Architectural pedagogy has become stale. Schools spin old wheels as if something is happening but so little is going on. Students wait for a sense of activist engagement with a rapidly evolving world but graduate before it happens. The fact that they wait for instruction is already the problem. Teachers likewise worry too much about their place in the institutional hierarchies. — The Architectural Review
53 Comments
What a time, somehow still being felt today.
The fact that they wait for instruction is already the problem. Teachers likewise worry too much about their place in the institutional hierarchies. Curricular structures have hardly changed in recent decades, despite the major transformations that have taken place with the growth of globalisation, new technologies, and information culture. As schools appear to increasingly favour professionalisation, they seem to drown in self-imposed bureaucratic oversight, suffocating any possibility for the emergence of experimental practices and failures. There are a few attempts to wake things up here and there but it’s all so timid in the end. There is no real innovation.
what bothers me the most about this current "avant garde" is that these very real social/ecological concerns have been replaced with an even more disturbing faith (and I mean scary zealous ideology) in technology and functionalism than at the height of the modernist movement. There's this new fervor in creating massively scalable standardized systems completely devoid of context, human/social scales, and artistry (which of everything that came out of the 60s and 70s is the main thing that this new group seems to be collectively latching onto) - which those of us who have been working in the field for a while all know that this only really benefits developers and property owners and not the public. No one is taking a real critical stance on technology and globalization. this look back to the 60s and 70s pedagogical experiments is in real danger of regression to paternalistic "functionalism."
There were some very serious problems with what groups like archigram were proposing (their ideas all seem to be based around cheap oil, planned obsolescence and creature comforts)... I don't know where we're headed but i'd take empty and overly expensive technological formalism over an non-critical rehashing of that specific era.
toasteroven - archigram is not mentioned anywhere in the article, but the resource conservation strategies of Bucky Fuller figure prominently. It's important to remember that the era referenced is not monolithic.
i don't think i'd take empty and etc formalism. i mean, there is a choice to accept neither :)
i think the article is nostalgic and this nostalgia may be part of the illness and not the cure. however, i also believe that Colomina's drive is also interest-driven - she is interested, i believe, in:
1- role of media and, if there is anything in common with the cited architects and their very different approaches, is that they are iconic figures whose growth/development might well have been in tandem with the channels of media supporting them (journalism, pedagogical networks...)
2- given her previous project, she seems to find interest in collating material to represent a zeitgeist.
my problem is that she seems to embrace dissent noncritically for its own sake, given the large number of architects involved. there is no discussion of whether this dissent was warranted or what value - other than the mentioned bland institutional appropriation- it was endowed with. it also represents a rheotirically leftist rupture when seen against the antecedent background. are we relegating le corbusier, mies, hans scharoun and so on to the status of the capitalist, the orthodox and the dogmatic? perhaps, to go back to the acknowledgement of the AA as the first global pedagogical converegence, the good intention is to underline the nature of that period as a hyper-consolidation of diverging experimentations pursuant to the iconic figures of the modernists (mies, gropius, le corb...). i can accept that it as actually a period of dense development/experimentations following on from an even more iconic period...but not that it was activist (read: dissentful) or that it was anti-capitalist. its easy...the world was less capitalist before the eighties.
toasteroven, I agree 100%.
The current trends are pushing for the architectural equivelant of a diet pill. Society loves any fix that allows for us to maintain our way of life without any real self sacrifice or paradigm shift to the status quo. The truth is uneasy. We are like doctors telling patients to take ephederine rather than stop eating shit, exercise, and rest.
The current avant-garde is very establishment friendly and in no way radical. When the prince of an oppressive regime like dubai stands proudly infront of a massive "avant garde" structure, it and anything remotely like it is not "avant garde." We will know when our time has an avant garde when empires and corportions lobby to crush it.
Our culture can't see that past the glitter is just more of the same. The facade has been the architectural equivelant of the empty " hope and change" propaganda. We are creating fantasy and faith in concrete and steel. Confusing the minds of the public and of our own profession that progress is being made, when in reality it is just more of the same in a different shape.
jla-x,
"We will know when our time has an avant garde when empires and corportions lobby to crush it. " If you consider the architectural establishment's reaction against the "original green" movement in architecture which is trying to bring back humanist buildings that seek to sustain our social, economic, and environmental health, I think it could be classified as the avant-guard.
LOL @ "original green is avante garde" !!!
but toaster, actually.... social/ecological concerns were HUGE in some circles mentioned in the article, and sometimes they were not afraid to cross pollinate those concerns with technology.
but the resource conservation strategies of Bucky Fuller figure prominently.
I'm not saying that the era was monolithic - more using archigram as an example of what I've seen currently coming out of the British schools. but - even bucky fuller's housing solutions had this slightly terrifying commidification aspect to them - and his environmentalism/conservation theories also end up veering toward overly simplistic (and arguably ironically harmful) rationalizations. I do think that this period definitely should have a serious part as historical background to current theoretical debate, but without context and a critical stance we just keep swinging the pendulum.
@about - of course those issues were "huge" to those groups, and I agree that we've lost some of this concern in "elite" architectural circles - but their solutions were also in the tradition of heavy-handed modernism separating out systems, failed utopian social experiments, etc... We've come a really long way since then - even in spite of the switch toward vacuous formalism in the 80s among the academic elite - and I think it's extremely detrimental to look at this era in isolation without also looking at the massive amount of work done by architects, planners, ecologists, environmentalists, sociologists, activists, etc... since then.
