This document outlines a course on the idea of the fourth typology and dominant type in the context of the developmental city. The course will examine typology from Quatremère de Quincy to Rem Koolhaas and propose the fourth typology as a framework for architecture in today's globalized context. It will also trace the emergence of the developmental city in China and discuss the history of urban governance and planning traditions there. Students will complete reading assignments and presentations, and a final paper analyzing a dominant type supported by drawings.
This document outlines a course on the idea of the fourth typology and dominant type in the context of the developmental city. The course will examine typology from Quatremère de Quincy to Rem Koolhaas and propose the fourth typology as a framework for architecture in today's globalized context. It will also trace the emergence of the developmental city in China and discuss the history of urban governance and planning traditions there. Students will complete reading assignments and presentations, and a final paper analyzing a dominant type supported by drawings.
This document outlines a course on the idea of the fourth typology and dominant type in the context of the developmental city. The course will examine typology from Quatremère de Quincy to Rem Koolhaas and propose the fourth typology as a framework for architecture in today's globalized context. It will also trace the emergence of the developmental city in China and discuss the history of urban governance and planning traditions there. Students will complete reading assignments and presentations, and a final paper analyzing a dominant type supported by drawings.
The Fourth Typology Dominant Type and the Idea of the City
Christopher C.M. Lee
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Course 09123: The Fourth Typology: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City 1
Aldo Rossi, Schemi tipologici; dallalto: XIII Triennale, Due progetti
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09123: The Fourth Typology: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City Harvard GSD, Seminar Fall 2012 Christopher C.M Lee (chris@serie.co.uk) Teaching Associate: Simon Whittle (simon@serie.co.uk) Wed 13.00 - 18.00, 40 Kirkland 1C
Open to all students, the seminars of this course will compliment Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks. It will provide the theoretical and historical basis, and serves as a platform for a three year theoretical research on the developmental cities in China. Taking Anthony Vidlers Third Typology as a starting point, the seminar proposes the fourth typology as a common framework for the production of an architecture of the city in todays globalized context. Unlike the first three typologies that found their justification for sociality from nature, the machine and the historical city respectively; the fourth typology is rooted in the developmental city. The first half of the seminar will begin with the understanding of type from Quatremre de Quincy and J.N.L Durand through the dialectics of idea and model. This renewed understanding of type and typology will offer an alternative reading of the writings and projects of Aldo Rossi and Rem Koolhaas as attempts to revalidate architectures societal and political role through the redefinition of the idea of the city. This idea of the city will be discussed through Aristotles polis, Schmitts homogenous demos, Mouffes agonistic pluralism, Rossis collective memory, Agambens dispositif and Koolhaas heterogeneous containments. The second half of the seminar will be theoretically projective. It will begin with an attempt to trace the emergence of the developmental city in China and its apparatus, the mega- plot. This will be underpinned by the theories offered in the first half of the seminar and further complimented by guest seminars. These will include, 1. the history of urban governance in China through its danwei system and a brief history of the mega-plot, 2. the history of Chinese urban tradition and the theoretical basis for city making in China, 3. the possibility to formulate a different understanding of criticality from a Chinese philosophical tradition that favours efficacious propensities, and 4. the economic basis for the conception, construction and sustenance of the public realm in cities.
Assignments 1. Main readings: students are expected to read the main readings for each seminar and prepare several questions for discussion.
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2. Secondary readings: are intended to offer an alternative or opposing views to the ones promulgated in the main readings. For every seminar, two students will prepare a 45-min presentation that should cover the main propositions of the authors, critical issues raised with reference to the theme of the seminar, a critique of the arguments and conjectures as to the relevance of the ideas raised in the seminar. 3. Theoretical paper with drawn examples: that discusses the over arching theme of the course will be due before the end of Fall 2012. A 500-word abstract should be submitted no later than 14 Nov 2012. Consisting of 2,500 to 3,000 words, this theoretical paper should be supported by analytical drawings of a dominant type chosen by the student. Details will be discussed in class.
