This article is Arjen Oosterman’s editorial of ‘Volume #28: Internet of Things’.

Two decades ago, an architecture magazine would be swamped with invitations for previews, tours and photo opportunities for projects ‘just finished’. A decade ago more and more press releases on prize winning competition entries would be added as part of the info mix. A little later the special mentions would get circulation; even entering a competition was seen as a publicity opportunity. It seemed only a matter of time before press releases announcing “we’ve started in the office this morning at 8.30 am, another great day in front of us, full of promise and opportunity” would surface. Publicity equaled economy. Maybe it still does, but not in the form where profiling projects, clearly identifiable as ‘someone’s’ work will necessarily result in a direct connection to new assignment. We know it is not like that anymore, not in most western countries, not for a lot of offices. In the late 90s, shrinkage was discovered as an interesting urban phenomenon, a new challenge for the profession; today this theme has reached the profession in the most unexpected way: no clients what so ever.

This is not a global phenomenon. Asia will see a humongous design and construction task for decades to come. Latin America isn’t finished either, though the scope of what lies ahead is incomparable to what Asia confronts. And Africa, yes Africa. If it’s allowed to catch up, or does so on its own, the need and opportunity for design is also substantial. In the western world it is mainly about adapting the existing stock. Or is it? Changes in society suggest that new ways of working and new territories for design come in view.

There is a lot of talk about knowledge and creative industry as the new economy of today. For architecture that is no news. That’s always been a creative industry. The ongoing ‘connection revolution’ might be news, however. Literally everything in the world is getting connected; you, your children, your car, your dog, your fridge… even the trees in the park start talking to each other. Connecting, transmitting, exchanging, responding, reacting, adjusting – being connected is at the core of our lives. And to connect, isn’t that what architecture and urban design claims to do? Could this be a way out of the depression? Does this provide new opportunities to design and create?

Since architecture is and has always been on the border of public and private – rarely is it just one of the two – it cannot escape that seemingly fixed notions are changing. Take ‘surroundings’, take ‘environment’. In times of interactive networks their meaning becomes fluid. No simple boundaries guard their integrity; private and public, spatial and virtual, living and innate, dichotomous thinking won’t help us to describe or understand our current condition. Our minds and bodies are nodes in multi-layered networks, transmitting and receiving information, we are not just discrete autonomous entities as we thought before. So yes, architecture and design have to enter new territories in order to continue pretending to ‘provide the counter form of life’, let alone if architecture is to remain conditional on society.

It would require a big leap of the profession. There is still quite a step from providing physical products that can be touched and admired to designing the way things relate and interact. Let’s call it correlation designing for the moment. Now, fairly recently the stability of architecture was put into question. Basics like program, budget and even location as a starting point for design became less and less fixed from the start. This ‘programmatic instability’ was presented as a new and major challenge for designers. For a profession with ‘function’ at the core of its activity, this was a serious problem. Today, architects have become accustomed to producing designs that are flexible, multi-usable and poly-interpretable. They solved the paradox of how to design a functionally ever more neutral structure with (the demand for) an ever more outspoken presence. It was an impressive demonstration of architecture’s ability to adapt and transform. But it came at a price: social irrelevance. Today the challenge for architectural practice is even bigger: to transform in such a way that architecture regains its social significance when ‘the social’ is less and less connected to a particular place and time. It’s become ‘footloose’ so to say.
There are signs that architectural practice could rely on its age-old knowledge of public and private spatial qualities, in combination with a clear understanding of the new social and interactive networks to give space and place a new presence and role. Not necessarily as the next step in the ever fastening reproduction of capital, or the ongoing accommodation of consumer society, but as a recalibration of the city’s social dimensions. First signs, no more.

