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Architecture in the Fourth Dimension | Boston, Nov. 15 – 17, 2011

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Architecture in the Fourth Dimension | Boston, Nov. 15 – 17, 2011 Architecture in the Fourth Dimension | Nov. 15 – 17, 2011 | Boston, MA, USA Life’s Net [or] a Framework for Growth and Change Eric Bellin The University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA, USA ABSTRACT playing in the streets of London’s East End slums. Over the decades following its construction, Le Henderson’s images glorified ‘life as lived’, beautiful Corbusier’s Quartier Modernes Frugés (QMF) in Pessac, and rich in its unpolished reality, an element the a suburb of Bordeaux, began transforming. Built in the Smithsons and their like-minded colleagues amongst early 1920’s, the QMF housing development consisted ‘Team X’ found lacking in Athens Charter urbanism’s of fifty units, stripped-down modernist boxes in four reductive characterization of the city in terms of four formal variations, built to house working-class families. functions—dwelling, work, recreation, and The machine aesthetic of Le Corbusier’s design was, circulation. For Team X, the fields of sociology, however, poorly received and residents immediately anthropology, and ecology were of critical began altering their new environment. Gradually, importance to the practice of architecture and buildings were re-surfaced and repainted, walls were urbanism, and these concerns led them to demolished and new ones constructed, ribbon windows idealistically assert that “life falls through the net of were partially in-filled—thus the QMF continued to the four functions” (Smithson 1991: 9). grow and change over the next half century, a process With this anthropocentric viewpoint focused that calls into question the very notion of an upon ‘life’, there was also a recalibration of values architectural project’s “completion”. that called for architectural production to be founded Although the “desecration” of Le Corbusier’s QMF upon “an examination of the whole problem of human was denounced by many architects, others would find it associations and the relationship that building and a source of inspiration. Constructed in 1970, Lima’s community has to them” (Smithson 1993: 241). It experimental Previ Housing sought to harness the sort was clear that societies of the post-war era were vitality and spontaneity embodied in the adaptation of experiencing momentous change, catalyzed by housing at Pessac, qualities also native to the increasing mobility, accelerating technological ubiquitous informal settlements of Latin America. At progress, and the transformation of traditional social Previ, a team of renowned architects—Aldo Van Eyck, structures. If the disciplines of architecture and James Stirling, Fumihiko Maki, and others—provided urbanism were to be focused on shaping families with a framework of structures intended to environments in response to new, emergent patterns support growth, increasing density, and change over of dwelling, what were our cities to become? time, a proposal that drew upon the contemporary The 1960’s-70’s bore witness radical urban discourses of Team X and the Metabolists. Decades proposals—designs such as those of Archigram, the later, similar ideas are being tested in the public Metabolists, and Constant projected fantastic visions housing projects of the Chilean group, Elemental, who’s of urbanity, and one theme that emerged amongst principle architect, Alejandro Aravena, has dubbed the others was the possibility of amplifying urban strategy “infrastructure as housing”. environments’ ability to grow and change. While it is While these examples present valuable case self evident that all cities indeed transform over time, studies of architectural models that provide a these proposals envisioned architectures which framework for growth and change, questions remain actively engaged the process. Peter Cook’s Plug-In- as to the relationship of each case to its cultural, City (1964) envisioned a framework with mobile regulatory, and socio-economic context. This paper living pods which could be inserted anywhere within discusses each of the aforementioned projects, the an urban network of technological transformability. conditions of their successes and failures, and the Kenzo Tange’s Plan for Tokyo (1961) imagined an potential for their inspiration of future proposals. immense structure spanning Tokyo Bay which would house ten million inhabitants. His project was Keywords: Housing, Informal, Growth, Change, predicated on the need for evermore speed and Adaptability, Framework communication, and he imagined the city as a “living organism subject to a continuous cycle of growth and PROLOGUE change… a form of organization responsive to At CIAM’s ninth congress, held in Aix-en-Provence in dynamic patterns of urban flow and changing the summer of 1953, Alison and Peter Smithson function” (Ockman 1993: 325). And Constant’s New presented their Golden Lane Housing Project, a Babylon (1959-74) offered a vision not only of an scheme explicitly intended to offer an alternative urban structure but also of an entirely anthropocentric counterpoint to what was perceived new social and ethical order, one which would unfold as the sterile authoritarianism of Athens Charter in a massive structure spanning the Earth’s surface, urbanism. The Smithsons’ presentation included and within which humanity would live in an endless images by Nigel Henderson, their friend and environment of complete and perpetual stimulation associate, who had photographed children happily and change. 