The New European Architecture
The New European Architecture is an active-research project looking into the effects of different urbanization strategies on our sociological makeup. By looking at the theories and work of radical architects such as Oskar Hansen, Archigram & Superstudio - alongside the writings of Sennett, Habermas, AugĂ© & Zijderveld - I devised a game (to be performed in the 2x2x2 metre Didactic Instrument) to help people corporeally explore their built environment; I also wrote a short essay on/critique of the subject of the modernist architectural photography in G.E. Kidder Smiths âThe New European Architectureâ to help the players come to grips with the âreal-worldâ manifestations such physical engagement could bring.
Speaking broadly and from an open perspective of personal bias it can be said that the appeal of modern(ist) architectural photography lies, in part, from itâs proclamation of truly massive human achievements. Monolithic, glass skyscrapers set against dramatic cityscapes, finely tuned, minute aesthetics set in the context of the vast urban project; the photographer draws our eyes to new and exotic techniques and materials, to the timeless and increasingly scaleless representation of some of civilisations most incredulous endeavours. Indeed, as a species, we have come a long way from the caves and huts and shelters of our ancestors. Technological advances from the Roman arch to the rolled steel frame have seen that as we expand our knowledge of the world, we are perpetually expanding our environment within it. Why is it, therefore, when we consider these greatest of human achievements in the form of our most accurate and immortal imagery, that we seem to forget the most vital ingredient? Ourselves. Â
â...not all ages have considered, as ours does, functional soundness indispensable for aesthetic enjoyment...â [1]
This view, written by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner in 1942 as part of his âseminalâ book, An Outline of European Architecture, can to some extent, explain the situation at face value. However, it also consolidates a more far-reaching and ominous aspect of the world in which we have built for ourselves. For what are the implications of such a statement when merged with such imagery?
Perhaps it is that functional soundness has become disconnected from human life; functional soundness is no longer a means to the publicâs ends, it is instead an end in itself. It would appear that âthe peopleâ as a mass of free and politicised individuals have become dispensable not only for the purposes of city planners or market capitalists, but also for purposes of their own aesthetic enjoyment. Efficiency, so it would seem, has been rendered indispensable in not only the domain of commerce but also in that of art.
To understand this relationship it may be helpful to consider these ideas in relation to the modern city environment, an area where the effects of such a shift have been well documented. Richard Sennettâs first publication, âThe Uses of Disorderâ explores this very issue in great depth:
â...when this metaphor for technology is used for the structure of urban society, itâs meaning changes. Here the technological metaphor of city growth defeats the needs for which the whole exists, because the needs reside in the human part of the social whole, not in some social product apart from social existence.â [2]
Yet when we look at the photographs in such publications as G.E. Kidder Smiths we see few traces of the social whole or, indeed, itâs constituent parts. What we are faced with is in fact, the social product. The functional aspects of these modern buildings are hidden in such a way that they fill the space. The vastness of what Sennett would likely call âdead spaceâ - or for AugĂ©, ânon-placeâ - occupies any place that tangible, human (inter)actions might have otherwise utilized. In theory it can be said that 50 square metres of blank concrete paving does effectually act as a marketplace; however in theory, it can also be stated that such a space would be equally suitable to accommodate disused aircraft. In âThe New Architecture of Europeâ we do, occasionally, see the lone woman struggling with her groceries, or the roaming family on some sunny afternoon...
âAlone, but one of many, the user of a non-place is in contractual relations with it (or with the powers that govern it). He is reminded, when necessary, that the contract exists. [...] He becomes no more than what he does or experiences in the role of passenger, customer or driver.â [3]
The man, confidently striding across his abstracted, concrete plane is a metaphor for his actions. He is playing the role that has been cast for him, that in which all others are also playing along.
