-year students? It’s a very nice format, with very short felt I was an outsider within the field of I always enjoyed teaching first-year pieces—1000 words or so—and that architecture, and that gave me a slight students because you are talking to young allows, you know, for a lot of variety. critical distance. people when they are at their most receptive, Some of them are directly about me, What was the state of the profession before their ideas have started to become others are not about me at all, but when you took up the organisation of fixed. I wanted to see if I could show new somehow they all relate to things that The Bartlett Master’s programme in students starting out how to interrogate I have been interested in or worked on. architectural history in the late 1970s? buildings and cities, to indicate something Objects, desires, words, buildings, materials, culture: Did you find anything you didn’t really Well, architectural history was then of the range of ideas that it is possible expect in those pieces, in relation largely taken up with what architects to have about them. Objects, buildings In his lifelong trajectory, Adrian Forty has added whatever to your work, your thinking and did—and that still to some extent continues are not entirely mute, passive. But what their impact on other people? to be true. So my interest in applying are the means we have in order to think it takes in the mix of architectural historiography, in order Yes, people recalled things that I had Marxist thinking to architectural history about them? I think I was both modest forgotten about or they have interpreted was to get away from that. I wanted to and probably over-ambitious with this to help us see our profession as clearly as we possibly can. things in ways that I could not have anti- find ways to think about architecture in programme. I wanted to introduce cipated. I can’t speak about any individuals, the expanded cultural field. It wasn’t students to a field about which there but what struck me was the way in which obvious how one was to do that, certainly were many different ways of thinking, some people seem to have understood what at the time when I started there were not all of them now fashionable. That I have been interested in, without neces- rather few precedents. There was this meant returning to texts by people who sarily referring to my work at all, and to ‘factory’ in Italy around Manfredo Tafuri, have been thinking hard about these

The Library 116 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 117 The Library criticism, it is important to stress that set of values and beliefs and those of practicing architects and theorists didn’t at the time when I started, there was no a non-professional public? This mismatch like history at all, they thought it would critique at all of design as part of the was interesting to me as it has also been contaminate people’s minds. I can see “What I have process of production, and without that, a feature of modern architecture in now that they were afraid it might it would not have been possible to go on general. I say this to stress that Concrete undermine their attempts to establish tried to do was and present an alternative view of design and Culture is not so much about concrete architecture as an agency for social in terms of the culture of consumption. itself as about relationships between change. Too much looking at history to discourage Since you mentioned that this all started groups of people. Concrete as a baro- might lead people to realise that from your teaching at a School of meter, if you like, of how values are architecture’s record as a means of architects from design, I was wondering what is your formed and sustained. The book is about bringing about changes in society hasn’t take on the relationship between concrete as a belief system; about the been that great. At the time I started out, thinking that only architectural history and practice? place concrete occupies inside our heads, the confidence of the profession had just Well, what I have tried to do was to and the way it has caused us to organise climaxed and architects were still regarded architects make discourage architects from thinking that our minds. as powerful. Well, now architecture is in only architects make architecture. I’d In a way, this goes back to what has a more desperate state—people are open architecture.” like people to be able to accept that as probably been the biggest theoretical to anything that might save architecture. a reality, without causing them to panic influence on me, the work of Roland To think about architecture as a discipline or be plunged into depression. I wanted Barthes. In Mythologies, which is the first with a history no longer runs the risk of architects to understand what their part book of his that I read, he says, “I am not damaging its reputation and might even in that process could be, and where there concerned with what things mean; I am allow us to make a little more sense of might be room for them to be effective concerned with how they mean.” That what is happening to architecture now. matters for at least the last 500 years. team and introduced feminist philosophy (1986), for instance, I started working amidst all the things that happen—many really struck me. How is it that some And what about the future of archi- Let’s enjoy this treasure chest of thought, into our discussions of the built environ- on it when I was teaching at a School of them quite independently of what an things have meaning, how do they acquire tectural history itself, especially and find out what’s in it, what have all ment. So the programme has developed of Design; and I was aware that there architect may intend or desire. I really that meaning, and what is the system in the light of recent developments those people had to say? Has it all been and expanded as a result of those interests was no discussion about the history wanted people to have a sense of the within which meanings circulate? These like the last Venice Biennale of futile? Hopefully not. I used to introduce —and that is good, because, you know, of the activity within which students activity of architecture as being part questions have always stayed with me. Architecture taking the form of the course was by saying, ‘If you were this programme has always been a loose were involved except in terms that were of a larger process. And I suppose the In one of your recent keynote speeches, a historical research