Wed 5 Sep 2012 Session 1: The Idea of Type Any attempt to define type is an attempt to define what is typical; and what is most typical is common to all. As such, type lends itself as an effective heuristic device to locate commonalities. This search for what is common in architecture is not to locate formal or tectonic similitude, nor is it used to usher in a universal style. It is a search for what is the idea that can be commonly held so as to invest architecture with a social and political role. It is for this reason that the question of type arises when architecture is perceived to be in crisis; when its relevance to the wider milieu in which it is produced is in question. In the case of Quatremre de Quincy, who first introduced the concept of type into architectural theory, the heuristic nature of type was instrumental in his revalidation of the supremacy of Greek architecture, when its claim as the origin of architecture was threatened by the archaeological discovery of Egyptian civilization that predated it. Through type, he validates the use of classicism as an architectural language of rationality and abstraction, an allegory for the revolutionary society defined by the ideals of Enlightenment.
Forty, Adrian, Type, in Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture (London: Thames & Hudson, 2000), p. 304-11 Quatremre de Quincy, Antoine Chrysthome, Architecture, Character, Imitation, and Type, in The True, the Fictive and the Real: The Historical Dictionary of Architecture of Quatremre De Quincy, trans. by Youns Samir (London: Andreas Papadakis Publishers, 2000), p. 74-86, 103-11, 175-78, and 254-57
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Secondary Reading Vidler, Anthony, From the Hut to the Temple: Quatremre de Quincy and the Idea of Type, in The Writing of the Walls: Architectural Theory in the Late Enlightenment (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1987), p. 147-64 Vidler, Anthony, The Third Typology, Oppositions, 7 (1976), p.1-4
Recommended Laugier, Marc-Antoine, An Essay on Architecture, trans. by Wolfgang and Anni Herrmann (Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, 1977), p.1-14 Lavin, Sylvia, I: Origins and II: Architectural Etymology, in Quatremre de Quincy and the Invention of a Modern Language of Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), p.18-100 Le Roy, Julien-David, Essay on the History of Architecture, in The Ruins of the Most Beautiful Monuments of Greece, trans. by David Britt (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2004), pp. 209-35 Palma, Vittoria Di, Architecture, Environment and Emotion: Quatremre de Quincy and the Concept of Character, AA Files, 47 (2002), p.45-56 Quatremre de Quincy, Antoine Chrysthome, Architecture, and Character, in Tanis Hinchcliffe, Extracts from the Encyclopdie mthodique darchitecture, 9H, 7 (1985), 25-39 Vidler, Anthony. The Idea of Type: The Transformation of the Academic Ideal: 1750-1830, Oppositions, 8 (1977), 93-115 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, History of the Art of Antiquity, trans. by Harry Francis Mallgrave (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2006) Youns, Samir, Quatremre de Quincys Theory, in The True, the Fictive and the Real: The Historical Dictionary of Architecture of Quatremre De Quincy (London: Papadakis Publisher, 2000), pp. 17- 35
Session 2: The Deep Structure of Type For J.N.L Durand, the deep structure of type is fundamental to his construction of a logic of type. This seminar will propose that Durands theoretical construct is firmly based on the idea of type although he did not use the word type himself; it is not constructed out of the theories of imitation, as Quatremre did, but out of his attempt to systematize architectural knowledge. The ideas that serve as a rule to his deep structures of type are 'solidity, salubrity and economy'; and
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although Durand utilizes typology in a pragmatic manner, his larger ambition was to arrive at a general principle of architecture that is understandable and accessible to all. Thus, what is common in the case of Durand is architectural knowledge itself. It can be argued that for Durand, science and rationality are seen as a means of emancipation for the revolutionary society, and he ascribed this to a method. Therefore, this method, as the logic of type, despite its pragmatic leanings is in fact political. For Durand, architecture should not be the preserve of monarchical and aristocratic patronage; it is universally accessible when it is teachable to all.
