Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Sunday, May 3, 2009
On Art as a complementary reality
XVII
While Art has been consistently seen as a form of representation of reality its role as a substitute to reality has been given little attention. Kant’s concept of art reveals a way of thinking that has its origins in Plato’s construct that art imitate the world perceptible by our senses, that is to say it imitates the imitations –or shadows- of the real, immutable world of ideas. Heidegger’s concept of art as means of revelation of truth while radically overturns the classical notion of art, it does little to identify it (partly) as a reality made of images that co-exists next to the reality consisting of physical things.
XVIII
A depiction of a naked woman is as real as a bridge connecting two shores of a river. People have always had the opportunity to identify an artwork either as a real thing that stands for a “more” real one or as a real thing that exists per se and has little to do with the reality that surrounds them. In other terms, people chose to see an artwork either as a signifier of something signified (the depiction of the naked woman for the woman herself) or as an object irrelevant to perceptible world.
Interestingly enough, this attitude didn’t have to do with the accuracy of depiction. As a rule, ancient Greek statues of -humanlike- Gods were seen as personifications of Gods themselves, and as such holding magical powers, the older and less delicate they were. John of Damascus (5th century AD) is at pains to explain to his audience that artworks depicting human figures weren’t in all aspects equivalent to the persons depicted, because they lacked movement and, consequently, life, etc.
XIX
The disengagement of almost faithful depictions of living creatures to the creatures depicted is how the blasphemous renaissance and post-renaissance artworks have made their way through the increasingly harsh church censorship. A naked young woman wouldn’t be allowed to go public before a crowd in real world, but many did so, on canvasses decorating reception halls of palaces and mansions. A half-naked Virgin Mary would be unimaginable in some other domain of human activity. The same holds true for the depiction of creatures, whom some of the features are so realistically depicted that could have rendered the creatures themselves as been real: Hieronymus Bosch’s monsters could survive just because they were accepted as belonging to another, apocalyptical, world.
XX
One may wonder how people are enjoying watching almost promiscuous TV shows, while not allowing far more modest (but still “obscene”) behaviors taking place in their vicinity, such as bathing naked: The mediation of the TV assures that the depicted acts and persons are kept at a safe distance, and thus belong to another, remote, world.
Facebook
XXI
The same holds for the Facebook or the SMSs. People choose to contact others by means that allow for a restricted revelation of personal data, such as the mood and the look of the moment. Far from being substitutes to face-to-face contacts they offer people the opportunity of a kind of relation that seems to be increasingly popular.
XXII
Our reality increasingly includes many new territories. Not all can be sheltered in our cities. As people have done repeatedly with art, so we will do with the worlds opened up by technology: instead of integrating them physically in our vicinity we will accept them as remote parts of our universe.
XVII
While Art has been consistently seen as a form of representation of reality its role as a substitute to reality has been given little attention. Kant’s concept of art reveals a way of thinking that has its origins in Plato’s construct that art imitate the world perceptible by our senses, that is to say it imitates the imitations –or shadows- of the real, immutable world of ideas. Heidegger’s concept of art as means of revelation of truth while radically overturns the classical notion of art, it does little to identify it (partly) as a reality made of images that co-exists next to the reality consisting of physical things.
XVIII
A depiction of a naked woman is as real as a bridge connecting two shores of a river. People have always had the opportunity to identify an artwork either as a real thing that stands for a “more” real one or as a real thing that exists per se and has little to do with the reality that surrounds them. In other terms, people chose to see an artwork either as a signifier of something signified (the depiction of the naked woman for the woman herself) or as an object irrelevant to perceptible world.
Interestingly enough, this attitude didn’t have to do with the accuracy of depiction. As a rule, ancient Greek statues of -humanlike- Gods were seen as personifications of Gods themselves, and as such holding magical powers, the older and less delicate they were. John of Damascus (5th century AD) is at pains to explain to his audience that artworks depicting human figures weren’t in all aspects equivalent to the persons depicted, because they lacked movement and, consequently, life, etc.
XIX
The disengagement of almost faithful depictions of living creatures to the creatures depicted is how the blasphemous renaissance and post-renaissance artworks have made their way through the increasingly harsh church censorship. A naked young woman wouldn’t be allowed to go public before a crowd in real world, but many did so, on canvasses decorating reception halls of palaces and mansions. A half-naked Virgin Mary would be unimaginable in some other domain of human activity. The same holds true for the depiction of creatures, whom some of the features are so realistically depicted that could have rendered the creatures themselves as been real: Hieronymus Bosch’s monsters could survive just because they were accepted as belonging to another, apocalyptical, world.
XX
One may wonder how people are enjoying watching almost promiscuous TV shows, while not allowing far more modest (but still “obscene”) behaviors taking place in their vicinity, such as bathing naked: The mediation of the TV assures that the depicted acts and persons are kept at a safe distance, and thus belong to another, remote, world.