project? students of medicine, the first thing you container, into which people can bring moralistic—according to which, you point about Words and Buildings (2000) I remember you remarking that I was at a book launch at the Biennale would do is to dissect a cadaver. You take new enthusiasms. This is the advantage know, design was expected to be ‘good’ is to show that architects don’t control architectural historians have not last summer, and the publisher of the book, a dead body and you cut it up and you of not being doctrinaire. for people somehow (though nobody ever language; language is produced by yet found a common disciplinary the respected Norwegian publisher Lars learn about anatomy. Well, what would be Do you feel your own research interests seemed to be able to say what the ‘good’ language users. And that could be taken way to treat time in their work. Müller, said outright, “The architectural the architectural or urbanistic equivalent shifted along with the MA pro- was). This ethical view dominated all the as a parable for the whole world of Works of architecture have a monograph is dead.” I never expected of dissecting a cadaver?’ In a way, I offered gramme? How did your research discussions about design and I thought architecture—architecture is not made peculiarity as historical objects in to hear an architectural publisher say them an analysis of those elements of relate to your teaching? it would be very helpful to find another only by architects; it is produced socially. that they exist in the present and are that and certainly not so categorically. our built environment (doors, walls, I used to keep my research separate way of thinking about design as a I always wanted architects to see what the in familiar use in the world that we live He thought that the only way for books boundaries, etc.) that are something like from my teaching. The thing about process which changed things in ways consequences of that are for architecture. in, yet also had a possibly quite different to go was to present architectural history the body’s organs, but an analysis that teaching is that you have to have a certain that, while they might be good for some At the same time, I recognise that if you existence in historical time. So, you have through collective, plural voices. And yes, used the techniques of history, rather degree of certainty, you have to know people, could also be bad for others. So say to people ‘you know, all these things to deal with two or more temporalities. that was the purpose of the Architecture than those of anatomical dissection. What what you think in order to teach. Whereas what I wanted was to offer a view of are outside your control’, it produces People often assume that because build- Biennale: to look for other ways of you need to know is what questions to ask in research, it is all about not being sure design as a social process. Objects of a sense of despair and hopelessness, a ings exist in the present, that is the sum approaching architecture’s history. when you are confronted with any one what you think and being open to doubt. Desire is not about design as a means reality in which most practising architects total of their existence, but that is not Koolhaas’s manifesto for the Biennale of those objects. I think there is a set of I never really found the two compatible, of making life more beautiful or stylish, live. So, at the same time, people need the case. You have constantly to mediate was a very inspiring and interesting one. skills you can acquire, and then you can because each requires a different state of but about design as a necessary stage of to have a feeling that what they do is between these two different forms of And though the response of the various familiarise yourself with all the alter- mind. So I would not say there has been production. I wanted to talk about the anchored somewhere and is not necessarily existence for buildings—as they are to participants was uneven, I would say native ways of thinking that go along any direct relationship, but obviously way in which design is generated through entirely pointless or futile. I’d like my us now and as they were at all previous that the idea behind the Biennale was with those skills. things that I read and talked about while productive processes, and at the same time students to find that balance and measure times. I don’t think that on the whole important. If it means architectural How did the Master’s programme evolve teaching provoked me and guided me in itself generates processes of production. the reality of practice against knowledge architectural historians have found history becoming non-monographic, over the course of more than three my research. The book was less about the other of the wider processes through which a way to deal with this problem very then I would subscribe to that. decades? What do you yourself think of your end of the process, about users, everyday buildings are produced. satisfactorily. Well, I think it’s become more diverse earlier work now, in the light of cultures, it was more about the way design Was there a similar drive behind your I would like us to close with your and open as the programme has very much your subsequent development? Is has been used instrumentally by producers, Concrete and Culture project (2012)? thoughts about history and the followed the interests of the people who there something you might have and ultimately capital, in order to shape Well, in that case, I was struck by future of architectural practice. have taught on the course. For example, done differently? the world as we know it. The main criticism the fact that a group of professionals Over the last twenty years, archi- when Iain Borden arrived, and he was Well, my earlier works belong in a of the book was that I didn’t pay enough could be so enthused about a substance tecture as a practice has become much interested in Lefebvre, this added a whole moment in time, they are of their time, attention to consumers, to the extent that —concrete—that was so detested by the more open to historical research. When new dimension to what we read and talked and they should be seen as the result of culture is made by people in the course of general public. How could there be this I started, architectural history was bas- about. And then Jane Rendell joined the that. If we think about Objects of Desire their daily lives. While I acknowledge this discrepancy between the professionals’ ically regarded as an irrelevance. Many