To make things even more complicated, there is another trend challenging our understanding of architecture. If designing for merging physical and digital worlds is a major task, then the stability, objectivity and trustworthiness of what surrounds us is another. The EU ‘cookies debate’ (that everyone should be able to say no to cookies) reveals a glimpse of the world we’re entering. Tracking and measuring technologies have become so refined that they can profile and approach you individually. It won’t be long before augmented reality techniques will not only provide all sorts of added information in your visual and sensorial surroundings, but will also be dedicated to you personally. Every individual will be enveloped by an information ‘bubble’ that accompanies her or him on the go. And each will be different to that of your neighbor. Objectivity and even inter-subjectivity will be notions of the past, at least on the level of observation and awareness. The smooth, continuous surface we call the Internet, this endless source of information and comfort, in combination with ubiquitous computing is a maze, a trap and a delusion machine. ‘Reality’ as something shared and stable has had a problematic reputation at least since the advent of deconstructivism, now it’s becoming even more fragmented. Reality is being served to you personally and it is becoming increasingly difficult to know the cook.

But there are other opportunities in the game as well. As some authors in this issue argue, the Internet of Things may provide new opportunities to create coherence, togetherness and democracy on a smaller and local scale. There are opportunities for architecture in all the before mentioned domains. Is it ready and able to grab them?

July 13-14, 2011

During a two week field trip organized by the AA (Liam Young and Kate Davies) in London, a group of 42 students and experts visited locations where the impact of technology on nature has produced extreme landscapes. The expedition combined nuclear power and space travel by checking Chernobyl’s nuclear power plant in Ukraine, dried out lake Aral, the rocket launch site at Baikonur and the uranium mines of Astana, all in Kazakhstan. As Unknown Fields network partner Volume witnessed the nuclear part.

Into the War Zone

One of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Rules of suspense’ prescribes that the audience has to be informed about a looming danger (the classic scene of a couple enjoying a drink and conversation with a ticking bomb under the table) in order to experience the intended emotion. Entering Chernobyl’s 30 kilometer ‘Exclusion Zone’ this lesson of the old master popped up in my head. Passing the barrier (all had to get out of the bus and individually pass the gate on foot with ample checks of passports and outfit – obligatory long sleeves, long pants and closed shoes – plus signing a form that denied any liability of the Ukraine government for the visitor’s health now and in the far future) made entering a serious thing, but the following 30 minutes ride through woods and fields was without any trace of disaster. It wasn’t exactly leading up to a dramatic confrontation. Unless you knew. The only slightly discomforting sign was the absence of any activity. No human beings, no agriculture, hardly any sounds. Just nature as a pleasant postcard image. A couple of farms along the road had obviously been deserted long ago. That was it. But the 42 of us in the bus were well aware that we had entered a highly polluted area, that we were nearing this immensely dangerous nuclear power plant, a sleeping giant that even 25 years after it had erupted like a volcano and had been tamed at great cost, was still invisibly spreading death and decay and will do so for millenniums to come.

In the spirit of a proper thriller, misleading and redundant information came along. The unfinished reactor no. 5, surrounded by cranes was initially taken for its unfortunate sister no. 4. It would take another day before we would actually be confronted with the shrine of evil itself in full. For now a worker’s lunch and consecutive visit of the nearby vacated city of Pripyat would have to satisfy our appetite for drama, only adding to the suspense of course.

Nature Reclaims

Walking through a vacated town, where trees are growing through the tarmac and inside buildings, where the bus stop is in the middle of a bush and where most window panes are broken, isn’t an everyday experience for most people. Yet, films and photos have made this into a familiar scene. The wind playing with a plastic bag, broken glass all over, water dripping from the ceiling, an empty pool, rusty toys, these are just a few of the uncanny scenes used in movies to create a feeling of discomfort and potential threat. Indiana Jones must be around the corner and our guide in a semi-military outfit is only adding to the feeling that we are taking part in some adventure movie.

One shouldn’t get distracted by the romance of the surroundings and keep an open eye for the former beauty of the city. Life must have been real pleasant here. Apartments are small, but the large and well designed cultural center, a municipal swimming pool and a lovely coffeeshop on a hill with views over the lake are indications of the comfortable lives people lived here. But a series of mistakes, misjudgments, a lack of information and communication causing this disaster in the nearby energy plant, led to the hasty evacuation of all 50.000 inhabitants (plus those in some 60 villages in the wider area) 33 hours after the nightly explosion occurred.

