Modernism without Dogma HANS IBELINGS Na Holanda, o Modernismo desenvolveu-se numa tradicao viva.

As ideias que os arquitetos modernos foram apresentando ao longo dos anos, estao profundamente enraizadas na prtica diria. Para Van Dijk, o Modernismo vive na Holanda como fonte de inspiracao permanente para todos os arquitetos e muitas vezes como ponto de partida. Durante sucessivas geracoes, os principios formais do Modernismo sao passados na educacao holandesa, mas nao os principios intelectuais. Os principios Ps Modernistas nao se manifestam muito na arquitectura holandesa: correntes como simbolismo, neo-classicismo, neotradicionalismo, regionalis, deconstrutivismo e mesmo arquitectura chamada high-tech, sao extremamente raros. Apesar da jovem geracao holandesa parecer partilhar o interesse da geracao mais velha nas bases do modernismo, exitem algumas diferencas. O primeiro grupo, apresenta se totalmente livre no tratamento da historia e do passado, at aqui considerado quase santopelos modernistas, o que se expressa numa atitude pos modernista. As suas referencias sao o estilo moderno internacional (Duiker? ,Corbusier, Mies, Aalto, construtivismo russo, racionalismo italiano e modernismo ps guerra Americano) e o regionalismo moderno (siza, por exemplo). O segundo grupo, segundo Van Dijk, tem um interesse nos principios intelectuais do modernismo holandes, mas sabendo que ninguem considera que estes principios possam ser usados na forma como exisitiam originalmente. Nao interessa a nuance na diferenca entre estas duas geracoes de arquitectos porque nao significativa para gerar conflito. raro haver relacoes de sicordancia na arquitectura holandese porque nao houve reais conflitos entre as geracoes. Outra razao pela qual dificil de falar em conflito, porque existe uma falta de espirito critico da nova geracao de arquitectos. Falando de casos especificos, os arquitecto Frank Roodbeen, Willem Jan Neutelings e o conhecido Wiel Arets, estao muito distantes, apesar do trabalho de todos dever muitas ideias ao modernismo. Os primeiros perseguem um racionalismo por meios de materiais bsicos e Arets procura uma simplicidade metafisica Miesiana. A falta de conviccoes nesta geracao de arquitectos provocada pela sua visao tao redutora e pela sua arquitectura partir de um estreito entendimento pessoal das bases Modernas. Este individualismo, pode ser entendido como o elemento de uniao desta geracao. muito caracteristico haver um entendimento muito pessoal da arquitectura moderna. Para alm deste laco paradoxal de individualismo, outro factor de coesao reside no trabalho sobre uma obra j com alguma maturidade. Por exemplo, a diferenca entre Ben Van Berkel e os arquitetos Mecanoo, o historial de projectos j construidos. Escritrios como Mecanoo e Neutelings, tiveram um inicio voador por ganhar grandes concursos, enquantos outros arquitectos tiveram um inicio de carreira mais gradual. Uma terceira razao para o desigual desenvolvimento dos percursos, pode prender-se com a formacao, onde existem estudantes que comecam a trabalhar e a trabalhar ao mesmo tempo e outros, que acabam o curso de forma objectiva e tornam-se arquitetos independentes muito mais cedo, sendo este um estatuto muito procurado, hoje em dia. Sob o sistema de ensino extremamente liberal

da Holanda, h pouca razoes para acreditar que a escola deixa a sua marca nos arquitetos, para alm do diploma. Muitos consideram que as Escolas de Delft e de Eindhoven deixam a sua marca e tem caractersticas muito prprias, quase definindo um estilo. Escola de Eindhoven Por exemplo, em Eindhoven, onde o departamente de arquitectos foi criado em 68, tinha originalmente a educacao mais tcnica, mas a partir de meados de 70 houve um interesse mais gradual em teoria e arquitectura e portanto muitos estudantes licenciaram-se quase com exclusivo interesse em ciencia antiga da arquitectura. Nesta classe de alunos, aparecem Wiel Arets e Wim van den Bergh arquitetos, com fortes inclinacoes para a teoria em arquitetura. O seu design tem o traco Spartano? Herico, irreverente?. Isto reflecte-se numa arquitectura purista e abstrata sobre a qual eles gostam de debater. Tambm de Eindhoven, vem Bert Dirrix, cujo trabalho com Rein Van Wylick toma uma linha mais pragmtica. Os seus trablhos consistem em projectos de pequena escala a sul do pais, onde, mais do que no restante, o conservadorismo tem um peso significativo.. Sao dedifinidos pela sensisbilidade paisagem, tal como os Mecanoo. Os estudantes de Eindhoven nao constituem uma escola, no sentido estilisticos ou terico, porque entre eles encontram-se diversos arquitectos, desde Arets, at designers como Jo Coenen e Sjoerd Soeters, o qual, se o ps modernismo existir na holanda, o seu melhor representante. Escola de Delft Nomes: Jan Pesman, Jan Benthem, Mels Crouwel and Frits van Dongen, Dolf Dobbelaar, Herman de Kovel, Paul de Vroom, Mecanoo, Wille-Jan Neutelings - todos graduados de delft e no entanto nao constituem um grupo. Apesar de serem normalmente rotulados como racionalistas. Desde os anos 50 que o ensino em Delft inquestionavelmente modernista, com um epecial papel para o racionalismo. Quem quebra com as ideas do racionalismo sao Aldo Van Eyck e Herman Hertzeberger, o primeiro at sua sada da escola e outro, at aos dias de hoje. No fim dos anos 70, o racionalismo teve um reacendimento notavel, particularmente devido a Carel Webber e Rem Koolhaas e pelas aulas tipolgicas de Max Risselada e Henk Engel, que tiveram grande influencia nos Mecanoo. No seu trabalho inicial, tiveram adaptacoes demasiado literais de Aalto, Le Corbusier e Lubtekin. Nos seus trabalhos mais recentes, contudo, libertaram/se de todas as imitacoes. DKV, Jan Pesman (Cepezed), Benthem and Crouwel have a tendecy to the rationalism. O arquitecto que mais se destaca deste lote, Ben van Berkel, arquitecto com formacao em Londres, com grande recurso a tecnologia e com uma comprexidade estrutural e espacial atipica neste periodo de racionalismo holandes. Tambm Koen Van Velsen se apresenta com atitudes semelhantes, mas deixa os seus edificios num estado de intencional inacabamento, enquanto Berkel perfeccionista. Depois de Koolhaas Existe ainda esta categoria para esta geracao de arquitectos. Tal como no final dos anos 60 se usava a bitola de Aldo van Eyck, mais recentemente usa-se a de Rem Koolhaas. As suas ideias lcidas e bem formuladas nao devem ser sub-estimadas. A sua influencia na nova

geracao de arquitectos inquestionvel, e nao se atribui apenas aos que trabalharam no seu OMA (Frank Roodbeen, Willem Jan Neutelings, Herman de Kovel (DKV), Paul de Vroom(DKV)). Rem Koolhaas, quando voltou a leccionar em delft organizou um simpsio intitulado "Quao moderna a arquitectura holandesa?". Este simpsio foi um ataque de koolhaas ao sistemtico uso do modernismo, na arquitectura holandesa. Nesse simpsio, Herman de Kovel disse: "Na minha opiniao, a arquitectura moderna pode ser importante desde que a continuemos a reinterpretar". Estas palavras dizem nos que o modernismo uma fonte importante da qual inspiracao pode ser retirada, sem que para isso se siga o idealismo que os arquitectos modernistas criaram. O resultado desta relacao com o passado um modernismo sem dogma, inventivo e com uma grande riqueza formal.

SuperDutch
domingo, 13 de Janeiro de 2013 15:59

Anos 90 _ Algo acontece na arquitectura holandesa, com Rem Koolhaas, que aparece com uma srie de ideias inovadoras, com bases slidas. Desde os anos 70 que Rem luta por estas ideias, mas apenas nos anos 80 e 90 os seus trabalhos se tornam merecedores de ateno por parte do pblico. Ao mesmo tempo, esta corrente, este despertar pela aproximao jovem e vigorosa arquitectura ficou marcado por nomes que nos anos 80 iam surgindo, muitos ainda com menos de trinta anos de idade e alguns com edificios construidos antes de acabarem a sua formao. Nomes como Arets, Bem Van Berkel, West8, MVRDV, Neutelings, Nox estavam a viriar o focos das atenes e preocupaes. Comparativamente a outros pases, estes novos projectos estavam realmente a ser construdos. O trabalho provocador de Rem, inspirou muitos destes nomes, com exibies, livros e palestras. A razo para esta revoluo, no se encontra apenas num sbito aparecimento de talento. Individualmente as capacidades no se destacam, mas colectivamente representam um grupo que inquestionavelmente propunha, obtinha e encontrava novas alternativas. Para entender esta sbita actividades, necessrio entender o periodo de uma perspectiva mais alargada: em 1989, um grnade nmero de mudanas radicais comeou a interferir no contexto em que a arquitectura evolua. A mais significativa foi a internacionalizao que intervinha na sociedade e cultura holandesa. Simbolicamente, nesse ano, o da queda do muro de Berlim, foi quando estas mudana ganharam notoriedade.

---A internacionalizao leva a duas consequncias opostas: por um lado a uma reavaliao do valor das tradies nacionais e por outro, a um desejo de competir com as ltimas tendncias internacionais. As duas consequncias esto presentes da recente arquitectura holandesa.. A fora da arquitectura holandesa, ter conseguido encontrar o seu lugar no discurso internacional ao mesmo tempo que mantem as suas tradies de realismo, e Sachlichkeit (matter of factness / objectividade) O NAI estima que desde a II WW, 75% do pas foi reconstrudo. A densidade populacional holandesa maior que a Japonesa. Roterdo trabalhou para ter o maior porto da Europa. Schipol vai continuar a crecer ao longo dos anos e o sistema ferrovirio ser melhorado com melhores condies e mais velocidade.

A primeira modernidade Com a maior parte da pas abaixo do nvel do mar, o pais est habituado a reclamar terreno natureza, a construir e planear tudo e a liderar em programas de uso dos terrenos frteis. Nos anos 50/60, o governo fundou um grande plano de reconstruo ps guerra, que tambm pretendia combater a estagnao imobiliria e o crescimento desmesurado do efeito baby boom - ps guerra. Os edifcios de produo em massa eram inovadores e tiveram um efeito na mentalidade holandesa, mais pragmtica. A mobilidade tambm cresceu e o aparecimento de novas vias de ocmunicao, transportes coletivos e obras de engenharia, aliou-se indstria da construo. Assim, a Holanda tem uma tradio de lidar com natureza construda, num nivel de aplicao pragmtica de tecnologia e planeamento. Estagnao: estes desenvolvimentos em clima optimista ps-guerra, com preocupaes que iam muito alm da mera reconstruo do pas, alargou-se para uma ideia de reconstruo da sociedade, eliminando a desigualdade e a pobreza. Autodisciplina e solidariedade resultaram num aumento significativo da qualidade de vida e para a elaborao de um sistema de medidas sociais. De facto a Holanda tornou-se no caso de qualidade Ocidental. No entanto, nos anos 60, apareceu um sentimento de falta de genuinidade social e cultural, e um desejo de liberao atingiu a atmosfera politica. Veio a crise do petrleo em 1973, e o relatrio do Clube de Roma (?) que tornou as pessoas conscientes que existem limites para o crescimento. Os centros das cidades caram em desuso com o crescimento sub-urbano. Apareceram revolues contra grandes equipamentos ou infra-estruturas (linha ferroviria subterrnea, Opera e City Hall de Amesterdo). Construes que necessitassem de grandes demolies eram um problema.