The Library 118 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 119 The Library practical, efficient or up-to-date… Or could it? So, just to clarify, what we have here is an oily, Well, I would now like to show how this ancient book naked architect, who wants to work for the emperor The Naked Architect is actually still very much relevant today and how and has designed a giant statue, holding a full scale a practicing architect especially still has a lot to city, to be carved into a mountain… Right. learn from Vitruvius, our great contemporary. Alexander was, in fact, very well impressed. From AN ANCIENT ANECDOTE So, forget the orders! Never mind the triad! Step that moment on, Dinocrates worked for the emperor FOR OUR PRESENT PRACTICES aside, Vitruvian man! Let’s try to cast a new gaze on a regular basis. Even though his giant statue did upon our ‘Architecture 1.1’… not get built—I think we would remember something In the Introduction to his second book on building like that—he did get to design a whole city in honour techniques, Vitruvius recounts the story of Dinocrates of Alexander’s greatness, called Alexandria of Egypt. of Rhodes, a Greek architect who lived a few hundred Now, taking this episode out of its historical Dinocrates’s audacious design for the Colossus of Mount Athos from a mid-18th century print (Heidelberg University Library). print (Heidelberg University Mount Athos from a mid-18th century Dinocrates’s audacious design for the Colossus of years before him. Dinocrates was a very ambitious and cultural context would be extremely dangerous. man, apparently “full of confidence in his own ideas However, Vitruvius’s point is quite straightforward: and skill.” He wanted to work for no less than Dinocrates’s behaviour was unusual, eccentric and Alexander the Great, possibly the greatest emperor definitely over-the-top. What I would like to stress that had ever lived by then. After going through here is the transcendent, clairvoyant and incredibly modern nature of this story. Vitruvius is addressing an issue that has always been extremely tangible and “Vitruvius is addressing an delicate among architects: how far are you supposed to go to make an impression? Is it good to go to the issue that has always been extremes and ham it all up in order to get your great visions built—bending the rules a little bit (or a lot) extremely delicate among —in the process? And, even more importantly, should anyone pay any attention to all that? These are of architects: how far are you course complex and multifaceted questions, but Vitruvius does give us a little hint. His story tells supposed to go to make an us how “Dinocrates, recommended only by his good looks and dignified carriage, came to be so famous.” impression?” Being himself old, short and ill, Vitruvius’s bias seems quite obvious. What he is telling us—here and elsewhere in the book—is that if you are a good the official channels with no immediate result, a architect, your work should definitely speak for itself. frustrated and impatient Dinocrates finally decided His message is one of humility, sobriety, and temper- to take matters in his own hands. And his plan was ance. He invites us to study and avoid greediness just… well, I will let you be the judge: He took off or venality. However simplistic and naïve this may his clothes, rubbed himself with oil, wore a crown sound, his message is still one we can all relate to. et’s face it, Vitruvius is not the man he used to of poplar leaves on his head and a lion’s skin on his In the end, architectural practice seems to have Words by Gregorio Astengo be. He has lost the appeal and charm that used shoulder, and walked straight into the king’s palace always produced a certain dichotomy—between to stun architects all over the world. It seems holding a club in his hand. the architect’s design and his voice. Just think of that our famous ancestor finally got old, and his A bit crazy? Maybe. But the plan worked like the legendary competition between the exuberant great treatise, De Architectura, has somehow become a charm, and Alexander was very much intrigued Bernini and the introverted Borromini in 17th outdated. After all, it was written more than 2000 to meet this naked, confident man, wandering around Century Rome, or Frank’s and Corbu’s uncompro- years ago. It is true that the book was an uncontested his premises. After all, Dinocrates was a man “of very mising attitudes towards clients and colleagues just best-seller for at least 400 years, from the late lofty stature and pleasing countenance, finely formed, to name a few. Middle-Ages to the Enlightenment. But, like all things, and extremely dignified.” Don’t forget that the lion Our own architectural idols seem to all be great Vitruvius’s rise to stardom couldn’t last forever. Archi- skin and the accompanying club were then known designers as well as exceptional public speakers. tects eventually moved on and his Ten Books are now as the attributes of Hercules. So, Alexander asked During their public lectures and official dinners they the object of architectural history and theoretical this noble and handsome nudist, disguised as the are able to capture our attention with what is often debates, ancient language studies and archaeo- greatest of Greek heroes, who he was. The architect a contemporary version of the ‘naked architect’ logical research. It certainly doesn’t seem likely that introduced himself, stating that he wanted to paradigm. And for Vitruvius, the incipient risk here a practicing architect could find anything useful in work for him and that he had already made some is precisely the separation of form from content, those dusty pages, full of old buildings and ancient designs for the emperor. The most notable project design from voice. So if we do indeed have a voice, rules of proportions. Today’s architects are engaged in his ‘portfolio’ was definitely as audacious we should always pay attention to what we say as with current, real problems, like dealing with clients, as his appearance: a gigantic statue of a man, well as how we say it. And that, in my view, is possibly creating and building beautiful and complex designs holding a whole city in one hand and a bowl Vitruvius’s greatest legacy for the present (and the and looking for a fruitful professional identity. In this of spring water in the other, to be carved into future?) of our profession. context, Vitruvius’s contribution couldn’t possibly be Mount Athos.