âThe space of non-place creates neither singular identity nor relations; only solitude and similitude.â [4]
The same extends not only to (super)modernist exteriors but also minimalist interiors:
âIn minimalist interiors, designed as perfect & spotless cocoons, the rituals of the contemporary bourgeois lifestyle are played out before an absentee audience.â [5]
This notion of an absentee audience leads directly back to Sennettâs idea of a potential âsocial productâ only here, it has been reduced to the level of interior, individual consciousness. The question therefore becomes; who then, if they are not in fact absent, is the target group of our newly commodified social product? Well, if we are to follow Pevsner and consider âfunctional soundness [as] indispensable for aesthetic enjoymentâ it would appear that we, âthe peopleâ are in fact both the supply and the demand.
The continuous use and appraisal of modern(ist) architectural photographs, those images devoid of humanity in architectural magazines, lectures and lessons, elevates this âpseudo-monasticâ idea that we (as a species) can create beautiful, functional spaces but we (as people) must not disturb or interact with them. Urban developments are dropped in to the public realm as if ordained by some omnipotent presence; any consideration taken in to account with regards to the social implications of a new environment are implicitly formed prior to construction and are therefore, at best, theoretical presuppositions. Advisory boards and citizen councils may speak their minds and fight to influence planning legislation or project development but even when taking this in to account, spaces today are largely conceived of and built from an holistic, top-down approach.
As a result, citizens are reduced to consumers in the modern urban environment; consumers not only of mass-produced goods or spaces but also of ready-made ideas. In a large number of the cities we inhabit today, there are little to no corporal opportunities for environmental or intersubjective communicative action. Consequently, we are forced to bear witness as generation after generation recede into themselves as they enact an ongoing establishment that it is only by internally looking within oneself that one may find a space where conflict is free and where there is some ground to explore and build upon. Borrowing from Sennett once again:
âThe ills of the city are not mechanical ones of better transport, better financing, and the like; they are the human ones of providing a place where men can grow into adults, and where adults can continue to engage in truly social existence.â [6]
Regardless of whatever view planners such as Baron von Haussman, Ebenezer Howard or Robert Moses may have taken with regards to the technical aspects of city building; this should be the guiding principle for all aspects of societal structuring. Emancipation, social engagement, critical awareness - whichever phrase is used; the socio-technical skills of communal individuals must take precedence over any and all capitalist notions of efficiency. What good is economic, scientific or technological growth if it does not, in turn, lead to humanistic growth within the population that generated it?
The dehumanisation of the public realm is not the only issue raised by the aesthetic temperament of modern(ist) architectural photography. Technological advance; the gravity-defying spectacle of our modern, monolithic structures combined with the rapidly advancing materials used to produce such outcomes, are also foregrounded and romanticized in such photographic imagery. However, this eclipsing focus on the material qualities of such large scale projects of an increasingly technological nature highlights the way in which we are using our technological advancements inhumanely. It is my view that instead of developing new alloys or construction techniques in order to build taller or faster - that is towards the defunct aesthetic enjoyment found in functional soundness - we should deploy these techniques in such a way that allows them to be utilized and understood by those who will directly benefit from them. Â
As a society, we must create a society which renders civic obligation a material necessity so as to attain a âtruly social existenceâ. By assuming engagement on the part of the political individual with relation to the material construction of their environment we can make a significant step towards this aim. A largely unknown polymath of the 20th Century, a man who discovered and developed this issue and itĂs possible solutions, was the Polish architect Oskar Hansen:
âFor Hansen the role of the architect in shaping the space is limited to the creation of a âperceptive backgroundâ, with architecture exposing the diversity of activities and individuals sharing a space. Focusing on process, subjectivity and the creation of a framework for individual expression, Hansen turns architecture into an instrument to be transformed by its users and easily adapted to their changing needs.â [7]
The architect assuming a role as the facilitator of human expression over that of the direct manipulator is a key idea; one that is imperative to the understanding of the applications and implications of such an open approach to city planning and indeed, any such communicative action. However, when we return to the values ascribed by the wider implications of Pevsners previous assertion, this approach is rendered irrational. When viewed through the well-worn lens of capitalist effectiveness, the facilitation of human expression does not serve to meet the end-goal of increased efficiency. As JĂŒrgen Habermas states:
âThe depoliticization of the mass of the population and the decline of the public realm as a political institution are components of a system of domination that tends to exclude practical questions from public discussion.â [8]
The âOpenâ approach aims to re-politicize the public realm as a space to discuss, both visually and verbally, practical questions as part of an engaged citizenry and in doing so serve to meet the end-goal of increasing the critical socio-technical skills of communal individuals. Open Form, as it was developed by Hansen, serves to develop similar strategies for indeterminacy, flexibility and collective participation and may therefore be considered as a possible basis to physically build upon these notions in our everyday environments.
