Italo Calvino has described in his American Lectures phenomena which are captivating only because they are irregular, not fixed, indistinct, not seizable with a moment, like clouds in the sky. City is same kind.
Le Corbusiers geometrical La Ville Radieuse (1933) was plotted attempt to kill the spatial mosaics of different eras and to make the city predictable and transparent. Only one of ´La Ville Radieuses´ - in Roehampton was shaped into reality.
Le Corbusiers 'killer thought' 'We must build on a clear site' could only bring clear hate in citizens hearts. Altough he was able to forsee the growth of automobiles and the growing need for public transportation, he somehow thought that since the center of a city is also heart of the business, the wide avenues must be driven through the centres and over the history. This man with manic great visions and great fiction name did not think about garaging all these cars and not to mention the environmental concerns.
Le Corbusiers geometrical La Ville Radieuse (1933) was plotted attempt to kill the spatial mosaics of different eras and to make the city predictable and transparent. Only one of ´La Ville Radieuses´ - in Roehampton was shaped into reality.
Le Corbusiers 'killer thought' 'We must build on a clear site' could only bring clear hate in citizens hearts. Altough he was able to forsee the growth of automobiles and the growing need for public transportation, he somehow thought that since the center of a city is also heart of the business, the wide avenues must be driven through the centres and over the history. This man with manic great visions and great fiction name did not think about garaging all these cars and not to mention the environmental concerns.
Also some dictators like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin (also a man who loves to entitle himself) were infected with the harrowing need of showy avenues. Apart from Corbusiers fantasy Il Duce established (1932) a wide parade avenue, obviously to satisfy megalomaniac needs, over the ruins of Foro Romano-heart of Roman Empire.
And Hitler, who fancied grand avenues and attached manic importance in planning to them. Hitlers obsesseion the east-west axis was completed by russians in their sector after the war and notoriously and ironically named Stalinallee (Steelavenue).
After reading different texts about Le Corbusiers work i have come to a comprehension that he as a planner had all the qualifications to be someones architect in ordinary, like Hitler had Speer and Mussolini had Piacentini. I guess we must be thankful he did not have a power-loving master in flesh, beacause as David Byrne in 'Understanding Urban' alarms with his silent words:'Plans are never merely representations. They are intended action.'
Megalomania can be found in many heads and in different outcomes. 'Geddes goes to India' equals for me 'Geddes goes insane'. Insane in the best sence - he sails to India in 1914 at the age of 60!! and tries to help India with all the possible means he has at his disposal. His thinking 'Everything to the soil' was clever, because he did not think has European, but adjusted his thinking to another cultural context. 'Garden Villages' idea had 'prototypes' like Hampstead and Ealing, but Geddes wanted to adapt this idea to Indian conditions. He described this healing process of India as the oportunity of his life as a townplanner. He was 'cultivating' in India the planning philosophy of the sixtys in the first quarter of the twentieth century. But pathfinders have almost always the same destiny, they are overlooked and unheard or ignored as 'cuckoos' or 'crank who do not know his subject' in the case of Geddes.
About 60 years later in 1975 - Saab driving architect Rod Hackney - was trying to understand the needs of a small group of residents and was swinging his finger at architects and saying:'...We, the architects, got it terribly wrong in the 60s.' Hackneys community design was first of all understanding peoples needs!, secondly working with them under their instructions and guidances in the need of making their voices to be heard by approval/rejection powers.
Megalomania can be found in many heads and in different outcomes. 'Geddes goes to India' equals for me 'Geddes goes insane'. Insane in the best sence - he sails to India in 1914 at the age of 60!! and tries to help India with all the possible means he has at his disposal. His thinking 'Everything to the soil' was clever, because he did not think has European, but adjusted his thinking to another cultural context. 'Garden Villages' idea had 'prototypes' like Hampstead and Ealing, but Geddes wanted to adapt this idea to Indian conditions. He described this healing process of India as the oportunity of his life as a townplanner. He was 'cultivating' in India the planning philosophy of the sixtys in the first quarter of the twentieth century. But pathfinders have almost always the same destiny, they are overlooked and unheard or ignored as 'cuckoos' or 'crank who do not know his subject' in the case of Geddes.
About 60 years later in 1975 - Saab driving architect Rod Hackney - was trying to understand the needs of a small group of residents and was swinging his finger at architects and saying:'...We, the architects, got it terribly wrong in the 60s.' Hackneys community design was first of all understanding peoples needs!, secondly working with them under their instructions and guidances in the need of making their voices to be heard by approval/rejection powers.
In 1984, nine years later even Prince Charles was agreeing with him and was comfortably leaning to the 'community design' in his speech. After a mans lifetime, akcnowledgment also 'fell to Howards and Geddeses lot'.
But that was not a happy ending of urban! Postindustrial period kept on devastating former industrial countries with no mercy. Between 1971 and 1991 London lost around half of all their industrial jobs. The side effects of postindustrialisation were redeployed+redundant people and redeployed+redundant land. Changes in economy changed the practise of urban land use. Increased/changed capital mobility made possible transnational corporations, which labor was scouted out around the world and offcourse at the lowest possible price. And the lowest possible price was paid also to workers. We have clothe brands which mark their clothes with a message to the consumer:'no child labour used'! Why? Not because consumer is thickheaded, but hungry and suffers from selective responding (responding to the cheap price but not to the production 'story'). I am sure that if someone buys a TV which is made in China he can not leave out a very high possibilty that these cheap consumer products were produced by underpaid workers, maybe even by childlabor in inadequate working conditions. And if one does not think of it he surely will after buying this TV and watching certain documentals! This kind of selective responding is part of the problem.
But that was not a happy ending of urban! Postindustrial period kept on devastating former industrial countries with no mercy. Between 1971 and 1991 London lost around half of all their industrial jobs. The side effects of postindustrialisation were redeployed+redundant people and redeployed+redundant land. Changes in economy changed the practise of urban land use. Increased/changed capital mobility made possible transnational corporations, which labor was scouted out around the world and offcourse at the lowest possible price. And the lowest possible price was paid also to workers. We have clothe brands which mark their clothes with a message to the consumer:'no child labour used'! Why? Not because consumer is thickheaded, but hungry and suffers from selective responding (responding to the cheap price but not to the production 'story'). I am sure that if someone buys a TV which is made in China he can not leave out a very high possibilty that these cheap consumer products were produced by underpaid workers, maybe even by childlabor in inadequate working conditions. And if one does not think of it he surely will after buying this TV and watching certain documentals! This kind of selective responding is part of the problem.
Rowthorn and Ramaswamy conclude:'... deindustrialization is a result of the globalization of markets...'
Consumer carousal in this changing urban scene is tricky, tricky. Hannigan's Fantasy City is a case extraordinary. It is a theme-o-centric, branded, 24-hour, modular, solipsistic, postmodern, experience. And we all have had it in some shake.
It smells like money.
And since this experience is compact, dense and deliverd with in limited time you might get an 'hangover'. But according to Byrne it has its significance. Branded fanatsy is linked to high culture through herritage. But still, why do people support and keep on experiencing fantasy city?
Mainly because it helps you to plug in to fantasy and out of real - l i g h t l y!
No comments:
Post a Comment