The Library 120 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 121 The Library Back to the Future Historico-Futurism

of Formalism! plc. Informa TaylorCopyright and Francis 2015 from Reckoning Group, with Colin Rowe by Emmanuel Petit. LLC, of a division Reproduced by of permission in a Clockwork Jerusalem Emmanuel Petit presents his new edited collection on the work and legacy of Colin Rowe.

hile the first half of the 20th century in architecture was, to a large extent, characterised by innovations in aesthetics (accompanied by succinct and polemical manifestoes), the post-war decades witnessed the emergence of A VISIONARY TRADITION OF a more refined and intellectual disciplinary framework ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING IN BRITAIN which eventually metamorphosed into the highly theory-focused moment of the ‘postmodern’. Colin Frederick Rowe (1920–1999) was a leader of this epistemic shift due to his aptitude for combining his historical and philosophical erudition with the visual —Britain was the global leader. Planning linking the practical and moral post-war analysis of architecture. Rowe’s ideas were appro- Words by Sam Jacob was not just the preserve of professionals; project to the origins of modern British priated by a whole ideological spectrum of architects, parliamentary stenographers, religious life, amid the smoke and chaos of the who based their pursuits on very divergent deontolo- groups, architectural critics, authors, industrial revolution. gies. In particular, two opposed ideological factions Two lines of investigation of the transformation eorge Osborne dons a hi-viz musicians, photographers and film makers This visionary tradition of planning would loosely claim ties to Rowe’s legacy. In the of the episteme are key to the present condition of waistcoat and wanders around all contributed to the collective visions and architecture reached its high point United States, both the formal experiments out of the formalism, which Rowe would have had to address Ebbsfleet. Ed Milliband proposes of Britain’s possible futures. in the second wave of ‘new towns’ from neo-avant-garde and the neo-conservative attitudes if he was still alive today. rent control. Bank of England governor A Clockwork Jerusalem, the exhibition the 1950s to the 1970s. The fortunes towards the city could each be traced back to Rowe The first one relates to the development of philo- Mark Carney warns house prices might we curated for the British pavilion at of these places have waxed and waned and his entourage. This book unites ten different sophical attitudes towards the city, history and the damage the economic recovery. All of the Venice Biennale of Architecture tells (sometimes their fate has been even perspectives from architects of the former, theory- question of meaning in architectural theory—especially us know we’re not building enough the story of this century of planning, worse than that). However, it is not minded group, whose lives and ideas intersected with regards to the new urban developments in the new homes. starting with Robert Booth’s maps of their perceived success or failure that’s in with Rowe’s (Robert Maxwell, Anthony Vidler, Peter Near and Far East. Rowe did not face the realities of More than a century after Ebenezer poverty in late-Victorian London that question here, but rather their ability to Eisenman, Oswald Mathias Ungers, Léon Krier, Rem massive urbanisation and global communication which Howard delivered his legendary manifesto graphically communicated the crisis imagine new ways of life. Each emerged Koolhaas, Alan Colquhoun, Robert Slutzky, Bernhard had only started to emerge at the time of his death introducing the idea of the Garden City, of urban inequality. not only from technical and practical Hoesli, and Bernard Tschumi). In their critical assess- —when cultural heterogeneity became the norm rather we are facing our own built environment We show early attempts at reform, expertise, but also from incredible leaps ment of a key twentieth century formalist, these than the occasional and mysterious manifestation of crisis, and it is prompting many to ask the such as the Boundary Estate in Bethnal of imagination plugged into the mainline architects reflect on how their own positions came the ‘other’, and when the myth of modern progress- very same question Howard posed back Green—where one of London’s most of British culture. to diverge from Rowe’s. ivism, which he so vehemently opposed, had waned. then: “The People; Where Will They Go?” notorious slums was cleared and replaced Cumbernauld was the first of these In Rowe’s time, the circuits of architectural theory The second set of developments in the discussions If, as some say, we are entering a kind with social housing tenements centred Mark II new towns, designated in 1955. were mostly triangulated between London, Venice of formalism partly emerges from the former and of neo-Victorian age where issues of around a circular hill formed out of Its remarkable town centre was one of the and New York—an exchange between Europe and pertains to the technological and conceptual retooling housing affordability, inequality and the rubble of the old slum. first British megastructures to be realised. the United States, which historiography recorded of the architectural design process; it is determined opportunity have returned, perhaps it’s We trace how the bombing during Stacking public and commercial programs, as an extremely intense and fruitful episode of by the advances of computer-aided design—especially no surprise that the idea of the Garden the Blitz violently opened up light and topped by penthouses, perched on a thick architectural culture. Today, the geographical map since the last decade of the millennium—as they have City has re-emerged as well. And with it, space in the heart of Britain’s Dickensian bundle of infrastructure, it was designed of architecture has become broader and more revolutionised