Durand, Jean Nicolas Louis, Volume One: Introduction, Part II: Composition in General, and Graphic Portion of the Lectures on Architecture: Summary of the Oral Portion of the Lectures, in Prcis of the Lectures on Architecture, trans. by David Britt (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2000), p. 77-88, 119-127 (and plates 1-20 to Part II: Composition in General), and 187-201 (and plates 1-25 of Graphic Portion) Oechslin, Werner, Premises for the Resumption of the Discussion of Typology, Assemblage, 1 (1986), p. 36-53
Secondary Reading Perez Gomez, Alberto, Durand and Functionalism in Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1983), p.297-326 Zaera Polo, Alejandro, and Moussavi, Farshid, Phylogenesis: FOAs Ark (London: Actar & ICA, 2004), p.6-17
Recommended Durand, Jean-Nicolas-Louis, Recueil et parallle des difices de tout genre, anciens et modernes : remarquables par leur beut, par leur grandeur, ou par leur singularit, et dessins sur une mme chelle, 2 vols (Paris: Chez l'auteur, 1799-1801) Hernandez, Antonio, J.N.L. Durand's Architectural Theory: A Study in the History of Rational Building Design, Perspecta, 12 (1969), 153-60 Le Roy, Julien-David, Essay on the Theory of Architecture, in The Ruins of the Most Beautiful Monuments of Greece, trans. by David Britt (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2004), p.367-86 Madrazo, Leandro, Durand and the Science of Architecture, Journal of Architectural Education, 48.1 (1994), p.12-24 Perrault, Claude, Ordonnance for the Five Kinds of Columns after the Method of the Ancients, trans. by Indra Kagis McEwen (Los Angeles: Getty Publications 1993)
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Picon, Antoine, From Poetry of Art to Method: The Theory of Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, in Pr'ecis of the Lectures on Architecture, trans. by David Britt (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2000), pp.1-6 Vitruvius, Book IV, Chapter I: The Origins of the Three Orders, and the Proportions of the Corinthian Capital, in Ten Books on Architecture, trans. by Ingrid Rowland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)
Wed 12 Sep 2012 Session 3: Standard, Megastructure and Archetype In the conception of the Modernist city, the notion of type came to be identified with the standard. This standard as the typical object was promulgated as being able to increase civic dignity and cohesion, and used to meet the demands of urban industrial population for the emergence of a new harmonious social order. 40 years on, sharing the same belief in technology and grand visions as the architects and planners of the modern movement, the Metabolist and Mega-structuralist of the 1960s re-envisioned the city as a large, flexible and ever-expanding structure, turning the typical to the proto-typiccal. At stake is architecture's claim to offering solutions to the problems of rapid urbanization by treating the spaces of urbanization as one a singular architectural project. At this juncture, architectural modernisms unequivocal claim of instituting a clean break with tradition and history were challenged through the revival of the question of type and archetype.
Colquhoun, Alan, Displacement of Concepts in Le Corbusier, in Essays in Architectural Criticism; Modern Architecture and Historical Change (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), p. 51-66 Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture (New York: Dover Publications, 1987), p. 85-147 Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow and its Planning (New York; Dover Publications, 1987), p. 5-26, 57- 80 and 159-247
Secondary Reading Aureli, Pier Vittorio, City as Political Form: Four Archetypes of Urban Transformation, Architectural Design, 81.1 (2011), Typological Urbanism Agamben, Giorgio, What is a Paradigm? in The Signature of All Things: On Method (New York: Zone Books, 2009), p.9-32
Recommended
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Banham, Reyner, Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), p.13-69 Gropius, Walter, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus, trans. by Morton Shand (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1965) Frampton, Kenneth, Megaform as Urban Landscape (Univ of Michigan, 1999) Maki, Fumihiko, Some Thoughts on Collective Form, in Structure in Art and in Science, ed. By Gyorgy Kepes (New York: George Braziller, 1965), pp. 116-127 Rowe, Colin, Mathematics of the Ideal Villa, in Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1976), pp. 1-28 Teige, Karel, Minimum Dwelling: The Housing Crisis, Housing Reform (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002)
Session 4: Type and the Historical City As the failures of the city of modern architecture became increasingly apparent, a recourse to typology and the historical city was instigated by the Neorationalist, the Krier brothers, the New Urbanist and Rowe & Koetter. The return to the historical city as the urban model par excellence allowed the various proponents to revalidate it as a permanent yet functionally transparent architecture, an idealised image or a source for composing an urban plan. This seminar will focus on the instrumentality of type as a heuristic device, but this time with the focus on the city as exemplified by Aldo Rossis structure of permanence and Giulio Carlo Argans precedents and continuity in design. The goal is to show how type can be seen as a heuristic device that allowed each generation of architects and theorists to revalidate the role of architecture within society by searching and defining what is the idea of type, that is, what is the ideal that is common to all that will act as the principles for which architecture is produced.
