City Book

/short notes and photos about Athens and the cities

[citybook]

The Village as a Gift- But is it really a Gift?

“Xiong Shuihua, a Chinese multimillionaire, bulldozed his old decrepit hometown to build luxury condos for everyone, for free, as a humble “thank you.”  ....Xiong Shuihua was born in Xiongkeng village in the city of Xinyu, southern China, and said that his family had always been well looked after and supported by community residents during his childhood.So, after making his millions in the steel industry, Shuihua opted to repay his debt to his childhood community by “updating” the locals’ living spaces.....Five years ago, the area was considerably run-down, with most locals living in the most basic of homes.

Today, however, the area has been completely transformed, and now 72 families are enjoying a new quality of life in what can be considered “luxury flats.”

Furthermore, 18 families who were particularly kind to the businessman were given villas of their own, in a project costing close to $7.4 million. “ source: collective evolution

>>>

This act of extreme generosity was embraced enthusiastically  by  all the media which commented on the sensitivity of the Chinese millionaire But there was no comment for the result of his generosity.

What was there before? What is now?

An informal settlement replaced by a suburban type architecture. The quality of living the old structures as depicted in the photos seems quite problematic and out-of standards. But the fluid  arrangement of the brick huts, added to the plan one after the other, through the years, seems much more interesting than the straight-lines with the wide open horizon and the monumental axis of the new village. It seems as if the children in the old village didn’t need the new plastic playground toys- the whole village was a playground field with secret views and places to hide.

Couldn't' t the great donor keep the virtues of the un-planned combined with  modern equipped structures on top of it?

Couldn’t he just scale up a bit the plan of the old village with just some better construction and materials?

This suburban grid planned from one genius-mind and put in place altogether seems as bearing already the seed of disaster. The paradigms of American suburbs are countless. Once super modern expensive villas, then turned to blighted neighborhoods. What is missing is always the spirit of the neighborhood, the common collective mind. But in this case it was there outlined on the village's ground as a winding plan.

With his erasing-and rebuiling act Xiong Shuihua imposed his so generous ego over the genius of collective mind.

It is the kind of expensive gifts that are never going to be paid back, and which are not exactly what you had wished for. But it' s a gift anyway, eh?

[citybook]

The Parliament is free! -

It is the first day after the inauguration of the new Greek Government and the fence which was installed to protect the Greek Parliament, during all the anti-austerity demonstrations, is finally down in a highly  symbolic action.

In the same spirit  the new Minister of Public Order  is going to remove all the SWAT vans  which the last years  surround the area of Exarchia in a daily basis,  marking a possible battlefield, an area  where police violence against anarchists  is somehow accepted.

This act of removal of symbolic and real fences maybe the beginning of an era that puts an end  to the degradation of the term public space. It comes in a very crucial moment when throughout Europe strict laws act as fences which ban every undesired behaviour and undesired person.

This could make us think again that the public space, itself needs no protection and the only ones who need protection are those who are afraid of Public.

[citybook]

Beijing' s Rat-tribe - A Future for all?

A photographic project of  SIM CHI YIN

1.Construction worker Ren Liang, 22 with his back to camera, enjoys a home-cooked dinner with two friends visiting from his hometown in Hebei, northern China. Ren has lived in this basement room for the six months he has been in Beijing for.

2. Ji Lanlan, 25, and her three-year-old daughter, Yu Qi, enjoy a game on their computer in one of the largest rooms in this basement in west Beijing. Ji, from Henan Province in central China, is an office worker and has lived in this basement room for the four years that she has been in Beijing.

3. Xie Jinghui, originally from Jiangxi, born in 1987, sometimes does some weightlifting in his basement room. He used to live in a more central location within Beijing's 3rd Ring Road, but one year ago the house was torn down. He says: "Everybody thinks that living in the basement is only a temporary thing but then people end up staying much longer... For my generation it's difficult to stay at home but it is also difficult to live away from home in big cities.

4. Zhang Hao, 26, an electrician, and his wife Xiang Qigui, 23, a beautician, are home in their roughly 85 square-foot basement room after another long day at work. They have a two-story house of their own back in their home province of Henan, complete with a 29-inch TV set. They have left their one-year-old son with their parents. Zhang Hao says: “We don’t want to stay here forever…but we have endured a few years in Beijing, so we have to go on, otherwise we would have come in vain

5. Ji Jia, 20, a salesgirl in a clothing store from Hebei Province, shares this room in a basement in west Beijing with a co-worker and friend. Ji Jia says it was the “most horrible” basement she had stayed in. “I do not even dare to go to the bathroom; it’s so disgusting. At first I thought our room was cool, because here we have a lot of space for two. But I think I might stay a month and no longer, then I'll find something new.” She earns 3,500 yuan a month and likes to buy clothes and eat.

