The Three Ecologies (Guattari, F, 1989)
Guattari challenges the current state of the world and the dominant institutions and schools of thought. He proposes the investigation of three ecologies: the environment, social relations and human subjectivity.
Guattari identifies the world;s problems: unemployment, loneliness, boredom, anxiety, neurosis and places the fault of these on: i) the global market and ii) the control of nations – e.g. police and military.
His views are that there are bipolar tendencies in the world – left and right, black or white, right or wrong. His view is that this “objectivity” causes problems and that a subjective approach is needed. He is against reductionism and believes that simplicity is not the key, but a multitude of views. His thoughts are that there are no right or wrong models for success, rather, modules that are part of the whole. Guattari places strong emphasis on criticizing the economic, social and psychological disciplines and suggests that we should reconsider these. Finally he concludes the only that the only way forward is to articulate a new subjectivity, an updateable social perspective, a re-inventable environment.
Personal Comments:
Guattari’s problematism is partially obsolete these days, since it was written just a few years before the Internet was available to later become as widespread as it is today. His fear of polarized views or fused “one right way” views is rather unfounded (in the advanced nations) since the Internet has led to a proliferation of opinions, views, thoughts, expressions and feelings. He is correct in his assumption that social, psychological and techno-scientific ways are changing, and that these are evolving – this is obvious when comparing the childhoods of 20-something year olds today with those of their 40 something year old counterparts. Society has “gone online” with social networks now being more “virtual” than ever. It seems that there will continue to be a massive change in social values, technology, ecology and the personal psychology. On that basis, it is important to observe and study change. However, any attempt to write-off any foundations of the past such as psychology, science, economic political and social models – without a deeper understanding of their failure - is naive and unrealistic. Guattari’s views are critical of these institutions but he doesn’t seem to propose any feasible, realistic alternatives. Technology and science today, two decades since his work was published, has lead to resolving many problems from the ecological perspective, which ironically in the last decade has become a high priority in the political scene. To contrast this, an example is the increase in anti-social behavior for instance that is a result of the devastation of traditional value systems combined with the lack of new value systems. Having the luxury of hindsight, the problem may not be the current state of things but the lack of a next level.
Sunday, 25 October 2009
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Urbanism, Koolhaas and Kwinter
Whatever Happened to Urbanism?
Synopsis:
Rem Koolhaas discussed the disappointment of the failure of Urbanism. By failure, Koolhaas means the constant mismatch between urbanist propositions and the city. According to Koolhaas Urbanism failed to create a unique, solid and time-proof proposition for the city. And after this failure to plan for the city, all the professionals retreated from the whole (the city) to the unit ( a single structure). His view is that this retreat towards architecture is only a step backwards and that we need to recognize that a softer approach to urbanism is needed.
“To Survive, urbanism will have to imagine a new newness” – “ We have to imagine 1,001 other concepts of city; we have to take insane risks; we have to dare to be utterly uncritical; ….. Since we are not responsible we have to become irresponsible”. Koolhaas proposes that urbanism lightens up and is redefined as subjects, supporters of the city, and not its makers.
Thoughts:
Koollhaas describes a view of architecture’s relationship with the city like a lost love. Basically he says that urbanists are disillusioned with their failure to change the city. Imagination, risks and an open uncritical approach however are should not be considered as the solution to urbanism’s failure, even if these are critical to the creative process. Urbanism in the past was presented as an art and science of driving the city through growth. It is a creative and planning process where imagination plays its role but it is the expected results that are important.
Architecture on an individual basis can operate around a client brief, and this helps an architect understand what is expected of him or her. At the city level, it is harder to understand what is expected of urbanism because needs are diverse and change with time and the social environment. And this is where Koolhaas is right: “What if we simply declare that there is no crisis - redefine our relationship with the city not as its makers but as its mere subjects, as its supporters?” Urbanism should not be prescriptive, like a someone who will give a sick person many medications to see what works. It needs to be more like a doctor or a diagnostician – it needs to understand the diversity of needs and the changing environment. It needs to understand the problems, causes and symptoms - it is there to serve the patient – the city.