I think maybe it's partly longing for the kind of social agency of that period - and our constant desire for "grand visions" - but we should have learned by now that complete restructurings are incredibly disruptive and eventually create major backlashes - even if we do currently need to rethink how we do things. We cannot keep throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
About, I think you made my point. The original Green movement is all about cial/ecological concerns much like Prince Charles and the CNU. The way you laughed it off is exactly why it's the avant guard, because it threatens the archtiectural establishment. By the way, the whole idea of avant guard is nonsense. Worrying about being avant guard is like worrying about being cool. If you worry about it, you ain't.
thayer-d,
I would argue that it is more regergetation than interpretation. It puts blind faith in traditional urban models and aesthetics, like new urbanism. I don't trust faith, I trust common sense and scienctific fact. In many ways it is no different than the new stuff that you hate, faith in the past, faith in the future all embodied in some aesthetic marketing devise. I'm sayin- analyze and keep what sticks, why keep all its unnecessary bagage like the colonial aesthetics? Walkability and human scale are good, no doubt, but no architectural language owns these fundamental ideas. Also, if we surrender our artistic contemporary expression, we surrender what makes us human. History should be consumed with a scientist mindset and reinterpreted with an artists mindset.
I do believe that history has many principles that we can learn from, but not just copy. And looking to history while looking to the future from the present is better than looking one way or the other or now way at all. Wider perspective is always a good thing. A good example is the rick joy studio in tucson. He took a regional old technique, rammed earth and courtyards, and applied it in a "modern" way. As a result, the end product was imo better than anything from then, yet stronger than it would have been if done with any technology or material from now and it looks like itself. This cannot be possible unless we get rid of all our aesthetic religous beliefs. I think that critical regionalism is the most promising formally speaking, however, there are still huge social and urban issues that it fails to challenge.
A new avant-garde will be more about who, how, and why and less about what. It will require a new business model, much much more multidiciplinary collaboration, and a new "client" either being a developer, or a way to build without the support or blessing of the establishment. Most of all it will carry a new philosophy or enlightenment that must be grown from the grass roots of society before it can take hold. It may be happening now? Maybe not? The new avant-garde is going to be a result of much larger trends. It is going to be reactionary to some big events that will be unfolding these next 20-30 years. So no need to push it, it will come. I am optimistic that it will be a much more natural occurance than modernism, postmodernism......In other words, the need for a catalyst like rem or corbu is not going to be necessary...The planet and all its problems will be the catalyst.
to add, right now the world as we know it is being propped up. It is being artificially sustained to maintain the norm. Look at the euro situation. The architecture very much reflects this hopeless optimism. Ahhhh another bailout Ahhh another zaha building, quick fixes to keep us all temporarily believing that everything will be ok, recent architecture looks like the last desperate breath of the late 20th century. it will soon break. Things are changing. When it does so will the architecture. The 21st century hasn't really kicked in yet.
LOL perenialhole/Thayer, we're familiar with your tea party stance. Being faux-old doesn't count as being radical. You and Prince Charles are the grandpa establishment.
toaster, what is really needed is less catering to the side of caution, less whining about how "bad" modernism was. There is nothing more robotic than repeating complaints about modernism.
Thayer - yes, this has everything to do with New Urbanism's fondness for styrofoam cornices and plastic columns. They are the true radicals.
What's strange is that Colomina and the co-authors here are the pedagogical establishment, and they seem to be advocating for a student-led revolution? I'm missing something. It's hard to read this as anything other than: "back in my day, no kid would ever dream of listening to a person like me, so what's wrong with you all?"
jla-x,
Why are you assuming I'm putting blind faith in any traditional model? The New Urbanists revived urban solutions that blind faith in modernist ideas had written off. But if you see a new town square or roundabout, do you go around decrying the fakeness of the place?And I don't hate new stuff, I object to being told one can't study this or decorate that becasue of a blind faith in modernist ideology. You said "if we surrender our artistic contemporary expression, we surrender what makes us human". First of all, by contemporary, I'm assuming you mean modernist. What about the hybrid years between 1900 and 1920. Are we going to qualify what's allowed? And where would you qualify modernism that gets it's aesthetics from the Bauhaus of the 1920's. Are we surrendering what "makes us human" by reviving a language almost 100 years old? Can you see how ridiculous it would be to start classifyng architecture in such pigeon holes? That's not my idea of a free, liberal, and contemporary architect, in fact your stance reeks of the "aesthetic religous beliefs" that you claim to deplore in the CNU. After all, if you're being honest, it wasn't too long ago that even the "critical regionalism" you say is the most promising was considered heretical by modernists. I just don't get this puritanical aproach to aesthetics. Imagine telling a musician he couldn't riff from the Blues becasue he wasn't a cotton picning farmer of the 1920's or take that to literature or just about any other art, or science for that matter. What's changing is the blind allegance to the 100 year old belief that architecture has to be blank, or technologically based, or any other modernist paradigm. That dosen't mean we won't see just about every style underr the sun, it means we won't look back at our aesthetic history the way segregationists looked at differing people. It's about freedom of choice, not the exact choice one makes.
what a human?
First of all, by contemporary, I'm assuming you mean modernist
no I mean searching for our own artistic expressions personally and collectively. It comes in waves. Jazz, rock, punk, rap, grunge.......Does nirvana have historical roots, yes, they even played lead belly songs, but they were of their time. Contemporary means current of our time not Modern. Repeating anything that has been done is boring.
I object to being told one can't study this or decorate that becasue of a blind faith in modernist ideology.
You didn't read what I wrote. That is far from what I said.
jla-x,
When you say we must do things of our time, then define what "is of our time", you are by extension telling others who don't suscribe to your sanctioned list that what they do isn't legitimate in some way. It's an idea that I was taught in school and has been repeated by many on these blogs in a number of ways, some more elegant than others. From the 1950's though the 1980's you wheren't even allowed to study non modernist architecture. After 30 plus years of self imposed exile from history, some architects had enough of this sillyness and did what every profession does, which is cracked open the history books to study things that might improve thier work, it was called post-modernism. And as cartoony as some of their output was, it opened up a whole world of architecture to those who didn't buy into the politically correct additude of modernists. I was in school at the time, and I remember the reaction.