Very rarely does the opportunity to build a city from the ground up present itself; therefore both the informal tactics and the more formal approaches towards the re-politicization of the public realm must be conceived of as âcreative disruptionsâ or âcritical actionsâ which are to be applied to the pre-existing structure. One such disruption I will now attempt to set out.
With relation to human-oriented environmental structures - those that we build and inhabit in both urban and non-urban situations - there can be no such thing as a wholly complete or finished space. No matter how permanent we may like to think our buildings are, entropy alone serves as an unconquerable law. It is my view, therefore, that using the technical advancements found in pre-fabricated steel frame construction and its counterparts, we should not construct or think of buildings as âfinishedâ in any case, but instead, as being in a perpetual state of development. These âOpenâ frames and systems can be constructed by architects and planners, re-understood as facilitators, and function in order to progress the aim of rendering civic obligation and environmental engagement a material necessity, thus returning the politicized citizen now passive consumer to their previous, active state.
The idea of the âhalf-houseâ is already gaining traction in areas of economic deprivation; the format being that an agency or planner may go in to a district and erect a series of basic, utilitarian shells that the home-owners must then work on and invest in to âcompleteâ, so to speak. At base, this is, in both essence and practice, a simple step up from the slum environments that normally dominate such areas.
In such an approach the level of engagement presupposed on the behalf of the home-owner is, in relation to the majority of urban, âwesternâ developments, dramatic. However it is precisely this level that we should set as a benchmark for all future developments. When applied to dense, city environments this method rapidly lends itself to being pushed to the point at which housing ceases to be the sole edifice constructed under this approach. The notion of building towards a predesignated function could consequently be, for the most part, dispensed with altogether and instead the communities that occupy these flexible spaces could be given freedom to decide how they should be used.
By slowing down the âbuilding processâ and, in principle, returning it to the citizenry; communication and conflict between atomized individuals becomes necessary for the basic construction of their environment and their individual subsistence within it. Perhaps it could come to pass that even the assumption of âcompletingâ the shell would be done away with; systems of building could be devised in which components or floors could be added on an ad hoc basis and mostly by request of and through the participation between the local residents. The realisation of Oskar Hansenâs architectural âinstrumentsâ may not be as hard to imagine as might initially be thought.
It is here however, that in order to mitigate the unfavourable effects of extensive divulsion, I must return to our point of departure. It might seem difficult under such an approach to imagine an alternate modern architectural photography. However, whatever form it may potentially take in its particular aesthetics, if the âOpenâ approach were to be implemented within our environments and therefore, through the democratization and re-politicization of public space, the values of society were to shift from that of functional soundness being indispensable for aesthetic enjoyment to those orientated around providing socio-technical skills to individuals in order to bring about effectual communicative action and emancipation; that vital, human ingredient, which for now seems to have been misplaced in the grand cityscapes of the 21st Century, would not be so easily forgotten.
[1] Pevsner, Nikolaus; An Outline of European Architecture. 1957 : pp.24
[2] Sennett, Richard; The Uses of Disorder. August 17, 1992 : pp.82
[3] Augé, Marc; Non-Places, An Introduction to Supermodernity. January 5, 2009 : pp.82
[4] Augé, Marc; Non-Places, An Introduction to Supermodernity. January 5, 2009 : pp.83
[5] Persyn, Freek; Spaces For People Who Are Not Your Friends, San Rocco. Spring, 2014 : pp.13
[6] Sennett, Richard; The Uses of Disorder. August 17, 1992 : pp.108
[7] MACBA; Oskar Hansen - Open Form. July 10 2014 - 06 Jan 06 2015.
[8] Habermas, JĂŒrgen; Towards a Rational Society. August 1, 1971 : pp.75
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