XXI
The same holds for the Facebook or the SMSs. People choose to contact others by means that allow for a restricted revelation of personal data, such as the mood and the look of the moment. Far from being substitutes to face-to-face contacts they offer people the opportunity of a kind of relation that seems to be increasingly popular.
XXII
Our reality increasingly includes many new territories. Not all can be sheltered in our cities. As people have done repeatedly with art, so we will do with the worlds opened up by technology: instead of integrating them physically in our vicinity we will accept them as remote parts of our universe.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
At the 48th Minute
(GuangKong by Joshua LAU, At the 48th Minutes)
DIS(RE)PLACEMENT, REFABRICATION & DISAPPEARANCE
In no more than 2 years time, a mega-metropolis will emerge above the land of Pearl River Delta. At the slice of completion, a newly created in-between fragement by the action of future-time liquidation appears to be what "shortened". It is temporary, transcient, impermanent and maybe imperfect as it does not describe nor project the essence of its origin. It is brand new, wishful, dynamic and attractive, breaks the state of balance between the two cities, re-configures relationship between the lands and their people. It is yet a process of another beginning.
In the 2006 Venice Biennale, the discussion of the Hong Kong Exhibition identifies the idea of "Displacement", as a phenomonon derived from a multiple restrains of hyper density, soaring land value and economicontests amongest other asian metropolises, cities are read as a fragmented palimpsest continuously being transcribed, transformed, trnansferred and even transported. The following 2 biennale exhibitions including the ShenZhen/ Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale and Venice in 2008 argues that Hong Kong is a city of "Refabrication" and "Disappearance" with alarming frequency of construction and deconstruction, leaving memories, how creative disciplines are able to engage in the process of generating and regenerating the city’s fabric in its various scopes and scales.
To continue the ideas and obervations by architects and scholars in the PRD, every action of "displacements" is a transaction of space and value causes "disappearance", "replaces" and "refabricates" fragment of the city. The Bi-City of Shen Zhen & Hong Kong already proved to have contributed over 50% of GDP in the PRD region. The new direct 48 minutes portal from the West Kowloon to GuangZhou will future strength these three cities in to a Mega-Urban Region, contributes up to 75% of GDP and not Tri-City in description. This integration of urbanity ignites by the greater PRD intercity transportation creates job opportunities within the region, meaning also creation of sustainable middle class which supports the regional economic stalization process.
Habitus; citizens of different background and perception would somewhat see this marriage of the cities with unlimited possibilites. "Displacement" continues to be prevailing phenomana takes place at the Great Leap of Red China in the Pearl River Delta. The displacements of economic activities from the better developed origins includes obsoletes manufacturing factories and labour intensive businesses, in order to make space for the service industries, refabricate the city wtih new set of citizenship. Spatial transactions continues to transform the relationship between each nodes in the PRD and shifts economic focuses from site to site until the state of equilibrium.
(Source: CBRE One Hour Living Sphere)
On the verge of the begining of new era in this One Hour Living Sphere, the story of GuangZhou and Hong Kong would become the "norm" within the region of PRD. The shortened time allows citizens better chance for transactions to occurs and translate existing culture and fabric into state of uncertainty. As economy will continue to reach its equalibrium during the period of massive displacement actions, the sense of origin will inevitably be ignored and becoming one.
In this sense, ideas previouly discussed were only temporary and imperfect. Passes the state of the definate actions of "DIS-" & "RE-" we are at the edge of losing identity and ego as a city, when the new world is looking at combined direct "Urban Actions" between two sites, hence "EXCHANGE", that includes PLACEMENT, FABRICATION & APPEARANCE. Inevitably cities identity becomes ambiguous, but is that so?
Monday, March 23, 2009
Technology and Space as Urban Forms
The text is formed out of footnotes from the lecture of Manuel Castells at GSD.
Mar. 18. 2009, Cambridge MA
The combination of informatics and telecommunication transform everyday the patterns of communication patterns in all kinds of relationships. As Richard Mayer (Professor of Psychology at the University of California) refers the cities have been always the result of their communication patterns.
In terms of concentration we already crossed over the threshold of 50% of urban population for the first time. The earth experiences the largest urbanization in history. Through observation and analysis of the contemporary social organization and the human activities we come up with the concept of a Polycentric Metropolis. While the urban sprawl is transformed in something much more massive that could be characterized as a De-centered Globalization, i.e. a multinuclear structure where the communication systems organize cities themselves as internal metropolitan networks. For example the local news of LA call the region that they refer to as the “South Land”, which includes the triangle of Santa Barbara-Tijuana-Las Vegas. This triangle translated in numbers accommodates no less than 21 million people in a multi-nuclear urban condition sprawled along 12,5 million km2. The tactic of the formation of this network reflects a manipulated real estate credit market in comparison with common communication networks i.e. economy and technology juxtapositions. The new urban geography is the overlap of amenities (urban infrastructure), chances for jobs, crime economy, informal economy etc. This urban amalgam creates a completely new issue in the planet where (1) land patterns don’t have a central political representation (2) public spaces – non functional areas ceased to exist and (3) the built points of reference (architecture) are not essential for any formation of identity.