Now, according to you, "critical regionalism" is ok becasue "I do believe that history has many principles that we can learn from, but not just copy", lest "we lose what makes us human". Forget the fact that we all learn by copying from the day we open our eyes. Now I agree that originality is better than a copy, who dosen't?, but why do you care if somebody copies, won't your work be self evidently better? Even so, people don't think like that, they think, "wow, this is beautiful!", versus, "nice, but too bad it's a copy". As in music, will you tell everyone what styles of music have been modified to be classified as "original"? To my ear, there are many retro styles out their now, but I still listen for quality first. Will you disqualify Andrea Palladio and the countless Rennaisance buildings in Italian towns as mere copies of Roman work? And while you're searching out the phonies, will all the tourists be fools for not knowing when their being hoodwinked? How about the Palladians of England in the 1700's? Was Richardson copying the romanesque when he did the Marshall Field Warehouse? Was Sullivan copying him? We can play this game forever, but sufice if to say that only the modernists seem to care, the rest of us acknowledge that you must learn to walk before you begin to run. When students enter archtiecture school, they need to learn to walk, unless I missed the classes in architectural history and design being taught in High School.
By this logic, the revivals through out the 19th century where mere copies. But didn't the eclecticism of this period produce many of the original styles of the late 19th century and early 20th century? Granted, the academies of the late 19th century pushed back on these experiments as today's architecture schools push back against traditionalists, without looking beyond the historical motiffs. You may not be aware of these explorations, becasue if it looked remotely like a historical style, you may have passed it over as "nothing to see here", as if they where only dealing in decoration. Again, what a silly additude towards architecture, and for that matter, any fascet of life.
but why do you care if somebody copies, won't your work be self evidently better? Even so, people don't think like that, they think, "wow, this is beautiful!", versus, "nice, but too bad it's a copy".
I don't care. If you read my post you will see that I was stating that we should get rid of all isms, architecture religions, and anything else that dictates what we should or should not do. I am an architectural athiest.
However, historical revival, new urbanism is a religion. It is a belief in the legitimacy of past models. present problems cannot be solved with repetition alone. It's like politicians proposing the policy of reagan or fdr when the world requires new solutions to new problems..... It is somewhat lazy and lacks rigor and it will never lead to the best solution. Should we study past policy and incorporate when it makes sense, yes of course. If we analyze history and find an old solution to a modern problem then it should be applied if it is better than any other solution. Can we chose to copy? Of course, but I think it is shortchanging the client and yourself as an artist. You are saying (if im correct) looking back is good. I am saying that we should be of no time but the present and we should look back, foward, left and right...because the wider the perspective the better equipted we are to find the best solution. This goes for the parametric worshipers and modernists as well. It goes for anyone that is a follower of a ridgid ideal.
A limited scope creates limited potential.
Also, I think you are missing the difference between 2 fundamental dimensions of any architecture.
1. The genotype What are the fundamental elements? The DNA (this is all about research, analysis of past and present, science...this is when history can be disected and copied if it works...we may find that cool towers or narrow streets are a good solution to our problem)
2. The phenotype How the fundamentals will materialize. How the DNA will actually grow in the given environment with the given constraints. (this is when art and technology take over. This is when we reinterpret, shape, and reinvent to fit our own personal artistic visions and the specific demands of the project and our time)
If we copy in dimension 1 we are doing so because of science rather than nostalgia. If we copy in dimension 2 we are neglecting contemporary constraints and our own artistic vision which must be different than that of 200 or 2000 years ago because of the unique perspective of our specific time. In doing so, we are putting faith in the past to solve our problems. To just copy aesthetics is not a true way to apply past knowledge. If one choses to, then I don't really care, but it will probably miss the mark in some regard.
"historical revival, new urbanism is a religion" Where do you get this stuff from?
"It is a belief in the legitimacy of past " That's not a religion. And it only holds if something in the past works in the present context. But just to show how absurd your proposition is, it's just as true for what your friend in dwell did yesterday, what archigram did 30 years ago, what Corbu did 60 years ago. Where's the magical line in the past from where we are forbidden?
"present problems cannot be solved with repetition alone" Obviously, but one can start with a previous solution and adapt it to new conditions, and who knows, in some talented hands, it might evolve into something new. But don't dare use it, becase now it's in the past.
"You are saying (if im correct) looking back is good" You are correct, but looking back means everything that's not in the immediate present, unless we've invented time travel.
"I am saying that we should be of no time but the present and we should look back, foward, left and right" We can't be anything but of the present! It's a physics thing.
As to your whole genotype and phenotype argument, I see what you are saying, but if I'm a student, I just want to jump in and see what happens, I don't need all these parameters that as you say, might "limit potential". It sounds like your still struggling with these concepts, but I'll venture to guess you'll move beyond the love of all this analysis, and get on to the practice of archtiecture. Thanks for being civil and sincere.
faux-old and new urbanism have deep ties to various facets of cultural and religious conservatism, more than any other strand of architecture and urbanism. That is why they come off as pseudo-religious.
check out this book jla.
http://www.amazon.com/Eisenman-Krier-Ideologies-Cynthia-Davidson/dp/1580931391
It documents pretty well what a waste of time these faux-old debates are, in the 80's it was architecture's soap opera, and it still is, but with a little tea party flavor these days.
Granpa thayer is like Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense, a ghost that thinks it's alive.
until investment bankers figure out how to chop up the profession into little valued packets of service that are profitable, not much will change (develoers have almost done this). everything else like theory and pedagogy are for the most part superflous (as in not having an affect on anything besides ideological thinking, which for the most part is irrelevant to figuring out how to make 'spaces' and 'places').
(half joking, just making a cynical yet true observation about the ZEITGEIST of architecture these days, ha)
What's strange is that Colomina and the co-authors here are the pedagogical establishment, and they seem to be advocating for a student-led revolution? I'm missing something. It's hard to read this as anything other than: "back in my day, no kid would ever dream of listening to a person like me, so what's wrong with you all?"
