Reinier de Graaf From CIAM to Cyberspace : Architecture and the Community “The community” might be the most frequently off-center. The intentionally domestic setting used term in architectural and urban discourse of their meetings is as much a manifesto as any over the last fifty years. For decades, rhetoric outcome of the meetings, written or otherwise. invoking “the community” has endowed even The wives invariably attend— either that, or a the most mediocre designs with an aura of vast reservoir of female architects have failed to good intentions and thus implicitly condemned make it into the history books. designers who decline use of the word. The It is never quite clear to what extent the community has served as a legitimization for meetings are meant to be an exchange of views, anything from Team X to New Urbanism, from or whether they are essentially just a form of Pendrecht to Celebration, from Aldo van Eyck bonding. Team X’s most articulate mantra, “by to Larry Beasley. But what is “the community”? us, for us,” a phrase encapsulated in a drawing Despite its prolific appearance, the frequency by Aldo van Eyck,4 is equally ambiguous. The with which “community” is used seems in- most common interpretation suggests a certain versely proportional to the extent to which it is naiveté associated with the period or an almost truly understood. tautological profession of good intentions, which imply that people should be their own archi- DE GRAAF tects. Yet, studying the picture more closely, * * * observing the eerie, almost tribal consensus that exists between members of the group, one In July 1953, an international group of archi- is also left with the impression of a strange tects breaks away from CIAM, until then the hubris, a sense of self-inflated significance of prevailing movement of modern architects.1 the architectural profession and those practic- Critical of what they see as CIAM’s overly ing it. Looking at the isolated, exclusive club of dogmatic functionalist approach, this group, architects gathered around the tree, “the people” eventually known as Team X, believes in re- seem far away. It is as though we are witnessing establishing the relationship between architec- a strange precursor to the phenomenon of the ture and the human habitat. With the formation “starchitect,” where “by us, for us” ultimately of Team X “the community” becomes the focus amounts to architecture for architects. of modern architectural discourse. Some of the meetings produce written docu- Members of the group meet regularly, ments and in 1954 one such document, “The generally in the garden of one their homes in Doorn Manifesto,” credited to the Smithsons, France, England or the Netherlands.2 There is argues that each local situation calls for its own an ample photographic record of these meet- specific habitat concept.5 In the last sentence, ings—the same cast of characters appears architecture, and not sociology, is unequivo- in different compositions—and the scene is cally quoted as the prime source of expertise always the same: a circle of people, seated on to solve societal issues: “The appropriateness of 3 chairs or on the semi-manicured lawn below. any solution may lie in the field of architectural 6 In every picture there is a tree, always slightly invention rather than social anthropology.” 1. Sigfried Giedion, ed., CIAM: A Decade of New Architecture. 4. Max Risselada and Dirk van den Heuvel, eds., Team 10: In Search (Zurich: Editions Gersburger, 1960). of a Utopia of the Present (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2006). 2. “Team 10 Online,”accessed January 1, 2014. http://www. 5. Alison Smithson, “The Doorn Manifesto,” in Team 10 Primer, Team 10 Meeting, Bonnieux, France, team10online.org. ed. Alison Smithson (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1974). 3. Alison Smithson, Team 10 Meetings: 1953-1984 (New York: 6. Alison Smithson, “The Doorn Manifesto.” 1977. From Team 10: In Search of a Utopia Rizzoli, 1991). of the Present. Issue 3 45 Reinier de Graaf From CIAM to Cyberspace : Architecture and the Community “The community” might be the most frequently off-center. The intentionally domestic setting used term in architectural and urban discourse of their meetings is as much a manifesto as any over the last fifty years. For decades, rhetoric outcome of the meetings, written or otherwise. invoking “the community” has endowed even The wives invariably attend— either that, or a the most mediocre designs with an aura of vast reservoir of female architects have failed to good intentions and thus implicitly condemned make it into the history books. designers who decline use of the word. The It is never quite clear to what extent the community has served as a legitimization for meetings are meant to be an exchange of views, anything from Team X to New Urbanism, from or whether they are essentially just a form of Pendrecht to Celebration, from Aldo van Eyck bonding. Team X’s most articulate