The crisis of the already known urban or suburban space could be characterized as structural. All the latter networks are based in a financial capitalism of the easy credit. India and China are being developed in the same non-sustainable model, which is a guarantee for failure in the very near future. All-round the world the governments are shrinking the economy while ideologically there is no socialism (nevertheless corporations tend to be nationally supported). We definitely need soft design where wi-fi creates spontaneously self-organized public space and immigrants produce financial mechanisms through informal structures. Instead of rigid architectural structures we could force LeCorbusier to ride a bike.
Manuel Castells
Edit. Yannis Kitanis
Mar. 18. 2009, Cambridge MA
The combination of informatics and telecommunication transform everyday the patterns of communication patterns in all kinds of relationships. As Richard Mayer (Professor of Psychology at the University of California) refers the cities have been always the result of their communication patterns.
In terms of concentration we already crossed over the threshold of 50% of urban population for the first time. The earth experiences the largest urbanization in history. Through observation and analysis of the contemporary social organization and the human activities we come up with the concept of a Polycentric Metropolis. While the urban sprawl is transformed in something much more massive that could be characterized as a De-centered Globalization, i.e. a multinuclear structure where the communication systems organize cities themselves as internal metropolitan networks. For example the local news of LA call the region that they refer to as the “South Land”, which includes the triangle of Santa Barbara-Tijuana-Las Vegas. This triangle translated in numbers accommodates no less than 21 million people in a multi-nuclear urban condition sprawled along 12,5 million km2. The tactic of the formation of this network reflects a manipulated real estate credit market in comparison with common communication networks i.e. economy and technology juxtapositions. The new urban geography is the overlap of amenities (urban infrastructure), chances for jobs, crime economy, informal economy etc. This urban amalgam creates a completely new issue in the planet where (1) land patterns don’t have a central political representation (2) public spaces – non functional areas ceased to exist and (3) the built points of reference (architecture) are not essential for any formation of identity.
The crisis of the already known urban or suburban space could be characterized as structural. All the latter networks are based in a financial capitalism of the easy credit. India and China are being developed in the same non-sustainable model, which is a guarantee for failure in the very near future. All-round the world the governments are shrinking the economy while ideologically there is no socialism (nevertheless corporations tend to be nationally supported). We definitely need soft design where wi-fi creates spontaneously self-organized public space and immigrants produce financial mechanisms through informal structures. Instead of rigid architectural structures we could force LeCorbusier to ride a bike.
Manuel Castells
Edit. Yannis Kitanis
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
a global map of accessibility
came across this "global map of accessibility" here, time and distances shrink, "little wilderness left", wilderness defined in terms of distance.
how to allow for the "wild" to exist and develop here, next to us?
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
MAPPING SOMALIA
A study of how body and mind are linked with territory.
Somalis are producing a unique type of globalization, which manifests itself under the regime of anarchy.
Somalia, [a country situated in the East-west strategic point of the Horn of Africa], from 1991 to present, is cited as a real world example of a stateless society and of the non-existence of legal system. From the fall of Siad Barre’s government in January 1991 until the capture of Mogadishu by the Islamic Courts Union in June 2006, there was no permanent national government in Somalia. Large areas of the country such as Somaliland, Puntland, Galmudug, Maakhir, and Southwestern Somalia are internationally unrecognized autonomous regions. The remaining areas, including the capital Mogadishu, were divided into smaller territories ruled by competing warlords. Until now, taxes ceased to be collected, regulatory agencies ceased to regulate. Since that time, thirteen different peace conferences have attempted to create a new government for all of Somalia, but all of them have failed. How does, in our times, a stateless society continue to still exist? Could the survival of this advanced and complex system of distribution of power survive without the developing of strong relationships of global interdependence?
For some theoreticians, Somalia in its stateless period provided a unique test of the theory of anarchy. Following the downfall of the Siad Barre regime, there was effectively no formal monocentric government law in Somalia. While some urban areas such as Mogadishu had private police forces, many Somalis simply returned to the traditional clan-based legal structures for local governance, and they have been identified as “legendary individualists”, susceptible to anarchist forms of social organization.
Regarding the social existing conditions, the level of daily violence during all this period was catastrophic, since the impact of governmental collapse and the ensuing civil war led to the breakdown of political institutions, the destruction of social and economic infrastructure and the massive internal and external migrations. However, according to studies of 2005, Somalia ranked in the top 50 percent in six of our 13 measures, and ranked near the bottom in only three: infant mortality, immunization rates, and access to improved water sources. This compares favourably with circumstances in 1990, when Somalia last had a government and was ranked in the bottom 50 percent for all seven of the measures for which we had that year’s data: death rate, infant mortality, life expectancy, main telephone lines, tuberculosis, and immunization for measles and DTP.
