The 5th International Conference of the International Forum on Urbanism (IFoU) 2011 National University of Singapore, Department of Architecture Global Visions: Risks and Opportunities for the Urban Planet

INTERVENTIONS IN CONTEMPORARY URBAN SITUATIONS Kees Christiaanse

The above title contains two words that play a key-role for understanding the operation of urban design and planning as a pro-active force with a concrete impact. “Intervention” indicates that influence on urbanization in general is exerted by targeted actions within a limited field, and “Situation” indicates that any given urban condition is a transient and dynamic balance between the forces of the moment. Today, there exists a general consensus about the fact that the city does not let itself be designed but merely steered in a limited way. The production of built environment takes place according to precise rules, consisting of natural processes and man-made conventions and regulations, of which economic drivers and consequently the stocks and flows of people, goods and information are predominant. However, many examples of big interventions, I call them “grands projèts”, can be found in the history of urbanization, showing that the conscious exertion of influence by man on his built environment can reach considerable degrees of control. We cannot only see this in Hausmann‟s Paris or the European high-speed rail network, but also in the self-conscious development of an island like Singapore (Fig 1).

Fig 1 Singapore, Santosa construction Site

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It is not easy to conceive a theoretical model for contemporary urbanization - a reduced representation of a far more complex constellation of systems - as a framework for understanding. Formerly, such a model used to evolve from the history of models of urbanization and their consequent extrapolations. Today however, forms of urbanization are so complex - and at the same time global and specific - that no past model of reading the city can help us. As a result, we are increasingly dependent on fieldwork observations, as well as statistical and visual data acquisition of urbanization‟s causes and effects, in order to sketch a useful framework of understanding. If we look for example at a satellite photo of the earth by night, the cities of Western Europe light up like a galaxy of stars (Fig 2). In Europe, there are hundreds of mid-sized cities,

Fig 2 Europe-map of Europe-nightlights-satellites-woodley wonderworks with populations ranging from 100,000 to 1 million inhabitants. They form a web with an average mesh opening of approximately 100 km. Within this web, 300 million people live in a relatively high-quality living environment. This condition is unique for Europe. In other parts of the world, cities are larger, lie farther apart, or form concentrated agglomerations in an otherwise thinly populated landscape. In Asia are some constellations with somewhat comparable distances, like on the island of Java or in part of Japan, their respective conditions however are radically different.

There are some large metropolises in Europe – such as London, Berlin, Paris, and Madrid. However, mid-sized cities are the norm and make it justifiable to refer to a typical „European urban condition‟. These mid-sized cities and their regional networks form the basis for Europe‟s urban culture and economy. They have developed into an extended „carpet metropolis‟ (fig 3) and are functioning as a comprehensive global city that is

Fig 3 Carpet Metropolis - nueterlings reasonably understood in economic and logistical terms. The understanding of how to influence the course of their development is however less clear. Polycentric agglomerations such as the Randstad (the urban belt formded by , , The Hague Utrecht in the ) and the German Ruhr area (Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Dortmund, ) are often regarded as „global cities‟, comparable with London or Paris. However, an approach in which the generic European city is regarded as forming a cell within an organism on the scale of Europe as a whole, including its rural surface, provides a more clarifying model. From this perspective, European cities constitute an integrated, resilient organism that continues to function when shifts in gravitation take place or certain cells and connections drop out. The organism consists not only of the core cities themselves. Almost every city in Europe forms an agglomeration with physical and social spheres of influence that extend beyond its political and administrative borders. (Fig 4)