The place is not only a commemoration site and warning for future generations, it is also a real life terrarium to study nature’s reaction to radiation and radio-active contamination. Mythical wingless birds, giant mushrooms, deformed bugs, and poisonous mosquitoes are supposed to populate the place, including bears and other big game, but reality seems less spectacular. Still, the consequences of high radiation levels are dramatic. The forest next to the power plant was completely killed by radioactivity (thereafter called the ‘red forest’) and had to be removed entirely as radio-active waste, together with all the furniture and most of the belongings in the houses, the contaminated machines, cars and trucks, that were all buried in mass-graves on site.

Facts, Bare Facts

The whole two-day visit, including a night at the local hotel (barrack) in the exclusion zone, was a balancing act, trying one’s convictions, trust and beliefs. There were no simple facts to be found. The whole group was wrapped in orange protection overalls, wearing masks and shoe covers and strongly advised to refrain from drinking, eating and smoking in the open. Yet the guards at the entrance gate to the ‘sarcophagus’ were sitting in the sun, smoking a cigarette, and wearing T-shirts with short sleeves (temperature was 33°C and over). During breakfast, lunch and dinner in the canteen or hotel, no one was bothered about his or her clothing, or the food (identical for each meal) itself for that matter. The second day we met a resettler, one of the 150 odd farmers that had returned to stay at their farms after a few years. This couple returned after only a year and a half. They were 73 and 74 by now, farming their own vegetables, feeding a dozen of chicken and a few pigs. When they had just returned they wore protective masks, like the others, but soon they stopped wearing them; too oppressive. And now here he was, open shirt, shoes with holes, but not looking unhealthy.

Another confusing discovery was the number of people still working there. Some 3000 in total go around the area or work in buildings in the vicinity of ChNPP4 to keep things under control, to monitor and prepare for the next phase: the replacement of the concrete cover of ChNPP4 with a more lasting solution. The isolation of the disaster area is in stark contrast with this ‘business as usual’ image on the street: men and women wearing suits walking from one building to another, guards standing idle in small groups. What is supposed to be a dead zone, devoid of life, is in reality still an industrial area with building sites and (a low level of) activity.

On our last day, in Kiev, a visit to the Chernobyl Museum produces yet another take on reality. The funerary chapel atmosphere of the place stresses disaster and human suffering. So do the portraits of hundreds of children that lived there during the time (not necessarily all dead now), so do the rubber suits and gas masks on display of the firemen and other ‘liquidators’ that fought the war in the first days, weeks and months. Immediate death, slowly creeping death, terrible pain and suffering, it is all presented and exposed here. A prayer and a candle for the Chernobyl heroes. The religious approach recalls Agamben’s thesis of homo sacer; by making Chernobyl into a cosmic event, of a magnitude that surpasses our imagination, the mother of all horrors, it becomes a sacrifice. By making Chernobyl ‘exclusive’, the rest of the world becomes normal by contrast. We can continue our lives – Chernobyl is ‘out there’, well protected, under control, a warning for sure, but first and foremost a safety valve to save ‘the system’ as a whole.

Outside the ‘exclusion zone’ the world feels normal, we behave like we do at home. The thin line of barbed wire marks the difference between danger and normality, between the wild reserve of radiation and the ‘natural’ rest of the world. One of the researchers in the groups had started his measurements with his dosimeter in London. Conclusion: radiation levels in London are higher than at the gates of Chernobyl.