Reblogging from here:

"The evening sun sits low in the smoggy Beijing sky. Beneath a staid, maroon apartment block, Jiang Ying, 24, is stirring from her bed after having slept through the day. Day is night and night is day anyway, in the window-less world she inhabits three floors below ground.

Pint-sized and spiky-haired, Jiang Ying is among an estimated one million migrant workers who live beneath this city. Like millions of Chinese who come from across the country with dreams of making it big in the capital, she had travelled to Beijing from her native Inner Mongolia three years ago, and now works as at a hip bar in the heart of Beijing’s nightclub district. But even so, she can barely make ends meet.

Faced with sky-high property prices, living underground is often the only option for this legion of low-waged migrant workers, who make up one-third of Beijing’s estimated 20 million people.

Waiters, karaoke hostesses, hairdressers, chefs, security guards, domestic workers and kitchen helpers, these basement dwellers are the backbone of Beijing’s service industry. But they have been unkindly dubbed the “rat tribe” for making a home in Beijing’s 6,000 basements and air raid shelters — about one-third of the city’s underground space.

They pay monthly rents of 300 to 700 yuan ($50 to $110) for partitioned rooms of seven to eight square meters, or sometimes, a closet-like space barely wider than a single bed. Some 50 to 100 rooms often share a single bathroom and several toilet cubicles. A chilly draft filters through the tunnels, which are also often dank and moldy in the summers.

But it may now be a matter of time before the basement dwellers face eviction. The government, which had leased the basements out for use since the 1990s, and even liberalized rules in 2004 to make them more accessible and hugely popular as homes to migrant workers, is clamping down.

In mid-December of 2010, the authorities issued new regulations contradicting earlier ones, effectively stopping basement leases from being renewed. Over the next three years, the authorities will gradually shutter the underground homes, which are now deemed “unsafe, dirty and chaotic,” a civil defense officer said.

That might improve Beijing’s image, but doesn’t help the low-wage migrants. Sooner or later then, Jiang Ying and her counterparts will have to move out — and up, or simply go home. For now, the basements of Beijing hold the hopes and dreams of many migrants who seek their fortune in the capital.

To me, they tell the broader story of a China on the move, of the world’s biggest tide of migration, and of a generational shift to an urban income and lifestyle. Curious about this underworld, I started photographing it in 2010. If I went into it hoping to document the tough and musty lives these migrants lead, I’ve also been inspired by their spunky fighting spirit and life-affirming aspirations.

As Zhuang Qiuli, 25, a pedicurist, puts it: “There is no difference between me and the people who live in the posh condominium above. We wear the same clothes and have the same hairstyles. The only difference is we cannot see the sun. “In a few years, when I have money, I will also live upstairs.” "

[citybook]

Oh, Christmas tree...!

[nevver]

[citybook]

Elsewheres

[99percentinvisible]

[citybook]

Alternative urban  equipment

"Bastard chairs" photographed by Michael Wolf all around Hong Kong. 

Hey, they do their job. 

[citybook]

Death in the City

An exhibition about death and modern architecture

The theme of death is relevant to us all and where we die is a critical part of that; how and where we die underpin a lot of cultural ideas about what a ‘good death’ is. In the UK, 3% of people want to die in hospital, but 53% do; almost one in three hospital patients in Scotland will die within a year, and nearly one in 10 will die during their time in hospital. As architects and urban designers, we think that it is important to look critically at our approach to death and the places associated with it, so that we can start to create better spaces for death and dying in the future.

Architecture related to death and dying used to be influential and important to the development of architecture as a discipline. Hospitals, funeral chapels and cemeteries used to set an example that would be followed, and not only in other buildings related to death and dying. These forms would set trends and define values for architecture more widely. Today, this once strong position seems to have faded away completely and  this type of architecture is largely hidden from view.

Moreover, it is rarely foregrounded in the architectural history of the 20th century. The curators decided to bring this topic to the discussion of fundamentals and modernity because death is fundamental and its changing place in modern society is worth significantly more attention from architects and urban designers.

‘Death in Venice’ is an independent event, which will be shown at the Ludoteca Santa Maria Ausiliatrice in Venice (Italy), from 4-11 June 2014 curated by Alison Killing and Ania Molenda with the collaboration of LUST.

