This semester, Fred Levrat is directing a studio at Columbia titled, 'The Gate of Afghanistan - Kabul Airport Road' The most impressive thing is that the studio is on their way to the site. The group left for Dubai yesterday and will catch an Ariana Airlines flight to Kabul tomorrow.
During the trip, they will be presenting their mid-term ideas to the Mayor of Kabul and Minister of Urban Development. See the News post ‘ Rebuilding Kabul' for context. Below is the studio description from the GSAPP website:
The Gate of Afghanistan - Kabul Airport Road
Infrastructural and Symbolic Reconstruction in a war-torn Country
Context: Reconstruction after 23 years of war – priorities in a Global World Disorder
Problematic: Airport Road – what spatiality for the new city linear entrance.
How to design 2.8 Kilometer of “Symbolic Urban Boulevard”?
Representation: What is the image of Afghanistan in the XXI Century?
Rupture and discontinuity of a culture through decades of war.
International imported value or Regional Identity for the new Gate of
Afghanistan?
Reality: This is a real project, which needs proposition and solutions. The Mayor of the City and the Minister of Urban Development are interested to see the Columbia University Students proposals.
Site:
The Airport Road is the most important axis in Kabul City (and probably in the country). Cutting through the city fabric, it connects the central square of Charrai Pashtunistan to the Airport. Along its path it gathers most of the power institutions of the city – from the Royal Palace, the Presidential Palace, the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Ministry of Aviation, Ministry of Reconstruction to the US Embassy. Geometrically one long straight line, it is currently unusable in its entire length, segmented by numerous military check points and roadblocks where the most important institutions reside. As the portion toward the city center is well constructed and occupied, the last stretch toward the Airport is completely empty or destroyed. Approximately 80% of the land on both side was reserved for Government and Municipal usage, but due to the last two decade of war, nothing was build and a strange no man's land greets the new visitor as they enter the country along the Airport road.
Urban Problematic:
The Scale of the Airplane/Airport is not compatible with the scale of the pedestrian city. Previous transportation system, such as the Ship/harbor or the train/train station, managed to constitute interesting new “gates to the city”. Today, only few cities – if any – have managed to link the new aerial point of entry to its high density center. The scale imposed by the airplane necessitates a vehicular transportation along the connecting linear Boulevard. The Gate to the city is not a pedestrian/interactive space anymore, but a “visual sequence” composed through time, space and speed. It is probably worthwhile to study the transformation of the perception of a city through centuries, with the evolution of its limits and points of entry, from the fortified walls to the Internet portal.
Representation:
What urbanism and what Architecture for a society in radical transformation? 23 years of wars has left damages deeper than just the physical destruction. The identity of the society, its culture, ethic and values have been shaken and are adrift. What is the image one culture desire to offers as it greets its visitors into the country or escort its resident toward the outside world?
The “image of a Building” is probably as important as its function. When one is asked to design the “image of the City”, its new “Gate to the city” it is an enormous creative task. How to integrate the progress of modernity and project the future when the present is highly instable? It certainly leaves some room for visionary proposals.
Studio Organization:
This is a real project and presentation to the Mayor of the City and the Ministry of Urban Development will be organized during a trip to the site in Kabul. The projects will be collected and compiled into a small publication.
Kinne money is available to partially sponsor the trip to Kabul, with a stop over in the fast growing city of Dubai.
Wow, impressive. And I thought my college trip to Hungary was pretty 'out there.'
Having millitary friends stationed in Afghanistan I'm not sure if I'd be so willing to drop into Kabul as a western student but I admire the work they are doing.
That’s a good question Zoë. Keeps the dialogue of Mason’s News post [Ethics + Design] going. I do believe that we have a huge responsibility to helping Afghan rebuild at this point. But also am weary of what interests actually still run the country. UNOCAl, ex-Taliban power brokers, war lords, etc. ? I do think our input should be limited to some degree, it’s one thing to help generate solutions on a humanitarian level and advance diplomacy that way, and another to simply fill the place with our own builders writing their own contracts and funding the same old field of immanent regimes.
This project sounds like making a beautified landing zone outside the airport a “visual vacuum†mainly for those who will never get beyond the Las Vegas strip of power institutions and into real Kabul. A glorified military landing pad. A project to allude to a more far reaching rebuilding progress, rather than a means for exploring Kabul’s more expansive crisis'. Though the airport lane is an essential ‘gateway’ to further redevelopment, I guess I would be more interested in a project which began further out and directly serviced the common class more (how many local Kabul peeps actually use the airport or its surrounding embassy boulevards?), rather than relying on trickle-down architecture to do the trick later. But that could be just my vague and skeptical reading of it.
Regardless, I’d probably participate in the studio if just as a means to observe the political rebuilding process over there more closely.
You know, people are always saying that Architecture is no longer dangerous- that it has been mollified by capitalism that it is no longer political. At least that is what was said by Koolhaas and the gang at the announcement of Volume the other week.
Site visit: Kabul.
Would you do it?
This semester, Fred Levrat is directing a studio at Columbia titled, 'The Gate of Afghanistan - Kabul Airport Road' The most impressive thing is that the studio is on their way to the site. The group left for Dubai yesterday and will catch an Ariana Airlines flight to Kabul tomorrow.