This year’s Dutch pavilion at the Venice Biennale hosts ‘Vacant NL’, an inventory of empty buildings irrespective of their age or former function. Five thousand of these dormant shells, all government property, are shown as miniature models to indicate the millions of square meters vacant (floor) space in the Netherlands alone. Volume editors Rem Koolhaas, Mark Wigley, Jeffrey Inaba and myself gave a first reaction on the theme, and presented some ideas for further exploration during the opening weekend. In particular, Rem Koolhaas presented OMA’s experience with changing an old prison in the Netherlands in the early 1980s; Jeffrey Inaba connected VOLUME’s latest issue on counterculture as a mentality and socio-political experiment with respect to the task presented here; Mark Wigley stressed the normality and necessity of a certain percentage of empty building stock, pointing at the inspirational and stimulating aspects. My five remarks, presented while seated below the ‘low ceiling’ of the blue foam marquette in the Dutch pavilion, reappear below.

1. If AMO/OMA, in one of the rooms of this exhibition’s main pavilion, states that it ‘has been obsessed, from the beginning, with history’ (propagating an ‘almost doing nothing’ approach), I can also remark that VOLUME/Archis has been obsessed from its beginning with empty buildings. The reasons may in part have been banal – the need of cheap office space – but the engagement was and is sincere. Archis is currently housed in the former health service center of Shell in Amsterdam and is involved in the reuse of other buildings on this huge inner-city site. We are also addressing the issue of what to do with the larger part of the former Shell terrain that awaits redevelopment, after most of its abandoned laboratory buildings have been demolished although the projected residential buildings have been put on hold. The expected delay in redevelopment will be 5 to 10 years, leaving the site as a fenced-off, empty sand pit for years to come. So my first remark is: vacancy is not only about empty buildings, but also about empty land and vacant plots.

2. During the Dutch pavilion’s opening ceremony, Mr. Cor Zadelhoff, retired real estate agent, expressed his mea culpa for the pitiful real estate situation in our country. He pled guilty for introducing lease and rental constructions for offices, where in the past firms would build and own their own office space. This freed capital to be used for the company’s core business, but this also produced a serious number of technical and functional crappy office buildings that are empty today. Yes, self-accusation is interesting as a signal (real estate developers and agents being instrumental in producing the situation we’re in, comparable with the bankers’ role for the credit crisis), but the problem as indicated is only one element in a larger whole. So my second remark is: crappy buildings and empty offices are only part of the problem. Fundamental economic and cultural shifts (products and production methods) have changed the footprint of our economy. This sheds new light on the relation between function and use.

3. After seeing the Dutch pavilion, there is no need to panic for Dutch or European architects; the globe still needs a lot of new construction. But if you’re primarily designing for the local or regional European market; ‘new’ may not be the main focus. My third remark is: architects must become smarter in the art of reuse.

4. Reuse was about taking apart and constructing anew with existing elements, components, and materials (instead of demolishing and starting from scratch). It was a revolution that is still gaining in attention and popularity. ‘Cradle to cradle’ is one of its mantra with two Americans (McDonnough and Baumgarten) as high priests and Mr. Gore as nuntius. Future reuse will be about refraining from construction at all. So the fourth remark is: use what we have, deal with what already exists. Architecture schools and specialized firms will focus on matching demand and supply, on adaptation, and first of all on the notion of temporary use versus the permanence of construction.

5. The issue is not simply about the designer’s mentality and educational focus, it is about economic and political conditions that have to be confronted. What in heritage is the norm – do not harm the buildings main structural components and preserve its character as quality – is still alien to redevelopment and refurbishment. Economic mechanisms give preferential treatment to stripping and fitting out anew if demolishment is avoided in the first place.

Regulations, laws and habit prevent reuse of the existing. To demolish and build something new is much more easier than to keep and change what we have. This asks for some clever redrafting of the existing legal framework. My fifth remark is: remove the incentives to construct new building stock in a saturated market, to construct for emptiness. And clear away obstacles that prevent the reuse of existing buildings.

—Photos: Rob ‘t Hart

Rory Hyde made three radio shows during the Venice Biennial. Click on the titles to listen to the recordings (mp3): Venice show 1 (Australia, Ross Lovegrove), Venice show 2 (Ronald Rietveld, Saskia van Stein & DUS), Venice show 3 (Fuad Al Ansari, Momoyo Kajima, Ivan Rijavec).