This shows partially, that in the absence of functioning governmental institutions and regulations, voluntary, non-coercive alternatives emerged. Economical researchers identify areas where the private sector adapted to the stateless environment. The journalist Kevin Sites, after a trip to anarchic Somalia, reported that “Somalia, though brutally poor, is a kind of libertarian’s dream. Free enterprise flourishes, and vigorous commercial competition is the only form of regulation. Somalia has some of the best telecommunications in Africa, with a handful of companies ready to wire home or office and provide crystal-clear service, including international long distance, for about $10 a month.” According to the CIA World Factbook, private telephone companies offer service in most major cities via wireless technology, charging the lowest international rates on the continent, while The New York Times has noted the private provision of mail services. According to a 2005 World Bank report, the “private airline business in Somalia is now thriving with more than five carriers and
price wars between the companies.” In addition, the private sector grew impressively, according to the
World Bank in 2003, particularly in the areas of trade, commerce, transport, remittance and infrastructure
services and in the primary sectors, notably in livestock, agriculture and fisheries. The economist Peter T. Leeson, in an event study of “the impact of anarchy on Somali development”, found that “the data suggest
that while the state of this development remains low, on nearly all of 18 key indicators that allow pre- and
post-stateless welfare comparisons, Somalis are better off under anarchy than they were under government.”
Today, there exist 15-17 million Somali people, from whom only 9,1 million continue to live in Somalia. Most of the remaining live now in the state of constant movement, seeking refuge and are categorized from international organizations as internally displaced persons (IDPs). The rest of them are dispersed in the world, categorized in three major groups: a) immigrants, b) forced immigrants and c) refugees and asylum seekers. Somali refugees are amongst the largest refugee population in the world and the Somali diaspora is very widely scattered. How can we map a state of anarchy, or how can we map the people who do not live within the borders of their own country? Can we draw conclusions of how territory is linked with the people and their common identity?
In this case, territory, people and identity are linked in a very special way. Mapping the Somali diaspora – starting at the international level, continuing with the Horn of Africa and zooming into the Somali neighbourhoods of Addis Ababa, a city functioning as a “stepping stone” of their big exodus to Europe and America – shows that the idea of territory remains an obscure image for the Somalis. Studies of population movements, the economic flow and emerging political and cultural elements inside and outside the Somali “invisible” borders indicate that Somalia is everywhere. Somalis are producing a unique type of globalization, which manifests itself under the regime of anarchy and may constitute today of the most modern type of capitalism. War takes part in the erasure of national boundaries, questioning the classical notion of nationhood. The stateless society helps the development of multiple and complex interrelationships in a global base. However, we should also have in mind the unique culture of Somali people, who, belonging to a nomadic culture, live in the constant movement and change and produce a special way to organize their space and territory. They step into the land of the in-between: in search of an identity between then (before the civil war) and now using this dipole of body and mind, land and spirit. They know that they belong everywhere.
To be continued…
Somalia and the theory of anarchy. Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok, http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/04/somalia_and_the.html
-In Somalia, Those Who Feed Off Anarchy Fuel It, Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Times, 2007-04-27
-The Rule of Law Without the State, Spencer Heath Mac-Callum, Mises Daily Article, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007-09-12
-Violence continues unabated in Somalia. News & Special Reports, Medecins Sans Frontieres, 2005
-Somali Anarchy Is More Orderly than Somali Government, Benjamin Powell, The Independent Institute, 2006
-In the Hot Zone, Kevin Sites, Harper Perennial, New York, 2007
-World Bank Advisory Committee for Somalia Country Re-engagement Note, 2003
-Somalia After State Collapse: Chaos or Improvement?, Benjamin Powell, Ryan Ford, Alex Nowrasteh, Independent Institute, 2006
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Distributed Capitalism
Thoughts on Jeremy Rifkin’s speech at Urbania Festival (Bologna)
In his January 2009 lecture in Bologna (Italy), Jeremy Rifkin states that the world is suffering from the progress of the recent past decades. He says that We underestimated the speed , of things that are changing today. We are facing now the second law of thermodynamics; the entropy-wrath is distributed in three parameters of a global crisis.
1. 1 Global Economic Meltdown
2. 2 Global Energy Security
3. 3 Real Time Impact of Climate Change
The Global Economic Meltdown is sustained by the concepts of “credit” and later that of the “mortgage”. The American Economy’s final collapse comes out of the 1989 and 2009 housing crisis and after a repetitively ambiguous economical administration throughout the last two decades the “super power” has eventually a 12.5 trillion dollars total depth.