Politics and Pastorialism
Synopsis:
Kwinter sees Urbanism as a living creature. He suggests that attempts to control this through civic institutions leads to mediocrity in design. Movement is part of living and intervention which reduces this movement eventually leads to death – the loss of creativity and movement. He suggests that attention is drawn to inflection and deformation – “a continual release of new deviational movements, shapes, and surfices”. This is visible in the shaping of history – deviations are exciting, in a few words.
Kwinter mentions Victor Hugo’s view that the book will kill the building, from the perspective that the book encapsulates culture, whereas the building doesn’t always – “The book can be transformed into ideas”. Kwinter discusses the concept of “Bigness” – when through scale alone a building is successfully pumped up beyond a specific critical point –from the reductive, cause and effect, action-reaction, bureaucracy of design towards another regime – the wet and chaos, self –direction - organic urban growth. Kwinter seems to believe that it is best to allow the bigness to occur naturally – urbanism follows the city. He suggests that “the urban cannot be made, but it can happen anywhere”. His view is to allow this to occur without restrictions but with a softer guidance – a “pastoral” approach – “the new urbanism is a moving urbanism, a pastoral urbanism of inflection.
Thoughts:
The use of the living creature metaphor for the city is not so original, but it is absolutely right. Humans are living creatures and our actions are transformed into “monuments” that can be witnesses of our life. Excessive control over urbanism definitely impacts on originality. A “free economy” approach to urbanism is definitely interesting, but can also carry significant risks. It is like “free speech” for architects. This is great news for creativity, but Koolhaas and Kwinter correctly suggest a soft approach to managing this – because some management of this is necessary.
The reason for controlled urbanism is that it is supposed to “prescribe” solutions that work. If they don’t really work, what is the point of prescribing them though? Theorists often discuss movements in architecture and urbanism, but there is a very strong absence of emphasis on people. As Koolhaas said, buildings are “monuments” to society and people – “witnesses in time” – A rational thought would be to understand what people need now, and to make educated guesses of what they will need in the future. Which approach would this be? Open Urbanism? Controlled Urbanism? Or maybe softly guided, “Pastorial “ Urbanism?
Koolhaas, R., (1994) "What Ever Happened to Urbanism?", in S,M,L,XL, OMA, (with Bruce Mau), The Monicelli Press, New York, 1995, pp. 959/971.)
Kwinter, S., (1995) Politics and Pastorialism. Assemblage,(27), pp.25-52.
Synopsis:
Rem Koolhaas discussed the disappointment of the failure of Urbanism. By failure, Koolhaas means the constant mismatch between urbanist propositions and the city. According to Koolhaas Urbanism failed to create a unique, solid and time-proof proposition for the city. And after this failure to plan for the city, all the professionals retreated from the whole (the city) to the unit ( a single structure). His view is that this retreat towards architecture is only a step backwards and that we need to recognize that a softer approach to urbanism is needed.
“To Survive, urbanism will have to imagine a new newness” – “ We have to imagine 1,001 other concepts of city; we have to take insane risks; we have to dare to be utterly uncritical; ….. Since we are not responsible we have to become irresponsible”. Koolhaas proposes that urbanism lightens up and is redefined as subjects, supporters of the city, and not its makers.
Thoughts:
Koollhaas describes a view of architecture’s relationship with the city like a lost love. Basically he says that urbanists are disillusioned with their failure to change the city. Imagination, risks and an open uncritical approach however are should not be considered as the solution to urbanism’s failure, even if these are critical to the creative process. Urbanism in the past was presented as an art and science of driving the city through growth. It is a creative and planning process where imagination plays its role but it is the expected results that are important.
Architecture on an individual basis can operate around a client brief, and this helps an architect understand what is expected of him or her. At the city level, it is harder to understand what is expected of urbanism because needs are diverse and change with time and the social environment. And this is where Koolhaas is right: “What if we simply declare that there is no crisis - redefine our relationship with the city not as its makers but as its mere subjects, as its supporters?” Urbanism should not be prescriptive, like a someone who will give a sick person many medications to see what works. It needs to be more like a doctor or a diagnostician – it needs to understand the diversity of needs and the changing environment. It needs to understand the problems, causes and symptoms - it is there to serve the patient – the city.
