[In order of appearance in programme]
Session A: 001
Name
Andrea Canclini
Affiliation
Polytechnic University of Turin
Title and Extract
French Theory’s reception in the American architectural discourse during the Seventies
The aim of my PhD research is to analyse the nature and the role that the so-called French Theory may have had in the American architectural discourse during the Seventies.
Because of the importance of a building rarely emerges in its only pure presence, theoretical processes take place (and form) before and after the design process and the construction of the building itself, and needs specific intellectual and methodological tools.
To consider the nature, the role and the purpose that theories may have had in contemporary architectural discourse, we necessarily have to start from the place of research and development of that relationship: places of production, of reception, of critique and criticism, of use, of sharing and spreading. In the last decades we attended to a certain conceptual twist in architecture, even in the rhetorical mechanism as a literary device: we never had so many periodicals, books, exhibitions, so that we can consider these as the very permanent state of contemporary architecture. Especially periodicals were the place of discussion: the wide presence of interviews, reports of competitions, critical and historical essays, prove that both in descriptive sense (as an explanatory way) and in prescriptive sense (as a concept of design), theory is a peculiar presence.
In particular, because of their short life, periodicals are good seismograph where to explore the changings in theoretical and historical narrations. Following up the debate between Modern and its post-, in the assimilation of Continental philosophical ideas (especially Frankfurt School, phenomenology and French structuralism) a new cultural horizon, abandoning every teleological and objective perspective, has moved towards a new role of rhetoric and interpretation.
For instance, a part of the research consists in considering the debate that the influences of French philosophical context originated during the Seventies on the intellectual milieu gravitating around the «Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies» (IAUS, 1967-1984), in particular on its main publication «Oppositions» (1973-1984) and on its editorial board. Doing this, I do not want to defend the position that philosophical theories are an essential and/or necessary part of the architects’ work or that a theoretical consciousness is characteristic of the architectural practice of the Seventies, but the issue that in that periodical took place an increasing consciousness of architectural discipline about its own possibilities, with particular regard to the separations between the tasks of criticism and theory; doing that, I consider few articles published in «Oppositions» especially under the respect of thier theoretical premises.
The role of «Oppositions» in the reception of the so called French Theory, in particular of Foucault and Derrida’s thought is peculiar: at the decline of the Modern paradigm, the canon of the historical and theoretical methodologies changed deeply its character: the wide influence of Foucault and Derrida’s philosophy reintegrate in a peculiar way history and theory in criticism, changing the relationship among them. «Oppositions» made its goal in redefining relationship among conceptual theory and critical history, completing the overcoming of Hegelian tradition that characterized modernist historiography, making American architectural discourse more sophisticated and philosophical than ever before, and consecrate all its issues to raise critical level of the debate on architecture, especially enhancing the dialogue with Europe: for instance, one of the editorials was a brief theoretical pamphlet on typology as critique of productions and its significations, within the methodological tools of Marxism and structural linguistic, deeply influenced by Foucauldian notion of power.
My research partially consisted in periods of residence in New York City, in order to conduct direct research at the Avery Library of Columbia University and interviewing most of the protagonists of that years and some contemporary critics, among others: Peter Eisenman, Cynthia Davidson, Mario Gandelsonas, Thomas Leeser, Michel Hays, Marc Jarzombek, Diana Agrest, Diane Lewis, Guido Zuliani, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Mary McLeod, Kenneth Frampton, Yehuda Safran, Jorge Otero-Pailos, John Rajchman, Catherine Ingraham, Joan Copjec, Joan Ockman, Daniel Sherer, Jeff Kipnis, Suzanne Stephens.
Biography
Andrea Canclini lives in Italy where he works as an architect; he participates in conferences and publishes in Italy and abroad on his research topics: the theoretical basis of architecture, the history of architectural theories and the marketization of architecture.
His PhD research at Politecnico di Torino aims to analyse the nature and the role that so-called French Theory had in the American architectural discourse during the Seventies, when the canon of historical and theoretical methodologies dramatically changed its character: the wide influence of Althusser, Barthes, Foucault and Derrida’s philosophy reintegrated history and theory in criticism in an unusual way , changing the relationship between them.
Name
Andrea Canclini
Affiliation
Polytechnic University of Turin
Title and Extract
French Theory’s reception in the American architectural discourse during the Seventies
The aim of my PhD research is to analyse the nature and the role that the so-called French Theory may have had in the American architectural discourse during the Seventies.