the methods of form generation and, an acknowledgement of something long industrial cities and how this was seen by to be infinitely extended to meet the needs heterogeneous, therefore a retreat into the same furthermore, the culture of interpretation in architecture. forgotten: that, contrary to popular architects, planners and politicians as a of this growing new town. disciplinary frontiers of architecture and architect- Whereas the former evolution reveals Rowe’s worn myth, Britain has a rich and internation- new chance. It was this space, literally and Its architect was Geoffrey Copcutt, ural theory—like the ones drawn up by Rowe Eurocentrism, the latter has made it increasingly ally influential history of urban planning. metaphorically, that the ‘New Jerusalem’ who drew on a fascination for Minoan —would be restrictive. Between Rowe’s last lectures difficult to conceptualise ‘disciplinarity’, as Rowe The British invented planning in its promised by the post-war government citadels and for the then-exotic car culture and texts in the 1990s and today, architecture did, without pondering the new technologies of modern form, then implemented it with would occupy. The dreams of social familiar to the United States to create and architectural theory have evolved considerably form generation and representation, and uncovering such ambition and skill that—from (and moral) reform contained in William a concrete, drive-in acropolis atop the and so have both the technological and cultural an alternative history of precedents for this context. Howard’s original garden city all the Blake’s angry, polemical and mysterious hills of which the suburban neighbour- grounds of formalism. The cultural episteme Reckoning with Colin Rowe is perhaps a necessary way to the last (and one of the most poem And Did Those Feet… were hoods of the new town are embedded. has changed. first step in this direction. successful) new towns, Milton Keynes explicitly referenced by Aneurin Bevan, But Cumbernauld town centre’s famed

The Library 122 LOBBY No 2 123 FAT Architecture, A Clockwork Jerusalem, 2014.

“flexibility” was also its architectural tradition in town planning lies not in We know that the problems facing our significance of our built environment as of an open society that we all feel part downfall, as it became swamped in generic the actual design models it produced, “We know that cities—affordability of housing, social the ultimate embodiment of democracy, of as much as it is essential to help us shopping boxes, obscuring its antiquarian- but in something that is more difficult tensions resulting from inequality locally the place that all our collective decisions imagine the future of the British futurist silhouette. but crucial to reawaken: imagination. the problems and nationally, the powerlessness of come together to form the places we live landscape. At the other end of this history is Howard proposed and realised his architects and the institutions of public and work in. With Blake’s words—“we should Milton Keynes, the last of the post-war Garden City dream without government. facing our planning, and the less than hopeful We also need to visualise the way our not cease … till we have built Jerusalem” new towns. When its architects, Hugh Walker and Llewelyn Davies realised outlook for the immediate future nation is changing. How are decisions —ringing in our ears, the exhibition Llewelyn Davies and Derek Walker, theirs through the machinery of state cities deserve —deserve their own William Blakes, often made in isolation—say HS2, argues for architecture and planning designed Milton Keynes, they mined planning at its most powerful and all Ebenezer Howards and indeed Derek proposed new towns, energy policy, to use the same imagination to build the British past of pleasure gardens encompassing. Neither seem to be their own big, Walkers. Nostalgia for Garden Cities environmental decisions, education and contemporary New Jerusalems. It’s and the picturesque. They welded these foremost in the minds of those who or New Towns won’t help. Instead we economic policy—shaping the future a call for planning to re-engage its traditions with the endless possibilities wish to start building Garden Cities imaginative, need big, imaginative, courageous of the British landscape? What kind visionary, entrepreneurial, sometimes of a technology to create a liberating, and New Towns again. visions of the future of Britain. of Britain are we building? wild past and to regain its role at the electric landscape; a place equally science Our show doesn’t hold the answers courageous Planning must become proactive The real skill of planning is to centre of democratic society to make fiction and pastoral whose houses dissolved to Britain’s future. But we hope it can rather than reactive. It must forward articulate and propose the spatial Britain a more pleasant land. into treescapes, whose inhabitants could remind us all that even at the darkest visions of ideas for the future of Britain that are implications and possibilities of society. live a life of leisure in the new post- moments, when our built environment inclusive. It should be open to ideas from It can act as a tool where policy, infra- industrial future. seems subject to uncontrollable forces the future.” all quarters. And it should express these structure and nature intersect and it can With A Clockwork Jerusalem, we want that imagination—both professional visions in accessible ways to the general do this in accessible ways. Planning is to show that the relevance of the British and popular—can invent new ways out. public. We should understand the therefore essential to determine the future