The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X–197X
Maastricht

The opening of the successful traveling exhibition Clip, Stamp, Fold in Maastricht marks a renewed interest in various forms of engagement in the field of architecture and urbanism. The exhibition, based on research by Beatriz Colomina and her Princeton students on so-called ‘little magazines’ in the 1960s and 70s, was initially staged at Storefront in New York, November 2006. (A part of this research was published in Volume 10). It has since traveled to several cities in the US and Europe, including the lesser-known architectural hubs of Oslo, Vancouver and Murcia. What is interesting about the exhibition is not only its content, but also that it is a growing archive; with every new installation, a local or regional addition is added to the core of the exhibition. In Maastricht, the extension (called ‘Staple’ so the full title becomes Clip/Stamp/Fold/Staple) is a series of Dutch magazines that fit the profile that were published from the 80s up to the present. Volume is represented in this section that was researched by Marina van Bergen.

Image Dirk van den Heuvel

With lectures by Colomina on the exhibition and by Mark Wigley on Constant’s New Babylon project (and its appearance in little and not so little magazines), and with the presentation of the latest issue of Oase dedicated to architectural criticism, the program was loaded. And somehow, the round table discussion on the current role and possibilities of little magazines had to be fitted in as well, which besides Colomina and Wigley, also featured Axel Sowa (former editor of l’Architecture ‘d Aujourd’Hui), Véronique Patteeuw and Tom Vandeputte (from periodical Oase), Herman Verkerk (of defunct Forum magazine) and myself. The roll call of speakers prohibited an in-depth debate; while some relevant issues were touched upon (among them finance, independence and their interrelation), I’ll mention a few here that were not discussed.

1. A provisional typology. There are several motors that can propel a magazine: a) economy/trade; b) (serious) criticism; c) discontent/reaction/opposition; d) vision/pursuit. Little magazines are usually in category c) or d), but as the exhibition also indicates, trade magazines can have a period of ‘self inflicted’, chosen ‘littleness’. This is often related to a particular movement or style and usually comes with a new editorial team ‘that takes over’. There is also a position that is not ideologically informed or starts from ‘truth’, but is based on a pragmatic engagement with the present, based on analysis of the current conditions and what is needed to move forward. To name just two options, this explorative attitude can take the form of a project, like Volume, crossing conventional boundaries between academia, office and journalistic platform, or it can be taken as a format or formula: hand the magazine as instrument to a different crew every three years in order to empower different voices one after another.

2. On the battle field of thought, little magazines have been very influential; however, these days the internet seems to be the easy accessible, low cost medium to use, alternative to this laborious, hard-to-distribute form of communication. It hasn’t happened yet in the field of architecture, or at best it is just starting. Yes, individual bloggers can be influential, like certain journalists and critics in newspapers, but a dedicated publication on the web, that persistently explores certain themes and advocates a particular approach… I haven’t seen it yet, although BLDNGBLG, Action!, wemakemoneynotart, or Mammoth may prove me wrong. The collector’s item aspect, the insider’s tip, the ‘when will it arrive’ feeling, the carefully composed and designed quality; maybe it doesn’t exist in virtual space, where open access is the essence. There are these hidden corners for sharing among kindred spirits, but even there the time element (instant availability, instant reaction expected) is making a difference. On the other hand, what could a ‘little magazine’ on the web be? The financial hurdle is so much lower that the criterion of independence is almost meaningless.

3. Criticism is usually seen as a method to distinguish between good and not so good. To broaden the definition, it is one of the means to test cultural values and criteria of quality. In combination with the notion of ‘resistance’, it becomes a mechanism inside the system to ensure a degree of dynamism, and to integrate new ideas and developments into the dominant culture.

