PROSTOR POSEBNI OTISAK/ 130-141 Znanstveni Prilozi Gizem Denizguneri
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
PROSTOR 28 [2020] 1 [59] ZNANSTVENI ÈASOPIS ZA ARHITEKTURU I URBANIZAM A SCHOLARLY JOURNAL OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING SVEUÈILIŠTE U ZAGREBU, POSEBNI OTISAK / SEPARAT OFFPRINT ARHITEKTONSKI FAKULTET Znanstveni prilozi Scientific Papers UNIVERSITY OF ZAGREB, FACULTY OF 130-141 Gizem Deniz Guneri Peter Cook Beyond Archigram: Peter Cook izvan Archigrama: ARCHITECTURE Towards a Critical Utopianism Prema kritiènom utopizmu ISSN 1330-0652 Scientific Subject Review Pregledni znanstveni èlanak https://doi.org/10.31522/p.28.1(59).8 https://doi.org/10.31522/p.28.1(59).8 https://doi.org/ UDC 72.01 P.Cook ”19/20” UDC 72.01 P.Cook ”19/20” 10.31522/p UDK | UDC 71/72 CODEN PORREV 28 [2020] 1 [59] 1-200 1-6 [2020] 130 Fig. 1 Swiss Cottage Tower by Peter Cook Sl. 1. Švicarski „Cottage Tower” Petera Cooka Scientific Papers | Znanstveni prilozi 28[2020] 1[59] PROSTOR 131 Gizem Deniz Guneri Middle East Technical University Tehničko sveučilište Bliskog istoka Department of Architecture Odsjek za arhitekturu Turkey - 06800 Cankaya, Ankara, Dumlupinar Bulvari 1 Turska - 06800 Cankaya, Ankara, Dumlupinar Bulvari 1 [email protected] [email protected] Scientific Subject Review Pregledni znanstveni članak https://doi.org/10.31522/p.28.1(59).8 https://doi.org/10.31522/p.28.1(59).8 UDC 72.01 P.Cook ”19/20” UDK 72.01 P.Cook ”19/20” Technical Sciences / Architecture and Urban Planning Tehničke znanosti / Arhitektura i urbanizam 2.01.04. - History and Theory of Architecture 2.01.04. - Povijest i teorija arhitekture and Preservation of the Built Heritage i zaštita graditeljskog naslijeđa Article Received / Accepted: 1. 5. 2020. / 23. 6. 2020. Članak primljen / prihvaćen: 1. 5. 2020. / 23. 6. 2020. Peter Cook Beyond Archigram: Towards a Critical Utopianism Peter Cook izvan Archigrama: Prema kritičnom utopizmu Archigram Archigram architectural utopianism utopizam u arhitekturi Cook, Peter Cook, Peter utopia utopija This text visits and manifests the critical utopianism embedded in the praxis of Rad se bavi prikazom kritičkom utopizma ugrađenog u rad Petera Cooka, u Peter Cook, within which resides a promising mode of architectural thinking kojemu se manifestira način arhitektonskog razmišljanja koji se više temelji na based on reflexive inquiries rather than absolute and closed utopias. It aims to refleksivnim istraživanjima nego apsolutnim i zatvorenim utopijama. U radu se revert questions that link utopia and spatial determinism towards questions nastoji preusmjeriti pitanja koja povezuju utopiju i prostorni determinizam na that revolve around utopian methodologies that become trainings of architec- pitanja koja se bave utopijskim metodologijama koje postaju poligoni za vjež- tural imagination. banje arhitektonske imaginacije. 132 PROSTOR 1[59] 28[2020] 130-141 G. D. GUNERI Peter Cook Beyond Archigram… Scientific Papers | Znanstveni prilozi INTRODUCTION sustainable environments, capable of evolv- ing in an era of expanded risks, scales, com- UVOD plexities, and asperities. On parallel lines, utopian studies are shifting towards paradigms which favor open defini- tions of utopia(nism). Within these, descrip- tive tendencies, which create thick separa- tions between the utopian and the non-utopi- an, are set aside for rather analytical ones, through which utopian aspects and method- ologies embedded within cultural pheno- mena may be unraveled. Thuswise, utopia- nism’s formal, functional and thematic vari- ables multiply. These mostly build upon the trajectory Ernst Bloch follows, claiming that utopia does not necessarily “require the imaginative con- struction of whole other worlds.”5 It may well be present as a pointed impulse embedded in different spheres of daily life. It may be “fragmentary, fleeting, elusive.”6 Within this framework, utopianism is not an inanimate concept, but rather, a dialectical and dynamic one, and it evolves parallel to the realities it is fed by, critical to, and influential on, within various thematic domains and in multitudes of forms and methodologies. The discussion of utopianism here in this text is built upon this trajectory, within which a de- U topia, as a means of reorganizing the re- finitive distinction between what is utopia(n) lationships between problems and models, is and what is not is deliberately refrained from returning to favor within the contemporary so as to accentuate the significance of meth- debates and practices of architecture.1 There odological varieties of a reflexive and critical are a growing number of discussions revolv- mode of utopianism, examples of which have ing around the place a revised version of uto- been existent yet pigeonholed throughout the pianism might potentially hold within the history of architecture. discipline as a means to revolutionize post- This survey, here, intends to open a novel critical tendencies. These mostly recall uto- discussion ground over which specifically pianism primarily for its constitutive poten- such utopianisms of critical inquiry within tial, as one of the very few survivors of holis- 2 which utopia was