Politics and Pastorialism
Synopsis:
Kwinter sees Urbanism as a living creature. He suggests that attempts to control this through civic institutions leads to mediocrity in design. Movement is part of living and intervention which reduces this movement eventually leads to death – the loss of creativity and movement. He suggests that attention is drawn to inflection and deformation – “a continual release of new deviational movements, shapes, and surfices”. This is visible in the shaping of history – deviations are exciting, in a few words.
Kwinter mentions Victor Hugo’s view that the book will kill the building, from the perspective that the book encapsulates culture, whereas the building doesn’t always – “The book can be transformed into ideas”. Kwinter discusses the concept of “Bigness” – when through scale alone a building is successfully pumped up beyond a specific critical point –from the reductive, cause and effect, action-reaction, bureaucracy of design towards another regime – the wet and chaos, self –direction - organic urban growth. Kwinter seems to believe that it is best to allow the bigness to occur naturally – urbanism follows the city. He suggests that “the urban cannot be made, but it can happen anywhere”. His view is to allow this to occur without restrictions but with a softer guidance – a “pastoral” approach – “the new urbanism is a moving urbanism, a pastoral urbanism of inflection.
Thoughts:
The use of the living creature metaphor for the city is not so original, but it is absolutely right. Humans are living creatures and our actions are transformed into “monuments” that can be witnesses of our life. Excessive control over urbanism definitely impacts on originality. A “free economy” approach to urbanism is definitely interesting, but can also carry significant risks. It is like “free speech” for architects. This is great news for creativity, but Koolhaas and Kwinter correctly suggest a soft approach to managing this – because some management of this is necessary.
The reason for controlled urbanism is that it is supposed to “prescribe” solutions that work. If they don’t really work, what is the point of prescribing them though? Theorists often discuss movements in architecture and urbanism, but there is a very strong absence of emphasis on people. As Koolhaas said, buildings are “monuments” to society and people – “witnesses in time” – A rational thought would be to understand what people need now, and to make educated guesses of what they will need in the future. Which approach would this be? Open Urbanism? Controlled Urbanism? Or maybe softly guided, “Pastorial “ Urbanism?
Koolhaas, R., (1994) "What Ever Happened to Urbanism?", in S,M,L,XL, OMA, (with Bruce Mau), The Monicelli Press, New York, 1995, pp. 959/971.)
Kwinter, S., (1995) Politics and Pastorialism. Assemblage,(27), pp.25-52.
Sunday, 4 October 2009
From the City to Urban Society
Synopsis
This chapter by Lefebvre discusses the historical aspects of the transition from a city to an urban society. Lefebvre introduces first the notion of organic continuity, growth and evolutionism to demonstrate how change can occur in the world. He also argues that continuity cannot be without discontinuity and the other way around. The chapter is devoted to how urban form follows social function and acknowledges that urban function can impact on social form. Lefebvre suggests that “complete urbanization” is yet to come, and that the world now is in a current state of gestation and transformation.
“Urban revolution”, the change Lefebvre expects to see can be analysed through “transduction” – a combination of deducing and inducing thoughts. There are various spectrums through which this can be done – and he gives two examples of these:
1) The institutional & ideological nature of urbanism vs science and the epistemological approach.
2) Policy – left vs right
He argues that there are many things we can examine in change and that we can see these by putting them on a spectrum from 0 to 100%. As a whole he argues that we started off at point 0, with nature, and we are somewhere on the way to 100% which would be completely urbanized. This is illustrated through a series of separate spectrums- from village life to the political city, from the political city to the merchant city, (at which point people started to prefer town life to countryside life and the state starts to interfere with urban design through maps and planning), and from the merchant city to the industrial city. During the struggle between the political city and the merchant city, so much power was concentrated by both in order to prevail that an “implosion-explosion” occurred. This is when the city starts to become a factor for growth. Fuelled by commerce and supported by the political structure, a big shift occurred. This is why Lefebvre suggests that the change process is not smooth like in most organic change, but it is formed by a series of ruptures and contrasts. This makes it harder to examine the current situation and predict what could happen in the future. Lefebvre then suggests that the best way to do this would be to analyse the positive and negative sides of every aspect of urban life. For example he discusses the positive aspects of the street (meeting place, interaction, inspiration, security) against the negatives (crime, superficial relationships, traffic) and argues that by understanding them we can get a better idea of how we progress towards the urban society.