The Library 124 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 125 The Library BOOK REVIEW In Remaking London, architectural historian and urbanist Ben Campkin explores both the problems behind, and the latent potential of, regeneration as Branding a metaphor for urban change in London. He does so by investigating representations of the city alongside conceptions of material and social decay in reciprocal Remaking on relation. Through an interdisciplinary approach, his historical account traces redevelopment programmes the Urban Scale from slum clearances in 1920s London and the sub- sequent renewal of the post-war city, to the pre-2012 London Olympics developments in Newham. Neli Vasileva reads Ben Campkin’s Compared to Campkin’s historically grounded Remaking London through the tale of a London constantly remade, Gutzmer’s case lens of Alexander Gutzmer’s studies are rather used to support an ambitious Brand-Driven City, and vice versa. theoretical framework on the development of brand-driven spatial concepts. Starting from Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of the actual and the virtual, Photography: Meinhof. Frankie s a practice of late capitalism, branding goes Gutzmer argues that brands need space in order for beyond traditional advertising, in that it aims them to ‘actualise’ both culturally and economically. to immerse people in the process of prod- He then moves on to Peter Sloterdijk’s spheres uction, rather than just engage them with a product theory, in order to examine the ways in which these as mere consumers. In Brand–Driven City, cultural efforts of actualisation virtualise our notion of the theorist Alexander Gutzmer argues that brands need urban. And for the last step of his argument, he real social processes attached to them in order to resorts to Sloterdijk’s theory of globalisation, while survive; they thus exist in a complex relationship with linking the concept of the ‘virtual’ with Sigfried actual spatial structures. Brands both ‘actualise’ in Kracauer’s ‘mass ornament’. Through this process, and transform space. To explore this relation, Gutzmer he understands brands as a new medium. Brands redevelopment explores the creative reinvention of through time, tracing the reinvention of the city conducts a multi-faceted investigation of three main thus emerge as structures loaded with content that a place; David Adjaye’s Dirty House is interpreted as in both spatial and imaginary terms through its case studies of corporate branded space: Volkswagen’s transform our notions of globality, nationality and an intentional image of exterior dirt in the historical numerous representations. Autostad in Wolfsburg, Germany, BMW Welt in Munich, locality. As a ‘global mass ornament’, brand space context of its site and the artistic work of its owners; Branding, although a more complex practice also Germany, and Anting New Town in Shanghai, China. immerses people into the creation of a mediated and the last chapter explores the ways in which fine than advertising, is still related to a product and its Although he explores a very broad topic, he opts to urbanity and a novel kind of identity. art can respond to the image created for pre-Olympic consumption. Gutzmer’s Brand-Driven City is defined focus exclusively on giants of the automobile industry On the other hand, Remaking London opens Newham, and its consequences for the local by the automobile industry, freshly invented, it as both the car, and the act of driving it, are closely re- with the 1920s slum clearance in Somers Town, residents. Campkin revisits some of his sites over manages to keep its residents and visitors immersed lated to everyday life and the production of urban space. led by people close to the local community. time in order to illustrate new interpretations of in it. In Remaking London Campkin argues that urban However, urban space offers a multitude of other Triggered from the inside, most truthful to the decay, order and hygiene, as well as their gradual regeneration would be truly for the benefit of local opportunities to investigate branding and its influence meaning of the term ‘regeneration’ in its biological evolution and subsequent use in strategies of urban populations only when triggered from within a on daily life. For example, the planned transformation sense, this redevelopment is instantly highlighted as renewal. He aims to draw attention to the commercial community; unfortunately it has recently become a of the city could be seen as branding, where the city one to which the chapters that follow more often and political interest that often hides behind the drive campaign to attract private investment in areas that becomes a place of constant reinvention and perpetual stand in sharp contrast. This first chapter also for redevelopment presented to be for the benefit of struggle to generate profit on their own. Parts of the progress. Nowadays we can even witness parts of the introduces the use of the image in processes of local residents; or, in his own words: “to the short- city are thus reinvented and effectively rebranded, city almost turning into products to be consumed, urban renewal that is thoroughly explored through- termism and neglect or distortion of past lessons.” in order to attract ‘the right people’ who would be rather than meaningful places to live in. There are out the book. Campkin then moves on to the Brand-Driven City investigates urban space more ready to identify with a new ‘product’. Read in also huge negative ‘branding’ campaigns very often consequential redevelopments of the Elephant and as created to engage with a particular brand and conjunction, the books have left me wondering, is used in order to trigger urban change. Regeneration Castle area: from the representation of a post-war explores the way it functions (or not) for its real it now even possible to demand urban regeneration is usually preceded by a degradation whose image ruined city in the process of modernisation to the inhabitants. Gutzmer argues that brand space, processes that engage local residents with the place can be invented as much as found. In January 2014 conception and subsequent decline of two buildings contrary to Castells’s ‘architectural structures serving they