I don't get why they veered toward a very specific era (and all its baggage) instead of just saying that today's students don't have the balls to question the premise of what they're doing in school. I think it's that the students are scared shitless about finding work and just want to fall in line so they don't get kicked out of the program - or there's too much buy-in to the premise of the program (schools can be extremely selective in who they bring in - rejecting applications of the very students who would be more apt to question pedagogy). IMO - the immediate answer is that architecture school should be free or significantly cheaper, and that they need to bring in a more diverse group of students (if you want students who are more beneficially disruptive stay away from the ones with high GPAs).
I definitely have noticed a shift toward too many good little gopher-students - and profs who are acting more like gate-keepers instead of colleagues.
personally - i think real questioning needs to happen of all this computation-driven functionalism - technology can be both a liberator and an oppressor - but is the only alternative "the wholeness" CNU neo-traditionalist bullshit? I don't think so.
what I'd like to see more of are serious study and critique of systems and policies that create social injustice - and how these manifest themselves in the built environment. There has already been some of this (koolhaas' GSD project on the city comes to mind) - but it seems to have petered out lately.
faux-old and new urbanism have deep ties to various facets of cultural and religious conservatism, more than any other strand of architecture and urbanism. That is why they come off as pseudo-religious.
Winner winner, chicken dinner:
Paul Weyrich, this guy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw) was a huge proponent of New Urbanism:
http://www.cnu.org/resources/publications/conservatives-new-urbanism-do-we-have-some-things-common-2008
"I don't want everybody to vote... As a matter of a fact, our leverage in elections go up as the voting populace goes down" -- Paul Weyrich.
what I'd like to see more of are serious study and critique of systems and policies that create social injustice - and how these manifest themselves in the built environment. There has already been some of this (koolhaas' GSD project on the city comes to mind) - but it seems to have petered out lately.
Michael Sorkin writes about this often. I'll try to find some quotes about it later...
Bahh....I had more written, but didn't edit in time. I touched on this topic briefly during my thesis, and basically my argument boiled down to this:
After WWII, there were demographic shifts in the US and the dire need for housing. This coupled with the rise of modernism, and we began to see huge housing projects in the US. When these failed because of poor policy, the projects came down (think of that iconic shot of Pruitt-Igoe) and modernism as an architectural polemic was cast away and forced to shoulder a disproportionate amount of blame for crappy social policy that favored inequality.
This, plus the rise of the American suburb, and supply-side Reagonomics led to a shift toward the neo-liberal policy we see today, and even Democratic cities (Rahm Emanuel, anyone?) favor privatization over social and economic diversity. So when the giant housing projects came down like Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis, or the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago, they were/are replaced with new-urbanist developments that have 1/3 affordable housing, 1/3 reduced, 1/3 market houses. And they are described as a return to "traditional" vernaculars and use words like walk-ability and mixed-use to hide the agenda of the ruthless displacement of huge portions of society.
These replacements, of course, are not nearly as dense, and the reality is that a HUGE majority of residents are displaced, and forced to physically leave the cities envelope and occupy the suburbs. And of course, as was documented in the 2008 housing bubble, these "sub-prime" residents are preyed upon by the likes of Angelo Mozilo at Countrywide and major financial institutions, and systematically fucked over something proper.
My theory, is that what we are witnessing is a slow-motion switch-a-roo, a form of economic cleansing of our urban environments. Those that recover from the economic disaster will probably migrate back into the cities, and the poor and disenfranchised will substitute their inner city slums for new suburban ghettos. Architecturally, I think this means that the city will expand, but the suburbs that were for decades propped up by national policy favoring home ownership will slowly be neglected as wealth comes back into the financial core of our urban environments.
As for us architects....well, we'll be designing for corporate interests and banks barring some sort of populist revival.
"but is the only alternative "the wholeness" CNU neo-traditionalist bullshit? I don't think so."
Nobody is saying that. In fact the whole point was to be able to study both and more to let the best solutions arise organically, rather then through a pre-approved process. And although your thoughts on the CNU make it clear you think they have nothing to say about preserving open space, creating environments that decrease our dependance on fossile feuls, and promote socio-economic mixing, others ought to be given a chance to learn for themselfes if there's anything else there besides "styraphome cornices".
Fortunatley, your characterization is a false dichotomy that many refuse to buy into, while others seem bent on using McCarthyite like accusations, as if someone's aesthetics preferences had anything to say about one's personal politics. What a sad state of affairs that architecture schools spend so much time on politics and proping up the politically correct language through which all discorse must happen, while our society and environment continue to suffer. What an inefficient system when we abandon the wisdom from our elders becasue we must be constantly titilated by the latest fashion. New and improved!... Really!!!
Modernists towers "were/are replaced with new-urbanist developments that have 1/3 affordable housing, 1/3 reduced, 1/3 market houses. And they are described as a return to "traditional" vernaculars and use words like walk-ability and mixed-use to hide the agenda of the ruthless displacement of huge portions of society." Except that it's now generally understood that the modernist zoning of functions into "rationalized" monocultures is the main culprit of the failure of projects. That mixing socio-economic groups into human scaled housing that promotes socialization is in the best interest of society. The fact that Angelo Mozillo prayed on the people who where forced out fo these horrendous projects has nothing to do with old/new urban realities as rediscovered by Jane Jacobs.
Yes really, and it will only get better.
But architecture isn't going to "save us" so there is no use crying about the world changing.
IMO, the best anyone can hope for in terms of addressing social injustice is stuff like what Samuel Mockbee did.
When you start saying (again) that change is a fashion statement, there is little chance for the faux-old to work with the contemporary.
CNU hijacked practices which were already in place and slapped a fat faux-old architecture sticker on it. Peel it off bro.