Global Energy Security problem rises in a moment when the American Industry depends absolutely on the energy price since the first and second Industrial Revolutions. We are currently in the era of the “peak oil” where the price of $140 per barrel defines the upper limit of a surreal economic inflation. At the same time even if new oil sources are discovered all round the world, the exponentially increase of the energy demanding population (i.e. the industrialization of China and India) enhances the problem of the “peak oil per capita”. War is used as the absolute means to “secure” the precious energy and that’s more than harming for the humanity.
Contemporary western societies underestimate that everyday commodities like the buildings, the meat consumption and the mass transportation are the three emission pillars of the contemporary Climate Change. 40% of the CO2 fuels come out of the built architecture. The issue of meat consumption is not even an issue in contemporary discussions. Optimistic analyses talk about an increase of temperature around the world of 3 degrees Celsius. 30-70% of the species are facing extinction. Exaggeration of natural phenomena like hurricanes and floods is now happening.
At this point Jeremy Rifkin argues that the aftermath of latter observations is the recovery of the planet through a sustainable globalization process coming out of what he calls “Third Industrial Revolution”. The latter will emerge only after a parallel idea in the way we communicate information and energy is created. Telecommunications run collaterally with steam and later oil energy in 19th and 20th century as a top bottom distribution of services. In other words both energy and communication were centrically organized around specific axis - nation-states along with supranational institutions - around the world. On the other hand, information and telecommunication networks, totally accessible and distributed do not coincide with the static form of old energy distribution systems. Energy is stored in specific pockets around the world while information travels high-speed throughout a global network.
Distributed communications (internet) along with distributed energy (smart platforms) create the so called distributed capitalism. It is a political matter of the household where data and energy can be stored and transferred freely in an internet-style platform. Free market based on networks that can derive from everywhere, i.e. households, institutions, governments. Imagine energy in a “shared folder” where everybody has access. The notion of distributed capitalism substantiates the “ultimate suburbia” in the 21st century globalized world.
The umbrella of distributed globalization will be the very context of our investigation. Inside the era of “flat” urbanization, of the idea of a distributed network community with total accessibility, of the call for the “ultimate suburbs”, from Geo-politics to Biosphere-politics*, architecture is not perceived as morphology anymore but as ecology. Everything belongs into a sustainable cycle, every single entity of this cycle is a Deleuzian Desert Island: absolute separate, absolute creator, a prototype. As Manuel deLanda observes there are some cultural-structural networks (units) that fit in the description of self-consistent aggregates. These networks might be igneous rocks, ecosystems or local markets. In other words they are self organizing-sustained aggregates that can absorb information and release energy and vice versa.
* Biosphere politics, which "envisions the earth as a living organism, and the human species as a partner and participant, dependent on the proper functioning of the biosphere and at the same time responsible for its well-being," seeks to unite democratic principles and a concern for the natural world in a modus operandi capable of healing the earth and securing a life for future generations.
Harris Biskos, Yannis Kitanis
Sunday, February 22, 2009
ULTIMATE SUBURB
I
The city dissolves into myriads of fragments that derive from an ever-growing offer of possibilities to its inhabitants: the chance to live in it without being subjected to all the constraints attached to city life since times immemorial; the right to choose how they wish to move about; to choose the venues they like; to visit their favourite areas of the city; to be informed by sources of their own choice; to contact people and things they wish to; to run their businesses from home; to eliminate face-to-face contact with civil servants or authorities; to use the city’s infrastructure to create their own physical and mental microenvironment; to come to a point where they would be in a position to interpret and live-in the city in the context they have created and by the rules they have set for themselves; that is, the possibility for each one to construct his or her own personal world within the city.
II
Let’s see the flip side of globalization.
Our cities are what they are because there are other, different, cities.
The inhabitants of the cities require that their man-made environment delivers what they regard as desirable or essential to their well-being. How far are those requirements fulfilled by amenities that are available in other places and in other cities, and on the internet?
III
The most striking homogenization of the European cities took place in late 19th and early 20th century. Beaux-Arts architecture, street-cars and railway stations, kiosks and billboards testify of their inhabitants’ desire to adopt, duplicate, recreate on their own everything they considered interesting or worthwhile that existed in other cities. We now live in a world of which virtual reality is a considerable part (no novelty in history if one takes into account let’s say the imaginary world of medieval man), and distinguished by the overabundance of information and the unlimited travel opportunities. How have these factors affected our inclination to seek to live here-and-now everything offered, and has rendered us capable of taking advantage of them even they are not at hand’s distance, but in Mykonos, in London or in Istanbul?
IV
There is little doubt that to some inhabitants of Paris V Clichy-sous-Bois is felt to be closer than Taksim.
