09 Krunic the Groundscraper.Pdf

draft DINA KRUNIC ABSTRACT Te Free University in Berlin, conceived by the architectural frm Candilis-Josic-Woods, raises questions about how social and utopian agendas emerged over an extended design process. Tis article analyzes how the architects conceptually linked the ideas of “stem” and “web” to establish the unifed concept of “groundscraper.” It also investigates the urban and environmental issues raised by the architects’ intentions to instigate socio-political change. Beginning with the initial diagrammatic proposal, through the development of a site strategy, to the fnal construction of the building, Candilis, Josic, and Woods explored the urban issues that grew out of their active participation in the Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and, later, in meetings of a splinter group known as Team 10. From its inception, the Free University project encouraged exchanges among diferent disciplines, resulting in a heterogeneous, multilevel grid that increased urban density at the site. Linking stem with web in the groundscraper concept at the Free University building culminated in a hybrid connecting the high-rise structure to the ground in a manner that unites architecture with social sciences, engineering, and urbanism. ARRIS 30 § Volume 23 § 2012 draft The “Groundscraper”: Candilis-Josic-Woods and the Free University Building in Berlin, 1963-1973 DINA KRUNIC Te Senate of West Berlin launched the Free University urban growth, and webs, a polycentric organizing competition in 1963. Te university aimed to provide building system based on circulation patterns, so as ample work space for 3,600 students and multiple to integrate both the surrounding context and the departments, including philology, literature, and existing transportation infrastructure into a network history, with additional arts and sciences faculties on including the academic building. Te organizational a thirty-acre site. Te mayor of the city described the principle of “groundscraper,” a system for horizontal building as “giving West Berlin’s university a symbol urban densifcation with continuous circulation, of freedom, fexibility and openness.”1 was a conceptual model that permeated both the Shadrach Woods, collaborating with Georges architectural sketches and the urban planning Candilis and Alexis Josic and with the German architect proposal.2 Te team was led by Woods, whose Manfred Schiedhelm, won the competition. Te group interest in urbanism dominated the discussions explored the theme of “the University for Greater until his premature death in 1973.3 It is therefore Numbers” and advanced their previously established no surprise that the Free University building in concepts of “stem” and “web,” on which they elaborated post-war Berlin displayed an unprecedented degree as part of Team 10, a splinter group that emerged from of incremental planning and zoning derived from the 9th Congress of CIAM, and on which Woods wrote urban design. However, the conceptual diagram for just before the opening of the competition. the groundscraper has not, until now, been explored Te Free University building site drawings from by scholars. To be sure, many of the architects’ 1965-66 demonstrate that Candilis, Josic, and Woods propositions evident at the University in Zurich mapped out their concepts of stems, street-driven (1967) and in their Puzzle Houses, Boat Houses, and Volume 23 § 2012 § ARRIS 31 draft DINA KRUNIC Meccano Axes structure in Barcarés-Leucatte, France quarter of the original proposal was constructed, this (1969), mediated the horizontal densifcation so as to relatively small portion exhibits the characteristics maintain natural resources along the open circulation of the groundscraper diagram from the competition patterns and maximize social interaction. Te panel: ramps and staircases rather than elevators groundscraper operated as a central concept that drove connect the diferent foor levels; outdoor and indoor the development of the projects. As an architectural spaces fow seamlessly into each other; and public theory, it was inherently interdisciplinary, mediating spaces are integrated into the circulation matrix. environmental, contextual, and socio-political In the caption for the intermediate drawing, the interests in the fast-growing, sprawling urban settings architects argue for an urban and social restructuring of 1960s Europe. where “greater possibilities of community and Te 1963 competition entry consisted of sketches, exchange are present” (Fig. 1).4 site-plan diagrams, plans, and sections, in addition to Te ten-year design process attests to the the architects’ statement of intent. It also contained importance of the groundscraper concept. Trough a storyboard, presenting the ideas culminating in the stems and