A nova arquitectura residencial era desenhada com menor escala, e com nfase na construo individual. Em Eindhoven, Roterdo e Tilburg, onde grandes res foram demolidas em antecipao de novos desenvolvimentos, os planos foram abandonados e as reas foram ocupadas com moradias e vivendas. A crena holandesa em que se poderia "fabricar" uma sociedade, desapareceu e foi substituda pela ideia que o pis teria de ser autoorientar, de acordo com principios internacionais, o que tambm se aplicou arquitectura e urbanismo. O papel das instituies: No fnal dos anos 70, com a arquitectura prejudicada pelas renovaes urbanas, quase automatizadas, o Conselho de Artes de Roterdo decidiu abanar a profisso, convocando criticos internacionais para falarem sobre cidade. Nomes como Stanislaus von Moos e Francesco dal Co. Pouco depois, em 82, convidou-se J.P. Kleihues, O.M. Ungers, Derek Walker e Aldo Rossi para prepararem desenhos para um desenvolvimento de uma zona de Roterdo. Mais que estes desenvolvimentos, a oportunidade dos arquitectos holandeses contactarem com as ideias dos convidados, mostrou-se valorosa. Esta srie de conferncias AIR (architecture Interantional Roterdam) tornouse visivel internacionalmente e pases como Japo e Espanha, seguiram o mesmo caminho, organizando o mesmo modelo posteriormente. Nomes como Koolhaas, Arets, Adriaan Geuze, Winy Maas, e Jacob van Rijs, participaram nestes eventos onde puderam debater com personalidades estrangeiras. Assim, durante os anos 80, o debate internacional tornou-se comum na arquitectura holandesa. Universidades lanavam simpsios, e rapidamente, revistas, jornais e ateliers, faziam o mesmo. Uma era em que nomes como Aldo Rossi, Richard Meier, Michael Graves, Alvaro Siza, Coop Himmelblau, Ricardo Bofill, Steven Holl, Charles Vandenhove, Giorgio Grassi, Bernard Tschumi, Liebeskind, Rob Krier, Renzo Piano, Kisho KuroKawa, Norman Foster, Helmut Jahn, Peter Eisenman; construiram na Holanda projectos de vrias dimenses. Compreensivelemente, isto provocou nos arquitectos locais, uma sensao de competio que os levou a apanhar o comboio. Nomes como Jo Coenen, Sjoerd Soeters e Rudy Uytenhaak, alinharam-se com os valores internacionais do Ps Modernismo e Benthem Crouwel com a arq. High Tech. Este grande interesse dos anos 80 na arquitectura, por parte da populao, dos media e dos politicos, atingiu ainda maiores dimenses nos anos 90, onde o ministrio da cultura e planeamento, emitiu uma politica que planeava estimular a componenete cultural da arquitectura. Oramentos eram redireccionados e 3 novas organizaes foram estabelecidas: NAI, Netherlands Architecture Fund e o Berlage Institute. Ao mesmo tempo mais apoios eram dados a estudantes que completavam o curso. A politica de interveno directa do estado na arquitectura, at aqui adoptada, foi assim substituda por politicas de ensino, debate e crtica. Quase todos os supracitados escritrios holandeses, beneficiaram dos apios das instituies referidas. A identidade Holandesa Com esta corrida pelo comboio internacional, compreensivel que a certo ponto, as pessoas comearam a sentira a necessidade de reflectir nas

tradies nacionais, identidade e reavaliar qual o o seu papel num panoram e discurso internacionais. Um momentos curcial para este redireccionamento, foi a publicao do livro Embarassement of Riches pelo historiador ingls Simon Schama sobre a mentaldade e cultura da poca de Ouro Holandesa, do sec XVI. Schama argumenta que o dilema da poca seria conciliar riqueza com moralidade, e com o aclamado carcter nacional. Nota que o Calvinismo e a critica humanista de Erasmus, deixou grandes marcas na mentalidade holandesa que so ainda hoje visiveis. Os holandeses normalmente no se do muito introspeco, mas quando um esntrageiro oferece uma opinio sobre o seu carcter colectivo, eles ouvem com ateno. A ideia do livro que quem vive na riqueza est mais susceptivel a ameaas e conflitos externos, catstrofes, guerra. Actualmente a Holanda goza um periodo de prosperidade, como na poca de Ouro, mas parece que a riqueza acompanhada por um sentimento de desconforto. No s medo que a abundncia acabe por influncias externas, mas tambm medo do excesso de confiana do pas, o que leva a regras estritas no que toca ao dfice e dvida. Este paradigma econmico ficou conhecido como "modelo do dique? (polder model) " . As teorias Calvinistas, continuam a ter efeitos em esferas como arquitectura, design ou moda. Os Holandese gastam menos em roupa do que qualquer outro pas da Unio Europeia. Novos edificios tomam uma fracco do oramento dado em outros pases e grandes casas como a House for Mr. X dos OMA ou a Mobius House dos Un Studio, tm clientes annimos. OMA: O eco Calivinista est presente quando se ouve Rem queixar sobre este aspecto desconhecido e no compreendido dos OMA, a sua dimenso econmica. Baixos custos de contruo tm uma especial importncia para ele, o uso dos recursos minimos. Surgem assim dois tipos de minimalismo: o minimalismo de Calcutta e um minimalismo detalhado, at espalhafatoso. No significa que s possamos fazer coisas baratas, mas a ideia de fazer o mximo com o minimo realmente interessante. Koolhas um radical que rejeita o valor esttico e construtivo da arquitectura. O aparecimento do Droog Desing ou design seco, est ligado com esta produo dos anos 90, mais conceptual, minimalista, reduzida e bsica. (tradio Calvinista e Erasmiana) Um processo semelhante aconteceu com o atelier Van Lieshout, que contruiu uma critica da arte e design modernos na Holanda. Os casos citados contibuem para um entendimento da esttica enigmtica holandesa e da recente arquitectura. Quo moderna a arquitectura holandesa? A cultura dos anos 90 parecia ser muito consciente da sua tradio e lidava com ela de forma obstinada. Isto foi manifestado num simpsio organizado por Koolhaas na TU Delft que se intitulava "Quo moderna a arquitectura holandesa?". Este simpsio pretendir reflectir sobre a metodologia e o ensino em Delft, ainda muito enraizados na arquitectura holandesa, com representantes como Mecanoo e DKV (mecanoo recusaram-se a intervir por se acharem demasiado bons para serem criticados por Koolhaas). O simpsio foi uma autocritica nacional de Koolhaas que relfectiu sobre o Plano para para o Norte de Amesterdo (1980-89) e sobre vrios edificios residenciais, como exemplo de arquitectura moderna, que ficaram de fora do seu livro SMLXL.

Contudo a avaliao mais devastadora veio por parte de Hans van Dijk que mencionou o termo "professores modernistas" que representavam um clich no inicio dos anos 90. O NAI pegou no tema e apresentou-o com Hans Ibelings e o seu Modernism without Dogma. O reconhecimento oficial do NAI selou o destino do modernismo, como uma opo em decadncia, superficial e sem contedo. Despertados por Koolhaas, um grande numero de arquitectos comearam a investigar a relao dos seus trabalhos com o Modernismo. Koolhas apresentou um grande nmero de projectos inovadores para A biblioteca nacional de Frana, o Terminal Maritimo em Zeebrugge e o Centro Cultural e Medicinal em Karlsruhe, Alemanha. Todos os projectos (1989) propunham tipologias radicalmente novas. Ao longo dos anos 90, koolhaas, elevou a autocritica a mtodo, sistematicamente trazendo a discusso todos os clichs estabelecidos e certeza adquiridas. Koolhaas tornou-se, no s a conscincia da arquitectura Holandesa, mas tambm o catalisador do seu desenvolvimento. A importncia de koolhaas manifesta-se pela sua capacidade de prever e antecipar as mudanas que ocorreriam na mentalidade holandesa. O seu estudo de 71 da muro de Berlim e projecto Exodus de 72, previram a queda do Muro, em 89. Por outras palavras, sempre funcionou como um orculo das novas tendncias. Os trabalhos dos OMA dos anos 80 foram ocultados por outras obras de maior destaque, mas quando os estudamos, encontramos j claras inovaes, especialmente nos projectos no realizados. A relao entre tradio est presente no projecto dos OMA da renovao de uma priso do sculo XIX em Arnhem. O projecto no foi feito, mas as subsequentes renovaes de prises holandesas, basearam-se nos planos de Koolhaas. Mudou tambm a concepo das novas prises holandesas. Outro exemplo de urbanismo est no plano para o distrito de IJ-Plein, em Amersterdo Norte. A nova viso do urbanismo, que ao invs de apresentar um projecto definido, que seria critica por parte da populao, propunha antes uma srie de planos que apresentavam todos os pros e contras de cada ideologia. Assim, este plano resultou de uma negociao e que depois continuou com uma surpreendente calma e viabilidade a ser desenvolvido. A inovao nos planos dos OMA est na procura de densidade e cruzamento de diferentes programas e estilos de vida, que compelem as pessoas a contruir a sua prpria identidade, ao invs de seguir ideologias prdeterminadas. Os projectos so polos agrupadores, mas ao invs dos ideias Soviticos Russos dos anos 20, no pretendem gerar uma sociedade uniforme, mas o inverso. Assim os OMA pensaram na nova realidade: a maioria da populao mundial vive ou viver em cidades e o capitalismo do mercado aberto tornou-se numa condio global, em especial na Holanda. Com as velhas tipologias desenquadradas, os OMA desenvolveram uma srie de novas , em especial a ideia da continuidade do solo/pavimento, ideia adoptada no seu projecto para a biblioteca de Jussieu em Paris, que foi adoptada posteriormente vrias vezes. A Segunda Modernindade Est assim claro que as bases para a segunda fase da Modernidade que decorreerica a partir dos anos 90, foi lancada nos anos 70 e 80. Esta segunda modernidade , segundo os socilogos Ulrich Beck e Anthony Giddens, um produto da economia global e desenvolvimento politico, da

emancipao das redes de comunicao. Enquanto a primeira fase da modernidade foi impulsionada pela revoluo industrial, a segunda est ligada aos meios de comunicao/tecnolgicos. A unificao da Europa teve um papel importante, por causa das suas politicas em relao aos mercados, o que tambm levou o goerno Holands a abolir, privatizar ou alterar os estatutos de vrias intituies pblicas, subsidios e leis. Estas medidas manifestaram-se na arquitectura quando o governo holands acabou com os subsidios oficiais para habitao colectiva, em 1994. Assim as corporaes que financiavam os projectos, numa base sem fins lucrativos, tiveram as suas dividas anuladas e comearam a actuar como independentes, num espirito de mercado aberto. Ao mesmo tempo o governo calculou em entre 800 000 e 1M de casas seriam necessrias at 2005. Assim as novas zonas residenciais sero compactas e densas, com um reduzido espao pblico. Estes esquemas mudariam a configurao da Holandas, com a contruo de novas cidades de 50 000 at 100 000 casas, com terra reclamada ao mar, como o caso de Haia e Roterdo (numa zona conhecida como Waterman Plan) e com uma nova ilha suburbana perto de Amesterdo, chamada Ijburg. O corao verde, uma enorme rea de agricultura, no meio de um anel formado por Amesterdo, Utrecht, Gouda, Roterdo, Haia e Haarlem, ser a zona que tambm sofer os custos destes desenvolvimentos. O governo manifesta um desejo por proteger esta zona, mas a mudana de condies esto a tornar a agricultura menos rentvel. A rea verde est sob ameaa, no apenas devido aos grandes planos de expanso das cidades circundantes, em especial Utrecht, mas tambm devido s inumeras moradias individuais que comeam a ser planeadas e construidas. Desde os anos 90, deixou de ser o governo a tomar decises sobre estes assuntos, mas antes os arquitectos e os urbanistas. Em 1995, Adriaan Geuze, e os West 8, contruiram uma enorme maqueta, como 800 000 pequenas casas no NAI. O efeito foi chocante, por mostrar como o BOOM poderia afectar as cidades e o pas: paisagens de interminveis linhas de casas, relembrando algumas mega cidades da Amrica do Sul. Do ponto de vista do Planeamento Urbano, a maqueta/manifesto, mostrou que a organizao das casas em bairros separados, era irrelevante, pois seria sempre um enorme e indiferenciado mar de casas. Mais tarde, um livro chamado "Holland staat een huis", escrito pels West 8, mostrou dezenas de planos urbanos fotografados (anos 70 e 80). Apesar dos arquitectos terem tentados dar a cada novo desnevolvimento uma identidade, foi esse mesmo esforo que resultou num sentido de uniformidade. A Federao dos Urbanistas Holandeses, lanou mais tarde um mapa chamado "DE nieuwe kaart van Nederland" que assinalava todos os planos de desenvolvimento na Holanda. Mostrou a importancia de coordenar os desenvolvimentos a um nivel superior. At agora,no muito foi feito a respeito disto. Mapear os campos de Foras Paradoxalmente s dificuldades das mudanas dos tempos e paradigmas, foram os jovens arquitectos que no passado por todas estas alteraes, os que deram o passo em frente nesta nova fase da arquitectura. Este facto est tambm relacionado com a condio que quem os contratava seria outros arquitectos que nos anos 60 e 70 tinham j por si algumas ideias revolucionrias. As geraes mais velhas estavam agora mais dispoatas a experincias e riscos. Esta problemtica, contudo, na situao corrente, onde o arquitecto j no se pode basear na histria autnoma, porque o poder e autoridade da tradio j no existe to marcadamente. O