Criticism can also be understood as an element in research and knowledge production. This kind of criticism starts with the will to know and to understand. The connection between worlds of criticism and their relation with the phenomenon of the little magazine, it is the subject of Clip/Stamp/Fold/Staple. The exhibition doesn’t take sides: it is more an invitation to define or establish one’s own position as a visitor. As far as Volume is concerned, the choice between reflection, mediation and intervention was made from the outset: tweaking the system. If elevating various voices is a fifth typology (see point 1), then tweaking can be called the sixth typology.

Click here to read/download Arjen Oosterman’s essay ‘Becoming small and being great’ on Issuu.

NAiM/Bureau Europa: Clip/Stamp/Fold until 26 September 2010.
bureau-europa.nl

A report from the African Perspectives conference in Pretoria, South Africa

Each year, the Netherlands Architecture Institute, organizes worldwide approximately eight Debates on Tour. Together with a local counterpart, Dutch architects fly to a specific city to discuss specific themes, problems and challenges with their local counterpart. On 28th of September the NAi teamed up with ArchiAfrica to host a debate in Pretoria, South Africa during the African Perspectives conference. Arjen Oosterman joined in to write the following report.

Opening by moderator Antoni Folkers.

A confrontation of experiences from different parts of the world, centered on roughly the same theme or problematics, is rewarding by default. The Debates on Tour-program of the NAi, is based on this format. These debates have more than one edge: it acts as an antenna to ‘receive’ new developments, ideas and positions; it connects Dutch and international networks; it presents the NAi in different contexts throughout the world; and it proposes new agendas for architecture in non-hierarchical order.

This first ever NAi Debate on Tour on African soil took place in Pretoria on the occasion of the African Perspectives conference, that took place from September 25-28, also a program of Dutch making. African Perspectives started at the beginning of this century to bridge the information and knowledge gap between Europe and Africa. Utrecht based initiator ArchiAfrika developed what started as ‘bringing Africa to Europe’ and the Flemish and Dutch universities of architecture in particular, into a full fledged educational and scientific program, including a scientific committee and paper sessions, but also student workshops and presentations.

The starting point of ArchiAfrika is that Europe knows nothing about its material involvement in Africa and that Africa has to deal consciously with the imported tradition of modernism. It is vital to know and understand the heritage/history and to relate this to local, cultural specific traditions, before deciding to accept or reject the modernist approach. The initial annoyance that the rest of the world is hardly interested in what has happened in Africa and what is going on (on the level of architecture, urbanism and planning) has gradually transformed into an ambition to see what is African about the African city and in what ways this can be used for development. That adds to the import/export project an element of self-reflection for the African architectural community (all those professionals active in fields related to architecture and city) and an interesting research perspective for scholars around the globe.

From left to right: Martin Kruger, Paul Meurs, Godfrey Anjumba and Hein de Haan.

City Center = Mixed Use

Explicitly announced as a pilot, this debate on tour gathered architect Heinrich Wolff, architect and urban designer Martin Kruger and urban planner Godfrey Anjumba on the African side, Paul Meurs (architect and advisor on urban heritage) and Hein de Haan (architect activist and tutor urban planning) on the European/Dutch side. As often this division was relative since Anjumba studied in The Netherlands too. ArchiAfrika-host Antoni Folkers acted as moderator.

With public space in the city center – and Pretoria’s center in particular, suffering from an institutional drain and diminishing vitality and importance – as topic, discussion started right away. The very notion ‘city center’ was probably too European, related to a particular urban history and typology, and better indicated as ‘activity center’ (the day before, during the conference ‘CBD’ as indication of the historic center of Pretoria had been discarded as too American and replaced by ‘City Center’).

As a start, it related directly to the first question: what is public space in Africa? Instead of the standard reflex ‘square’, the notion ‘market’ was proposed by Martin Kruger. Godfrey Anjumba added ‘place for ceremony, drama and feast’; qualities instead of boundaries. The Dutch focused immediately on a more architectural concern: the division between private and public and the exchange between the two. Their advice: ‘in planning or analyzing don’t stop at the boundaries of public domain, look ten meters beyond the facade, beyond the border of private ownership to make full use of the urban quality of public space’.