[urbanplannerholic]

Class division in #MexicoCity

[citybook]

Ελληνικό-Από τον λόφο του Αλίμου

[citybook]

Μ. Πέμπτη

Λίγο μετά τη νίκη του Φράνκο το  1939 στη Μαδρίτη ο ακρωτηριασμένος κατά τη διάρκεια του ισπανικού Εμφυλίου Εσταυρωμένος περιφέρεται υπό φασιστικούς χαιρετισμούς.  Πόσο πιο σταυρωμένος αυτός ο Εσταυρωμένος… πόσο πιο χιλιάδες φορές Σταυρωμένος.

Τί μένει στον άνθρωπο που όλα τα χάνει παρά οι λέξεις κι οι σκέψεις, η πίστη κι οι ιδέες. Κάθε εξουσίας η αρχή και  το τελειωτικό χτύπημα είναι η άλωση του συμβολικού, η αλλοίωση  κι η διαστροφή, η κατάχρηση του νοήματος- δίχως τα σύμβολα της ελπίδας, δίχως την παράλογη πίστη, δεν μένει πάρα ένα ατέλειωτο τέλμα  απελπισίας χειραγωγίσιμης .

Πρέπει να ξαναφτιάξουμε τις λέξεις, να ξαναγεννήσουμε τις ιδέες. Ως και τον Θεόν τον ίδιο πρέπει να φτιάξουμε απ' την αρχή.

[burning-stmandard-deactivated20]

[citybook]

Urban BLOb

30 Cities From 200 Years Ago…And Where They Are Now  / by NYU Stern Urbanization Project

[citybook]

Αστράφτει το Σύνταγμα-

Τρίτη απόγευμα κι η Ερμού γεμάτη κόσμο σαν παραμονή Χριστουγέννων.  Το πολυαναμενόμενο τεράστιο κύμα των τουριστών σαρώνει ήδη το τουριστικό κέντρο, Πλάκα, Ερμού, Μοναστηράκι.

Η πλατεία Συντάγματος όμως εξόχως άδεια κι εξόχως αστραφτερή, μετά δε κι απ' το ακριβούτσικο γύαλισμα του 1εκ. ευρώ, δωράκι απ' το Grande Bretagne. Παράδοξη η τόση ερημία.

Παράδοξοι κι αυτοί οι οδοκαθαριστές με την hi-tech στολή σαν να δουλεύουν σε πυρηνικό εργοστάσιο. Μα τόσο επικίνδυνη είναι η αστική μας βρώμα?

Μια βόλτα λίγο πιο κάτω, πέρα απ' την ευφορία της Ερμού, κατεβαίνοντας την ολότελα άδεια Σταδίου η υπερβολική στολή των εργατών της καθαριότητας βρίσκει την εξήγηση της. Μια απαλή αύρα δακρυγόνου στον ανοιξιάτικο αέρα δικαιολογεί την τόση αρματωσιά. Σήμερα είχε πορεία μα δεν υπάρχει κανένα άλλο ίχνος πέρα απ' τις κλειστές εισόδους του μετρό κι αυτή την οξεία οσμή. Στην Κλαυθμώνος πλένουν κιόλας τα πεζοδρόμια, δεν περιμένουνε να ξημερώσει, έρχονται εκλογές, κι ο δήμος επιδεικνύει εξαιρετική ετοιμότητα σε τέτοια και μόνο τέτοια θέματα, η κορδέλα ασφαλείας στην Ομόνοια λύεται γύρω στις 9.30 και το κέντρο ανοίγει ξανά στην κυκλοφορία. Γρήγορα γρήγορα η πόλη επανέρχεται, χωρίς κανένα σημάδι, έτοιμη να κλείσει το μάτι, να χαμογελάσει ξανά στα πλήθη των τουριστών.

Το άδικο των καιρών για τους επαναστάστες είναι που δεν μπορούν ούτε ένα σημάδι στην άσφαλτο να γράψουν.

Προσοχή όμως γιατί όταν οι άνθρωποι δεν μπορούν να γράψουν, μπορούν να κάψουν...

[citybook]

A self-defeating contest. "Designing for free speech"

An unexpected contest for public spaces in ΝΥ "Designing for free speech". From the title it can be assumed, first of all, that the freedom of expression in public space it' s lost (at least for NY) and that somehow it has to be reinvented and obtained through design.

This sounds very contradictory as long as most of the examples of urban regenerations throughout the world show us the more design= the less free speech.