arquitecto deve agora justificar-se perante vrias entidades, clientes, empreiteiros, engenheiros, futuros usurios, residentes dos bairros que insistem em consultoria e nas municiplidades. Deve lidar com leis extensas e por vezes contraditrias. Devem encontrar nos estratgias para continuar a desempenhar um papel fundamental na sociedade, e entrar em alianas com os vrios agentes envolvidos. Para cada projecto deve analisar as redes politico sociais e jogar com elas, at manipulando-as. J no existe autonomia arquitectnica. Na Segunda modernidade, a consultoria holandesa sobre tradio tornou-se completamente institucionalizada. Pensada agora como trabalho de equipa, basta que um agente se mostre contra para que todo o processo seja muito mais moroso. Contudo, quando h consentimento de todas as partes, o processo rpido. O factor crucial assenta na qualidade e credibilidade dos argumentos do arquitecto. Escritrios como OMA, West8, MVRDV, Neutelings& Riedijk e UN Studio tentam lidar com esta situao, analizando o contexto de cada projecto, sem assumpoes prvias, tentanto trazer o seu potencial ao de cima. Muito regularmente, o processo comear por criar uma rede de todos os possiveis interventientes e interesses no projecto. Esta prtica influencia tambm a produo terica, talvez at mais fortemente que em outros pases, onde a formao terica assume um papel cada vez mais, juntamente com o poder argumentativo e retrico, inerente ao processo descrito. Neutelings diz, provocativamente, que se trata de preguia pois o desenho ideal deve surgir de um acordo entre todas as partes. Van Berkel e Bos falam de foras mveis e os MVRDV preocupaam-se com "datascapes???". Apesar de estar perante prticas ocmpletamente diferentes, existem algo transversal. Van Berkel & Bos tentam recolher toda a informao possivel inerente a um projecto, usando depois o computador para a organizar sob a forma de diagramas. As datascapes dos MVRDV, por outro lado, so verses elaboradas do que se chama das situaes do desenho. Nos seus projectos, manifestam j a preocupao pelo factores intangiveis como o envelope do planeamento, leis, regulamentos de luz e som, requerimentos contrutivos e as necessidades e desejos dos usurios e dos residentes da rea. Usa-se assim o computador para criar super mapas de restries que possam ser usados durante as fases de negociao do projecto com as diversas partes, possibilitando um esutdo prvio de vrios cenrios. Os mritos de tais estratgias, possiblitam ao arquitecto manter um papel de administrador do projecto, controlando todas as parte, ao invs do tradicional papel de visionrio autoritarista (mantendo sempre que possivel os seus desejos pessoais no processo e produto final). A mais importante tarefa do presenta da arquitectura indubitavelmente a mxima diferenciao de tipologias, com o objectivo de respoonder aos problemas apresentados por uma sociedades cada vez mais exigente e diferenciada. Um tema que claramente desenrola uma parte importante no planeamento urbano, contruo, edificos publicos. Esta pesquisa est acompanhada por um desenvolvimento paralello de novas formas de organizao e transparncia, com a batalha pendente e presenta da conectividade/mobilidade. Num nivel mais abstracto, os objectivos pessoais esto muitas vezes influenciados por filsofcos como Focault, Derrida, Lyotard, Deleuze. BenVan Berkel e Caroline Bos, chegam perto . As principais diferenas entre estes e os outros escritrios holandeses est no facto de parecerem no estar mais preocupados com as questes internas de coerencias e percurso do seu trajecto projectual. O seu trabalho mostra srias preocupaes com

a procura de solues prticas para os complexos problemas da sociedade contempornea. Prova disso o artigo da revista Any Magazine, chamado Diagram Work, onde os arquitectos referidos participam como editores convidados. Na sua introduo escrevem que o ponto de partida para a sua pesquisa em diagrama est na observao do prepetitivo processoraz da arquitectura. De forma a evitar a desiluso total, a arquitectura deve continuar a envolver o seu discurso interno, adaptando-o de formas especificas aos novos materiais e tecnologias, para entrar num continuo estado de auto-anlise. assim claro que, para alm de todos os problemas da arquitectura holandesa, podemos dizer que goza de uma grande vivacidade, onde os argumentos politicos, prticos e estticos vo de mo em mo com as tradies nacionais e referncias internacionais. O mais importante resultado at agora uma srie de projectos inovadores que foram ocntruidos. Ver Rem Koolhaas, In search of the new Modernity, domus 800, Janeiro 1998 Ver projectos para: Biblioteca Nacional de Franca Terminal Maritimo de Zeebrugge Centro Cultural e Medicinal de Karlsruhe Ver reflexo sobre o Muro de Berlim, Projecto Exodus Ver Priso de Arnhem dos OMA Jussieu em Paris Ver o referido artigo do Van Berkel e Bos.

quarta-feira, 24 de Outubro de 2012 19:36

Nicholas Socrates 2008 Analysis: Architecture - In The Age of Globalization, by Hans Ibelings Post Modernism - after the modern movement. Defined in architecture by a typical return to traditional materials and forms, re-emergence of ornament, reference to the context, historical reference in decorative forms and non orthogonal angles. Deconstrutivism (or deconstruction)- Jacques Derrida (the father of this idea and movement) its characterized by ideas of fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface or skin, nonrectilinear shapes which serve to distort and dislocate some of the elements of architecture, such as structure and envelope.stimulating unpredictability and a controlled chaos.

After postmodernism and its deconstructivist off-shoot , a new architecture now seems to be emerging, an architecture for which such postmodernist notions as place, context, and identity have largely lost their meaning. A new trend towards abstract, neutral architecture, which in various respects can be seen as the last word of modern architecture of the postwar International Style.

maandag 29 oktober 2012 20:52

An Alabaster Skin
Wiel Arets, An Alabaster Skin, 010 Publishers, 1991, pp. 5-8 Architecture may be considered a desire for purity, a striving for perfection. The principal color white marks a process in which the undecidable is respected; it is not a question of meaningful or meaningless. The whiteness of newly fallen snow in the morning light, the white of a perfect skin, the white of paper on which the design will be sketched - white is everywhere and may be considered the color of origin and beginning. White is the color of the between: between conception and execution, between unblemished and defiled, between innocence and seduction, between virginity and marriage. Architecture is unblemished (lack of deffects, faults). Its entire logic risks something that is of only short duration. It appears only to disappear. It seduces through innocence, yet it loses that very innocence through seduction. It presents us briefly with freshness and untaintedness, only to lose those properties precisely by offering them to us. Architecture is therefore a between, a membrane, an alabaster skin, at once opaque and transparent, meaningful and meaningless, real and unreal. To become itself, architecture must lose its innocence; it must accept a violent transgression. It can only become part of the world by entering into marriage with its surroundings. Therefore architecture is not only untainted but violent, and its violence once again has two sides. On one side architecture is violent because it resists having to be the victim of its surroundings; on the other it can distort those surroundings. This relationship lends it cunning. Those who engage in architecture should keep their wits about them. This applies first to architects. Architecture bestows upon us not the pleasure but the fear of freedom. If we are to prosper, we must learn to see through its ambiguities and find a way of coping with its vagaries, for it inflicts incisions everywhere. Architecture cuts through the skin of the city; as an image, it graves images; itself defiled, it defiles others. However, we should not be intimidated by this. Too often it cuts itself, and seldom does it intend to cut off our retreat. It is more likely to cut to make something visible. It makes incisions to make life more comprehensible. Architecture with its surgical interventions parallels biology as a science representing life. As a virus can

radically alter the human organism, so can a building radically alter the organism of a city, and just as a body is a functioning assemblage of organs, a city is a functioning assemblage of buildings. It is appropriate to speak of traffic arteries and traffic streams, of the heart and lungs of a city, but the city can be compared to the human body in many other ways. Architecture is to the city what an artificial organ is to the human body. We all may agree that the city is sick and needs curing. It no longer functions spontaneously but calls for prosthetics and surgical operations. Wherever the city is functioning below standard, architecture takes action. It takes the place of the citys spontaneous and organic functioning; it is a prosthesis, architecture is always the place of, 'in the place of'. Architecture is ephemeral due to the fact that it always takes the place of something. Though built of brick and concrete, architecture is temporary. In addition to the cuts of biology and surgery, it is subject to the cuts of film and cinematography. Through the rapid succession of images and the torrent of stimuli, architecture is cinematic. We experience the city through the car window, as if watching a film. Architecture is to the city what a film director is to the script he wants to make into a film. Film is a skin lit with images. The succession of these images is governed by a rhythm of intervals, incisions, cuts. We are not aware of this when watching a film. It is the same with architecture - it introduces intervals into the urban fabric often without our awareness. The space in the city is the artificial space for a scenario. The way in which we perceive a city has been structured beforehand by films, and so architecture introduces programmatic transformations into the urban structure without pretending to preserve its original character. Architecture is essentially incision. To speak of film and architecture is not innocent; it suggests how the city and urban life are drastically altered by new media and technologies. Perceiving life as if it were a film is only the beginning of an altered reality. We are discovering how traditional ways of observing are being transformed into new strategies of perception. Just as architecture of the modern movement attempted to respond to production techniques then in practice, so architecture today should provide an answer to the simulation techniques now emerging. Technology at the beginning of this century was largely a machine technology, geared towards making things; today's fabrication concerns the immaterial, particularly controlling and sending information, regulating and channeling images. Fifty years ago technology brought us reality. Now it is destroying it. The design of the thirties already contributed to a series man-machine communication; today architecture has reached the status of an interface. It is architectures task to mediate between man and everything that befalls him.

