As large housing estates are being demolished and the age of great social democracies recedes, taking with it any notion of an architecture for the public, OMA partner Reinier de Graaf asks if there is any alternative to building capital — The Architectural Review
102 Comments
This is a fantastic article - I hope this makes the rounds outside of architecture circles. Compelling stuff.
I'm pretty sure that architects would gladly design social housing if urban policy experts and policy-makers would ask for it. Where are the calls ( and funding) for public housing from within City Halls around the country? We've seen Architecture respond to calls for preservation, walkability, "place-making", bike-shareing etc etc.
Economics rule, and have for a long time.
No news here. It will be news when architects who've made it stop designing for the rich and powerful and start proposing viable socially responsible projects instead of crying about how powerless they are.
this is the best article I have read in a while...
Miles, Architects need clients. That is how it works. They can put out conceptual proposals, enter "ideas competitions", hold symposiums, organize exhibitions (all of which happens already), but until politicians and city planners actually start making social architecture and public housing a priority and start securing funding, only so much progress can be made.
If Frank Gehry were to turn down a project to design a luxury high rise, it would mean nothing. It wouldn't stop a developer from completing the project.
I.M. Pei was able to convince a totalitarian government to change its policy regarding high rises.
this article is so much better than what Rainer de Graf and Laura Baird wrote in Log 32...wasn't getting it there... but this may be Piketty in full throttle via an architect....most importantly of all the OMA people, Rainer just doesn't get it - he is questioning it.
In the Log 32 iissue Luke Studebaker points out that 432 Park Ave is essentially a Swiss piggy bank (p.148) - inspiring this Olaf blog post.
I don't think Rem questions it as well as Rainer, but Rem points it out well in his writings...his spawn just makes the facts hip unfortunatlely....
was going to copy paste a few qoutes, but I suggest you just read it. here is the best qoute though
"Judgement of architecture is deferred to the market.The ‘architectural style’ of buildings no longer conveys an ideological choice but a commercial one: architecture is worth whatever others are willing to pay for it."
quite frankly, I wish I had written that article (not ego, but the feelings have been there), says a lot of us are on the same page or facing the same things....
davvid, do you really think I have no idea how things work? They only work this way because we support the system.
Don't like Monsanto? Boycott their products. Don't like develop-for-profit construction? Don't design it. But don't complain about it and then do nothing. The article is fine, but OMA is in a position to do far more than lament the situation. This can be seen as a direct answer to Schumacher's last rant, more thoughtful but equally powerless.
FYI your urban policy experts are developers.
Oh and when is Monsanto going away? Did your boycott work yet?
Be realistic. You are asking OMA to close up shop, or essentially shrink as a company and lay off architects just to make a political point. And why hold OMA to that punishing standard? Because they have enough sense to be self aware.
And this is all instead of having to put pressure on policy experts and policymakers (who often get paid by universities and government agencies) to spend money on projects that support poor and working class people. We'd much rather pretend to put the burden on to starchitects. Instead of pointing out how current urban policy and urban design dogma promotes gentrification, we'd rather just complain about starchitects some more.
Definitely worth reading. I hope more people do.
Miles, to be fair, if OMA (Rainer) wasn't saying this it would be less believable right?
most of us are already subjected to the quote I posted above, so we only imagine those in that position have more freedom to do architecture at some ideological level beyond Capital.... but OMA and Schumacher as you say are in another position altogether.
maybe, Patrick Schumacher could chime in here?
davvid, Monsanto will go away when people stop buying Roundup and GMO products. People like you.
OMA and others are highly awarded, globally recognized and sought after firms. That puts them in a position of tremendous influence, and while it is good to see OMA call out the problem it is sad that it stops there. Maybe this is a good first step, publicly recognizing the problem, but it proposes nothing proactive. Time to put their money where their mouth is. And not just to make a political point, but to effect positive change.
Are you holding your breath waiting for change to come from the top down? Are you as powerless as Schumacher?
Miles,
We're both residents of NY state. I have my issues with Cuomo, but he was the Secretary of HUD and he founded Housing Enterprise for the Less Privileged. Maybe its time to create a NY state campaign aligned with the architecture profession that can lobby for architectural projects that serve the interests of low and moderate income NYers and combats gentrification across the state.
Why not?
Instead of pointing out how current urban policy and urban design dogma promotes gentrification,
current US policy promotes auto-centric sprawl which has left a dearth of places where the "investor class" wants to park their money. Gentrification is a symptom, not the actual problem.