If we prepared cognitive maps of our built environment, like those Kevin Lynch devised in the 1960’s based on the image people have of their cities, they would probably include Norman Foster’s Millennium bridge, New York’s skyscrapers and Hong Kong’s Star Ferry.
IV
How has the widening of our personal universe affected our inclinations the configuration of our cities?
How far does the character attributed over the years to Athens’ coastal front depend on the fact that we are aware that in three hours we can lay on the unspoiled beaches of Mykonos?
How far have Germany’s provincial towns retained their basic features due to the fact that their inhabitants are able to spend several weeks yearly in India, in Sicily or in Crete?
VI
The homogenization of our cities will not cease, because cities develop in first place in an aggravating manner, and not by replacing older, existing structures. The factors that today contribute to the homogenization of the cities in the Western World have been shaped before and the years following World War II: invasion of automobiles in city-centers, international style, development of advertisement, corporate capital and retail chains.
How will have affected our cities at the end of the day, after 10, 20, 40 years, the new media and the new traveling opportunities? How will our cities look like tomorrow? No doubt that the Toyotas and the Volkswagens will be the same all round the world, but what about the streets and the sidewalks and the beach bars?
VII
Globalization shapes a new world. Its unifying force has been exhaustively studied. What has drawn less attention is the fact that in a world dominated by global trade, booming travel and virtual reality people tend to satisfy their needs not in the “traditional” way; they don’t imitate what they’ve seen and liked elsewhere –they consume it in situ. They might want to live somewhere and experience things either on the internet or in other cities.
VIII
This is hardly a new trend. This has always been the essence of suburbs. We are heading towards the ultimate suburb; towards a globe turned into a suburban universe.
IX
Each and every town and each and every city have a star architect designing some new building. What is demanded is far more than just good architecture. It is a sign that “we’ve got it, too”; a sign that they, too possess the object of desire. It is the old-fashioned status symbol thing keeps cities struggling to get one. But this reflects a mentality of the past. How long will this trend last? Will the Gehrys and Zahas be advertised in tourist guides as much as other features of the respective cities? Are ultimately Gehrys and Zahas real assets or does this trend have an expiry date? In a highly competitive world we might witness the reverse trend: the survival strategy for cities and cultures which cannot keep-up to an all-out competition may well be for them to develop complimentary to their competitors, and not try to imitate them.
X
Cities as physical entities have long ceased to represent the communities they shelter. A city isn’t a world. It is literally a part thereof; consisting of myriads of personal worlds. A fractal –not in shape, but in essence.
XI
Regional centers will grow complementary to each other. In that sense we will have the suburb model spread over the globe: almost-self-contained entities (self contained in the sense that will provide for everything needed for everyday activities, but not complex and rich enough to capture people’s imagination) complementing each other in the big scale, in the minds and hearts of people. In a world dominated by internet and travel opportunities no Babylon and no Rome can ever be: there is no point in creating them.
XII
Globalization means on one hand identical products flooding the globe -from PCs to music-, but on the other hand free flow of information and people: this latter aspect of globalization will make the imitation of what already exists elsewhere partly redundant. It is in this sense that the globe will become a huge suburb: a huge network of not-self-sustained cities, a sea of inhabited areas constantly dependent from what happens outside their own territory.
XIII
This dependence will be enacted in people's "minds and souls", but the repercussions of this mentality will be visible on our surroundings, as people will build and refrain from building keeping in mind that they can enjoy many things from distance or by visiting it easily. We zap across the globe and across the www. We need less physical points of recognition, because we change too fast. Koolhaas is definitely right when he claims that architecture is slow. Can cities serve as personal points of reference?
XIV
The immense spread of contemporary cities makes the built environment increasingly less representative of any collective will or perception, which was still expressed, albeit in a paternalistic manner, in the major urban-renewal projects of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The coherence of cities was once secured (to some extent even created) by the imposition of specific patterns on their physical configuration. The coherence of today’s sprawling urban conglomerations is increasingly achieved through the imposition of patterns of thought on the people living within their territories and beyond. Pure ideologies take over.
XVI
Experts, writers and artists define the “evocative power”, and also the “points of reference” and the “monuments” of cities. Travel agencies and local authorities make these focal points easy to perceive and comprehend. They define the “places to be” in each city and they shape the identity of the city itself. In times dominated by images they enhance the image of the city. They sharpen the features of the entities it is composed of; they create the “proper” image of the city. Only few features of the city’s built environment in the most physical sense of the word acquire renewed importance: What would New York be without its skyscrapers, and Athens without the Acropolis?
The city dissolves into myriads of fragments that derive from an ever-growing offer of possibilities to its inhabitants: the chance to live in it without being subjected to all the constraints attached to city life since times immemorial; the right to choose how they wish to move about; to choose the venues they like; to visit their favourite areas of the city; to be informed by sources of their own choice; to contact people and things they wish to; to run their businesses from home; to eliminate face-to-face contact with civil servants or authorities; to use the city’s infrastructure to create their own physical and mental microenvironment; to come to a point where they would be in a position to interpret and live-in the city in the context they have created and by the rules they have set for themselves; that is, the possibility for each one to construct his or her own personal world within the city.