Thoughts:
There are many “futurologists” in many disciplines that have attempted to guess what the future looks like in specific areas and how this could impact on the whole. Some have been right in the past and some have not. Lefebvre is right saying that science cannot project the urban future. He is also right in saying that we need to consider each urban element in positive and negative light. However it may be necessary to use a more “holistic” approach. It is not the only street or the monument that needs to be analysed, but also the human and societal element, because this is what determines the positives and negatives of the street or the monument.
References:
Lefebvre, Henri (1970). From the City to Urban Society. In Lefebvre, Henri. The Urban Revolution, pp1-22. University of Minnesota Press
This chapter by Lefebvre discusses the historical aspects of the transition from a city to an urban society. Lefebvre introduces first the notion of organic continuity, growth and evolutionism to demonstrate how change can occur in the world. He also argues that continuity cannot be without discontinuity and the other way around. The chapter is devoted to how urban form follows social function and acknowledges that urban function can impact on social form. Lefebvre suggests that “complete urbanization” is yet to come, and that the world now is in a current state of gestation and transformation.
“Urban revolution”, the change Lefebvre expects to see can be analysed through “transduction” – a combination of deducing and inducing thoughts. There are various spectrums through which this can be done – and he gives two examples of these:
1) The institutional & ideological nature of urbanism vs science and the epistemological approach.
2) Policy – left vs right
He argues that there are many things we can examine in change and that we can see these by putting them on a spectrum from 0 to 100%. As a whole he argues that we started off at point 0, with nature, and we are somewhere on the way to 100% which would be completely urbanized. This is illustrated through a series of separate spectrums- from village life to the political city, from the political city to the merchant city, (at which point people started to prefer town life to countryside life and the state starts to interfere with urban design through maps and planning), and from the merchant city to the industrial city. During the struggle between the political city and the merchant city, so much power was concentrated by both in order to prevail that an “implosion-explosion” occurred. This is when the city starts to become a factor for growth. Fuelled by commerce and supported by the political structure, a big shift occurred. This is why Lefebvre suggests that the change process is not smooth like in most organic change, but it is formed by a series of ruptures and contrasts. This makes it harder to examine the current situation and predict what could happen in the future. Lefebvre then suggests that the best way to do this would be to analyse the positive and negative sides of every aspect of urban life. For example he discusses the positive aspects of the street (meeting place, interaction, inspiration, security) against the negatives (crime, superficial relationships, traffic) and argues that by understanding them we can get a better idea of how we progress towards the urban society.
Thoughts:
There are many “futurologists” in many disciplines that have attempted to guess what the future looks like in specific areas and how this could impact on the whole. Some have been right in the past and some have not. Lefebvre is right saying that science cannot project the urban future. He is also right in saying that we need to consider each urban element in positive and negative light. However it may be necessary to use a more “holistic” approach. It is not the only street or the monument that needs to be analysed, but also the human and societal element, because this is what determines the positives and negatives of the street or the monument.
References:
Lefebvre, Henri (1970). From the City to Urban Society. In Lefebvre, Henri. The Urban Revolution, pp1-22. University of Minnesota Press
Saturday, 3 October 2009
First Blog Entry
This is my first blog post. Having checked numerous blogging sites for my project I have decided to go with go with the mainstream and use Blogger.
The purpose of this Blog is to discuss issues regarding the Contemporary History and Theory of Architecture.
A first link - Some people say we need to understand the past to predict the future. We also need to take a look at the present before try to understand the past, so:
A lot of interesting content regarding modern architectural theory can be found here
The purpose of this Blog is to discuss issues regarding the Contemporary History and Theory of Architecture.
A first link - Some people say we need to understand the past to predict the future. We also need to take a look at the present before try to understand the past, so:
A lot of interesting content regarding modern architectural theory can be found here
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)