Gentrification is an actual problem for people in New York City. $17 crab roll food trucks, Bugaboo strollers, and "poor doors" are symptoms.
I think that there is a crop of newly minted urbanists across the country who don't consider gentrification to be a problem in the US because from their point of view American cities are blighted places that need investment.
I'm all for reigning in car-culture for environmental reasons, but I am against turning cities into playgrounds for the already well-off and well-educated and pushing poor and working class people out to the first ring suburbs.
Current US (global?) policy is privatization because "public" services interfere with private profits. It's gotten so bad that municipal services are forced to consider how to develop revenue streams to replace the public funding that has been eliminated. Gentrification is simply the result of economic policies that are instituted by the rich for the rich. It's the same as Henry Ford buying streetcar companies and shutting them down.
Want to combat gentrification? Buy up all those properties and make them affordable housing.
Depending on Cuomo to throw you a life preserver? Good luck with that, he reserves them for his pals at CitiBank and Goldman.
the capitalist system is not homeostatic...it cannot reach some equilibrium...its fundamental premiss is growth...that is inherintly unsustainable...socialism, and all the others are too. all bullshit created by the power hungry bastards that want to rule society. The only sustainable system is no system at all...but humans are far to institutionalized for that to work at this point...
so to quote RdG:
"From Le Corbusier to Ludwig Hilberseimer, from the Smithsons to Jaap Bakema: after reading Piketty, it becomes difficult to view the ideologies of Modern architecture as anything other than (the dream of) social mobility captured in concrete"
Isn't that the part that didn't work? The projects as I saw them in Chicago and Boston were just a new way to build ghettoes, to keep certain lower classes from occupying desirable land. I'm not aware that they ever were a dependable platform for social mobility, nor genuinely intended as such when built. Was Europe different?
We might sympathize with some of the 'woe is now' sentiment, but I feel like he is glossing over the substantial reasons that led to Western society's change in priorities.
"If you study the history of architecture, and particularly that of the last century, a striking confluence emerges between what Piketty identifies as the period of the great social mobility and the emergence of the Modern Movement in architecture, with its utopian visions for the city. From Le Corbusier to Ludwig Hilberseimer, from the Smithsons to Jaap Bakema: after reading Piketty, it becomes difficult to view the ideologies of Modern architecture as anything other than (the dream of) social mobility captured in concrete."
I think the author is conflating economics with architectural style. Social mobility is a product of politics, policies, and good luck, something America had in abundance after WW2. Sadly, this happened in a time when architecture had gone crazy, assuming that people would prefer to be stacked up like sardines in a park rather than in community enhancing environments. These towers should be blown up because they are inhumane, but what should replace them ought to be infused with all the good intentions that went into the towers. Great idea, crappy execution.
No one else will... so I'll say it.
We all know that the reason Pruitt-Igoe, and the housing block in the picture above (and all the others that didn't work) failed is very simply this:
They didn't have cafes in them.
Can anything really call itself "architecture" if it doesn't have a cafe?
Problem. Solved.
You're welcome, Civilization.
"Isn't that the part that didn't work? The projects as I saw them in Chicago and Boston were just a new way to build ghettoes, to keep certain lower classes from occupying desirable land."
Instead of making incremental reforms to the models of public housing, we (architects/planners/politicians) threw the baby out with the bathwater when we decided that modernist social housing failed in America. Keep in mind that this narrative was spun in the 70s when American cities were struggling, crime was hight, property was dirt cheap and the anti-city stigma was in full force. Pruitt Igoe was demolished in 72. The infamous "Ford to City: Drop Dead" headline was 75. Its 2015 now and the state of the American city is dramatically different.
Menona is right. No cafes, no good.
Geez, OMA needs to stop filing their rosters with Ivy League poly-sci majors and find some more craft/designers. That Prada addition looks meh.
So you read economic theory on the side, does that make you a good architect?
Maybe this is why people are going to BIG now, his architecture is flimsy and diagrammatic but at least it is about A design/building idea.
Perhaps there is a false narrative of public housing being over--i see countless projects on the horizon, with much better understanding of both design quality and also how they have to be connected to the city.
The Bauhaus was meant to find spirit in industrialization, but abstract arguments are always dangerous. It's all about craft and experience. Styles tend to transcend political regimes, though the consolidation of wealth is a temporary problem that will reset though bubble bursts and such. I find the media to be a greater problem as it relates to architecture, because it has become a terrible judge of architecture ideas.