Nederlandse Architecten vol.1

maandag 29 oktober 2012 20:52

"Finalmente outra fraqueza que se verifica actualmente o estreito interesse na pele exteiror de um edificio - o angulo fotognico, a fachada atractiva, a massa impressionante. Isto implica ignorar partes fundamentais da qualidade arquitectnica, como a funcionalidade do edificio, o desenvolvimento do piso trreo, os cortes, a construcao, os materiais e o

detalhe, que tambm pode funcionar como expressao das ambicoes arquitectnicas." N.De Vreeze, pg 13

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

tera-feira, 5 de Maro de 2013 14:49

The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google

tera-feira, 5 de Maro de 2013 14:50

tera-feira, 5 de Maro de 2013 15:08 REALITY BYTES: THE DIGITALLY-MEDIATED URBAN REVOLUTIONS 24 April 2012 | By Merlyna Lim

Digital media plays an important role in the galvanisation of social movements, says social scientist Merlyna Lim, but can it ever supplant urban space? The entanglement of digital media with social movements has become a significant force transforming societies. Recent social movements, from the Egyptian revolt in Tahrir Square to the Occupy Wall Street protest in Zuccotti Park, have incorporated digital media as one of their important dimensions. However, while the new social movements may have been ignited in social media spaces such as Facebook and Twitter, the movements themselves took form and claimed power far outside digital social networks: transpiring in public urban space, on the streets and in the squares. How, then, should we conceptualise the relationship between digital space and urban space in the making of contemporary social movements? Digital media facilitates associations that transcend localities and nation-state boundaries for transnational and global groupings to emerge; it enables ideas, information and knowledge to penetrate spatial local, national and regional barriers with speed. However, the physical bodies are still very much attached to spatial reality; the very same media also brings people back to interact with physical space. Network society is not necessarily placeless. The networks connect specific places spaces that acquire meaning through identity politics in a certain moment in time to specific information and communication flows. The association between urban spaces, digital media space and movements can be understood in relation to networks. Social movements, especially in the form of protests, can also be understood as networks of people who share a goal. Traditionally, social movements can be built upon existing social networks among individuals with the same/similar jobs (connected by networks of unions/organisations), or similar belief/religion (religious organisations), or similar interests (interest/hobby organisations). Such social networks are traditionally formed in physical places. However, in todays world, where public space no longer retains its function as a dominant social space, traditional ways of social networking have been shifted to the mediated one(s). Digital media, especially social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, has become integral to the rhythms of everyday sociality. The very reality of contemporary urban social networks is directly related to recent social movements. Protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Spain, the US and elsewhere were kindled through social media that has become integrated into daily practices of sociality. This means that individuals were mostly connected to each other socially, not politically. The dissent and the protests were propagated to the already existing social networks where people communicate socially and culturally and participate in collective cultural production rather than through networks of political actors. Ironically, the importance of new/social media networks is parallel

with the disappearance and deterioration of traditional social networks that are rooted in public/civic spaces from our urban settings. Many movements are formed gradually through the everyday building and expansion of social networks, from a growing diffusion of a shared contention, to an increasingly articulated and collectively-framed claim. James C Scott in his book Dominations and the Arts of Resistance (1990) argues that even in periods of repression, people can build networks for potential social movements through the clandestine creation and nurturing of a hidden transcript, the term used for the critique of power that goes on offstage, and of which powerholders are unaware. These are stories, rumours, complaints and utopian visions that a sub/counter-culture keeps alive for the historical moment when, because of shifts in political opportunities and constraints, substantial mass liberatory action becomes possible. Historically, religious domains such as churches (in the black movement in the US), mosques (in Iranian revolution), and temples (in Korean movements) and secular ones provide spaces for cultivating hidden transcripts. However, in the contemporary urban world, such spaces have become a rarity. And in the event that physical civic spaces are repressed and/or impossible, digital media can emerge as an alternative space for activists to nurture the hidden transcripts that are the necessary antecedent to the launching of a powerful social movement. Even with the emergence of digital media-driven social movements, public demonstration is still very much part of social movement. Even though some feel that the public demonstration is obsolete that public space no longer exists, or that power is now too fluid and dispersed to be contested by gathered masses of people staging the movement in urban public space is still perceived as the most powerful way to collectively express dissent, to express the strength of the movement, and, especially, to directly challenge the power (enemy). Such public demonstration can also be a tool to grow the movement (by recruiting new members) and to define collective identity for a group/culture/movement. Social movement effectively consolidates by its invisibility (to authority); the vast and convivial digital media provides the space for this mechanism. In contrast, it must claim its power withvisibility, which can only be done by either occupying public space and/or opening public space. In this context, public space (to be occupied or opened) is identified through its meanings, symbols, and narratives and histories associated with the space; how power is perceived in relation to (public) space in a certain length of time is related to the identification of spaces for public demonstration.

Tech-activism is taking an increacingly prominant role in the organisation of grassroots movements. Here the a ramshackle media centre at Occupy Wall Street connected the pro-tax demonstrators with a global network of activists. Photograph: David Shankbone Digital media spaces and networks can be used to propagate new narratives, new messages and new ideas that challenge authority. However, symbolic representation of power is grounded in the memories and histories of public spaces. The existence of symbolic physical insurgence spaces is, therefore, significant to the staging process of social movement. The cultivation of the movement especially when physical spaces are repressed may effectively take place in the digital media spaces; however, as Paul Virilio once stated: The revolutionary contingent attains its ideal form not in the place of production, but in the street

The mass movement is literally when people become a mass and how this moving mass can be visible in public. It is the staging of social movement in public space that translates the movement into a visual power, a spectacle of a political body. The scene of a myriad of people occupying Cairos Tahrir Square, Tiananmen Square of Beijing, the National Monument of Jakarta, or Serangoon Stadium in Singapore, is not only symbolically powerful but the literal spectacle of people power that in itself is a form of power. Further, contemporary urban movements increasingly revolve around the combination of fixation and mobility. Fixed nodes of urban spatial networks in tandem with mobile ones are hybridly used for recent movements. For example, in the Tahrir revolt, taxi drivers were as important as Facebook in disseminating information about the protest, taking advantage of the fact that taxi drivers cannot be silent. In addition to the Cairo cabbies, friendly coffee shops that garnish downtown Cairo played a significant role as a point of information dissemination. The cabs and the coffee shops are definitely among the most important urban artefacts where the social fabric of urban society finds its nexus. The combination of cabs and coffee shops also represents the preset (immobile) and the mobile modes of communications and information networks. From the cabs, the coffee shops, and other alternative hubs, the information reached many people both at the nucleus and the fringes of urban areas. Thus, the traditional network of information was awakened. The political resistance developed by a small group of young activists, the social media elites, was disseminated to a wider urban society. In 1984 that year loaded with meaning Foucault observed that space is fundamental in any exercise of power. This is still the case. Since power is integral to historical processes, space necessarily becomes a factor of analysis. Successive shifts from the pre-modern approach to the modern and ultimately the post-modern in analysing social movement in relation to sociality, should not be conceived as just aesthetic or epistemological but also as material, socio-political and historical. While the principal insight of the post-modernist spatial turn remains of central importance to urban studies, especially to urban historians, history itself is a set of social processes that require spatial as well as temporal analysis; the issues of the ownership and meanings of space are deeply embedded in historical conflicts and processes. Studying and analysing contemporary movements cannot be detached from our understanding of the importance of both digital media and public urban spaces as social, cultural and political spaces and networks. Digital media space is a new means of providing existing social movements with a new layer of space where non-physical activities communication and information-based can take place and with a network of movement (especially oppositional) invisible from control and repression. However, the actual realisation of power people power is only visible through public staging, public demonstration in public urban spaces. For contemporary social movements, digital media and physical urban spaces have become interdependent dimensions. Both, interchangeably and complementarily, provide spaces for activists and people in general to socially interact for the establishment of human agency and the expansion of social networks of the movements.
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tera-feira, 5 de Maro de 2013 15:28 THE BIG RETHINK: SPIRAL DYNAMICS AND CULTURE 23 November 2012 | By Peter Buchanan

As a key theory underscoring the still unfolding narrative of human evolution, Spiral Dynamics examines the complex interaction of culture and society, so that by considering how we have lived and, crucially, how we might live, we can become more fully engaged both with each other and the world The last several decades have seen the emergence, across a number of fields, of modes of developmental thinking whereby species and eco-systems, people and cultures, and even consciousness are seen to evolve through identifiable developmental stages. This evolution through differentiated stages marks developmental thinking as different to modernitys simpler, more purely linear, notion of progress. It also sorely offends postmodern taboos against rankings and hierarchy, which has probably slowed the spread and impact of developmental models to date, including its influence on architectural and urban thinking. Yet the evidence from empirical research supporting these proliferating developmental schema continues to mount, and for many their adoption is a key characteristic of 21st-century, trans-modern modes of thought, including Integral theory. More generally, the last half century or so has seen the increasing adoption of or at least advocacy for, rather than actual application of ecological modes of analysis, sometimes referred to as joined-up thinking. These seek to understand phenomena in terms of their wider web of relationships, including the many dimensions of their multiple contexts a contribution of the best of postmodern thinking. More recently, this ecological perspective is being increasingly complemented by an evolutionary one. This extends far beyond its Darwinian origins in biology to include cosmology and geology through to the human realms of history and technology, culture and psychology as well as modes of thought and meaning.1In crude terms, our use of the quadrants of the AQAL diagram in earlier essays in this series, is a form of joined-up or ecological thinking, while evolutionary thinking introduces us to the levels. REVISITING THE AQAL MATRIX Before continuing our discussion, it is as well to recap the bare bones of the AQAL (All Quadrant, All Level) diagram, particularly for new readers who have only recently started to follow these Campaign essays. The AQAL diagram provides a matrix in which all fields of knowledge can be plotted to show clearly the relationship of these fields one to another so that they can be drawn upon not only independently but also usefully integrated. Moreover, any organism, or collective of organisms, and all manmade systems manifest simultaneously in all four quadrants. These are defined by a pair of cross axes: the upper part of the vertical axis marking the realm of the individual, and its lower part that of the collective; left of this vertical

axis, the horizontal axis marks the interior or subjective realm, and right of this vertical is the exterior or objective realm.

The All Quadrant All Level (AQAL) diagram devised by Ken Wilber and central to Integral theory The Right Hand quadrants, the realm of the sciences and nature, are referred to as monological, because knowable by detached observation alone; the Left Hand quadrants are dialogical, because knowable only by interrogating the experiencing, meaning-making subject/s. The Upper Left (UL) quadrant is thus the subjective realm of the I or self, of personal experience, psychology and intentionality. The Lower Left (LL) quadrant is thus the intersubjective realm of We or culture, of worldview and meaning. The Upper Right (UR) quadrant is thus that of the objective realm of It, of biology, form and behaviour (action visible to the detached observer) and the Lower Right (LR) is the inter-objective realm of Its, of all systems: ecological and economic, sociological and technological, and so on. Bisecting each quadrant are diagonals with the levels marked at regular intervals, rising progressively with distance from the crossing of the axes. These levels are organised holarchically, each level a holon that is whole in itself yet part of the holon on the next level up. So in the UR quadrant, an atom is whole that is part of a molecule, that is a whole and part of an organism, and so on. Also crucial is that a level of development in any quadrant is matched by a corresponding level of development in each of the other quadrants. Thus, for instance, increasing neurological complexity (UR quadrant) is matched by increasing psychological sophistication (UL quadrant), cultural development (LL quadrant) and social organisation (LR quadrant). Using the quadrants as we have done in the earlier essays may have brought more completeness to our deliberations than characterises reductive modern thought. It also serves as a useful easy check to see what areas of knowledge and action have been overlooked during such deliberations, particularly as modern thinking tended to ignore the Left-Hand quadrants, most especially the Lower Left. But to focus merely on the quadrants is to perpetuate modern flatland thinking that robs discussion of both the depths and the dynamism, and thus an even greater degree of completeness, that comes from drawing on the notion of levels, to which this essay is a very sketchy introduction. (Besides Quadrants and Levels, the AQAL diagram also charts what are termed Lines; but, important as these are, they will remain outside the scope of these introductory essays.) It is the levels that chart evolutionary and developmental progression, thus placing phenomena in an expanded context. Ken Wilbers apposite analogy is that to ascend the levels is like climbing a ladder, each rung up offering a different and broader perspective and greater depth of understanding, which includes all that gained on the lower rungs. More than that, though, the levels place phenomena in a much larger temporal context than do the quadrants because they reveal the evolutionary and historic past from which something has emerged and suggest the future towards which it is likely progressing. Implied here is not only dynamism, but also

direction, a controversial notion much resisted by doctrinaire materialist Modernists for whom anything that hints at teleology is taboo. And yet any dispassionate look at evolution does suggest direction towards higher levels of complexity and order, of consciousness and interconnectedness. Besides, as we shall see, using the levels deepens and broadens our understanding of architecture, not least by providing a yet greater degree of completeness than afforded by using the quadrants alone. ARCHITECTURES PRAGMATIC AND ESOTERIC ROOTS Contemporary developmental schema particularly relevant to architecture have grown and evolved from several roots. But, before mentioning some of these, it is pertinent to remember that the training of architects (or rather their pre-modern equivalents) in many historic cultures, including Christian Europe through the medieval period and well into the modern era, was concerned not only with mastery of such pragmatic matters as construction; it also had an esoteric or occult component that was developmental in nature. Thus the medieval training of master masons, which inspired what became freemasonry, was concerned with the progressive psycho-spiritual development of the architect-initiate through levels known as degrees. The architect-initiate could then make use of sacred geometry with its rules of proportion, number and form and various forms of sacred or occult iconography to not only give depth to his architecture but also help people relate to the buildings at a deeper level, even if only subliminally, and so serve as a spur to their psycho-spiritual development.