Your unwillingless or inability to address what is considered "old" is the fatal flaw in all your arguments. Without acknowledging that we all look to the past, whether that be one day ago or one century ago makes no difference. Those who like thier world in nice compartimentalized boxes are swimming up stream. Nature is much more fluid and messy. Just wait till you get older and people start putting you into a "granpa" box, while you still feel young inside your aging shell. Maybe then you'll develope the empathy to understand the things that unite us all, rather than trying to divide us.
When we're born, we assume we're all alike, and don't see the things that divide adults. But as we get older and develope our ability to understand and qualify the things we see around us, we begin to revel in our ability to classify. As we get older, we return to seeing what unites us, not out of nostalgia, but out from the perspective of age. At least that's the trajectory wisdom is supposed to take, but being part of nature, we'll always have differing takes, none more valid than the others.
My theory, is that what we are witnessing is a slow-motion switch-a-roo, a form of economic cleansing of our urban environments. Those that recover from the economic disaster will probably migrate back into the cities, and the poor and disenfranchised will substitute their inner city slums for new suburban ghettos. Architecturally, I think this means that the city will expand, but the suburbs that were for decades propped up by national policy favoring home ownership will slowly be neglected as wealth comes back into the financial core of our urban environments
Yup! I agree. Suburban ghettos have been on the rise for the last 30 years. It is a real problem because the suburban ghetto lacks the infrastructure for upward mobility that the urban ghetto has. Urban Ghettos at least allow for small business, cultural revolutions.....Little Italy in the early 20thcentury, China town, Harlem, all provided the community necessary to empower its residents. Compton, Oakland, Camria Heights, Flint MI.....Suffer from the same social problems and also lack the centralized community structure to tackle problems and create distinct cultural districts. It is a bad situation.
Next stop "the hunger games"?
Cities have transitioned from places of necessity to places of novety. The architecture that fills them has been overly novel and less essential to the urban fabric and the functionality of the city. Cities are becoming playgrounds for the wealthy. Development is more and more top down than ever before. In places like NYC street vending laws and over regulation of the little guy are making it ever difficult to build from the bottom up.
As for New urbanism......Every new urbanism project that pops up is often tied to a political agenda toward gentrification. Look at what happened in NOLA. The Spike Lee documentary "If God Willing then the Creeks won't Rise" does a great job pointing this out. While the general idea of new-urbanism has good intentions, the aesthetics and nostalgia attached make it vulnerable to exploitation by turning it into a marketing tool to push a sinister agenda without looking sinister.....Can you imagine if such projects were brutalist in appearance? It would create more negative reaction. But if it looks "friendly" and familiar then no one seems to notice.
Any architectural language that is tied to ideology is vulnerable to this. Look at early Mcdonalds buildings. They were modern. modern=clean was the message. Look at new supermarkets and strip malls in places like phoenix and CA. Postmodern arches, pedaments, etc.....Postmodernism is used as a way to hide the fact that it New. If people feel that it is familiar and old then they are less likely to notice that it is destroying the things at are really old like old farmers markets and old small businesses.....It is really all about marketing. Has blobitecture and deconstructivism reached the point where it has become exploitable. I think so. Now it is used as the mark of economic prosperity, progress, and empire. All stlye and isms are exploitable. The Avant garde is always radical at first but then corporations figure out ways to exploit. We start with NWA and Public enemy and end up with rapping cartoon characters and burger king commercials. This is why I never put faith in any style ism etc...
"While the general idea of new-urbanism has good intentions, the aesthetics and nostalgia attached make it vulnerable to exploitation by turning it into a marketing tool to push a sinister agenda without looking sinister.....Can you imagine if such projects were brutalist in appearance? It would create more negative reaction. But if it looks "friendly" and familiar then no one seems to notice."
I would agree that it often gets used as a marketing tool, but that's not the fault new-urbanism, that's the fault of people. Greed is the flip side of survival instincts, and in our culture of plenty, you will see plenty of greed, no matter what. That's why any governmental system with a checks and balances system has the best chance of success. But look at the things you are taking for granted, that if something looks "friendly", it is suseptible to corruption. I don't think that's an argument against doing somehting that looks "friendly". And before the toughts of the neighborhood come down on me, if they want their work to have a gansta style, go for it, I'm not negating that. I am glad to see their's some room for people who would like to do "friendly' work.
"Postmodernism is used as a way to hide the fact that it New" Not exactly. Postmodernism originated becasue of how dehomanizing so much modernism actually is when it leaves the drawing board. In fact, I think you could say it was searching for an expression that was more friendly and inviting. But this constant tying of politics and archtiecture is something that is promoted in schools. In reality, the stripped down classicism, or decoclassiscism of the 1930's represented whatever the local politics was. In America, it represents FDR and the new Deal, in Germany and Italy it represented Fascism, and in Stalinist Russia it represented communism.
As for the suburban ghettos of the future, many municipalities are trying to adress these situations by creating new public transit networks that would in effect, urbanise the centers, or create centers where there are none, regardless of what aesthetic political fight the universities are engaged in. In the working world, beyond academia, the concerns are a bit less etheral and more concrete.
Except that it's now generally understood that the modernist zoning of functions into "rationalized" monocultures is the main culprit of the failure of projects. That mixing socio-economic groups into human scaled housing that promotes socialization is in the best interest of society. The fact that Angelo Mozillo prayed on the people who where forced out fo these horrendous projects has nothing to do with old/new urban realities as rediscovered by Jane Jacobs.
Look, when you're done reading the Death and Life of Great American Cities, you can look at the current political climate and realize that new urbanism has been used as a tool to ensure prosperity at the top. Bringing things down to the "human scale" is simply a coded way of describing a desire to economically cleanse our cities of poverty and transform American cities into neo-feudalist societies, where prosperity is funneled from the weak and disenfranchised suburban poor into the financial core. There's no two ways about it. While new urbanist housing developments may certainly be more "friendly" and livable, the reality is that plots of land that once housed 30k people will now only house about a third of that total, with two-thirds of the poor being physically displaced. How do you factor that cruel displacement into your architecture and politics? Does this displacement satisfy your "social interaction" requirement? And how do you reconcile the fact that the "building as a social condenser" is a modernist principle of russian constructivism? New urbanism, despite your repeated claims, actually re-inforces social hierarchies by virtue of its political implementation.