live in? residents of the Aylesbury estate in South London, central to this very modernisation. Campkin’s story as tools of power by exclusion’, possesses a power often called upon to exemplify urban decay in the UK, climaxes with the case of Aylesbury, one of the largest of inclusion, instead. Hence, his book contributes protested to the way their home was represented on public housing estates in Europe. Its gradual shift to cultural studies of late capitalism and urban space, Channel 4. When images of the estate (although not from a promise for order—spatial­ as well as social, focusing on brands, not yet considered to have an named) were used to illustrate material and social to a representation of decline and stigma-tisation independent productive spatial role and offers a decline, the residents struggled to broadcast their own perceived as inherent in its initial design, is presented cultural interpretation of how brand space and the representation of it. Meanwhile, the Newham of 2015 in the context of political shifts and economic crisis. city interplay, putting a strong emphasis on human faces the reality left behind the glossy images that The second part of the book opens a more agency in the process. Remaking London on the other promoted the redevelopment of the area for the aesthetic discussion on urban dirt and decline. hand is the outcome of years of research on London. 2012 London Olympics. The story of King’s Cross before its current major Focused on the city, the narrative flows smoothly

The Library 126 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 127 The Library “Showing the Queering queering of heteronormativity Architectural at home may work to bring about History greater equality for marginalised How heteronormative is your architecture? Brent Pilkey sexualities.” underscores the political significance of seeing through established social norms and the conventions of research experiences of heteronormativity and homophobia in other cities. I think architectural historiography that accompany them. more needs to be done to draw attention to minority experiences outside of the

Photograph courtesy of Pilkey. Brent globalised metropolises like London. What would you say to someone that Words by Stylianos Giamarelos suggested this has little to do with architectural history? I’ve come up against this before. In ecently completed PhD disser- dominated by (white) men who tossed I eventually replied to this question by short, while my research might sit closely tations often prove to be some around homophobic and sexist language taking a political activist agenda—which with, say, human geography, queer theory of the most exciting reads on as if it was still the 1950s. Diversity seeks to bring about greater visibility or even theorised feminism, I think it is offer at The Bartlett Library. In his thesis certainly wasn’t encouraged and if this to sexual minority experiences of the city, clearly spatial. I certainly go into depth Queering Heteronormativity at Home in is what practicing architecture is like, to investigate not distinct peripheral zones looking at the production of space or the London, Brent Pilkey draws from queer I wanted nothing to do with it. This but rather ordinary domestic spaces. practice of creating a home, focusing in theory and geographies of sexualities, experience, which is sadly echoed by So I narrowed my focus by researching part on domestic materiality and a bit among other disciplines, in his quest more recent research in the Architectural LGBTQ-occupied (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, into interior design. to challenge the supposed stability of Journal, helped push me into academia, Transgender and Queer) homes in London. I have an architecturally-focused the architectural concept of domesticity. which is an amazingly accepting and What were the methodologies you otherwise not have been recorded. On that than this! I also need to cite the theorised article in a special issue of Home Cultures Exploring the everyday homemaking diverse space. At the same time, I had explored? point, I do think architectural history feminist argument that suggests ‘the that I organised—themed around practices of more than 40 non-hetero- stumbled upon American architect and In the main part of the research could make more use of oral histories. personal is political’: that every home alternative domesticities. In that piece sexual households in London, he argues critic Aaron Betsky’s book, Queer Space I conducted 40 in-depth qualitative What if I asked you to summarise your is shaped by wider discourses, in which I highlight a gay architectural aesthetic that queering—challenging convention (1997). This, along with a burgeoning interviews (both with singles and couples) research argument and findings in the ‘split-wall’ stands in for the tenuous/ discourse that circulates at a number —at home is a form of political activism. body of literature I was reading in human lasting from one up to three and a half a few sentences? porous divide between inside and outside, of levels (on TV, in media and through Intrigued by his research, LOBBY invited geography that looked at (largely) gay hours. I also interviewed ten tradespeople My argument is essentially politically private and public. With this porosity in a small body of literature in architectural Brent to talk a little more about his male experiences of inhabiting the city, that work in LGBTQ homes (e.g. gay motivated. It adds to the queer theorised mind, I argue that showing the queering studies). I make the case that there’s a project, and share his thoughts on the was the foundation for a PhD proposal. plumbers and lesbian carpenters). So stance which seeks to challenge heteronorm- of heteronormativity at home may relational and complicated link between future of queer architectural histories. I was then aiming to write a contemp- in total the research brought together ativity. In other words, the