Analysis of some aspects of how the plan of Chartres Cathedral is composed in accord with sacred geometry Similar notions guided the training of architects in other religious traditions, such as the Sufis.Indeed, as explained in an earlier essay in this series, the very wellsprings of architecture lie as much in the creation of a physical setting that facilitated the development of people as in sheltering them. One such wellspring was in the choreography of ritual, in deploying a set of actions in different spatial locations so as to intensify the experience of them and take people into altered states and/or undeveloped parts of the psyche. Another, very similar source is the segregation of differing activities into separate spaces or rooms shaped, lit and so on to enhance those activities not only for functional convenience but so that activities could be experienced more intensely as part of the ongoing elaboration of culture, and of ourselves as complex cultured creatures. So not only styles but also the spatial deployment of activities differ with each cultural epoch charted by the levels in the Lower Left quadrant. A key assumption behind these Campaign essays is that we are in a period of epochal transition and that the successful negotiation of this transition will entail profound cultural transformation such as constitutes a step-change elevation to the next cultural level. Moreover, to achieve this will require drawing on the various new modes of thought that have emerged in recent decades and that architects have too long ignored. In relation to our discussion here, a key precedent to many contemporary forms of developmental thinking are the writings of philosopher Jean Gebser (1905-73), particularly his book The Ever-Present Origin (published in German in various versions from 1949 to 53 and only appearing in English in 1985), which is prominent in the bibliography of books by many of todays leading-edge thinkers. Gebser charted the development of the sequence of what he termed structures of human consciousness. These

started with the Archaic structure when early humans or proto-humans still experienced themselves as completely part of, and in no way separate from, the world around. This was followed by the Magic structure and the beginnings of symbolic thinking, although the symbol did not yet represent something but instead was thought to actually be that something. Then came the Mythic structure in which stories and myths gave structure to a consciousness that was progressively separating itself from the world around. This separation became complete with the progressive emergence, from the times of the beginning of civilisation as we know it onwards, of the Mental structure, characterised by its use of logic and the emergence of philosophy. The Mental structure later entered what Gebser called its deficient form, the Rational structure, with the beginnings of modernity with its reductionist materialism - and the many benefits and downsides charted in earlier essays. He saw us now entering the Integral structure that both transcends the previous structures and, unlike them, adopts several points of view, including those of the previous structures of consciousness. It was Gebsers use of the term Integral, as well as that of Indian philosopher-sage Sri Aurobindo, that led to its adoption by Ken Wilber for Integral theory. Another crucial antecedent to Integral theorys developmental schema, and from where too some of its terminology is taken, are the studies of the cognitive development of children by psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980). Since then there has been a proliferation of developmental schema, particularly those by psychologists, several of whom have influenced Integral theory or are now associated with it. Among others, these include the theories of Jane Loevinger (1918-2008) on ego development and those of Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-87, a follower of Piaget) on stages of moral development. Contemporary developmental psychologists closely associated with and influencing the continuing development of Integral theory include Robert Kegan and Susanne Cook-Greuter. Ken Wilber has charted all these developmental schema together and shown that although their terminology differs, as do the number of levels differentiated they are strongly correlated. SPIRAL DYNAMICS CHARTS THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURES THROUGH A RISING, WIDENING SPIRAL OF INCREASING COMPLEXITY, BECAUSE EACH CULTURE ENVELOPS THOSE PRECEDING IT Levels are discussed in relation to architecture in Part Two of the book Integral Sustainable Design2 by Mark DeKay, a very important work with much invaluable content that should already have become one of the key architectural handbooks of our time. But it is not a particularly easy or pleasurable read. And despite its already considerable length (450 pages) some of it is still too sketchily developed with many potentially promising themes listed in tables without adequate further explanation. We must thus look forward to an expanded and more developed edition, which will be bound to be a must-read and must-own volume for all architects and students. Here we touch upon only a few of the ideas in relation to levels, elaborating some of them in rather different ways to the book, which readers are strongly encouraged to consult also. Characterising cultural epochs DeKay discusses levels in relation to four epochs: Traditional (pre-modern), Modern, Postmodern and Integral. (The first three of these are categories used by some market researchers, although postmodernists are given another name, such as Cultural Creatives.)3 He then gives examples for each quadrant of the shifts in understanding of a particular term in relation to each of these levels. But first he tabulates the changes at each level in what we would currently term the practice of architecture. Thus in the Traditional era, design and building were executed within Guild Traditions, the Modern era is that of Independent Professionalism, Postmodernity is characterised by Pluralistic Practices and the Integral era will be that of Responsive Networks. Although we can guess what is meant by these terms, they are not adequately explained and elaborated upon. Thus Guild Traditions built very much in response to the immediate local conditions of the site using local materials and reworking traditional typologies. This would inevitably result in a sense of embeddedness, harmony and organic unity commensurate with the Great Chain of Being that constituted the Premodern worldview. But in the Modern era architecture became an independent profession, pursuing a rational approach to solve problems de novo without relying on traditional typologies and abandoning as redundant recognisable rhetorical motifs derived from the past, along with all ornament. This, together with the

correlated worldview that subscribed to the notion of an objective reality, is what caused the world to fragment into unrelated objects to which we cannot relate either. By applying the conscious mind alone to architecture we lost the once effortlessly unconscious art of making highly satisfying architecture and cities. Pluralistic Practices suggests that the monoculture of simple consensual certainties underscoring the modern professionals approach to architecture is replaced by the multiple narratives, theories and approaches of postmodernity. Responsive Networks suggests a re-grounding of architecture in the dynamic and living networks that make up our world. The book then discusses an aspect of each quadrant in relation to each of the four levels. So in the UL quadrant DeKay tabulates the different ways that, as he sees it, the experience of architecture is mediated at each level. Although I have much sympathy for what he has formulated, I do not entirely agree with it and so omit further discussion. For the LL quadrant he discusses the various ways Nature is understood at each cultural level (and so is a cultural artefact, hence the capitalised N). In the Traditional era he describes Nature as managed, not a particularly satisfactory term, although the point he makes about Nature (or at least the land) as being husbanded as a sacred trust to preserve and enhance its bounty for future generations is an important one. This is particularly so as it contrasts profoundly with the Modern view of Nature Used, as a resource to be exploited (and severely damaged through monoculture, chemical fertilisers and so on) with little thought for future generations. The Postmodern era is characterised as Nature Saved, which expresses the view of Nature as a victim of modernitys extractive ethos and of the preservation ethic that is emerging as a reaction to this. The Integral attitude is described as Nature United and draws attention to what at first seems one of the most mindboggling and even, to many, such as deep ecologists, offensive notions in Integral theory: this is that Nature is embedded in culture in a holarchic relationship. Thus for the Traditionalist, culture is embedded in Nature, while for the Modernist, Nature and culture are differentiated. For the Postmodernist, Nature and culture are either dissociated and separate (the radical deconstructivist view) or culture is again embedded in Nature (the web of life systems view). But for the Integralist, Nature is embedded in culture, which, although entirely dependent on Nature, belongs to a higher and more inclusive level. The Noosphere transcends and includes the Biosphere mindboggling but irrefutable. For the UR quadrant the different attitudes to technology are discussed in relation to each level, from the Embedded Practices of Traditional, through Building Science of Modernity and Cyclic Analogues of Postmodernity to Responsive Structures of Integral. And in the LR quadrant the systems discussed range from the Tacit Systems of the Traditionalist through Logical and Complex systems of the Modernist and Postmodernist, respectively, to the Living Systems of the Integralist. These discussions are too rich and important to be summarised and like much else in the book take the discussion of sustainable design to an unprecedented level of inclusiveness and rigour. Anybody interested in the subject, and that should be all architects and students, is urged to read the book. Also powerfully pertinent to architects and urban designers working on large-scale urban projects and housing developments, the subject of the last two essays in this series and towards which this one is a stepping stone, are the insights provided by Spiral Dynamics. This is a theory of cultural development through levels (LL quadrant) with inevitable correlates in the psychological development of individuals (UL quadrant). Among other reasons Spiral Dynamics is so useful is that it recognises that, although the current era falls within the waning tail end of the modern epoch and the transitional one of postmodernity, the population of most modern countries is spread across a considerably wider and richer range of co-existing levels of cultural development. It thus provides, in a way that is invaluable to designers and policy makers, a much deepened understanding of the world views and values of the members of all the subgroups of society, so that these can be recognised and properly catered for, while also facilitating mobility through such cultural levels. ORIGINS OF SPIRAL DYNAMICS Spiral Dynamics grew out of the work of Clare Graves (1914-86), a professor of psychology who proposed a Level Theory of Personality in 1966. This was further developed by his protg Don Beck, working with Chris Cowan, into what has become known as Spiral Dynamics in the

book of that name,4 which again readers are encouraged to study as it is so much richer than the following too-brief synopsis of some themes. As the name implies, Spiral Dynamics a theory that meshes exactly with Integral theory and the AQAL diagram5 charts the development of cultures through a rising, widening spiral of increasing complexity, not least because each culture envelops those preceding it as healthy resources to be called upon if situations demand it. The cultural levels or valueMEMES, now more usually simply called memes are colour-coded (which takes many some time to get used to, but after a while feels quite natural) and oscillate between those that prioritise the individual and those that emphasise the collective. A key assumption of Spiral Dynamics is that it is not possible for a culture or individual to skip a level of development and that all memes must be passed through, even if only relatively fleetingly. Also, just as in biology ontogeny (the growth of an individual) recapitulates phylogeny (the evolution of its species), so with Spiral Dynamics as the human child grows up and matures into adulthood it recapitulates the development through the memes. Along with the notion of memes, which immeasurably enriches our understanding of cultural dynamics, this recapitulation by each developing individual is hugely useful to inform the design of housing and urban areas, but has so far been little researched and theorised.

The first of the memes is Beige, also referred to as SurvivalSense, and corresponds with Gebsers Archaic structure, in which there is little sense of self as small bands cooperating to ensure basic survival and action is guided largely by instinct. At times of extreme shortages and threat, humans might still retreat to this level, correlated with that of the helpless new-born infant. Although such bands might seek safety and shelter in caves and under overhangs, this is a pre-architectural level. The next meme is Purple, that of the tribe and KinSpirits, and Gebsers Magic structure, in which thinking is animistic and magical, attributing powers to sacred and symbolic objects and starting to observe the cycles of seasons, customs and rites of passage.

Purple: KinSpirit meme of magical thinking epitomised by handprints sprayed on a cave wall The communitarian, clannish Purple meme is seen by some as living in harmony with nature, while others say the tribe lives in fear of nature whose spirits have to be constantly propitiated. In architectural terms settlements typically show little, if any, differentiation in the size and status of dwellings, which may be communal.With the Egocentric Red meme, that of the PowerGods, and Gebsers Mythic structure, we return to an emphasis on the individual, on strength and self-expression.

Red: PowerGods meme of might is conveyed by a dominant castle from the feudal Middle Ages Here we move from magic to machismo, to the adulation of heroes and the elevation of war lords, and eventually to the divine rights of kings and feudalism. The architectural manifestation might start with an enlarged or central chiefs hut and eventually lead on to the dominant castle or palace in a walled town or city. In child development, the Red meme is reflected in the spirit of physical adventure, when the child explores his or her own physical capacities and the world around. This is particularly poorly catered for in the modern city, where excessively cautious Health and Safety regulations make it difficult for children to explore and stretch their physical capacities in tree climbing, rough and tumble and so on, and where it is considered unsafe for children to roam and explore the city, let alone just walk to school. The Red meme thus manifests later and pathologically in gang culture.