webs, Candilis, Josic, and Woods applied groundscraper concept (Fig. 1). Te original entry could critical social concerns to architecture, whereas be described as an oversimplifed, pure, diagrammatic, through the groundscraper they expanded the scope idealized version of complex architectural concepts of work to include urban, environmental, and (Fig. 2); the fnal design was developed during a ten- contextual explorations that demonstrated their year elaboration of the initial proposal. concern for human behavior. Two years after they won the competition, the intermediate design proposal drawings from 1965- HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT 66 show that Candilis, Josic, and Woods used the groundscraper as a site planning strategy to expand Te design of the Free University building in Berlin their architectural concepts. At that point, they has entered the discourse of architectural history as a included a new site plan indicating vehicular and model for educational and social restructuring. Te mass transit networks that integrated their proposal building is a tribute to the changing political and into the surrounding urban environment. Even social agendas of European educational institutions though the architects did not explicitly elaborate on in the period preceding the student revolts of 1968. the groundscraper concept after the initial proposal As a consequence of socio-economic changes, rapidly was submitted, the site planning strategy may be seen growing population, and dwindling institutional to apply the organizational principles on an urban structures in the 1960s, European universities scale. As the groundscraper diagram indicates, the were pressured to reform. At the time, the more urban proposal at this stage suggests “giving the conventional model for academic buildings was minimum organization necessary to an association the skyscraper. Henry Van de Velde Boekentoren’s of disciplines” by removing “planes of isolation” and work at Ghent University (1933) and Charles allowing no vertical site densifcation assisted with Klauder’s Cathedral of Learning at the University of elevators or escalators (Fig. 1). Pittsburgh (1937) explored the skyscraper typology. As drawn in the intermediate design from 1965- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, in his master plan for 66, the completed building of 1973 also implemented the Illinois Institute of Technology (1946), opted for the groundscraper concept. Even though only about a individual multistory university buildings separated ARRIS 32 § Volume 23 § 2012 draft DINA KRUNIC FIGURE 1 Free University Berlin, competition, explanatory diagram, building concept, 1963. [Shadrach Woods, Candilis-Josic-Woods; Building for People (New York: F.A. Praeger, 1968), 208]. Volume 23 § 2012 § ARRIS 33 draft DINA KRUNIC FIGURE 2 Candilis¬-Josic¬-Woods Free University Berlin, competition entry, 1963. [Tom Avermaete. Another Modern : Te Post-War Architecture and Urbanism of Candilis-Josic-Woods (Rotterdam: NAi, 2005), 322-323]. by streets. Additional projects, such as the UTS Kiem, and Gabriel Feld, consider the Free University Tower in Australia (1964), or Jo van den Broek and building in the context of technological innovation, Jaap Bakema’s Faculty of Architecture building at where the assembly-line production and the logic of TU Delft (1970), were only some of the high-rise modernism are replaced by collaboration.7 However, university buildings that were built during the 1960s by looking at the Free University’s design as it emerged to accommodate the rising number of students. Te over a decade, one fnds that, as a team, Candilis, increase in student enrollment and the need for Josic, and Woods repositioned the discipline of greater communication between disciplines ofered architecture as the mediator between two divergent a platform for Candilis, Josic, and Woods to depart paths: the static socio-political structure on the from the current model. Tey managed not only to one hand and the dynamic progressive impulse in respond successfully to the educational and social urbanism on the other.8 demands presented in the competition brief, but also Candilis, Josic, and Woods held productive to propose a disciplinary shift in architecture towards discussions at Team 10 meetings. Team 10 was a greater communication, wider interaction, and urban group of individuals who splintered from the CIAM densifcation. According to architectural historian congresses. Te group was concerned with the same Tom Avermaete, they also were able to combine the issues as CIAM, such as in the changing demands mass culture and mass production of modernism of modern society, but was dissatisfed with the with a humanistic focus on everyday life.5 Avermaete direction that CIAM congresses were taking. Team together with

Load more