exploited as a method, as a tic thinking. device to think with, but not as a goal, might Central to these discussions is the conceptu- be anatomized. To this end, parallel to an ex- alization of utopian vision as a positive in- pansion on this critical form of utopianism, forming model rather than an absolute, re- Peter Cook, a significantly momentous and strictive and unobtainable one. Within these, exemplary figure whose utopian tendencies utopia implies - if we are to put it in Ruth have spanned several decades up until the Levitas’ words - a “desire” for wholeness3, present, finding various forms throughout his but not absolute totalities. Urban theorists and practitioners seeking the 1 This text is constituted based on the findings of the author’s PhD dissertation entitled A New Conceptual Fra- ‘relevance of utopia’ today are doing so with mework for Architectural Utopia(nism)s completed under an eye to the dangers and risks of its direct the supervision of Prof. Dr. Suha Ozkan in the Department translation into real-life practices. The aim in of Architecture at Middle East Technical University in 2014, funded by The Scientific and Technological Research this approach is to examine the utopian tradi- Council of Turkey. tion in order to drag out ‘useful ideas, en- 2 Coleman, 2005 lightening images, challenging visions, and 3 Levitas, 1990 perspectives’, and therefore, use it as a ‘navi- gational compass’ to respond to the wide- 4 Geus, 1999 ranging issues of contemporary urban set- 5 Bloch, 1995: 5 tings4 - a tool (but not a goal) appropriate for 6 Levitas, 2013: 4 practitioners, whose objectives have shifted 7 Utopias within which the imagined space is thought to steer social change. Given this definition, it would not from the goal of creating a perfect world to- be fallacious to claim that architectural utopias, once gi- wards the challenge of designing viable and ven specific architectural forms, for better or worse, might Scientific Papers | Znanstveni prilozi Peter Cook Beyond Archigram… G. D. GUNERI 130-141 28[2020] 1[59] PROSTOR 133 architectural practice, is visited as an explan- haunts real architectural practices, mirroring atory case. the status quo and without having any spe- cific form: it is a formless style. In this, like in UTOPIANISM AS CRITIQUE Harvey’s conception, the reflexive and dialec- tical deployment of utopianism is central, UTOPIZAM KAO KRITIKA rather than what very utopia is. Even though a significant number of theorists Even though his conception is very illuminat- have expanded on the promises of a critical ing, within it there still persists a very strict exploitation of utopianism for radicalizing and negative portraiture of utopia, as in Har- various cultural practices, two significant fig- vey’s mutually exclusive distinction between ures come to the fore with their specific con- utopias of spatial form and utopias of pro- cern for space (production): David Harvey cess - something which radically prevents and Reinhold Martin. reading historical practices for the varieties of their methodological undertakings of uto- Harvey, in his seminal text Spaces of Hope, pianism. Once historical moments, approach- (falsely) distinguishing between utopias of es, or conceptions of utopia are labeled as 7 8 spatial form , and utopias of social process , totalities, and thus, accepted to be homoge- propounds an alternative path of utopianism neous, they are exempt from inquisition. In - “dialectical utopianism” - which is defined such treatments - which are certainly not lim- to be spatiotemporal and relies on reasoned, ited to Harvey’s and Martin’s -, very often if 9 critical and reflexive inquiry. not always, the matter is reduced to “lessons In dialectical utopianism, responses both to to be learned from the separate histories”13 the materialist problems of authority and clo- of exclusively categorized utopias. When this sure - problems of form -, and to problems is done, however, a great opportunity for un- relating to “some perfected emancipatory covering various coexistent mediums, means process”10 are to be balanced. This entails and methodologies of utopianisms embed- both an analysis of the actual conditions ded in these practices slips away. of the present and a forage for agents and Herewith, in this text, in response, the inten- means of its transformation over time, and tion is to introduce an alternative means of certainly has solemn implications regarding excavating utopianisms, focusing on meth- what a critical take of utopianism might en- odological significances rather than binary 11 - tail. On parallel lines, Reinhold Martin also separations - unbound by any definitive, dis- reflects on utopianism as a form of criticality, tinctive or time-specific formulations. This is but not as an inanimate concept. The empha- posited as a means through which architec- sis on animadversion, however, is more out- ture might learn from promising critical spoken in his proposition. He endorses - as a modes of utopianism embedded in past prac- means to rethink post-critical architecture 12 tices to respond to recent calls to feed its rooted in “post-utopian pragmatism” - a re- long-lost critical artery.