Blue: TruthForce meme typified by the Sacro Convento monastery and church of St Francis that dominates Assisi, Italy The next meme to arise is Blue, of TruthForce or the Purposeful way, that values stability and the order arising from strong codes of conduct in which individuality is subsumed to the pursuit of larger causes or truths. In particular, this meme is associated with monotheistic Religions of the Book Judaism, Christianity and Islam, as well as Confucianism with righteous living and sacrifice of the self to the Way and deferred rewards. Architecturally this meme is distinguished by the dominant religious buildings that eclipse, or at least equal, the grandeur of secular buildings such as palaces. Although liberal intellectuals, dogmatic scientists and postmodernists tend to look down upon and disregard the Blue meme, it still has an important socialising role to play for the developing child, and it is little wonder that the route out of Red meme gang culture is so often through evangelical Christianity or other authoritarian Blue meme institutions. Modernity arrives with the Strategic Orange meme of StriveDrive that emphasises self-reliant, success-oriented and competitive individuals, committed to the notion of progress, and to science, technology and rational thinking as means of achieving the good life of material abundance. The increasingly meaningless abstract grid, which underlies all the plans of JNL Durand (1760-1834) and then dominates the gridded plans and facades of corporate Modernism, is the apt architectural manifestation, just as the associated city becomes a mere chess board of economic opportunity. Postmodernity follows with the Relativistic Green meme of the HumanBond that rejects dogma and divisiveness in favour of empathy and sensitivity, and the pursuit of consensus and harmony. This is also the meme of political correctness and the inability to prioritise and act effectively, of impotence in the face of mounting global problems, as well as of endless meetings seeking the opinions and input of all. The pluralism of Postmodern architecture is exactly apt to this meme. The caring and sharing psychological character associated with the Green is one that respects everyones opinion, and every theory or concept, as equally valuable - until ones own is questioned and the tendency is to regress to a narcissistic Red: who are you to question me?

Orange: StriveDrive meme of modern rationality Orange: StriveDrive meme of modern rationality SUBSISTENCE VERSUS BEING MEMES

These first six memes constitute what is called the First Tier of Subsistence memes. Each was a healthy response to the life conditions of the time in which the meme emerged and all of the memes continue to exist today, both in cultures and subcultures, or as a resource in the psyches of individuals. For instance, there are times when it is entirely healthy for someone from a higher meme to regress to Red assertiveness. Although the Red meme is also found there in gang culture and some extremes of nationalism and religious fundamentalism, Blue, Orange and Green remain the dominant memes in North America and Europe, with Blue more pronounced in the United States than in most of Europe, and Green more pronounced in Northern Europe. A major problem today when coordinated action is so urgently needed is that each of these memes only really understands its own worldview, which is considered the only legitimate one. Other memes, even if tolerated, are seen as essentially wrong. Hence Blue meme fundamentalists, very much a minority group within the meme, regress to Red because they are threatened by Orange selfish individualism and appalled at the moral laxity of hyperrelativist Green. Compounding the resultant problems of communication and achieving consensus, each meme is underpinned not just by sometimes contrasting values, but this is reflected in distinctly differing, if sometimes seeming subtly so, use of language. Furthermore, all these First Tier memes are either egocentric or ethnocentric, and not as yet world-centric, so progress towards such things as global peace, equity and stability, as well as sustainability, is extremely difficult while most people are stuck in First Tier memes.

Green: HumanBond meme characterised by Herman Hertzbergers Centraal Beheer Fortunately a Second Tier of world-centric Being memes is emerging, if both dangerously late and under-represented. Although they constitute only a very tiny proportion of the worlds population, the first two have already been identified and tentatively described. Initiating the Second Tier is the Yellow, FlexFlow or Systemic meme that is grounded in understanding and accepting the inevitability of natures flows, cycles and regenerative capacities, and which wants to open up to experience the fullness of living on an Earth of such diversity in multiple dimensions. This is followed by the Turquoise, GlobalView or Holistic meme, where there is not only an understanding of the dynamic, evolutionary unfolding of nature and culture but you become part of this larger, conscious, spiritual whole where everything is interconnected as a single dynamic organism with its own collective mind. With these memes Newtons clockwork, meaningless and purposeless universe has been replaced by the evolving, living and creative universe that evokes reverence, and the urge to be a responsible participant and agent of its unfolding. Consistent with this view, sustainability is seen not in terms of constraints and

sacrifices but as an inspiring vision of a much more purposeful and fulfilling life. Significantly, psychometric testing shows that Second Tier memes are without the persistent anxieties and fears that characterise the First Tier ones. Now there is speculation that the next, Coral meme is beginning to emerge, but it still too soon to say much about it.

Yellow: FlexFlow meme underscores the Eastgate Centre, Harare, Zimbabwe which biomimetically emulates the ventilation strategy of a termites nest THE RICH INSIGHTS OF SPIRAL DYNAMICS HELP DESIGNERS UNDERSTAND HOW TO BETTER SERVE ANY OF THE MEMES, SO MAKING FOR MORE SATISFIED AND MORE STABLE SOCIETIES

Further key characteristics of Second Tier memes are not only that they are world-centric, with both the necessary big picture overview and temperament to solve urgent global problems such as progressing towards sustainability, but that those at these levels are what are known as SpiralWizards. What is meant by this term is that, in contrast to First Tier memes, such people are not trapped in the worldview of their own meme but, rather, can both appreciate the worldviews of other memes and also communicate in language appropriate to its narrower worldview based on other fundamental values. Thus when communicating with the Red meme, with its preference for instant gratification, whats in it for you will be stressed in strong simple language. But with the Blue meme, and its tendency to delayed gratification, duty and honour would be emphasised along with tradition, propriety and righteousness. With the materialist Orange meme, discussion would be about competitive advantage, better profits and productivity, quoting experts and scientific evidence. And with the Green meme, gentle language would be used with imagery from nature, and belonging, sharing and harmony would be stressed. These characteristics and communication skills allow the Second Tier memes to deal much more effectively with the complex and urgent problems that overwhelm the intellectual and character resources of First Tier memes. Devising ways to speed the development of people up to the Second Tier memes should obviously be a priority of everyone engaged in creative pursuits, such as creating video games or television series, as well as of personal coaches and therapists. Even more obviously, it should also be a primary priority of education, particularly that of tertiary education, and in particular that of those who are to be environmental designers of various sorts. But the dominance in academe of the Green meme with its postmodern hyperrelativist ethos continues to be a major block to such progress, for reasons discussed in the essay on education (AR October 2012). It could also be, that just as each meme is a healthy response to the life conditions in which it arose (but may become problematic when those life conditions change) as well as a healthy resource to be called up by higher memes, advance to the Second Tier memes will be helped by rebuilding some foundations in the First Tier. Although Integral thinkers are rightly wary of regression to lower levels that are mistaken for higher levels, what they call the Pre-/Trans Fallacy, Second Tier reverence for an evolving nature will probably be aided by the knowingly cultivated resurrection of a Purple meme (Magical sensibility) and Red meme (Mythic one). In the same way, advancing out of Green meme relativism might be helped by the recovery of a bit of Blue meme discipline. Thus the power and usefulness of Spiral Dynamics lie in much more than helping progress to higher memes to help achieve sustainability and so on. Its rich insights help designers understand how to better serve any of the memes, so making for more satisfied and more stable societies. I remember once in Africa being shown housing designed by Orange meme technocrats for people who retained strong Purple meme tribal roots. Despite its conveniences and comfort, it did not suit its inhabitants, for whom there were no suitably formed and located outdoor communal living areas, nor places for the ritual slaughter of animals and so on. An argument then polarised over whether the housing should be designed to be aspirational, encouraging inhabitants to adopt modern urban living patterns, or be closely tailored to tribal ways. The latter, it was argued, would be patronising and also inhibit residents from changing their lifestyles in their own time, as well as soon becoming obsolete because unsuited to future generations. But the insight of Spiral Dynamics is that to design for either of these poles exclusively would be unsatisfactory, not least because it is very unlikely the inhabitant will make the leap directly from Purple to Orange meme. Instead the housing should have been designed to suit the Purple and Orange memes, and all those in between, so as to allow the residents to develop as they chose and at their own pace.6 Spiral Dynamics is also proving invaluable in unlocking highly conflicted situations, where perhaps several different memes consider they have the right to use a piece of land, say, but each meme has a very different view of what use it should be put to. In such cases, a skilled SpiralWizard can intervene so that the memes start to understand and respect each other and eventually a solution can be found that works for everybody. As should be obvious, Spiral Dynamics offers profound insights to guide urban design and large-scale architectural projects in complex, multicultural (multi-meme) societies. Yet the experience of some of those using it is that it has to be used with caution, and can provoke difficult misunderstandings. Asserting that Spiral Dynamics sees all memes as healthy and life

sustaining, and apt to the conditions in which they arose and which may still persist, can be to no avail. Once people realise they have been categorised in a system of levels in which they are not at the top, they might feel demeaned, become uncooperative or argue vehemently to prove they are of a higher level meme. There are also contexts in which extremely bizarre conversations can be overheard that make no sense at all, until you realise people are trying to prove they do not belong to a particular meme, usually Green. And there are those who object to their religion being classified as Blue meme, rather than an exalted higher meme, and are particularly threatened by the notion that to move into a new epoch in which achieving sustainability becomes feasible involves redefining for our times, drawing on all the knowledge now available, what it is to be fully human. The answer to this is complex, not least because to be fully human involves including all memes within the psyche, but also because although many of the major religions arose with the Blue meme they all include strains of mystics, thinkers and writers within them at all subsequent, higher memes. A perfect example was the Passionist priest, cultural historian and eco-theologian Thomas Berry (1914-2009), who definitely belonged to a Second Tier meme, most probably Turquoise, as did the Jesuit priest, palaeontologist and philosopher who inspired him, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). And it was Thomas Berry who argued most passionately and cogently that achieving sustainability involves redefining what it is to be fully human.7 The two final essays in this series will give a small insight into some of the implications of this for the design of cities and urban areas.
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Wikitecture
tera-feira, 5 de Maro de 2013 15:40

WIKI-tecture: Architecture, Value, and the Digital Age The question of architectures cultural value is foregrounded in its attempt to situate itself within the digital paradigm. Its efforts to respond to this new paradigm have to date focused primarily on the exploitation of new tools to produce new forms. Yet despite the formal novelty, the work itself fundamentally adheres to an old model of architectural production a model that has lost its value as it has become increasingly irrelevant to an evolving digital-age culture. Instead, architecture needs to look more closely at the ways that digital technology has changed cultural practices and values in order to produce a fundamentally new kind of architecture that is culturally meaningful and relevant. Introduction: Architecture and Value in the Digital Age The question that is most crucial to understanding architectures position within society is perhaps the one least examined: what exactly does architecture do that is valued by contemporary society? Historically, the very things that were valued in architecture were

precisely those aspects that distinguished it from other forms of design and from regular building and made it the paragon of cultural expression, such as its monumentality, expressiveness, longevity, and technological sophistication. But as society and culture have changed over time so too has architectures status and its perceived value. The very traits that had once distinguished it as societys supreme artistic achievement have either diminished in value or have been usurped by other practices: the opportunity for longlived monumental structures, for example, has generally dwindled while the number of architects has multiplied (resulting in a proliferation of lower-profile work), and its technological sophistication has long been outmatched by engineering examples. More importantly, however, contemporary culture is so diverse and its interests so mercurial that the notion of a work of architecture as a lasting, monumental expression of a universal cultural value seems absurdly inappropriate. This incongruity between culture and architectures traditional mode of production has been particularly exacerbated by the manner in which digital technologies have changed contemporary culture. The origin of this gulf, however, is much older. The increasing ideological diversity and accelerated pace of cultural change that has become so problematic for monumentalized architectural expression is inextricably linked to the steady increase in and democratization of information, which in turn has followed the progress of communication technologies, including mechanical reproduction technologies. In fact, it is the historical trajectory from the printing press to the internet that frames the logarithmic explosion of ideological diversity and freedom of individual expression which is responsible for replacing the Classical grand narrative with the contemporary marketplace of ideas a cultural environment that is not well suited to architectures traditional mode of producing works of lasting, institutionalized formal expression. Rather, the quality that distinguishes the current digital age, that both justifies its consideration as a distinct paradigm and also proves the most problematic for architectures traditional mode of production, is the altered relationship that individuals have to informationboth in terms of its form and its direction of flow. In the first case, once information has been digitized it essentially loses its form. Instead, the