Argan, Giulio Carlo, On the Typology of Architecture, in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995, ed. by Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), p. 242-46 (first publ. Architectural Design, 33.12 (1963), 564-65) Rossi, Aldo, Introduction, The Structure of the Urban Artifact and The Individuality of Urban Artifacts; Architecture in The Architecture of the City, trans. by Diane Ghirardo and Joan Ockman (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982), p.21-27, 29-61, 103-137
Secondary Reading Rossi, Aldo, An Analogical Architecture, in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture, p.348-52
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Eisenman, Peter, Text of Analogy in Ten Canonical Buildings (New York: Rizzoli, 2008), p.178-198
Recommended Aureli, Pier Vittorio, Difficult Whole in LOG 9, Winter/Spring 2007 (New York: Anyone Corporation, 2007) Krier, Leon, Chapter IV: Prospect for a New Urbanism and Chapter V: The Polycentric City of Urban Communities, in Architecture: Choice or Fate (Windsor: Andreas Papadakis Publishers, 1998), pp.85-119 and 123-169 Rossi, Aldo, A Scientific Autobiography, trans. by Lawrence Venuti (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981) Rossi, Aldo, The Architecture of the City, trans. by Diane Ghirardo and Joan Ockman (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982) Rowe, Colin, and Fred Koetter. Collage City (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1978) Ungers, Oswald Matthias, The Dialectic City (Milan: Skira Editore, 1997)
Wed 3 Oct 2012 Session 5: Typology and Reinvention In light of the discontentment with the universalism of architectural modernism and its 'nave functionalism' and technological positivism as a design method, the discussion of type and typology in the late 1960s to early 1980s centred upon the possibility of reinventions via history and tradition. This discourse in rethinking architectures response to a new 'realism' as opposed to the neutrality of abstraction oscillated between the treatment of type as a conceptual framework in search of a new universality and typology as a design method that addressed the questions of precedent, repetition, continuity and reinvention.
Colquhoun, Alan, Typology and Design Method, Arena, 83 (1967), repr. in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995, ed. by Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), pp. 250-57 Bandini, Micha, Typology as a Form of Convention, AA Files, 6 (1984), 73-82 Lee, Christopher C.M., Projective Series in Lee, Christopher, and Sam Jacoby, eds. Typological Formations: Renewable Building Types and the City (London: AA Publications, 2007) p.136-147 O.M. Ungers, Oriol Bohigas, Carlo Aymonino, Anton Schweighofer, Aldo Rossi, Manuel de Sol- Morales Rubi, Ludovico Quaroni, Rob Krier, Guido Canella, Aldo Van Eyck, interviewed in Ten Opinions on Type in Casabella, 509-510, Jan-Feb 1985, p.92-112
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Secondary Reading Moneo, Rafael, On Typology, Oppositions, 13 (1978), p.23-45 Eisenman, Peter, The End of the Classical The End of the Beginning, The End of the End, Perspecta, 21 (1984), p.154-73
Recommended Bandini, Micha Typological Theories in Architectural Design." in Companion to Architectural Thought, eds by Ben Farmer and Hentie Louw (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 387-395 Colquhoun, Alan, Rationalism: A Philosophical Concept in Architecture, in Collected Essays in Architectural Criticism (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2009), p. 163-77 Colquhoun, Alan, Three Kinds of Historicism, in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995, ed. by Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), p. 202-09 Madrazo, Leandro, The Concept of Type in Architecture: An Inquiry into the Nature of Architectural Form (unpublished PhD thesis, ETH Zrich, 1995)
Session 6: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City Types relation to the idea of the city is the extension of the concern to search for a commonality in which architecture could invest itself with sociality. This necessitates the discussion of the idea of the city, from Aristotles definition of the city or polis as a space of coexistence to Chantal Mouffes concept of agonistic pluralism. The rereading and reinterpretation of the writings and projects on the city of Aldo Rossi and Rem Koolhaas are viewed through the lens of type and the idea of the city as a space of agonistic pluralism. Although it is not customary to draw the relation between the two, it is precisely the intention of this seminar to show that the instrumentality of type as a tool for renewal is in its ability to locate the idea of what is common through the city.
