Constantinos A. Doxiadis and Ekistics 1945-1975
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W Victory over Chaos? Constantinos A. Doxiadis and Ekistics 1945-1975 Lefteris Theodosis Cover: Doxiadis Associates in the Steppe of Iraq. Constantinos A. Doxiadis Archives, © Constantinos and Emma Doxiadis Foundation. Victory over Chaos? Constantinos A. Doxiadis and Ekistics 1945-1975 LefterisTheodosis Departament de Composició Arquitectònica Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya Director : Manuel Guardia Bassols Co-director: José Luís Oyón Barcelona 2015 Table of Contents Abstract vi Acknowledgments viii List of illustrations x Introduction Postwar optimism and Cold War anxieties 1 Constantinos Doxiadis and ekistics 4 State of the Art Review: The “Doxiadis’ enigma” in the historiography of Modern architecture and urbanism 5 Research Questions - Methodology - Thesis Statement 9 Chapter Overview 13 1. The Greek Reconstruction and Recovery 1945-1950 15 From the liberation to the Civil War 15 1.1 Constantinos Doxiadis and the Ministry of Reconstruction 17 The formative years 17 The establishment of the Ministry of Reconstruction 23 Financing the Reconstruction 27 1.2 The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan 32 Doxiadis’ pro American stance and the future of Greece 33 Constantinos Doxiadis: a valuable interlocutor for the U.S. missions 36 1.3 The Housing Program of the Ministry of Reconstruction 42 Temporary settlements 42 Rural housing 43 Urban housing 48 1.4 Development and Industrialization 50 Foreign aid to Greece and the vision of industrialization 50 Doxiadis’ “third way” between Left and Right 53 The Varvaressos Report 54 Housing development in Greece and the KH’ resolution 56 2. Modernization Theory, Housing, and Development: the Rise of Doxiadis Associates 61 Australia 1951-1953 61 Urbanism on the Cold War home front 62 2.1 Modernization Theory and the Development Crusade 65 The stages of growth 68 Private foundations and development 72 2.2 The Development Discourse of Doxiadis 75 The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Milan Conference (1955) 76 The “End of Ideology” 78 The overwhelming certainty of the coming Ecumenopolis 84 Doxiadis’ rationale for housing and economic development 91 Aided self-help policies 96 iii 2.3 Doxiadis Associates in the Middle East 98 Doxiadis and the Ford Foundation 104 From the Baghdad Pact to the Eisenhower Doctrine 108 Jacob Crane and Doxiadis Associates 110 3. Doxiadis Associates Housing Program for a Developing Nation 117 The Modernization of Iraq and the creation of the Development Board 117 Baghdad: city of mirage 119 3.1 The National Housing Program of Iraq (NHPI) 123 The Commission 123 The Program - Need for immediate results 128 The Sarifas settlements 131 Comprehensive action 135 Skilled labor, construction materials, and standardization 143 Establishing the guidelines of the Program 150 Housing experimentations in Western Baghdad 155 The “national” character of the housing program 162 3.2 The Master Plan of Baghdad 164 From a circular city to the Dynapolis 166 Embedding the local: the Army Canal and the Gossip Square 173 Sadr City 179 4. Ekistics between East and West 186 4.1 The Athens Technological Organization (ATO) 187 Education in ekistics 188 Horizontal and vertical connections within Doxiadis Organization (DO) 192 Documentation - Organization 201 4.2 EKISTICS - The Journal 204 Doxiadis’ role in the journal 209 4.3 The Athens Center of Ekistics: a hub in the periphery 214 The UIA Congress in Havana 219 4.4 The Delos Symposia 222 The redefinition of the Athens Chart 227 The Delians 231 The World Society for Ekistics and Robert Matthew 234 The Declarations of Delos and the Habitat for human settlements 237 5. A Science to Plan the City (and Save the World…) 243 From the city-machine to the city-organism 243 5.1 Ekistics: a System of Systems 247 An interdisciplinary and systemic framework of action 251 A descriptive and prescriptive science 253 5.2 The Research Programs of ACE 256 The City of the Future (COF) 258 5.3 The Human Community Research Program (HUCO) 264 iv The research proposal to the Rockefeller Foundation 270 The sociological perspective in HUCO 273 Defining boundaries 276 The principle of minimization of energy 280 The mathematization of reality: a critique to HUCO 285 5.4 The Anxiety of Complexity 287 A city is not a tree - A city is a city 291 6. Epilogue: Doxiadis Plans Detroit 296 6.1 Detroit: From the ‘Motor City’ to the Rustbelt 296 Between urban renewal and community planning 300 6.2 From the All-Electric City to the Megalopolis 302 The Great Lake Megalopolis Research Project 307 Seeing like a planner 310 6.3 The Urban Detroit Area Plan (UDA) 315 The concept - plan 319 Population projections and the optimism in Doxiadis’ planning philosophy 331 An urban renewal scheme to save the day 334 The envisioned paradox 337 Conclusions “Wicked Problems” and the Past of our Urban Future 341 Development and Cold War anxieties 341 Modernism(s) and systems 344 Misreading ekistics? 