mantra, “by to Larry Beasley. But what is “the community”? us, for us,” a phrase encapsulated in a drawing Despite its prolific appearance, the frequency by Aldo van Eyck,4 is equally ambiguous. The with which “community” is used seems in- most common interpretation suggests a certain versely proportional to the extent to which it is naiveté associated with the period or an almost truly understood. tautological profession of good intentions, which imply that people should be their own archi- DE GRAAF tects. Yet, studying the picture more closely, * * * observing the eerie, almost tribal consensus that exists between members of the group, one In July 1953, an international group of archi- is also left with the impression of a strange tects breaks away from CIAM, until then the hubris, a sense of self-inflated significance of prevailing movement of modern architects.1 the architectural profession and those practic- Critical of what they see as CIAM’s overly ing it. Looking at the isolated, exclusive club of dogmatic functionalist approach, this group, architects gathered around the tree, “the people” eventually known as Team X, believes in re- seem far away. It is as though we are witnessing establishing the relationship between architec- a strange precursor to the phenomenon of the ture and the human habitat. With the formation “starchitect,” where “by us, for us” ultimately of Team X “the community” becomes the focus amounts to architecture for architects. of modern architectural discourse. Some of the meetings produce written docu- Members of the group meet regularly, ments and in 1954 one such document, “The generally in the garden of one their homes in Doorn Manifesto,” credited to the Smithsons, France, England or the Netherlands.2 There is argues that each local situation calls for its own an ample photographic record of these meet- specific habitat concept.5 In the last sentence, ings—the same cast of characters appears architecture, and not sociology, is unequivo- in different compositions—and the scene is cally quoted as the prime source of expertise always the same: a circle of people, seated on to solve societal issues: “The appropriateness of 3 chairs or on the semi-manicured lawn below. any solution may lie in the field of architectural 6 In every picture there is a tree, always slightly invention rather than social anthropology.” 1. Sigfried Giedion, ed., CIAM: A Decade of New Architecture. 4. Max Risselada and Dirk van den Heuvel, eds., Team 10: In Search (Zurich: Editions Gersburger, 1960). of a Utopia of the Present (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2006). 2. “Team 10 Online,”accessed January 1, 2014. http://www. 5. Alison Smithson, “The Doorn Manifesto,” in Team 10 Primer, Team 10 Meeting, Bonnieux, France, team10online.org. ed. Alison Smithson (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1974). 3. Alison Smithson, Team 10 Meetings: 1953-1984 (New York: 6. Alison Smithson, “The Doorn Manifesto.” 1977. From Team 10: In Search of a Utopia Rizzoli, 1991). of the Present. Issue 3 45 Building on this, Jaap Bakema writes the book Already in 1950, the sociologist George A. Inasmuch as Kommune 1 constitutes a Paradoxically, it emerges from an unexpected From Chair to City: A Story of People and Space Hillery, Jr. publishes his A Research Odyssey: community, it is no longer a community which alliance of protest and preservation—against, in 1964, and goes one step further to equate the Developing and Testing a Community Theory. is a reflection or a product of shared values of rather than with, the prevailing dogmas of history of mankind to the history of “place-mak- The book’s title is painfully appropriate as the society, but in fact the exact opposite: a form of society as a whole. ing”: buildings are supposed to represent the re- book is largely a journey across every conceiv- protest against society, where the shared rejec- The complex relationship between commu- lations of people living in them.7 This suggestion able definition of community, ending up with 94 tion of particular mainstream values becomes nity and society emerging from the aforemen- is represented very literally on the book’s cover, definitions in total. Unwittingly, the book is an the primary source of bonding. Apparently, at tioned examples constitutes an interesting di- which depicts a mix of high-rise and low-rise early indication of how prominent the search for this point in history, the notion of “the com- chotomy, although perhaps the words are more buildings as parents with their children. a new collectivity in postwar society has become munity” can only exist on the condition of a related than one would expect: in the German For Team X, the built environment is both and will continue to be in the following decades. seemingly inevitable de-escalation of the scale language, community and society branch from the subject of blame and a hypothetical panacea The 1960s are not only the age of “the com- of consensus.