Because of the importance of a building rarely emerges in its only pure presence, theoretical processes take place (and form) before and after the design process and the construction of the building itself, and needs specific intellectual and methodological tools.
To consider the nature, the role and the purpose that theories may have had in contemporary architectural discourse, we necessarily have to start from the place of research and development of that relationship: places of production, of reception, of critique and criticism, of use, of sharing and spreading. In the last decades we attended to a certain conceptual twist in architecture, even in the rhetorical mechanism as a literary device: we never had so many periodicals, books, exhibitions, so that we can consider these as the very permanent state of contemporary architecture. Especially periodicals were the place of discussion: the wide presence of interviews, reports of competitions, critical and historical essays, prove that both in descriptive sense (as an explanatory way) and in prescriptive sense (as a concept of design), theory is a peculiar presence.
In particular, because of their short life, periodicals are good seismograph where to explore the changings in theoretical and historical narrations. Following up the debate between Modern and its post-, in the assimilation of Continental philosophical ideas (especially Frankfurt School, phenomenology and French structuralism) a new cultural horizon, abandoning every teleological and objective perspective, has moved towards a new role of rhetoric and interpretation.
For instance, a part of the research consists in considering the debate that the influences of French philosophical context originated during the Seventies on the intellectual milieu gravitating around the «Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies» (IAUS, 1967-1984), in particular on its main publication «Oppositions» (1973-1984) and on its editorial board. Doing this, I do not want to defend the position that philosophical theories are an essential and/or necessary part of the architects’ work or that a theoretical consciousness is characteristic of the architectural practice of the Seventies, but the issue that in that periodical took place an increasing consciousness of architectural discipline about its own possibilities, with particular regard to the separations between the tasks of criticism and theory; doing that, I consider few articles published in «Oppositions» especially under the respect of thier theoretical premises.
The role of «Oppositions» in the reception of the so called French Theory, in particular of Foucault and Derrida’s thought is peculiar: at the decline of the Modern paradigm, the canon of the historical and theoretical methodologies changed deeply its character: the wide influence of Foucault and Derrida’s philosophy reintegrate in a peculiar way history and theory in criticism, changing the relationship among them. «Oppositions» made its goal in redefining relationship among conceptual theory and critical history, completing the overcoming of Hegelian tradition that characterized modernist historiography, making American architectural discourse more sophisticated and philosophical than ever before, and consecrate all its issues to raise critical level of the debate on architecture, especially enhancing the dialogue with Europe: for instance, one of the editorials was a brief theoretical pamphlet on typology as critique of productions and its significations, within the methodological tools of Marxism and structural linguistic, deeply influenced by Foucauldian notion of power.
My research partially consisted in periods of residence in New York City, in order to conduct direct research at the Avery Library of Columbia University and interviewing most of the protagonists of that years and some contemporary critics, among others: Peter Eisenman, Cynthia Davidson, Mario Gandelsonas, Thomas Leeser, Michel Hays, Marc Jarzombek, Diana Agrest, Diane Lewis, Guido Zuliani, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Mary McLeod, Kenneth Frampton, Yehuda Safran, Jorge Otero-Pailos, John Rajchman, Catherine Ingraham, Joan Copjec, Joan Ockman, Daniel Sherer, Jeff Kipnis, Suzanne Stephens.
Biography
Andrea Canclini lives in Italy where he works as an architect; he participates in conferences and publishes in Italy and abroad on his research topics: the theoretical basis of architecture, the history of architectural theories and the marketization of architecture.
His PhD research at Politecnico di Torino aims to analyse the nature and the role that so-called French Theory had in the American architectural discourse during the Seventies, when the canon of historical and theoretical methodologies dramatically changed its character: the wide influence of Althusser, Barthes, Foucault and Derrida’s philosophy reintegrated history and theory in criticism in an unusual way , changing the relationship between them.
Session A: 002
Name
Andrea Valori
Affiliation
University of Camerino (Italy)
Title and Extract
MUSEO CONDIVISO: open access for a rebirth
A few days ago (19 December 2016) GSSI (Gran Sasso Science Institute, an international school for advanced studies located in L'Aquila - Italy) had presented a new portal - 'Open Data Ricostruzione'.
The project aims to collect and make available economic and financial data about the reconstruction of Central Italy territory after the earthquake of 2009.
It is a structured and exportable archive, which promotes the informed participation of citizens in decision-making and allows a public accounting of expenses, in accordance with national and European legislation.