345 Bibliography 348 v Victory over Chaos? Constantinos A. Doxiadis and Ekistics 1945-1975 Lefteris Theodosis Abstract Constantinos A. Doxiadis (1913-1975) was an important figure in the realm of postwar urbanism, and yet his contribution has been largely neglected. This study reviews his trajectory and analyzes key projects related to different phases of his career: the housing programs of the Ministry of Reconstruction developed during the Greek Civil War and with Marshall Plan funds; the National Housing Program of Iraq in the context of the Third World modernization; and the Urban Detroit Area project developed against the suburbanization of the American city and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Each one of these episodes is examined against the background of the opposing but interacting “processes” that characterized the forging of the postwar world: the efforts to internationalism and the schism of the Cold War. The first two projects reveal Doxiadis’ persistence on the importance of housing as a motor of economic development and his seminal contribution to aided self-help programs. In parallel, I examine his ideas on urban-regional development in relation to the modernization theory, namely the doctrine that advanced the development of Third World countries according to the paradigm of the West. Finally, his connections with the Ford Foundation and his participation in events organized by the Congress for Cultural Freedom offer an opportunity to examine his oeuvre in relation to the Cold War cultural policies. The second half of the thesis broadly coincides with the period 1960-1975 and focuses on ekistics, an action-oriented interdisciplinary approach to global urbanization problems that Doxiadis coined the science of human settlements. It examines the emergence of the ekistic movement, the establishment of the Athens Center of Ekistics as a hub in the European periphery “operating” between East and West, the intellectual forum of the Delos Symposia, and the journal Ekistics. In a parallel line, the analysis of the ekistic research programs aims to assess Doxiadis’ efforts to unite two different cultures of planning, that is, the sociological perspective with the calculative spirit of mathematics and statistics. The study of Doxiadis’ plan for Detroit reveals the flaws of his comprehensive approach and discusses the ekistic methodologies vi in reference to the systems approach to planning. Altogether, Doxiadis and ekistics epitomize the transition from the heroic modernism to the visionary approaches that explored the consequences of a world turning into a global village. Doxiadis, however, sought to plan the city of the future as part of a global urban system. In his eyes, facing the urban crisis was an attainable ideal. Eventually, the contradictions between his work and theory were the outcome of his commitment to plan an inevitable development and his anxiety to put order in the urban chaos. vii Acknowledgments It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to express my gratitude to those who have accompanied me in this endeavor. This thesis has started by examining Doxiadis’ proposals for the development of Athens. Some of the issues treated herein owe a lot to the discussions I had at the early stages of this project with Professor Maria Mantouvalou. I want to thank her for showing me alternative ways to consider and understand urbanism. Several scholars and academics have advised me or have shared information, therefore contributing in one way or another to this project. I want to thank Dr. Michelle Provoost for the stimulating conversations we had on the role of Doxiadis in the postwar planning scene. Professor Maria Kaika has been a source of inspiration for developing a more critical stance on the issues involved. I feel lucky to have attended her PhD seminar. Moreover, it was a great experience to participate in the Authors meet Critics initiative of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR). I want to thank Dr. Penny Koutrolikou for bringing this initiative to my attention. Another turning point in this intellectual journey has been the “Crisis and Innovation in Modern Greece” conference organized by the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University. Dimitris Gondicas and the rest of the faculty are worth of mentions for their continuous support to Modern Greek studies. I had the pleasure to share this experience with Dr. Ursula Dimitriou, a fellow researcher with whom I have spent countless hours on the phone clarifying both working issues and existential doubts. The first steps of this thesis were supported by a grant from the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (IKY). A mobility grant promoted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport of Spain and the European Union has supported part of the research to the fulfillment of the European Doctorate Mention. I am thankful to Professor Pedro Azara for giving me the opportunity to participate in the publication that accompanied the exceptional exhibition “City of Mirage: Baghdad from Wright to Venturi”.