Aureli, Pier Vittorio, Towards the Archipelago in The Possibility of An Absolute Architecture (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2011) p.1-46 Carl, Peter, Type, Field, Culture, Praxis, Architectural Design, 81.1 (2011), Typological Urbanism Mouffe, Chantal, A Politics Without Adversary? in The Democratic Paradox (London: Verso, 2005), p.108-128
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Secondary Reading Koolhaas, Rem, Tabula Rasa Revisited in S, M, L, XL, 2nd ed. (New York: Monacelli Press, 1998) p.1091-1135 Ungers, Oswald Matthias, Rem Koolhaas, Peter Riemann, Hans Kollhof, Peter Ovaska, Cities within the City, Proposal by the Sommerakademie Berlin, in Lotus International, n.19, 1977, p. 82-97
Recommended Reading Arendt, Hannah, Introduction into Politics, in Arendt, The Promise of Politics, ed. Jerome Kohn (New York: Schocken Books, 2005), p.93-200 Aristotle, Politics, trans. by Ernest Barker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) Agamben, Giorgio, Metropolis trans., by Arianna Bove (http://www.generationonline.org/p/fpagamben4.htm) Koolhaas, Rem, Life in the Metropolis or The Culture of Congestion in Architecture Theory since 1968, Hays K.Michael, MIT Press, 1998, p.322330 Lee, Christopher C.M., 'Common Artifacts' in Human Experience and Place: Sustaining Identity, ed. by Paul Brislin, Architectural Design, November 2012 Lucan, Jacques, OMA. Rem Koolhaas. Architecture 1970-1990 (Electa France, Milan-Paris: 1990; Electa, Milan 1991) Schmitt, Carl, The Concept of the Political (London: London University of Chicago Press, 1996) Stadler, Matthew, The Story of K in What is OMA: Considering Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2003), p.123-135
Wed 17 Oct 2012 Session 7: Criticality: Between China and West (Jianfei Zhu) There is a renewed interest in critical architecture in recent years. The debate is centered on a new possibility regarded as post-critical, and that has also led to two positions, one centered on performance the other social engagement. These are the debates occurring in the west, between North America and Western Europe. Against this background is a study that aims to connect with Asia using Rem Koolhaas and some Chinese architects as agents who had transferred various energies between Asia and the West (Criticality in between China and the West, 2004). What will be presented in this seminar is a more recent study: a comparison
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between a Chinese state-led constructive approach with the western critical positions. It is argued that the Chinese Confucian approach supports the Frankfurt Marxist critique, but demands more, and thus opens up a new dimension that needs to contemplated with the collaborative with the state that aims for a real social transformation, beyond formal gesture and oppositional criticism.