During the trip, they will be presenting their mid-term ideas to the Mayor of Kabul and Minister of Urban Development. See the News post ‘ Rebuilding Kabul' for context. Below is the studio description from the GSAPP website:
The Gate of Afghanistan - Kabul Airport Road
Infrastructural and Symbolic Reconstruction in a war-torn Country
Context: Reconstruction after 23 years of war – priorities in a Global World Disorder
Problematic: Airport Road – what spatiality for the new city linear entrance.
How to design 2.8 Kilometer of “Symbolic Urban Boulevard”?
Representation: What is the image of Afghanistan in the XXI Century?
Rupture and discontinuity of a culture through decades of war.
International imported value or Regional Identity for the new Gate of
Afghanistan?
Reality: This is a real project, which needs proposition and solutions. The Mayor of the City and the Minister of Urban Development are interested to see the Columbia University Students proposals.
Site:
The Airport Road is the most important axis in Kabul City (and probably in the country). Cutting through the city fabric, it connects the central square of Charrai Pashtunistan to the Airport. Along its path it gathers most of the power institutions of the city – from the Royal Palace, the Presidential Palace, the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Ministry of Aviation, Ministry of Reconstruction to the US Embassy. Geometrically one long straight line, it is currently unusable in its entire length, segmented by numerous military check points and roadblocks where the most important institutions reside. As the portion toward the city center is well constructed and occupied, the last stretch toward the Airport is completely empty or destroyed. Approximately 80% of the land on both side was reserved for Government and Municipal usage, but due to the last two decade of war, nothing was build and a strange no man's land greets the new visitor as they enter the country along the Airport road.
Urban Problematic:
The Scale of the Airplane/Airport is not compatible with the scale of the pedestrian city. Previous transportation system, such as the Ship/harbor or the train/train station, managed to constitute interesting new “gates to the city”. Today, only few cities – if any – have managed to link the new aerial point of entry to its high density center. The scale imposed by the airplane necessitates a vehicular transportation along the connecting linear Boulevard. The Gate to the city is not a pedestrian/interactive space anymore, but a “visual sequence” composed through time, space and speed. It is probably worthwhile to study the transformation of the perception of a city through centuries, with the evolution of its limits and points of entry, from the fortified walls to the Internet portal.
Representation:
What urbanism and what Architecture for a society in radical transformation? 23 years of wars has left damages deeper than just the physical destruction. The identity of the society, its culture, ethic and values have been shaken and are adrift. What is the image one culture desire to offers as it greets its visitors into the country or escort its resident toward the outside world?
The “image of a Building” is probably as important as its function. When one is asked to design the “image of the City”, its new “Gate to the city” it is an enormous creative task. How to integrate the progress of modernity and project the future when the present is highly instable? It certainly leaves some room for visionary proposals.
Studio Organization:
This is a real project and presentation to the Mayor of the City and the Ministry of Urban Development will be organized during a trip to the site in Kabul. The projects will be collected and compiled into a small publication.
Kinne money is available to partially sponsor the trip to Kabul, with a stop over in the fast growing city of Dubai.
Wow, impressive. And I thought my college trip to Hungary was pretty 'out there.'
Having millitary friends stationed in Afghanistan I'm not sure if I'd be so willing to drop into Kabul as a western student but I admire the work they are doing.
That’s a good question Zoë. Keeps the dialogue of Mason’s News post [Ethics + Design] going. I do believe that we have a huge responsibility to helping Afghan rebuild at this point. But also am weary of what interests actually still run the country. UNOCAl, ex-Taliban power brokers, war lords, etc. ? I do think our input should be limited to some degree, it’s one thing to help generate solutions on a humanitarian level and advance diplomacy that way, and another to simply fill the place with our own builders writing their own contracts and funding the same old field of immanent regimes.
This project sounds like making a beautified landing zone outside the airport a “visual vacuum†mainly for those who will never get beyond the Las Vegas strip of power institutions and into real Kabul. A glorified military landing pad. A project to allude to a more far reaching rebuilding progress, rather than a means for exploring Kabul’s more expansive crisis'. Though the airport lane is an essential ‘gateway’ to further redevelopment, I guess I would be more interested in a project which began further out and directly serviced the common class more (how many local Kabul peeps actually use the airport or its surrounding embassy boulevards?), rather than relying on trickle-down architecture to do the trick later. But that could be just my vague and skeptical reading of it.
Regardless, I’d probably participate in the studio if just as a means to observe the political rebuilding process over there more closely.
Here are a couple more recent related articles:
Turning the Lights On in Kabul
House republicans propose adding 1.8 billion in spending for military ops in Afghan and rebuilding the airport.
your thoughts?
You know, people are always saying that Architecture is no longer dangerous- that it has been mollified by capitalism that it is no longer political. At least that is what was said by Koolhaas and the gang at the announcement of Volume the other week.
Is this a turn for the better?
Something interseting is brewing at the Bauhaus in Dessau realted to the idea in this thread ... UN-Urbanism
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