Fig 4 Hollow Core, The 30 million inhabitants of the region which Rem Koolhaas named „Hollow Core‟ – the (sub)urbanized area between the agglomerations of Randstad, the Flemish Diamond (, Brussels, Gent) and the Ruhr area – live and work in an urban landscape set between core cities and are responsible for a considerable proportion of the region‟s economic production and consumption. Within an hour, residents of Hollow Core can reach four international airports, eight intercity railway stations, sixteen universities, thirty-two international sport venues, and sixty-four shopping malls, while at the same time they live in low-density neighbourhoods in a fairly green environment. More or less the same applies to the whole of Western Europe, and it represents an unparalleled quality of life. Nowhere else in the world is everything so accessible, while at the same time so „remote‟. Within this landscape, the mid-sized European cities function as symbols of regional identity, centres of culture, knowledge and education and as transport hubs for goods and people. Their peripheries overlap with those of other cities disregarding municipal, regional and national borders and form sequences that extend across hundreds of kilometers. They are not so much competitors against each other, but rather are mutually indispensable and complementary. Just as the city centre needs the periphery, these cities cannot exist without each other and the network connecting them. In the fields of economics and the social sciences, this is widely accepted as common knowledge –

witness the extensive literature on the global economy, import and export flows, production and consumption patterns, and migratory movements.(Fig 5)

Fig 5 Systems of Central Places, Walter Christaller, 1993 In the early thirties, the German geographer Walter Christaller was one of the first to construct an urbanization model for this condition. He illustrated his concept of the “System of Central Places” with beautiful diagrams of the interrelations and hierarchies between southern German towns, represented by circles of influence. These circles were later reflected in the famous “Potatoe-Plan” for Greater London from 1943 (Fig 6) by Sir Patrick Abercrombie. Both read the urban landscape as a hierarchical topology of centralities. They showed for the first time that these “centralities” operate complementary in their topological relations and that they are the main drivers of urbanization. The urban intensity and amenities of these central places extend beyond the local scale, becoming significant hubs, influencing spatial, economic, social and cultural development on a regional, national or even global scale. Largely differing in character, size and impact, they tend to form a hierarchical network, a topology of places,

constituting the city as a manifold entity, not only in terms of identity and orientation, but also of economy, community and culture.

Fig 6 Greater London, Patrick Ambercrombie, 1943 From a historical perspective, these centralities include the „city-centre“, the „market“, the „business district“, the „railway-station“, the „government quarter“, the „shopping- mall“or the „stock-exchange“. Today however, this topology of centralities has been extended with phenomena like the „creative neighbourhood“, the „airport city“, the „loft-quarter“, the „theme-park“, „the museum island“or the „science campus“. Centralities constitute the key-areas to steer intervention. Urban designers may be aware of these indissoluble connections and mutual dependencies. However, they are still quite perplexed regarding the means of controlling spatial development, and there is a sense that there are no adequate tools available with which to exert influence. This feeling of impotence is the result of well-known factors such as the fragmentation of administrative borders, the distinct and contrary competences of various authorities, the fact that urbanization processes tend to follow the dynamics of the economy (which is even less controllable), the inability of politicians to achieve consensus on a larger scale, and the resilience of structures that have resulted from long periods of historical growth.

The urban landscape has become apparently chaotic, with radically different developments appearing to coexist in arbitrary ways. Essentially, however, this apparently chaotic urban landscape is extremely regulated. Almost everything that is built has been designed according to precise rules and regulations – political decisions, zoning plans, building codes, property rights, feasibility studies, financing models and programmatic scenarios. This hyper-order is reinforced by the fact that physically speaking, urban planning – apart from a few exceptions – is a fairly two-dimensional affair. Everything is neatly arranged side by side on the surface of the earth: the boundaries of individual plots do not overlap, buildings stand next to and not on top of each other, each plot has access to the road, and except in the 3-dimensional condition of the Alps and some Asian cities, motorways and railway tracks produce a merciless, horizontal segmentation of the landscape. Even unofficial developments behave in a hyper-regulated way. We cannot determine the exact shape and size of an informal settlement or slum, but we can predict quite precisely where it will occur and what it will approximately look like. Exerting an effective influence on developments through urban design is therefore also a matter of influencing this hyper-regulation, i.e. in the form of design guidelines and programmed-policies. It is an illusion to think of urban design as a coherent individual activity by one institution, as it is by nature a collective activity with vague boundaries. Nevertheless, there is more than enough proof that it is possible to exert a distinct and decisive influence on the development of urban areas. For example, railway tracks for high-speed trains are being planned and built all over the world at this very moment. They are the outcome of a highly intentional political debate on transport policies, and they are being built according to very precise stakeholder management processes, environmental impact investigations and regulations to protect the quality of the surrounding countryside. We can find hundreds of examples of intentional, extensive interventions – from La Défense in Paris, Canary Wharf in London, Marina Bay in Singapore to infrastructural projects, like the bridge across the Øresund near Copenhagen (Fig 7). The construction of the bridge to Sweden transformed Copenhagen within a relatively short time from a core city into an international agglomeration, with radical implications not only for the planological, but also for the social and economic patterns of the city. The bridge over the Øresund can be regarded as a grand projet, with an effect comparable to the opening of the Berlin Wall. Suddenly, people could commute cheaply by train from Malmö to Copenhagen, causing a considerable migration of Danes to Sweden, where the