Jianfei Zhu, Opening the Concept of Critical Architecture: The Case of Modern China and the Issue of the State, in William S. W. Lim & Jiat-Hwee Chang (eds) Non West Modernist Past: On Architecture & Modernities, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2012, p. 105- 116. Jianfei Zhu, Criticality in between China and the West, Journal of Architecture, vol. 10, no. 5, 2005: 479-98. Hilde Heynen, A Critical Position for Architecture, in Jane Rendell, Jonathan Hill, Murray Fraser and Mark Dorrian (eds) Critical Architecture, London: Routledge, 2007, p. 48-56.
Secondary Reading Peter Eisenman, Critical Architecture in A Geopolitical World, in Cynthia C. Davidson & Ismail Serageldin (eds) Architecture beyond Architecture: Creativity and Social Transformation in Islamic Cultures, London Academy Editions, 1995, p. 78-81. Michael Hays, Critical Architecture: between Culture and Form, Perspecta 21, The Yale Architectural Journal, 1984, p.15-29. Robert Somol & Sarah Whiting, Notes around the Doppler Effect and Other Moods of Modernism, Perspecta 33: Mining Autonomy, 2002, p. 72-7. Michael Speaks, Design Intelligence: Part 1: Introduction, A+U, 12, no. 387, 2002: p.10-18. Michael Speaks, Ideals, Ideology and Intelligence in China and the West, T+A, 91, no. 5, 2006: p.63-5. Peter Eisenman & Rem Koolhaas, Supercritical, ed. Brett Steele, London: AA Publications, 2010. Rem Koolhaas, Singapore Songlines, in Rem Koolhaas, SMLXL, 1995, p. 1008-89. Jianfei Zhu, Architecture of Modern China: A Historical Critique, London: Routledge, 2009 (C6).
Recommended Reading Max Horkheimer, Traditional Theory and Critical Theory, in Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory: Selected Essays, trans. Mattew J. OConnell, NY: Continuum, 1982, p. 188-243.
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Stephen Eric Bronner, Of Critical Theory and Its Theories, NY& London: Routledge, 2002 (Chapter 2, p. 11-38). Tu Wei-ming, ed. Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Session 8: Largeness as a Construct in Culture, Politics and Urban Form in China (Jianfei Zhu) Given the unprecedented scale of modernization now happening around the world, scale or largeness is becoming a concept in art, design and theorization (such as bigness in Rem Koolhaas SMLXL and the multitude in Hardt and Negris Empire). On another front, there are scholars (such as Tu Wei-ming) who have identified an East-Asian model of modernization with a distinctive feature of state leadership for efficient capitalist development, with a Confucian tradition of a moral state rooted in the region and chiefly in China. This seminar asks two questions: at what point does largeness begin to acquire qualitative content as a construct, and if there is a construct of largeness in China in culture and politics and technological practice of building and urban formation. This seminar explores this construct of largeness in basic systems of signs and the arts of the state including building design and urban construction. It is argued that, if there is a Chinese contribution today, it would be (beyond Tus neo-Weberian thesis) a generic construct of largeness that advocates hybridity and connectedness, against a modernity of autonomy and opposition.
Jianfei Zhu Largeness as a construct in culture and political ethics: towards a new modernity with Chinese characteristics, unpublished paper (to be provided by the author).
Secondary Reading Lothar Ledderoses Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Francois Jullien, The Propensity of Things: towards a History of Efficacy in China, trans. Janet Lloyd, New York: Zone Books, 1995, p. 246-53 O. M. A, Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S, M, L, XL, New York: The Monacelli Press, 1995 (Bigness or the problem of large, pp. 495-516).
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Tu Wei-Ming, ed. Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996 (Introduction & Epilogue, pp. 1-10, 343-49).
Recommended Reading Youlan Feng, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, New York: Free Press, 1966. Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1984.
Wed 31 Oct 2012 Session 9: Dominant Type and the Developmental City The city of Singapore will be used here as a case study to exemplify the utilization of the dominant type to figure forth the idea of the developmental city state. It is a contingent idea that evolves with the regimes of power and is therefore an evolving political project - a manifestation of political forces. An understanding of the dominant type in this context will centre on the discussion of the generic nature of type the propensity of the typical for transformation - as a shared disciplinary knowledge and social contract. Unlike the urban artifacts associated with the historical city, the dominant types here arose from the conditions of tabula rasa. As one of the earliest examples of the developmental city in Asia, Singapore will be understood through two dominant types the high-rise, high-density tower and slab block of Singapores public housing project and the podium block.