After qualities and legal aspects, Heinrich Wolff introduced the power issue: who owns and controls and has access to public space? And this was not only about privately owned and controlled public space, but also about socio-political convention (exclusion of women in particular). That was all to our liking, but what about a reality check? Hein de Haan explained about the problems of mono-functional districts in the Netherlands (hence his critique on the use of CBD for the historic center) and how to counter degradation by introducing mixed programs in housing areas, office parks and city centers and Paul Meurs narrated about the problems in Brazil to deploy that strategy effectively (mixed use in former office towers). One of the students proposed that mixed programs as redevelopment strategy for empty offices might be a good idea, but zoning laws prevent this. Make creative use of the rules, De Haan responded, introduce typologies that count as ‘work’, but also include commerce and living, like artist studios. Mr. Anjumba added that the challenge is to convince developers and municipalities of what is common knowledge among architects and planners by now: that mixed-use and layering of programs is essential for urban quality and vitality. Paul Meurs explained another Dutch practice: develop specialized (sub)centers in addition to the historic down town that is specializing in tourism, high culture and top market shopping these days.
Interesting ideas if you have national and local authorities in proper control of planning and urban development, but the audience felt this was not reality in South Africa.

Heinrich Wolff

City Center = Safety and Density

More local sentiments came into play. For instance a preference for the ‘American dream’ typology of single family homes on a private plot of land, fenced off to protect these little islands as a safe-haven, which doesn’t produce a sense of center at all. In addition there was mention of a practice to move from one protected ‘bubble’ to another, regarding public space as the short cut between the two. The theme of fear shaping the environment and public space in particular was at the table. Heinrich Wolff opposed this image as only true for a small minority. The majority walks and goes about just as normal as anywhere in the world. And to counter a further loss of public quality one could think of introducing events like street soccer, to enhance ‘publicness’ and a feel of openness and accessibility.

Although this was regarded as both sympathetic and idealistic, the issue of the role of government was raised again. First Mr. Anjumba introduced an interesting ‘reading’ of Sunnyside district, that was described as lively, and with an extensive modern legacy. He stated that this wasn’t threatened the way the historic center of Pretoria is, because Sunnyside has been developed almost optimally. Tearing down and rebuilding won’t add much profit for developers, like it does in older areas. So here you can take your time to adjust and refine.
But who is to blame then, the audience asked, for the deterioration of the center, a diseased heart in a healthy body; developers won’t do the right thing, politicians don’t care it seems, are architects and planners the only people that have to take responsibility? Mr. Kruger tried to neutralize this potential explosive issue in referring to ‘the people’ and the Greek agora. But Mr. Wolff made it personal: the question came from a young person, still able to hold the older generation responsible, but even that young person will grow older and find herself responsible in the end. So why not start right away? Just do it. The architect as entrepreneur entered the scene, adding a VOLUME touch to the debate. ‘Are we talking about the same thing when discussing ‘public space’? New technologies revolutionize the very notion and if public space is shared experience, YouTube, email and internet are universal public spaces just the same. Mr. Meurs responded that the digital environment cannot replace the ‘authentic experience’ and that ticket sales for live concerts for instance prove that point. He wasn’t worried by the advent of new technologies.

Another example was the resurgence of Amsterdam’s historic center. 30 years ago it was in serious decline, the canal houses were almost exclusively occupied by offices, residents were leaving, small shops closing, historic buildings in bad shape. The city was passé, long live the suburb. But look, nowadays inner city apartments are the most expensive in the country. Authenticity as quality survives and wins in the end. And for the redevelopment of the famous Rotterdam Lijnbaan shopping center cum housing in the center the same argument counts: the developer is advised to start from heritage value, not ignore it, since that is the money maker in the long run. With this explicit mention of heritage as an important factor in publicness and public space a more political reading of the African city center was introduced at last.