digital paradigm is distinguished by a higher value being placed on the information itself than on its particular embodiment.1 This is in contrast to the era that Walter Benjamin scrutinized in his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, in which it was still reasonable to speak of the concept of an original work and its derivatives, and to speculate on differences in value between the two.2 Today, rather, the notion of an original, preferred embodiment of this information is an idea that is essentially meaningless; information content now takes precedence over its form(at). What contemporary society values instead is the ability to disseminate, update, and reformulate this contentall of which has been facilitated by the digitization of information.3 Consequently, the second significant distinction of the digital paradigm is the blurring of the boundary that had previously always been assumed to exist between the author of a work of art and its audience. While the flexibility of web browsers has long allowed individuals to personalize the information they receive through filtering (and now more automatically through the use of RSS feed aggregators), this process of selection is not endemic to the digital age, but is rather an exercise in freedom of choice occasioned by a proliferation of information and the resulting competitiondynamics that significantly predate digital technologies. What the digitization of information allows, however, is for the form of information to be deconstructed, and for the same content to be manipulated, augmented, and reconstituted in another form altogether. Coupled with the proliferation of software and the availability of access to the internet, the digital era has witnessed the unilateral flow of information from author to audience being supplanted by a multilateral flow. In particular, the introduction of open-source and opencontent4 databasessuch as Wikipedia and Blogspothas allowed individuals to easily become authors through creating and editing information for consumption by others. So, while Benjamin ruminated on the loss of the aura, the digital paradigm forces instead a consideration of the loss of the individual author. For a discipline such as architecture that has historically been so invested in the production of original, immutable works by a single author (the architect) the digital paradigm therefore presents a particular problem: it has given rise to a culture that expects and values the ad hoc

customization, creation, and reformulation of content, which is a phenomenon that traditional architectural space can not satisfy. In fact, architecture is already losing its ability to sustain the attention of todays wired and mobile society. Devices such as iPhones and laptops now permit individuals to become authors of their own immediate environmental experience. And while these experiences are not as profound or robust as architecture is capable of producing, they are often more engrossing to the individuals in question. Consequently, in terms of engagement they trump the physical environment which, lacking any means to be tuned or otherwise manipulated, is quickly relegated to an inconsequential backdropregardless of any attempts to ingratiate itself through formal exuberance or novelty. However, is it possible to re-imagine architecture in such a way that it could resonate with contemporary culture? Is it possible for architecture to re-establish a broad cultural value by understanding the way in which the digital paradigm has altered culture and its values, and to produce work congruent with these values? This residence includes a repositionable mezzanine that can be rolled along the length of its main volume, and can be joined with a small street-facing balcony to make a larger indoor/outdoor space. (image: Jones, Partners: Architecture) WIKI-tecture5: The Open Content Model Such a strategy for re-establishing value to the physical spaces that architecture produces could be achieved through the development of techniques that allow them to produce architectural affect (or content) through manipulation and customization by their occupants. In this way architecture would create environments that were more open-content in nature, enlisting individuals as agents for their continual re-creation through the manipulation of their physical elements. This approach is in stark contrast to architectures prevailing attempt to address the digital paradigm, which has so far been limited to the adoption of more sophisticated digital tools (primarily software) and the production of certain forms that showcase these tools. This approach, despite its focus on the exploitation of novel technology, is actually the continuation of a long-standing, traditional mode of architectural productionone characterized by the technical mastery of material and craft for the production of material or technical spectacle (such

as an arch, or a dramatic cantilever, or a continuously varied form), rather than conveying a meaningful idea. As such, the emergent, folded, and biomorphic formalisms that serve as architectures current attempt to engage the digital paradigm are, in fact, the most recent examples of a long lineage of architectural production that include numerous pre-digital precedents of material or technological bravura, such as the early and late modernist exploitation of reinforced concrete to produce extreme cantilevers (eg. Frank Lloyd Wrights Fallingwater) and fluid forms (eg. Eero Saarinens TWA Terminal). This mode of production, however, is one that can only produce monumental but otherwise meaningless form for a digitalage culture that instead values fluidity, mobility, change, and individual expression and control. Even if such form is seen as metaphorical of fluidity and change, such a metaphor only sets architecture up for a devastating comparisonshowcasing its actual stasis and permanence, and thereby underscoring its irrelevance. What architecture needs instead is a new paradigm, not just a new aesthetic based on the old model of static, metaphorical expression. In particular, it needs to reunderstand its relationship to culture. Architecture is, after all, a cultural enterprise, a disciplined practice that employs a variety of techniques to produce forms and spaces that resonate with society, that are socially and culturally significant. Consequently, the question for architecture ought to be: how has the advent of the digital/information age altered society and culture, and how therefore can architecture meaningfully respond to these changes in the realization of its works? The most obvious cultural change, as noted above, is in the way that society relates to information, or to authored content in general. The popularity of opencontent websites such as wikis, blogs, and online forums or chatrooms that allow or encourage authored content by their users is a barometer of the degree to which society values such participation, and the degree to which individuals associate such digital technologies with the ability to both be expressive and to manipulate or tune their relationships with others. Recent studies focusing on teens are particularly tellingand also particularly consequential for architecture, since this demographic will soon be the dominant culture. A 2005 study, for example, showed that one half of all teens

were internet content creators, meaning that they created or worked on a blog or webpage, shared original creative content, or remixed content that they found online into a new creation. This study further asserted that teens and adults alike have embraced the ability to gather, chop, blend, and re-blend content to create new expressive materials, and that younger Americans have grown up in a world of media forms that allow them to participate in the production as well as consumption of content.6 And although this study emphasizes a trend in the teen population, an earlier study demonstrated that of those who currently create content for the internet, nearly half are between the ages of 30 and 49, which indicates that this cultural dynamic is already a demographically broad one.7 An architectural paradigm shift characterized by work that allows individuals to participate in manipulating its physical contentsuch as its formal or spatial relationshipswould therefore allow the discipline to respond directly to this cultural dynamic. In addition, this approach would release the discipline from its current and prevailing reliance on novel, static formalism as the sole means by which it can assert its relevance to society. Apart from the paradigmatic problems with the notion of a digital aesthetic noted above, such an emphasis on form is problematic given the overwhelming discrepancy between the typically long endurance of a work of architecture and the brevity of societys attention to or association with an idea that would support a particular form. In other words, an architecture based upon a static, immutable formalism is inherently doomed to rapid obsolescence, and will therefore quickly lose its ability to engage the society it is meant to address. In contrast, an architecture that primarily derives its value or affect from its ability to be tuned or manipulated can assert such value in spite of its particular formal character, in much the same way that information largely retains its value across multiple types and generations of formats. This installation tests a prototype system for reconfigurable architectural space-making elements. In this case, three columns can be repositioned in order to create different spatial relationships with each other and with the walls of the surrounding space. (image: Jones, Partners: Architecture) High Tech versus Low Tech One potential pitfall with suggesting the open-content concept as a model for architecture, however, is that it conjures images of cutting-edge technology as the means by which to

achieve its effects. This is problematic, since architecture is for the most part comprised of extremely low-tech materials and assemblies, which makes it difficult to achieve a technological congruency when more sophisticated technologies are introduced. Typically, architecture deals with such technological discrepancies either by segregation, wherein the lower-tech architecture is described as separate from these other, more sophisticated technologies that support it, or by framing, wherein the lower-tech architecture is designed only to be a backdrop that supports or features a newer technology.8 The open-content model, however, would neither require nor benefit from an injection of technological sophistication. Rather, its purpose is simply to present a new model for the way that individuals relate to architectureone that is more meaningful and relevant to contemporary societyand this can be achieved through rather modest means by identifying techniques that allow the relatively simple stuff that architecture is already made of to be tuned and manipulated by those that occupy it in order to produce varying architectural effects. The projects that have been used to illustrate this paper, for example, employ readily available and relatively commonplace technologies, ranging from casters to hydraulic cylinders. However, they each achieve effects that are highly interactive, that allow the architecture to be re-authored by its occupants in order to allow it to relate more specifically to the way that they intend to occupy it, to allow the occupants to conceive of and create new manners of occupation and use, and to allow the occupants to employ the architecture as a means for individual expression. Furthermore, in each case the primary architectural affect is independent of the formal aesthetic, which is advantageous to the discipline in that it decouples architectural value from formal novelty. This would therefore have the positive effect of reducing the infighting that currently exists within the discipline due to different groups with differing formal agendas competing for cultural attention at the expense of others. Instead, works produced in this fashion can assert value across a wide range of formalisms, and moreover can sustain that value over a long duration even in the face of a loss of interest in a particular form. The entire floor plate of this project for a single-person residence is a hydraulic elevator platform. As the occupant moves the floor up and down alongside a vertical program wall it becomes functionally re-programmed, which dramatically alters

the character of the space while also serving as a continuously changing index of daily activities. (image: Doug Jackson) The Palimpsest versus the Monument While the open-content approach is capable of re-establishing the cultural value of architecture by making it more relevant and meaningful, it is not meaningful in the sense that it signifies a universal concept (since such significance is no longer possible), but rather meaningful in that it can accept whatever transient, localized, idiosyncratic value is assigned to it. It can become a vessel for meaning in a contemporary sense by becoming a medium for continually renewed expressiona palimpsest in lieu of a monument. It therefore does not suffer the impossible onus to be universally true and all-inclusive; because it is not aspiring to be a timeless embodiment of an ideology it neither risks disenfranchising those who do not subscribe to that ideology nor becoming obsolete in the face of increasingly rapid social and cultural changes. Instead, it becomes meaningful on an individual level by allowing those who interact with it to create unique relationships that are more engaging and personally relevant, and more broadly by celebrating the value that society places in such individual expression. The open-content model, of course, is not the first proposal for an antimonumental architecture; notable precursors include Archigram and Cedric Price. However, while they (and others) argued for an anti-monumental architecture based on individual manipulation of component parts over forty years ago, theirs does not serve as a useful model for a digital age architecture for two primary reasons. In the first case, Archigrams professed denial of formal expression yielded a physical strategy that has been regarded as inherently problematic for architecture. Reacting against the static, formalist qualities of orthodox modernism they offered instead a kit-ofparts approach that was intended to liberate the individual from the oppressive qualities of the former. Expression had for so long been conflated with static form that it was too easily viewed as suspect, and so was downplayed altogether in favor of experience. The work of Archigram, therefore, was intended to produce architectural affect through event instead of form; the physicality of their architecture played only a supporting role in the manifestation of the architectural experience. However, as expressive form is the key feature that distinguishes architecture from other forms

of building, an architectural strategy that denies or suppresses it is inherently problematic. In the work of Archigram and Cedric Price, in fact, it was this professed eschewal of formal expression that both radicalized and ultimately marginalized itleading their work to be commonly regarded as anti-architectural.9 This strategy is in stark contrast to the open-content model. Although it is critical of static form authored by the architect, an open-content architecture nevertheless retains the disciplines investment in formal and spatial expressionthe difference is that the nature of the expression is changeable, and the responsibility for such expression, and the architectural experiences that result, is placed in the hands of the individual occupant. It envisions architecture as a physical palimpsest, allowing individuals to manipulate and re-arrange architectural form and space in order to spontaneously produce new and different experiences experiences which are architectural, and which obtain an immediate and personal relevance to the individual. The physicality of the open-content model is therefore inseparable from the architectural experience.10 Its anti-monumentality comes not from a suppression of its physical affect, but rather from a democratization of that affect. This proposal for an artist residence, workshop, and gallery features a flexible space-dividing membrane draped over movable hangers that can subdivide the open gallery/workspace as desired by the occupant, allowing for the spontaneous reconfiguration of the interior into spaces specifically suited for living, working, and exhibition. (image: Doug Jackson) This is related to the second, and perhaps more important, problem with the Archigram model when compared to the open-content model, which is centered on the role that the individual plays within the context of the architecture. Although both approaches empower the individual to modify the work, the nature of such empowerment within the Archigram model is motivated more by the idea of freedom of choice than freedom of expression. The fundamental idea, Archigram asserted, was to create a freely developing system towards personal choice and selection by the consumer.11 While this represented a fairly radical proposition at the time, the model of the individual as a consumer and the architecture as a marketplace of experiences is not one that specifically touches upon the paradigmatic changes to culture that have occurred