cost of living is considerably lower. This intentional intervention with unexpected effects

Fig 7 Oresund Bridge, Copenhagen caused a redefinition of the city of Copenhagen in its context, forcing the local government to reset the regional vision for Sealand and Sweden. One of the side effects was that the airport and the new town of Ørestad at the foot of the bridge form a strong new centrality. The regional vision even includes discussion of the idea of creating an additional connection to Sweden at Helsingør–Hälsingborg, making the two shores of the Øresund into a ring-shaped agglomeration. Despite the shift in the focus of socio- economic activities, this process is strengthening the position of Copenhagen as a core city and as a regional centre within the agglomeration. Copenhagen is a splendid example of the way in which a precisely planned, controlled intervention (one that designers are able to control) can have enormous unknown repercussions (on which designers have no influence). Grands projets like the Øresund Bridge are generally conceived within a larger policy vision. The „miracle of Bilbao‟ (Fig 8) is usually understood to imply that the city rose like the phoenix from its ashes because of the Guggenheim Museum. The real miracle however was the complete spatial and economic redefinition of Bilbao based on the „Strategic Plan for Metropolitan Bilbao‟ (Bilbao Metropoli-30), which was initiated by local parties and was mostly financed with local funds. The actual grand projet of the Guggenheim Museum is only one part of this project, both in terms of size and in terms of the capital invested. However, it has been used in a very intelligent way as a catalyst (according to Salazar „the first worldwide success in city marketing through the Internet‟). Bilbao thus rose from the dead not so much like a phoenix, but more like Baron Munchausen, who pulled himself out of the swamp by his own hair. To achieve this, the development

agency Bilbao Ría 2000 was set up – an extremely efficient enterprise with only 25 employees, half of which is owned by the state and the other half by the district. (Fig 9)

Fig 8 Park on covered railway, Bilboa

Fig 9 Amsterdam Metropool Area 2040 Amsterdam uses a „structural vision‟ and a „spatio-economic vision‟ as frameworks for the development of the city as the core of a metropolitan region. Above the level of those visions lie the „Nota Randstad 2040‟, „Metropoolregio Amsterdam‟, which are regional covenants between municipalities, province and state. More detailed master plans have been elaborated for various city districts, like the new CBD called Zuidas, the waterfront and the airport. The master plan for the Zuidas (South Axis) is the city‟s most important

Fig 10 Amsterdam South Axis

grand projet, the implementation of which is managed by the (Fig 10) Amsterdam Zuidas Onderneming, a public–private partnership between the state, the city of Amsterdam and a consortium of banks. The historical city-centre, the Zuidas and the redefinition of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in the agglomeration will form the city‟s most important topology of centralities, of course also within a wider constellation with smaller cities like Haarlem, Zaandam and Almere. For a long time, the international airport within a global conurbation has evolved from a mere transport hub into an urban node with a significant role for the agglomeration. The enormous importance of connectivity and mobility in today‟s global economy has attracted firms, hotels, amenities and other purely urban activities that exceed beyond the basic needs of the airport as a terminal. This trend shows symptoms of generic urbanization processes: urban growth of primary functions driven by economic activity, consequently followed by secondary functions and finally constituting an urban environment, accompanied by a strong densification of built volume and infrastructural networks. Recent studies and policies therefore often speak of the “Airport City“ or “Airport Corridor“. These concepts, however generally do not reflect the true significance of the contemporary airport as an urban centrality, because they consider the airport from its exclusive and independent position in its relation to the city.(Fig 11)