approach is work to bring about greater equality this public design discourse and how orary history of largely public and 57 sexual minorities in London. I asked one that argues normative heterosexuality for marginalised sexualities. ordinary LGBTQ Londoners make a ✦ semi-public peripheral zones where participants to submit photographs of is a fundamental cause of inequality. So Now that this project is finished, have home. In short, architecture is spatial same-sex attraction unfolds (think gay their homes and I also had interviewees I make the case that everyday practices you considered shifting from private and while a lot of what you’ll find in What was your initial drive for this villages and cruising grounds), using complete a diary. I deliberately chose not of ordinary Londoners at home work to to public spaces? The Bartlett Library focuses on canonical research project? How did that fit in London as my case study. But I fell into to use plans of the homes I was researching, queer/challenge heteronormativity. In While I do really enjoy researching architecture, we can’t forget about the with your trajectory as a graduate the all-too-common trend of lacking just like I ignored advice to take detailed the research I found that minority sexual domesticity, and I’m continuing to publish practice of everyday life in ordinary student? focus and clarity. Perhaps, more import- photography or conduct sketching while identity at home unfolds in a variety of from the research project, I’m actually domestic space. When I was completing my under- antly though, my own contribution to in the domestic spaces. I was keen to let ways. On the one end of the spectrum shifting focus completely by moving to graduate and master’s degrees in Toronto, knowledge was unclear. I had to come the voices of my research participants people suggest that their home is very research teaching and learning themes. Canada, I worked for an architectural to terms with a basic question: what did speak for themselves. So in part, my visibly LGBTQ-occupied, others absolutely One day I may come back to this area, firm. It was a place managed and largely I have to say that hadn’t already been said? project is an oral history that might refute this. But it’s much more complicated though. I’d like the opportunity to

The Library 128 LOBBY No 2 LOBBY No 2 129 The Library BOOK REVIEW Far From Predictions Photography: Frankie Meinhof.Photography: Blerta Dino explores Rory Hyde’s Future Practice: Conversations from the Edge of Architecture.

white flag dominates the cover of Rory Hyde’s first book. Was it chosen as a symbol of the pure and limpid intentions of the minds that lay behind architectural creation? Or does it serve more like a meaningful emblem for the authors’ debut in print? Starting with a widely discussed blog-post that dates back to late 2010, Hyde’s book succeeds in attracting the readers’ interest thanks to its straightforward style that presents arguments, current trends and realities as they are, as they are experienced. It provides a broad reading of what ‘architecture’, that so often elusive word, might realistically mean. The book offers a rich palette insights as they have seen them develop through of interviews with 17 brilliant architectural minds. their professional practice so far. The readers will By stressing the importance of debate and analysis, not find fully-formed grand visions or specifically Hyde’s ‘made-to-measure’, well-formulated and formulated arguments on the future of architecture. purposeful questions invite his interlocutors to Although the 17 engaging personalities come from elaborate their thoughts on emerging architectural very different backgrounds in this vast field (policy- trajectories, the possibilities for novel forms of making, history, community engagement, design, practice, and other innovative approaches to education, activism, academic research), there is one architectural operations. However, “this is not a common denominator to them all: architecture, their book of predictions”, as Dan Hill is quick to note in shared passion! his foreword. It essentially aims to gather an array of From Bruce Mau and Reinier de Graaf, to Lilet formulations that might help define the current edge Breddels and Natalie Jeremijenko, Hyde’s inter- of architectural practice from both sides: within and locutors share and reflect upon their quotidian without the profession. professional experience. Hyde’s thoughtful selection Hill also points out the contemporary realities and of interviewees ensures that their reality check, possible futures of a discipline currently dominated and the daily issues arising from the contemporary by all-purpose design-thinking professionals whose context of built environment production, is up to skill-set is no longer unique to architects. In his date. The relatively small architectural practices introduction, Hyde lays down his main concepts, represented in the book do not help us draw the experiences, thoughts and narratives regarding the “big picture”, though. Collecting opinions from contemporary reality of architecture (and its practices). star-architects and their studios would have in The 17 interviews that form the core of the book are turn allowed us to critically evaluate the difference also briefly introduced by the author. between two—or more—visions for the future of The interviews themselves are fairly short—rarely our practice. longer than a few pages. They were mainly conducted Perhaps the most encouraging message of the through Skype and only occasionally as face-to-face book is that the future of the profession is up to us; conversations. Every single interview offers interesting while reading it certainly helps us think through it, at food for thought for the readers, who seem to be the end, we are the ones that will make it happen. invited to ponder and investigate further for themselves. The interlocutors just provide their

The Library 130 LOBBY No 2