41 Architecture in the Fourth Dimension | Nov. 15 – 17, 2011 | Boston, MA, USA While these ‘megastructural’ proposals have and first sight; but experience has shown that the eye will continue to impact architectural discourse, the very soon grows accustomed to these simple and realization of projects which exemplify their theme of pure forms and, before long, finds them more providing an urban framework for growth and beautiful than the complicated and cumbersome change has not been particularly common. Kisho forms found in sculptures and ornaments” (Boudon Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower (1970) in Tokyo 1972: 17). But in reality this proved little more than is perhaps one of the most obvious and best known wishful thinking. examples of their legacy. The tower consists of two service cores with attached living capsules, designed such that with the removal of just a few bolts any capsule could be disconnected, discarded, and replaced by a new and improved capsule—a process intended to be analogous to the growth, life and reproduction of a biological cell. But despite the architect’s intentions, none of the capsules have ever been replaced (Vanderbilt 2008: 179) and the tower has amounted to little more than a representation of the idea of architecture as a framework for growth and change. We are, however, not without other and perhaps more successful examples of this theme’s realization. ACT I: EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED In1924 the French industrialist Henry Frugés hired Le Corbusier to design a worker’s housing development, to be known as the Quartiers Modernes Frugés (QMF), at Pessac, a suburb of Bordeaux. Frugés had read passages of Corbusier’s writing in L’Esprit Nouveau and was intrigued by the architect’s ideas on embracing new constructive techniques, materials, and modes of standardization in the production of modern housing. The client’s need for affordable workers housing paired with Corbusier’s Figure 1: Dwellings at Pessac before (1926 - above) and stripped-down ‘machine aesthetic’ seemed a perfect after (1982 - below) renovations. match, for both agreed that if they “wished to offer Almost universally, residents considered Corbusier’s design the houses to the public at the lowest possible price, an utter failure that demanded alteration, while on the other [they] could not afford to spend money on any hand those in the architectural community condemned the QMF’s transformation as a process of desecration. unnecessary luxuries” (Boudon 1972: 9). Curiously, the very facets of the project that were criticized, As per the client’s explicit wishes, the QMF “was may in fact have been its greatest strengths. That exterior to be regarded as a laboratory, in which Le Corbusier spaces were incorporated within the bounds of the would be able to put his theories into practice and architecture’s structural system made their enclosure and carry them to their most extreme conclusions” modification an easy proposition. That facades were devoid (Boudon 1972: 2). Floor plans were to be more-or- of ornament made them blank slates for residents’ less standardized, and all fixtures, components, and personalization. That the QMF was altered to such an extent details were to be installed in Taylorist fashion, an was an unintended product of its architecture’s design. In his reduction of dwellings to the absolute minimum, Le exercise in serial production. In the end, Corbusier’s Corbusier offered residents a neutral framework, an design produced a neighborhood of over 130 incomplete structure that served as an armature for the dwellings, distributed amongst six housing growth and accumulation of future development specifically typologies. The concrete, steel, and glass structures tailored to the needs and desires of residents. About the were composed of pure geometric volumes, equipped QMF’s modification Le Corbusier once remarked that “it is with Le Corbusier’s requisite ribbon windows and always life that is right and the architect who is wrong.” But roof terraces, and were devoid of any sort of if life is always right, then why shouldn’t the architect play decoration. While the architect argued for the along?
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