Fig 11 Amsterdam Schpol topology analysis KCAP

From our perspective of topology, we observe the airport in its quality as a full urban sub- centre, in other words, as a vital and integrated part of the city. This perspective opens the possibility to read the airport as a place and its functions and connectivity in terms of urban intensity. The survey above shows that cities are using a quite similar range of instruments, indicating the emergence of a new generation of tools for urban development. First and foremost, there is a clear shift away from traditional planning tools such as the zoning plan, with its circumscribed functions and regulations, towards rather more strategic master plans that serve as flexible frameworks and political covenants. These master plans integrate spatial, programmatic, typological, economic and social aspirations and describe them with a broad perspective. These „open‟ plans are applied to various levels of scale, from regional „structure visions‟ to local master plans for specific city districts. Secondly, the grand projet is increasingly being used, like a surgical intervention for a specific purpose, to enforce changes in complex urban conditions or to exert a catalytic effect by means of a clearly defined, compact project. The third tool that is being applied more and more often is the development agency, a conveniently manageable task force that can implement projects in a more entrepreneurial way, without the burden of bureaucratic entanglements. Finally yet importantly, more and more attention is being paid to the processes involved in urban planning, including various forms of stakeholder management and feedback processes. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of these four instruments on a regional scale remains questionable and very dependent on strong personalities and political consensus. This is especially evident in the Netherlands, the champion of large-scale spatial interventions. During the last three centuries, the country‟s size has been almost doubled by carefully planned land reclamation. For this entirely man-made environment, created by intensive cooperation to keep out the water, consensus and powerful coordination were necessary. It explains why the twentieth-century Randstad concept – a horseshoe-shaped string of cities along the shore and around a central green „heart‟ – emerged from a combination of centralized spatial planning and far-reaching decentralized input of local politics. (Fig 12) All of these examples show that we can control spatial development to a certain extent, even though we have few means of countering negative effects and undesirable side effects. Sometimes, urban situations develop self-correcting mechanisms on previous planning mistakes, inaccurate estimates, or unexpected developments. This is what happened in the cases of the new towns of Lelystad and Almere. Lelystad was intended to

be the capital at the heart of the new province of Flevoland. It was to be surrounded by

Fig 12 Almere City centre, OMA smaller satellites, Almere being one of them. In actual fact, however, Lelystad never outgrew its initial size of 40,000 inhabitants, whereas Almere, due to its vicinity to Amsterdam, expanded into a city of 200,000. Almere is now playing an important rol as centrality within the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (AMA). Due to its unexpected growth, the original low-profile centre required an upgrade, resulting in the „Dutchtown‟ design by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), in their words: „an intentional and very well controlled intervention would be carried out in a city that had seemed subject to uncontrolled development: an artificial injection of urban life into the suburbs.‟ In conclusion, we can observe that despite all of the trial-and-error efforts, a number of methods and tools are beginning to emerge that deliver very promising results. As we have seen, this range of instruments, which is most effective when applied in concord, is present to a greater or lesser extent in the strategies used by many cities. This mixture of

instruments is not based on obsessively fixated urban designs, but on general agreements that leave room for change and flexibility without losing their visionary power. The secret behind the effectiveness of combining the master plan, the grand projet, the development agency and the process instrument is that they provide coverage of various scales and levels, coupled with the appropriate gradients between control and laissez-faire. Surprisingly, even on the highest levels of the scale, there is a tendency to hire architects to do the job rather than planners. Due to the combination they offer of evocation and visionary power with a sense of scale and materiality, as well as visual communications skills, they seem to be best equipped to coordinate and accommodate these complex and fascinating urban planning processes.