Look, I'm sure it gives you the warm fuzzies in using words like "socio-economic diversity" to describe your aims, but this desire to make low to mid dense environments literally kicks poor people out on the street, and turns them into little serfs who's only purpose is to sacrifice what little wealth they have to be delivered to the king.
When the housing projects came down, modernism was executed along with it, for better or worse. But more menacingly, what happened in the US was the casual conflation of modern architecture and progressive politics. That's what conservatives capitalized on, and that's what new urbanism as an ethos was exploited for. The idea that anything "modern" = progressive politics (which would entail some basic redistribution of wealth) is constantly shot down as anti-American, which is why American architects can only design interesting architecture overseas or for wealthy individuals, with the majority of us designing drab and lifeless corporate offices/campuses with huge parking lots domestically....because the public sphere is dead.
As for the suburban ghettos of the future, many municipalities are trying to adress these situations by creating new public transit networks that would in effect, urbanise the centers, or create centers where there are none, regardless of what aesthetic political fight the universities are engaged in.
Uh, yeah, no. This is not going to happen. We are more likely to witness suburban poor communities be completely neglected. They will more closely resemble Brazilian favelas than they will new urban centers. How do you figure those poor, sometimes bankrupt municipalities will pay for the infrastructure you're describing? They sure as hell aren't going to be able to get it from their own socio-economic tax base. It would require a redistribution of wealth from more privileged cores. You seriously think that will happen? Get off it.
No, what will happen is that these poor suburban ghettos will close down schools, police stations, DMVs (hello voter suppression), and libraries, and instead build holding cells and for-profit prisons.
My point is that anytime we create an ism we create a means of exploitation whether it be new urbanism, modernism, deconstructivism. It would be very difficult to exploit things that are "timeless" or that fit into no clear style. Lou Kahn, FLW, Ando, Zumthor, Scarpa, Herzog.....It is really hard to exploit non-conforming design. There are also alot of not so famous architects that practice in this non-conforming realm. In being non-conforming/non-linear (or being of no particular category or style), it becomes more like nature. It is because it is. It is shaped from history,past,present,future, site, program, artistic imagination, physics....Rather than an abstract ideal like an expression of the machine age, or a revival of some golden period.
I will admit that the university is always looking for these big movements so that they can write a textbook, and by making students justify each move they make, they tend to get pushed into a neat package that conforms to the latest trends, because justification is often based on the latest theory at hand. Even the article above is calling for some new movement, some new ism.
........It's hard to articulate what is different about this stuff I mentioned above, but you get the point. Originality, maybe? a more clear hand of the author? Not sure
So, maybe the "avant-garde" should not be a wide spread movement that can eventually be used for "evil", but rather an individual endevor.
No, what will happen is that these poor suburban ghettos will close down schools, police stations, DMVs (hello voter suppression), and libraries, and instead build holding cells and for-profit prisons.
It is already happening. I grew up in a neighbor hood like this and the police station just closed down. People are fucking scared because of the high crime rates in the area.
Your unwillingless or inability to address what is considered "old" is the fatal flaw in all your arguments. Without acknowledging that we all look to the past, whether that be one day ago or one century ago makes no difference. -thayer-d
I believe in history, but designing with the past in mind is different from copying it. Copying is the faux-old establishment specialty.
Those who like thier world in nice compartimentalized boxes are swimming up stream. Nature is much more fluid and messy. Just wait till you get older and people start putting you into a "granpa" box, while you still feel young inside your aging shell. Maybe then you'll develope the empathy to understand the things that unite us all, rather than trying to divide us.
Many of us will avoid getting stuck into the granpa box by listening to young people, instead of trying to encourage conservative bat-wingery. It's no talent to be able to adapt and change, if the faux-old tried this, their demise would come much less painfullly.
When we're born, we assume we're all alike, and don't see the things that divide adults. But as we get older and develope our ability to understand and qualify the things we see around us, we begin to revel in our ability to classify. As we get older, we return to seeing what unites us, not out of nostalgia, but out from the perspective of age. At least that's the trajectory wisdom is supposed to take, but being part of nature, we'll always have differing takes, none more valid than the others.
This paragraph is straight out of perenialhole's blog, a "whole new," yet it is always the stubborn faux-oldies who have been messing up architectural history for the last 300 years with their dam revivals. Also use spell-check, don't be afraid of them plug-ins, and please italicize those you quote for visual clarity, isn't the faux-old about being easy on the eyes?
Postmodernism originated becasue of how dehomanizing so much modernism actually is when it leaves the drawing board. In fact, I think you could say it was searching for an expression that was more friendly and inviting.
Postmodernism was pop culture infiltration nothing more, and it's influence on architecture was as short-lived as a season of That 70's Show
New Guy,
"realize that new urbanism has been used as a tool to ensure prosperity at the top." Your naive if you think that people who want to ensure prosperity at the top give a hoot about what tool thier using to get rich. Maybe it your youth, but even then it seems dumb.
" Bringing things down to the "human scale" is simply a coded way of describing a desire to economically cleanse our cities of poverty and transform American cities into neo-feudalist societies, where prosperity is funneled from the weak and disenfranchised suburban poor into the financial core. There's no two ways about it." Wow, you've got it all figured out.