due to digital technologies. Although it allowed for a higher degree of customization than architecture was previously accustomed to providing, it did not truly allow individuals to create meaningful architectural experience. Rather, it made the experience of architecture more akin to channel surfinga type of experience that both radio and television had offered to individuals long before the advent of digital technologies. This project features a system of program cabinets that can be slid back and forth within the available volume. The occupants are able to create program-specific spaces between the cabinets as desired, and to eliminate that space and re-dedicate it to another program as interests change simply by repositioning the cabinets. (image: Jones, Partners: Architecture) In contrast, the open-content model offers a scenario in which the occupant is not simply a consumer who selects off-the-shelf accessories that provide experience, but rather an author who expressively employs architectural elements to produce experience. And this is precisely the difference that makes the open-content model a more relevant one for contemporary culture: the paradigmatic shift that marks the digital age is specifically the fact that individuals have ceased to be only consumers of content and have instead become creators of content. The open-content model therefore offers a strategy to architecture that not only allows it to once again be culturally relevant, but will also enable it to preserve this relevance in the face of the rapid succession of aesthetic trends and across the long lifespan of its built works. It both accommodates contemporary societys increasing desire for content creation and control and gives expressive form to this desire, celebrating its defining role within culture and thereby producing an architecture that is culturally engaging and meaningful. And it demonstrates the proper way for the discipline to address the digital paradigmnot through an obsession with new tools for digital fabrication and representation or through a fetishization of the imagery and forms enabled by those toolsbut rather through a fundamental rethinking of architecture and the character of its authorship based on the changes that digital technologies have imparted to society and culture. NOTES 1 In fact, to digitize something is to fundamentally strip it of its form. Consequently, in an age of digital information, the value placed on an original embodiment has both lessened and also adopted a nostalgic connotationsuch as, for

example, the lingering value ascribed to vinyl records in the face of the overwhelming cultural adoption of digital music files. 2 See Benjamin, Walter, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction in Illuminations (New York: Schocken Books) 1968. 3 To take the musical example even further, the rise in popularity of DJ-ing and of the use of sampling, mixing, and mash-ups within the music scene over the last 20 years is one of many indications of the cultural importance placed on content customization, and the respective diminution of importance placed on the original embodiment. And while the vinyl format has long retained a foothold within the DJ community for both practical reasons (the ability to scratch) and symbolic reasons (marking this community as an anti-mainstream subculture), even this format is losing out to digital onesand in the process making it easier for the average individual to DJ as well. An article that appeared in The Guardian in 2004 noted the rise of MP3Jing, and trumpeted the importance that the Apple iPod has played in extending the accessibility of DJ-ing. See Panjwani, Raj, Last Night an MP3J Saved My Life in The Guardian (Jan. 7, 2004). 4 Open-source indicates a software in which the scripting language is made available for editing and refinement by its users, whereas open-content refers to a software, such as a database, where only the content is made available for editing and refinement by its users. The distinction in terms of authorship is that in the case of an open-source creation the original authors contributions are slowly manipulated by the efforts of other authors over time as the work is refined and edited. In the case of an open-content creation, however, the original authors contribution constitutes the framework that supports the editable content contributed by other authors, such that the original authorship is preserved. An example of this distinction would be between Linux, an opensource operating system whose source code is freely editable by anyone, and Wikipedia, an open-content database whose content is editable by anyone within an established, non-editable framework that preserves the look and functionality of the database. Whereas the first is more radically open and democratic, it is also problematic in terms of its ability to serve as a useful model for architecture, in that its essential character is not necessarily preserved over time. An open-source architecture, therefore, would necessarily be a transient one, since those aspects that define its architecture-ness (its architectural source code) would be able to be modified in such a way that could potentially undermine its nature as architecture. Opencontent creations, meanwhile, sacrifice a degree of openness in exchange for the ability to preserve their essential character. As a model for architecture, therefore, they describe an object whose nature as a work of architecture is preserved over the course of its manipulation by others.

5 Wiki is the Hawaiian word meaning fast, and has subsequently come to stand for a collection of open-content web pages that can be quickly and easily edited by its users. This more recent usage is attributable to Ward Cunningham, creator of the first online wiki, known as the WikiWikiWeb (for more information on the history of its online usage please see http://c2.com/doc/etymology.html). Wiki wiki is a reduplication of the root word, which is a transformation commonly used in Polynesian languages to intensify meaningin this case, meaning very fastand was selected by Cunningham to showcase the speed with which the WikiWikiWeb could be edited by its users. It is perhaps somewhat ironic that this new technology and its attribute of speed would be referred to in a language that so uniquely preserves its Neolithic genesis and belongs to a culture so renowned for its unhurried pace of life. As applied to architecture, however, this irony is a useful reminder of the contrast between the slow and static character of conventional architectural construction and the cultural context within which it exists, which is that of a fast-paced, information age society that places a high value on speed and interactivity. Wiki-tecture, then, is meant to evoke the idea of the transformation of this slow, static architectural production into an architecture that is fasterin other words, one that can be easily manipulated by its users. 6 Lenhart, Amanda and Mary Madden, Teen Content Creators and Consumers, Pew Internet & American Life Project (November 2, 2005). 7 Lenhart, Amanda and John Horrigan and Deborah Fellows, Content Creation Online, Pew Internet & American Life Project (February 29, 2004). 8 In the case of segregation, these more sophisticated technologies are often concealed, backgrounded, or otherwise excluded from consideration as the architecture. In the case of framing, meanwhile, this approach tends to create an architecture comprised of two discrepant and technologically unequal parts. Consequently, the monumental technologized veneer has become a popular strategy for dealing with such technological incongruencies, since such a strategy already includes the idea of a distinction between a featured element and support element, and furthermore requires no congruency between the two. But this strategy also keeps the newer technology at a safe distance, where it is mined for its ability to produce spectacle but is otherwise prevented from engaging and thus radicalizing the remainder of the architecture. 9 This is more debatable in the case of Archigram, perhaps, than Price. The work of the former was anti-monumental, but it was certainly both utopian and aestheticizedparticularly in the earlier years before the zoom wave of megastructures and molded fiberglass plug-in pods gave way to more systematized and transientand less objectively formalstructures. This was roughly around the time of Archigram 7 (1966), which was five years after the debut of

Prices Fun Palace and three years after the Potteries Thinkbelt project, both of which were highly influential and also remarkable in their almost complete eschewal of architectural form. In fact, when Rem Koolhaas lauded Cedric Price he did so precisely because of Prices denial of architectures reliance on expression through form, space, and symbol, which he referred to as the disciplines most dubious features. In noting that he aspired to deflate architecture to the point where it became indistinguishable from the ordinary he also observed the paradoxically self-destructive nature of an architecture based on the non-architectural. See the introduction to Price, Cedric, Re: CP, edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist (Basel: Birkhuser) 2003, pp. 6-8. 10 This distinction highlights an aspect of the work of Archigram that bears further discussion. From their early work with plug-ins through their later event-scape projects such as Rent-a-Wall, Control and Choice, and Instant City, Archigram continually explored a formal trope based on the hardware/software dichotomy in which the architectural experience was bound up in the software (such as the off-the-shelf plug-in parts, the video feeds, etc.), which in turn rendered the hardware as a relatively generic scaffolding or support for this experience. However, taken as a whole, this formulation was hugely metaphorical. And while the hardware/software metaphor is certainly one that relates to the digital age, its physical manifestation is arguably a monumentalization of that metaphor, despite the seeming anti-monumentality of its physical componentswhich makes it as incompatible with contemporary cultures ever-changing interests as any other immutable formal metaphor. 11 Chalk, Warren, Architecture as Consumer Product in Perspecta, Vol. 11 (1967) pp. 135-137.

Forma, estrutura e pele para uma leitura da obra de Eduardo Souto de Moura / Mariana Coelho de Oliveira Alves ; Orientador Nuno Brando Costa. - Porto : Faup, 2010. - 119 p.. - Anolectivo 2009/2010. - Autorizadareproduo. - Contm CD
donderdag 29 november 2012 19:55

" A pele est relacionada com a definicao de membrana exterior atravs da materialidade. A materialidade traduz-se nao apenas nos materiais, das texturas, mas tambm atravs do sistema de layers que constitui a pele de um edificio."pg 11 "Dos elementos que constituem esta superificie sao relevantes os frisos, as ombreiras, os peitoris, as padieiras, a estereotomia, as texturas e os acabamentos".pg 45

Na histria egipcia a ideia de pele aparece no templo de Amon em Karnak, com ornamentacao das colunas com temas vegetais e com a presenca da cor. Valor decorativo e simblico. Na arq. Classica aparecem as ordens. Na arquitectura Romana, Vitruvio introduz o conceito de Venustas, como forma de alcanacar o balanco e harmonia de um edificio. Gtico a decoracao e a estrutura aproximam-se consideravelemnte Barroco e rococ obvio. Decoracao com mais espaco, espessura, importancia, relevo, ultrapasando at o valor de pele no invlucro estrutural. Na arq moderna h uma reducao da decoracao e pele, mas podemos considerar que existe na arq miesiana com os planos neo-plasticos. "Pensamos que as superficies de um edificio devem estar sempre ligadas ao que ocorre no seu interior. O trabalho do arquitecto precisamente decidir como se produz esta conexao. O conceito da uniao pode estar na continuidade material e estrutural ou nao separacao interncionada"pg 47. Herzog e de M introduzem a ideia de caixa como suporte fisico para a expressao de um material, uma tcnica, um detalhe ou mesmo um revestimento: Estdio Remy Zaug - Caixa em betao, simultaneidade de estrutura e pele. Armazem Ricola - Pr fabricao e execuo sistematizada. Hierarquizao dos layers que constituem a pele da fachada. Torre de Sinalizao em Basileia - Pele metlica com variaes de aberturas Adega Dominus - independencia da estrutura e pele, sendo que a pele tem uma presena mais forte que a estrutura do edificio. Edificio de escritrios Helvetia Patria - O desenho do vo surge como mote da fachada, com diferentes angulos. Biblioteca de Eberswalde - Esrutura e pele fundem-se num s elemento. Pele abastracta com imagens impressas em vidro e beto, acabam por unificar a fachada. Repetio das imagens acentua o efeito de desmaterializao. "Um edificio um edificio. Nesse sentido somos completamente antirepresentativos. A fora dos nossos edificios est no impacto visual que provoca no visitante. Isso tudo que importa em arquitectura. Queremos edificios que provoquem sensaes, no que representem esta ou aquela ideia." H&M pg.51 A materialidade arquitectnica est relacionada com a sensaes dicotmicas: transparente/opcaco , duro/flexivel, reflexivo/absorvente, claro/escuro, aberto/fechado. As peles dos edificios de H&M so mais do que apenas um layer de revestimento. So intensas pela expressividade do invlucro e pela coligao estrutural. Tm massa, peso e profundidade.

A pele dos edifcios como elemento arquitectnico : edifcios de habitao colectiva como caso de estudo / Ariana Sofia Pereira Vieira ; Prof. responsvel Lus Soares Carneiro
sbado, 1 de Dezembro de 2012

13:26

Pele, membrana, cortina, vu, mant, toalha, leno - so expresses que definem hoje, os invlucros exteriores dos edificios contemporneos; continuos e ligeiros elementos conformam a sua imagem exterior, desmistificando a outrora monolitica, com profundas aberturas.