Chua, Beng Huat, Public Housing and Political Legitimacy in Political Legitimacy and Housing (London: Routledge, 1997), p.124-151 Lee, Christopher C.M., Working in Series: Towards an Operative Theory of Type in Working in Series (London: AA Publications, 2010), p.4-12 Perry, Martin; Kong, Lily and Yeoh Brenda, Singapore: A Developmental City State (Chihester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 1997), p.1-18
Secondary Reading Chua, Beng Huat, Public-housing policies compared: United States, ex-socialist nations and Singapore in Political Legitimacy and Housing (London: Routledge, 1997), p.12-2 Koolhaas, Rem, Generic City SMLXL (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995), p.1239-57
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Recommended Reading Castells, Manuel, The Developmental City-State in an Open World Economy: The Singapore Experience (unpublished working paper for the Centre for Advance Studies, National University of Singapore, 1988) Chua, Beng Huat, Arrested Development: Democratisation in Singapore in Third World Quarterly, Vol.15, No. 4 (London: Taylor & Francis Ltd, 1994), p.655-668 Chua, Beng Huat, From City to Nation: Planning Singapore in Political Legitimacy and Housing (London: Routledge, 1997), p.25-50 Chua, Beng Huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (Oxon: Routledge, 1995) Koolhaas, Rem in Singapore Songlines in SMLXL (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1995) Wang, L.H and Yeh, Stephen H.K., (ed.) Housing a Nation: 25 Years of Public Housing in Singapore (Singapore: Maruzen Asia for Housing Development Board, 1985) Yeh, H.K., Public Housing in Singapore: A Multi-disciplinary Study, (ed.) Yeh, H.K. (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1975) Singapore Planning and Urban Research Group, SPUR 65-67 (Singapore: SPUR, 1967) Tay, Kheng Soon and Bay, Philip, Tay Kheng Soon and SPURS: Activism in the early days of Singapores History (1999), <http://www.newsintercom.org/?p=18> (accessed 10 December 2011) Wee, CJW-L, The end of disciplinary modernisation? The Asian crisis and the ongoing reinvention of Singapore in Third World Quarterly, Vol. 22, No.6, The Post-Cold War Predicament (London: Taylor & Francis Ltd., 2001), p.987-1001
Session 10: From Big to Small to Mega: Understanding the superblock development of Beijing in a socio-political context (Ling Fan) The Superblock is a unique urban form in Chinese cities. It evolves, adapts, and dominates different moments of urban developments: the period of industrialization in the 1950s, the de-urbanism and anti-urbanism during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 70s, and the period of rapid urbanization that we are currently encountering. The Superblock is a mediator between the city and its architecture, between the abstract space of governance and design and the real space of production and living. The Superblock is treated here as an archetype. Arguably, it is the most enduring spatial formation since the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. It varies in size, spatial layout and terminology in different periods. Yet, there is an overt typological consistency and historical genealogy residing
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in its variations and formation. From its inception, the Superblock is always embedded with a strong political will that changes the sense of the city through their confrontation. This presentation will focus on the overall urban strategy and genealogy of the superblock. Case studies will be used to further articulate its transition from big to small to mega. This shift is simultaneously an ideological, formal and spatial change, through which the formal is a mediator of ideological changes within a socio-political context.
Bray, David. 2005. Social Space and Governance in Urban China: the Danwei System from Origins to Reform (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press), Ch. 6 Brazier, Cressica, Ling Fan, and Tat Lam. From Big to Small to Mega-zone: Reading Large-scale Development of Chinese Cities Through Social and Spatial Structures. Shi Dai Jian Zhu = Time & Architecture, no. 2 (May 2009): p.2837. Fan, Ling., Cressica. Brazier, Tat. Lam, Becoming Beijing: Developer-Architect Dynamics in Socio- political Context in A & U: architecture & urbanism, 2010 July, n.7(478), p.94-99.