From the brief of the contest... "Free speech is essential for a vibrant culture and a democratic society, yet spaces for public expression seem harder and harder to find in the places where we live, work and play. What does a space for free speech look and feel and sound like? Can they be designed? Are there places in New York City where we can design them?"

You  still have some time for proposals. Till 15 may 2014.

http://designingforfreespeech.org/details/

[citybook]

Swept by automobile

What was the effect of the World War II bombings for the European Cities,  was for the American cities the invasion of auto mobile infrastructure.

The concept of "continuous ground"- the plateau where one can endlessly drift and experience the space as duration- is seriously challenged.

Tearing up the real space  seems like  preparing the ground  for the post-modern fragmentation which pervades  all the cultural landscapes.

Read here about how 1949 Atlanta Aerial Mosaic Project Reveals Built Environment Change

[citybook]

Η αφίσα της ημέρας στην Αθήνα

"Παγκόσμια ημέρα Θεάτρου σήμερα και κάτι περίεργο συμβαίνει με το Εθνικό μας Θέατρο! Εχει γεμίσει η Αθήνα από την αφίσα της νέας παραγωγής: "Την τράτα λεν Μαρίτσα" (κείμενο: Κ.Χ.Μύρης, σκηνοθεσία: Σ. Χατζάκης, σκηνικά: Έ. Δρίνη). Πρόκειται μάλλον για μια πλάκα που καταδεικνύει με σαφήνεια την ταυτότητα και την γραμμή του Εθνικού θεάτρου. Σε τέτοιο επικίνδυνο βαθμό που θα μπορούσε να είναι και αλήθεια! Δεν μπορούμε παρά να συγχαρούμε όποιον σκέφτηκε ένα τέτοιο δρώμενο για τον εορτασμό της σημερινής ημέρας! " (από ποστ στο facebook)

  Τι λέει το Εθνικό μας Θεάτρο για όλα αυτά? Η απάντηση εδώ

[citybook]

Mark Wigley on Housing and Masculinity

"The house does not simply precede what it domesticates. The house itself is an effect of suppression. The classical figure of the feminine is that which lacks its own secure boundaries, producing insecurity by disrupting boundaries, and which therefore must be housed by a masculine force that is no more than the ability to maintain rigid limits or, more precisely the effect of such limits, the representation of a space, a representation that is not only violently enforced by a range of disciplinary structures — legal, philosophical, economic, aesthetic, technical, social, and so on — but is itself a form of violence. Masculinity is not only erection but also enclosure, the logic of the house is as phallocentric as that of the tower. The tower in the end is a house." Mark Wigley in "The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida’s Haunt," 1993 From Polis (collaborative blog about cities around the world) collection of quotes related to cities.

[citybook]

The shrinking realm of public space

" Some scholars suggest that with abundance, Americans outgrew their collective need — even their capacity — for a public realm. Others argue that the public itself was felt to have become too large, too inclusive, its rewards too widely disseminated in too many forms — too democratic. Whatever the cause, the demise of the idea of a democratic public domain in the United States is a loss that extends beyond its borders. "It is not possible, of course, to construct a global public; at a global scale, the ideas of democratic access and accountability associated with public space stretch beyond recognition, for people do not live their lives as members of abstract communities or spaces. Of necessity, common property regimes around the world are represented as sharply bounded, local, and delimited, usually with reference to particular kinds of resources, such as fish, land, and forest. The discourse of property rights has created ways of imagining that those independent systems of allocating property rights and sharing resources might continue at the sufferance of international proprietors — the NGOs who are taking figurative ownership of the globe's 'future' and who in their capacity as guardians have set about evaluating the efficacy and efficiency of any given system to determine which should be left in place and which should be reformed. Local practices can create their own space for unexpected contingencies, new openings that can redirect strategic calculation on a larger scale, of course. But without larger institutions of government, there are not many ways most ordinary people with limited means can collectively deliberate over what they wish to control or leave for their descendants by way of shared resources, institutions or public spaces. "Historically, public space was created as public property, and if that institution has run its course, if there is no language or theory that affirms that people can build and maintain governments that can build and maintain public space, we should all pay attention, for we have observed one more tragedy in our own time." Elizabeth Blackmar in "Appropriating 'the Commons': The Tragedy of Property Rights Discourse," 2006

//........

What a terrible reverse... Throughout the history of humanity, till now, it was the private sphere that needed a definition and a boundary. Now it is the public space that needs a border, that needs to be defined, as every little corner of the planet is claimed by the private sector.