Contribution from the audience

City Center = Identification

Because whose monuments are we talking about? There is no shared heritage yet, argued Wolff. The classic monuments represent white power, it is only now that monuments of other groups in society are being acknowledged, but there is a long way to go. And that opened the gate for ghetto, separation, cultural minority and what else as expressed in little Chinatown, little India and little Zululand. No problem, according to Anjumba, since identification is more important than the risk of compound-like separation. These ‘pockets’ add flavor and have a quality of their own. Stimulated by public intervention, Mr Kruger opposed that every city has groups and minorities, but public space is about collective use. That should be open to everyone and not ‘owned’ by just one group. And there the argumentation came full circle, because if public space matters, what exactly is its quality and character in the African city center?

And though this Debate on Tour didn’t produce a clear cut conclusion, it did make clear that despite its modern looks and globalized character, the South African city has a serious identity issue to solve. South Africa may be a state since 1910 and independent since 1961, it is in fact a very young nation. Since its political transformation in 1990-94, it had to reinvent itself. Cultural notions like ‘center’ and ‘heritage’ have to re-find their meaning in a new reality. That talking about these subjects proved difficult enough is telling for the challenges to confront.

 ’A precondition for starting a significant architectural intervention is to define a project in consultation with those parties involved in its implementation (the government, the local municipality, private investors, developers, construction companies, planners, designers and architects).’ This preamble to a recent international conference on ‘architectural interventions and transformations’ is typical for an ‘all-inclusive’ way of thinking about processes these days. Plans and policies are no longer defined and implemented by a few specialists;they are developed with all stakeholders (another popular contemporary notion). All parties? The user/consumer/resident, usually the subject and victim of intervention, is conspicuously missing from this description.
When the post-war, large-scale,top-down planning machinery began to increasingly malfunction in various political systems, ‘the market’ was allowed to resolve it.From a certain level of prosperity, it is assumed that demand leads to supply.Everyone ensures they have enough of what they need and politics need only concern itself with protecting the weak, security and (international) competition.Society need not and can no longer be made. Indeed, citizens determine for themselves what they want.This has considerable consequences for the role and position of the architect.Aldo van Eyck once described the role of the architect as helping to provide someone with a roof. (He added, ‘which is no easy task.’) The practice had been for architects to simply propose what users might want. Yet Van Eyck’s description is increasingly becoming the norm.The growing portion of individual clients in home construction is giving rise to a direct relationship between designer and user which until recently, at least in the Netherlands, was largely lacking. In addition, here and there in Europe and the U.S. a radical form of citizen influence is being experimented with on a small scale whereby budgets for urban development are determined by neighbor hoods, districts or villagers themselves.The (municipal) government merely facilitates what is decided locally.
This means that the architect is unexpectedly called upon to be capable of presenting futures, a faculty which he had largely appeared to have lost in our consumer society of commodity logic.A neighborhood is perfectly capable of choosing between a day care center and a café as an addition to a service packet, but for the restructuring of a factory complex or obsolete housing some help is indispensable.
These are issues which are completely marginal on a worldwide scale.A substantial part of the planet’s population continues to provide for their own housing and everyday environment; the other part is almost entirely provided housing.The annual Chinese production of cities does not take this kind of subtle arrangement into consideration. However, marginal isn’t the same as meaningless.The search for new balances between governments and their populations in determining what can and must be yields future models which are needed badly.This is true not only in planning paradises such as the Netherlands and western Europe.Permitting local populations in post-conflict areas input into redevelopment is likely to contribute to avoiding future conflicts.And in those areas where the authorities now dominate, increasing prosperity along with the increasing political independence and individual responsibility of the citizenry to see to their own needs and desires will compel the creation of different relationships. Hardcore social engineering may have fallen from grace (as a term, for as a practice it is still on the table), the market does not solve every problem.An additional challenge is to make that long-lasting, but that’s a subject for another time.

[This is the editorial to Volume 16 - Engineering Society]