II
Let’s see the flip side of globalization.
Our cities are what they are because there are other, different, cities.
The inhabitants of the cities require that their man-made environment delivers what they regard as desirable or essential to their well-being. How far are those requirements fulfilled by amenities that are available in other places and in other cities, and on the internet?
III
The most striking homogenization of the European cities took place in late 19th and early 20th century. Beaux-Arts architecture, street-cars and railway stations, kiosks and billboards testify of their inhabitants’ desire to adopt, duplicate, recreate on their own everything they considered interesting or worthwhile that existed in other cities. We now live in a world of which virtual reality is a considerable part (no novelty in history if one takes into account let’s say the imaginary world of medieval man), and distinguished by the overabundance of information and the unlimited travel opportunities. How have these factors affected our inclination to seek to live here-and-now everything offered, and has rendered us capable of taking advantage of them even they are not at hand’s distance, but in Mykonos, in London or in Istanbul?
IV
There is little doubt that to some inhabitants of Paris V Clichy-sous-Bois is felt to be closer than Taksim.
If we prepared cognitive maps of our built environment, like those Kevin Lynch devised in the 1960’s based on the image people have of their cities, they would probably include Norman Foster’s Millennium bridge, New York’s skyscrapers and Hong Kong’s Star Ferry.
IV
How has the widening of our personal universe affected our inclinations the configuration of our cities?
How far does the character attributed over the years to Athens’ coastal front depend on the fact that we are aware that in three hours we can lay on the unspoiled beaches of Mykonos?
How far have Germany’s provincial towns retained their basic features due to the fact that their inhabitants are able to spend several weeks yearly in India, in Sicily or in Crete?
VI
The homogenization of our cities will not cease, because cities develop in first place in an aggravating manner, and not by replacing older, existing structures. The factors that today contribute to the homogenization of the cities in the Western World have been shaped before and the years following World War II: invasion of automobiles in city-centers, international style, development of advertisement, corporate capital and retail chains.
How will have affected our cities at the end of the day, after 10, 20, 40 years, the new media and the new traveling opportunities? How will our cities look like tomorrow? No doubt that the Toyotas and the Volkswagens will be the same all round the world, but what about the streets and the sidewalks and the beach bars?
VII
Globalization shapes a new world. Its unifying force has been exhaustively studied. What has drawn less attention is the fact that in a world dominated by global trade, booming travel and virtual reality people tend to satisfy their needs not in the “traditional” way; they don’t imitate what they’ve seen and liked elsewhere –they consume it in situ. They might want to live somewhere and experience things either on the internet or in other cities.
VIII
This is hardly a new trend. This has always been the essence of suburbs. We are heading towards the ultimate suburb; towards a globe turned into a suburban universe.
IX
Each and every town and each and every city have a star architect designing some new building. What is demanded is far more than just good architecture. It is a sign that “we’ve got it, too”; a sign that they, too possess the object of desire. It is the old-fashioned status symbol thing keeps cities struggling to get one. But this reflects a mentality of the past. How long will this trend last? Will the Gehrys and Zahas be advertised in tourist guides as much as other features of the respective cities? Are ultimately Gehrys and Zahas real assets or does this trend have an expiry date? In a highly competitive world we might witness the reverse trend: the survival strategy for cities and cultures which cannot keep-up to an all-out competition may well be for them to develop complimentary to their competitors, and not try to imitate them.
X
Cities as physical entities have long ceased to represent the communities they shelter. A city isn’t a world. It is literally a part thereof; consisting of myriads of personal worlds. A fractal –not in shape, but in essence.
XI
Regional centers will grow complementary to each other. In that sense we will have the suburb model spread over the globe: almost-self-contained entities (self contained in the sense that will provide for everything needed for everyday activities, but not complex and rich enough to capture people’s imagination) complementing each other in the big scale, in the minds and hearts of people. In a world dominated by internet and travel opportunities no Babylon and no Rome can ever be: there is no point in creating them.
XII
Globalization means on one hand identical products flooding the globe -from PCs to music-, but on the other hand free flow of information and people: this latter aspect of globalization will make the imitation of what already exists elsewhere partly redundant. It is in this sense that the globe will become a huge suburb: a huge network of not-self-sustained cities, a sea of inhabited areas constantly dependent from what happens outside their own territory.
XIII
This dependence will be enacted in people's "minds and souls", but the repercussions of this mentality will be visible on our surroundings, as people will build and refrain from building keeping in mind that they can enjoy many things from distance or by visiting it easily. We zap across the globe and across the www. We need less physical points of recognition, because we change too fast. Koolhaas is definitely right when he claims that architecture is slow. Can cities serve as personal points of reference?