Secondary Reading Chang, Yung-Ho. City of Objects Aka City of Desire. A & U: Architecture & Urbanism, no. 399 (December 2003), p.7073. Lu, Duanfang. 2006. Remaking Chinese Urban Form : Modernity, Scarcity and Space, 1949-2005. Planning, History, and Environment Series (London; New York: Routledge, 2006), Ch. 2, 3.
Recommended Reading Blau, Eve. 1999. The Architecture of Red Vienna, 1919-1934. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press. Chung, Chuihua Judy., Jeffrey. Inaba, Rem. Koolhaas, Sze Tsung. Leong, Bernard. Chang, Harvard Project on the City., and Harvard University. Graduate School of Design. Great Leap Forward. Vol. 1. Project on the City; Kln: Cambridge, Mass.: Taschen ;Harvard Design School, 2001. French, R. A. Plans, Pragmatism and People : the Legacy of Soviet Planning for Todays Cities. Vol. 2. Changing Eastern Europe ; London: UCL Press, 1995. Lu Junhua, Peter G. Rowe and Zhang Jie. Modern Urban Housing in China, 1840-2000, New York, 2001. Ch. 2, 4, Conclusion Wang, Jun. 2011. Beijing Record : a Physical and Political History of Planning Modern Beijing. Singapore; London: World Scientific. Wu Hung, Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Creation of a Political Space, London, 2005.
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Zhu, Jianfei. Architecture of Modern China : a Historical Critique, 75104. London; New York: Routledge, 2009.
Wed 14 Nov 2012 Session 11: The economic basis for the conception, construction and sustenance of the public realm in cities. (Bing Wang) Public realms are a complex assemblage of various constructions over different deposits of urban times. The conception, construction and sustenance of public realms are, more often than not, economically contingent. Shifts of architectural philosophy, cultural movements and spatial significations inevitably correspond to, and reflect profound transitions in, capital forces and economic structures of a society. This session of the seminars focuses on the introduction of economic institutions and market mechanism that have shaped and are shaping these public realms in cities. The interrelationship between physical manifestation of public realms and their underlying production process are explored through analysis of themes in regard to rational economic activities, real estate ownership structures as well as the efficacy of public financing.
Yennga Thi Khuong, Carla Jaynes (ARUP). "Financing Methods for Improving and Securing Public Spaces." Walk 21 Conference. New York, 2009. Conference paper presenting detailed financial descriptions for funding the implementation of pedestrian priority zones in three case studies in American cities.
Paul Walter Clarke, The Economic Currency of Architectural Aesthetics, In Designing Cities: Critical Readings in Urban Design, ed. Alexander Cuthbert (UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), P29- 43. Theoretical argument on architectural aesthetics, ideology, imagery and possible economic value. Deutsche, Rosalyn. Uneven Development: Public Art in New York City. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996. Describing how the homeless are dispelled from public space when the city is designed as a piece of art.
Secondary Reading Smith, Arthur L. "PPP Financing in the US." In Policy, Finance and Management for Public Private Partnerships, by Matthias Beck Akintola Akintoye. Chicester: Wiley Blackwell, 2009. Very detailed look at public funding tools used to implement major infrastructure projects in the US with short case studies.
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Gavin, Angus. "Remaking Beruit." In City Edge: Contemporary Discourses on Urbanism, by Ester Charlesworth, 14-32. Oxford: Architectural Press, 2005. Book chapter detailing the process and outcome of transferring the ownership of virtually all land, including the former public realm, to a private development corporation, Solidere, to redevelop (and ultimately sell most back to the city) after a civil war.
Recommended reading
Lefebvre, Henri. The Right to the City. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.
An argument for equitable use of the city, because anthropological foundation of social needs should trump the financial inability to enjoy the space of the city.