"How do you factor that cruel displacement into your architecture and politics? " It's a matter of supply and demand. If they hadn't invested in suburbia so lopsidedly and at the same time torn down so much "traditional" city fabric (thanks Corbu), maybe what's left of the nice stuff downtown wouldn't be catching such a premium. Build more of it and watch the price go down. As for the politics, it's amazing how much you want to tie the two together. Nevermind that New Urbanisms progenetors like Camillo Sitte and Gegeman where city reformers. Never mind that the preservation movement that stood up to the Robert Moses's of the world and their Corbusian plans of Urban renewal where trying to save the traditional city for the poor that where left behind as the middle class abandoned the cities. Never mind that Jane Jacobs, the god mother of new urbanism was hardly a rapatious capitalist. You say "The idea that anything "modern" = progressive politics (which would entail some basic redistribution of wealth) yet you conveniently leave out that while well intentionel liberals where stuffing the poor in Corbusian towers, those same architects where turning out Madison Avenue ModernismModernism, the architecture of large corporations. Your constant conflation of politics and architecture is simplistic and simply dosen't hold up against history.
"It would require a redistribution of wealth from more privileged cores. You seriously think that will happen? Get off it." You really are selective with your history. Do you think anyone imagined they'd be redistrubuting wealth in the 1920's the way FDR did in the 1930's? It reminds me of an Argentinian student I went to graduate school with. Everything was political, and I mean everything.
@jla-x,
"It would be very difficult to exploit things that are "timeless" or that fit into no clear style." Who cares what style anything fits in? I could care less, infact I tend to prefer hybrids more as they take more inventivness=fun. Agnostic means just that.
About your list of "original" architects, Frank Lloyd Wright is the only one that dosen't seem to fit in with the rest. I love his reaction to European modernism overriding all his attempts to develope a lasting original americal architecture. He takes the whole cubist look and brings his composers eye to deliver Falling Water.
good post newguy
as a recovering new urbanist, I found it a good read.
It's a matter of supply and demand. If they hadn't invested in suburbia so lopsidedly and at the same time torn down so much "traditional" city fabric (thanks Corbu), maybe what's left of the nice stuff downtown wouldn't be catching such a premium. -ThayerD
faux-oldies and their love of using Corb as a scapegoat for everything.
As for the politics, it's amazing how much you want to tie the two together. Nevermind that New Urbanisms progenetors like Camillo Sitte and Gegeman where city reformers. Never mind that the preservation movement that stood up to the Robert Moses's of the world and their Corbusian plans of Urban renewal where trying to save the traditional city for the poor that where left behind as the middle class abandoned the cities. Never mind that Jane Jacobs, the god mother of new urbanism was hardly a rapatious capitalist.
Faux-old and their love of resurrecting things, especially old debates. Jane Jacobs is rolling in her grave at CNU.... NYC is basically an unholy marriage of Moses and Jacobs, use the contemporary as a launching pad, instead of resurrecting old debates. You miss the point that today, preservation has reached an atrocious level of hoarding, where every anonymous mold-ridden brick façade is anointed as being historically significant.
Try and get a novel building up in NYC these days and you will have to go through a shooting range style approval process rampant with hoardish pseudo-liberal officials who own faux-old upstate houses.
The faux-old oligarchy maintains an incestuous relationship with Mussolini-style politicians and faulty construction companies who specialize in churning out faux-old material sausages guaranteed to fail in a few years.
You say "The idea that anything "modern" = progressive politics (which would entail some basic redistribution of wealth) yet you conveniently leave out that while well intentionel liberals where stuffing the poor in Corbusian towers, those same architects where turning out Madison Avenue ModernismModernism, the architecture of large corporations. Your constant conflation of politics and architecture is simplistic and simply dosen't hold up against history.
Faux-old Paul Weyrich is new urbanism's best friend. Contemporary architecture can be for everyone. Faux-old is not an answer for today's demands, nor an alternative to mundane corporate towers. The faux-old knows this, so they seek to create divides in history where none occurred, they ignore the compromises made and instead seek to perpetuate false notions where only the faux-old is the clear answer. The only way forward is copying the past, right? LOL
You really are selective with your history. Do you think anyone imagined they'd be redistrubuting wealth in the 1920's the way FDR did in the 1930's? It reminds me of an Argentinian student I went to graduate school with. Everything was political, and I mean everything.
Funny you should mention this period of redistribution while simultaneously dismissing modernism, since it just so happens to be the same period that modernism and modern architecture began to reach its zenith. The Bauhaus, Russian constructivism, and other post-war modernist philosophies reached the US during this period of wealth redistribution. And those same ideas became commercialized, marginalized, and replaced with your New Urbanism (and other styles) around the same time when income disparities began polarizing yet again. Now here we are, in America's second guilded age, arguing about old vs. new. Fancy that.
Now, do you have a valid criticism that Corbusien towers in the park where no ideal way to solve poverty and housing? Yes, of course. I won't deny that. But your New Urbanist solutions don't even bother addressing those issues. They just look to the dollar value of real estate to declare their goals a success while casually ignoring the real damage they generate via segregation and gentrification. Modernism may not have solved social ills and poor policy, but at least it took an attitude about the topic. New Urbanism, however, just looks to the invisible hand of the free market to measure its success, which is a shame.
I'd like to see the work of your Argentine classmate, though. His work is probably interesting.
Are you aware that Mies Van Der Rohe wanted to build for Hitler, but after being re-buffed he went to the USA? Did that make him a Nazi? Both Southern Slave Owners and Northern Abolishionists built in the then fashionable Greek Revival. How should we classify the politics of that style? These simplistic "guilty by association" games you like to play just don't square with history, but those who like to draw arbitrary lines in the flow of history seem to be attracted to them.
By the way, my classmate works for a property managment company. He had a great hand and an acute sense of space, but he put a little too much importance on politics, and when he came up to a world that wasn't black and white, he jettisoned the whole thing for a job that would guarantee an income for his new family. It's too bad, but it's meant as a warning for those students who really believe the world works in the cartoon version you are selling.