XIV
The immense spread of contemporary cities makes the built environment increasingly less representative of any collective will or perception, which was still expressed, albeit in a paternalistic manner, in the major urban-renewal projects of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The coherence of cities was once secured (to some extent even created) by the imposition of specific patterns on their physical configuration. The coherence of today’s sprawling urban conglomerations is increasingly achieved through the imposition of patterns of thought on the people living within their territories and beyond. Pure ideologies take over.
XVI
Experts, writers and artists define the “evocative power”, and also the “points of reference” and the “monuments” of cities. Travel agencies and local authorities make these focal points easy to perceive and comprehend. They define the “places to be” in each city and they shape the identity of the city itself. In times dominated by images they enhance the image of the city. They sharpen the features of the entities it is composed of; they create the “proper” image of the city. Only few features of the city’s built environment in the most physical sense of the word acquire renewed importance: What would New York be without its skyscrapers, and Athens without the Acropolis?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Ambigious City of Imperfection
(DuYorkHai by Joshua LAU, Ambigious City of Imperfection)
What Rem talked about "the Generic City"... if we also look at work of Archigram, Walking City, the notion of transferring individual, placelessness is coming to reality in the force of globalization. In our time, instead of city that walks, tech allows information to flow much like the analogy of a walking city already.. Culture is being transform, transfer, transplanted and translated. Like Obama said we are at the era of Change, to me, the phenomena is an observation, I think we could project what is next to cities, politics and economics. Cities as physical entities provided environments reflecting similar cultural feeling is already happening in our lifetime, with SOM, KPF, ZAHA, REM, HERZ building in China, cross culture in architecture space is prevailing, affecting individual definition of identity- in a positive way. My thought is that, politics will also undergo a huge transformation in the coming 10 years since the fall of american. Power will be splited equally amongst the 4 key regions, Euro, US, MidE and Asia spreading the financial risk in future as what we learnt this time. the world will be ever flatter. How that affects cities will definitely be the small scale. a Scale that singular human being can sense by himself. We are talking about microclimate, air quality, leisure space, workplaces. Like u said, one would feel home wherever he goes. In Macro urban scale, we are talking about politics and economics. with fast infrastructure to future enhance and speed up the process of flattening, and more compacted cities with short , 15-30mins traveling time for individual.Globalization (implies already economics, flattening of culture, borders, power, money), which in turn is reflected in Architecture. Globalization is a phenomenon now, as it is already happening, its in your daily objects, food, smell, sound, transportation, news etc etc. Likewise our conversation here is already part of it and part of the process. Inevitable, but the direction is clear. Although the true flattening of the world will take about 20 years at least, as far as i can imagine, where economics, culture and politics needs a second class creature in the world in order to do that.. That is Technology... very much the idea of Matrix when Human Class as ONE singlar class over Robots, and all countries unites. This is an ideal thought on one side. Another thought is that much like the process of Modernism, and its opposing thought from post-modernist. We can view Globalization also is a way to unify/ becoming totalitarian of One World, One Culture and One System. What we are talking here now maybe the very hint of a post-globalization talks. To me what is happening now is like in the end of Enlightenment but in larger scale where now East and West collide philosophically If logic is right, sooner or later Post-Globalization movement will come about and people will start asking for return of multi-dimensional world again. With many renowned architects dotting around different cities of the world, speeding up the transformation process, pushes globalization to another pace, sooner or later human will be "bored" of cities which are the same, tourism drops, and culture becomes demanding again. At some point, I feel that there MUST be a balance somewhere in this process of Flattening, i.e. the true flattening will end when a balance is reached. And that is Utopia "again" maybe.. when Human lived in a primitive and simple state, but at the same time one of perfect happiness and fulfillment.... Here I totally agree that it is Not an Extreme case.. so my next question is.. where is that harmony? My thought would be based on the idea of.. Ex-Change unlike exchange, is an ambigious action.
- Cultural Ex-Change (flattening of life)
- Political Ex-Change (flattening of power/ equality)
- PresentFuture (ambigious state of present)
- Ex-Present (current state of present)
- Politarchitects (Dreamers/ Actualist)
- Arteconomics (Arts makes money, not Stocks) Wall street becomes Art Galleries!
- Urbsuburb (suburb with high speed transportation, shortening the time travel and therefore there is little difference living in suburb and in actual city centre)
In other words, whatever we will do maybe an exchange between the idea of Globalization. in order to facilitates and push towards a Harmonized World with Balance if History, Culture, Power, Economics etc etc so, no matter how flat our world will be, the idea of Binary Opposition still exists in order for the world to function in harmony. Yes so I do belief in a flat world, but only in balance state.. yet may seem ambigious.
Monday, February 16, 2009
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