:)
Use the poor door.
Modernism has nothing to do with the failure of socialized housing in the US. Cheap, badly designed industrialized housing that packed only the poorest people - often segregated by race as well as economics - like rats into unmaintained modern day tenements did. This is failure on multiple levels.
The last great social revolution grew out of the ashes of WWI. The next one will undoubtedly grow out of the ashes of crapitalism. If there's anything left.
Since when have architects been immune from the forces of capital?
Thank you Alternative. A lot of romantic thinking going on here.
I don't see how capital has to be at odds with architecture. Ideally capital gives people the choice of what they prefer--and media [used to] educate the public to the best ideas in design. Why are well designed cities (meaning with good architecture) in demand? It's not that complicated.
The problem being when masses are forced into prisons that are disconnected from opportunity, and the media creates distractions which have nothing to do with design.
Lightperson, what does this even mean? Capital (and its allocation) isn't beholden to some nebulous collective will. It's beholden to those who hold it (whether that's a socialist government or a private corporation).
Miles is right, the "style" Modern had nothing to do with the failure of social housing. Proof? A few miles north of Cabrini-Greene still stand Mies' Lake Shore Towers, currently asking half a million for a two bedroom. In terms of architectural style and parti the buildings are essentially identical, the difference being, as Miles said, the enforced social stratification.
Related, here is a nice article on the great Karl Marx Hof in Vienna, built at a time when the city felt social housing was important.
Donna, how is social stratification "enforced"?
The next one will undoubtedly grow out of the ashes of crapitalism. If there's anything left.
I agree but whats the alternative? Spain and Italy with their socialized programs are in fucking shambles...I have 2 family friends that are here in the US working illegally from spain because the economic situation is so bad over there. They are in their 50's. The socialist govt's are just as corrupt if not more...Medical is good over there but that's about it...I understand that they are not completely socialist but who is? They all suck...The few northern euro countries that have succeded with a socialized system only do so because they are increadibly small countries with very small populations...
All centralized power structures will inevitably become corrupt.
In prospering cities, public housing complexes are not disconnected from opportunity. They are sandwiched between luxury condo buildings. They're disconnected from the fluctuations of the market. Thats a good thing.
The media didn't educate the public about public housing or urban poverty, it confused the issues and stigmatized public housing and public services in general. (wonder why yuppie planners prefer trollies over buses?)
Davvid, you seem to be confusing correlation and causation. Public housing sitting adjacent to luxury high-rises is not a consequence of a vibrant economy. It just describes public policy coinciding with a strong economy.
Alternative,
I'm not correlating the public housing with the condos. I'm just pointing out that as American cities gentrify and rents increase, public housing can satisfy the need for housing costs that are disconnected from the marketplace.
But you're positing that as a fix. Do you think that regulated housing has any role in creating a housing shortage, and driving up prices in that portion of the market that remains unregulated?
Alternative, what I meant was that only people with a low income are allowed to live in public housing like Cabrini-Green. What do you mean by "enforced"?
Alternative, How are you defining regulated and unregulated?
Donna - I thought that you were saying that the forces of the market were "enforcing" stratification. Thanks for clarifying.
Davvid - by regulated, I mean that some governmental body, or a private entity operating pursuant to some regulatory scheme, prices housing at a rate that does not reflect market demand (i.e. deliberate underpricing due to a regulatory mandate).
Alt, So you're asking me if regulated housing (a huge category) contributes to a housing shortage? Not in any significant way.
do loans through the fha count as deliberate underpricing due to a regulatory mandate?
Experts would argue otherwise. http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html
Curt, you're describing a subsidy, which is generally believed to lead to overvaluation (see, e.g., the 2008 economic crisis).
Alt, So you're suggesting that rent-control link is reason enough to think that public housing will contribute to a housing shortage? (FYI, I don't have time at this moment to read linked articles carefully)
Correct
Sorry, curt, i mean overvaluation in that context. subsidies don't always lead to overvaluation.
And we're supposed to be against rent control and public housing at the same time that super-tall luxury towers are being built in Manhattan with units that sit empty because they're sole purpose is investment.
I'm not buying it.
I agree that luxury towers create (or reflect) market distortions. That said, public housing and rent control aren't necessarily the way to fix things.
If there is a perfect solution, please share it.
Did I ever say there was one?
Same ideas from a liberal rag: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/magazine/the-perverse-effects-of-rent-regulation.html?_r=0
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