Dude..please read this:
Conservatives and the New Urbanism:
Do We Have Some Things in Common?
http://www.cnu.org/sites/www.cnu.org/files/Conservatives&NewUrbanism.pdf
This isn't guilt by association, it's guilt by action. The Authors, Andres Duany (of Duany Plater Zyberk - the firm who led the charge of New Urbanism), and Paul Weyrich (who founded THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION, and who once famously declared that he didn't want all Americans to vote), and William S. Lind, a conservative military strategist who advocates secession based on social issues.
From the article linked above:
New Urbanism is conservative in that it has an aversion to experiments. There have been too many failures throughout the 20th century – experiments in architecture and urbanism. New Urbanist designers tend to work within well-tested precedents. The best New Urbanist codes do not ban things such as large house lots, multi-car garages, and parking lots; they just put them in appropriate places and they provide other choices as well. No one is intrinsically "wrong" when it comes to their urban preferences. They may only be wrong in where they want to do it. Good New Urbanist plans endeavor to accommodate most of society's preferences, from churches to tattoo parlors.
Second, the New Urbanism, at its inception and still in the majority of its projects, has been primarily market-driven. These projects are developed by the private sector for profit; residents elect to purchase them in an open competitive market. Except in a few specific instances, such as the HOPE VI program of public housing and public transit, they do not require subsidies. (my note: The HOPE VI program is responsible for demoloshing many modern housing projects and replacing them with these "market-driven" developments: Subsidized housing for middle-class people who wish to move back into the city while displacing the poor. i.e. poverty removal. LOL, fuck you, poor people).
New Urbanism's primary problem is that most of the market is not free. It is not a level playing field. In most places, people are not given a choice between New Urbanism and sprawl. New Urbanism is illegal under most current regulatory regimes, where the codes and standards mandate sprawl. Building a New Urbanist project typically requires securing a large number of variances, which is expensive in both time and money.
New Urbanists believe the rules should offer a choice of urban and suburban patterns, including sprawl. Conservatives who believe in free markets and most do, should be with New Urbanists in demanding codes that level the playing field and let the market decides. (my note: Oh, look at that, CODES and zoning ordinances, the very thing you accuse modernism of doing). New Urbanists think that, given the choice, a very substantial number of people will choose New Urbanist communities. Conservatives should insist they be given an equal chance to prove their point in a genuinely free development market.
Third, while New Urbanists accept that subsidies are necessary for public housing, they are generally against subsidies elsewhere. Even in housing for the poor, they think subsidies could be cut back if we eliminated unnecessary, gold-plated standards that raise building costs, and if we removed intractable bureaucratic procedures that have eliminated the small builder, including the self-builder. (my note: Well, would you look at that, conservatives against welfare queens and regulations. Original, ain't it?)
Look, I'm not interested in saying that modernism is the solution to social policies. It has it's faults (huge faults -- penitentiary style housing for low income earners is a disaster, I'm not arguing that). But New Urbanism doesn't even try to address these issues. They just let the market decide, which is to say, they push poverty out to the fringes of society (Housing vouchers for the private sector!!!! yayyyy!).
Both Southern Slave Owners and Northern Abolishionists built in the then fashionable Greek Revival. How should we classify the politics of that style? These simplistic "guilty by association" games you like to play just don't square with history, but those who like to draw arbitrary lines in the flow of history seem to be attracted to them.
And yet, if you diagrammed NYC and juxtaposed it with Charleston, S.C., I'd bet you'd see one city that was dense and industry based, and another that was agrarian, spread out, and had acres filled with cash crops and plantations spread out in between. But hey, they both had doric columns, so I guess you got me there!
The reason New Urbanists tried so hard to work with-in the market place is that was the only way to get it off the drawing boards and into reality. Reason being it won't actually help people if it dosen't try to come to terms with realities no matter how harsh or unfair they may seem. When I started out, bankers would laugh you out of the room if you talked about mixing housing types. They said no one would buy into it becasue they feared their property values would go down by having auxillary apartments, or towns nest to single family housing with apartments on the main streets. But if you fail to see how New Urbanism dosen't try to blend incomes in one community with a mix of housing types or if you can't see how the idea of working with transit helps those who can't afford cars, I'm not sure we're ever going to agree on the CNU. Suffice it to say that both our intentions seem noble. We'll just have to approach the problem from two different angles. I just wish we could train our energys more on the outcome rather than the method. Cheers.
@newguy:
I know I'm violating the rules of "contributing to good discussion" - but I really appreciate your last comment. giant "like" from me.
now that we've gone completely off-topic - I just want to make a couple points about "displacement." It's pretty much how cities have worked for generations - groups of people move in to neighborhoods, groups of people move out... some neighborhoods become poor, then rich, then poor, then poor, then middle class, more desirable, less desirable, etc... it's just that recently the spatial segregation of the classes has become much more pronounced, entrenched, and instead of the poor being dislocated into adjacent neighborhoods, they're being pushed further out into environments built entirely around outdated 20th century middle-class cheap-oil-era lifestyles - which is starting to create a very different problem (although, there are people in a handful of planning depts who had started thinking about this particular issue in the 90s). the problem we've identified with new urbanist developments is that they aren't really doing anything to stop this dislocation in the short term (although accusing them of gentrification is the same thing as admitting these places are actually desirable).. but we've learned that the solution is not the entrap the poor and determine "poor people live in these buildings FOREVER!"
there aren't really any perfect solutions and only a few of them can truly be addressed through architecture - but I do think architecture can be a useful platform for instigating these kinds of investigations - at the very least to point out things like what policies lead to the "market driven" CNU developments and why that might actually make things worse. that's where academia comes in.
But if academia isn't even engaged with the players, how does it expect to make a difference? Also, the things you're talking about have to do with government policy, not architecture per say. the New Urbanists never intended to address the issue of poverty and disslocation, they're main focus was to legalize the living arrangements of the pre-automobile dominated city.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.