The project is certainly commendable, especially in a closed and bureaucratic environment as the Italian one. But the idea behind it is even more exemplary.
Urban environments are always complex scenarios; and urban planning is a complex science, which can not be reduced to a handful of architectural best practices and legal standards (Forman, 2014). Yet more and more often we seem to forget about it.
Examples are innumerable: much better than me, Salvatore Settis authoritatively argued in his wonderful style the death of Venice (Settis, 2016).
Venice: a magnificent city that lives on tourism and that in a short-sighted adaptation to this, is dying. Among the most prominent sample, we have the MOSE, as well as many of the more or less valid proposals submitted in those years for the protection of the city (‘Acqualta 2060’ is perhaps the most striking example).
All of these do not seem to understand the underground reality of Venice - their approaches regard Venice as a showcase, a relic of the past, something to crystallize and to keep, not to live.
Instead valuable interventions have received strong criticism. The town in 2013 renamed part of the 'nizioleti' (the old streets), using the last historical 'Catastico' (1786). This choice has aroused controversy by many citizens and organizations, not knowing the great philological study had preceded it, who have regarded the change as an annoying modernization and not as a return to the Venetian koiné.
Any intervention should instead be realized as well.
We must always respect the historical and human context, and try to recover the Vitruvian ideal, the idea that man is (also) the full centre of the city and in general of the territory (Anderson, 2013).
An open data archives would represent a valuable resource in this process.
It would collect technical, scientific and humanistic; moreover, it would lead these different concepts to talk to each other.
The art historian would see not only the monuments, palaces, and artworks but also the physical and structural connections networks involving them. The architect and urban planner instead would not only have access to facilities and maps but also could observe the connections of thought and style that make up the culture of a city. Culture over the years has become increasingly specialized; an open data archive compensates in part for the lack of eclecticism which studies condemn us, providing us with information and tools but above all research ideas, to enrich our personal cultural background and to produce more complete and perhaps better studies.
In recent months another earthquake has hit central Italy, involving towns, cities of art, nature reserves and museums. The reconstruction will be long and complicated, articulated in several stages and expensive.
'Museo condiviso' (Shared museum) is a project based on open access culture that has been proposed to institutions and stakeholders as a possible instrument to contribute to a harmonious rebirth of the area.
There are two objectives: the first, more modest, it is to create a high quality of open resource database that can be used to deliver marketing campaigns for the territory. The second, more ambitious, involves the creation of a digital library, an open archive of scientific research based on the area that allows to observe, learn and study cities and towns with a transverse view, without excluding their geographical, cultural and social background.
It is obviously a work in progress, incredibly complex, that perhaps will never see the light in its entirety.
But we believe that our program will become a useful tool, not only for us but also for other realities.
The project has just started: we are still gathering forces and consensus, creating a series of guidelines and defining priorities and best practices.
But we would like to share with you this experience. And most importantly, we believe that the opinions and advice, especially by scholars and experts from abroad can be a great help for us.
Perhaps this is more a plea for help and support that a valid argument for a call. You can judge better than us.
But we followed your instructions to the letter: you have said: 'Research as Open Work - please interpret this as you wish'.
We have a project based on Open Access that will appeal to researchers, to organizations and citizens.
A project that still has not been defined at all and you could help us improve. We hope so much that you would like to discuss it with us.
_
GSSI: http://www.gssi.infn.it/
Open Data Ricostruzione: http://opendataricostruzione.gssi.it/
Museo condiviso: http://museocondiviso.riletture.eu
Anderson, C. (2013). Renaissance architecture. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Forman, R. (2014). Urban ecology. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Settis, S. (2016). If Venice dies. 1st ed. New York: New Vessel Press.
Bibliography
Mario Andrea Valori obtained a Master of Laws (Università di Milano) and a Master of Science in Public Policy and Administration (Università di Macerata). He has worked as a private consultant in law and economics from 2009, he has worked for public and private institutions, as well as for the European 7th Framework Program. Currently Mario Andrea Valori is interested in cybernetics related to law and public administration, with a special focus on new technologies and on cultural and environmental heritage.
Name
Andrea Valori
Affiliation
University of Camerino (Italy)
Title and Extract
MUSEO CONDIVISO: open access for a rebirth
A few days ago (19 December 2016) GSSI (Gran Sasso Science Institute, an international school for advanced studies located in L'Aquila - Italy) had presented a new portal - 'Open Data Ricostruzione'.
The project aims to collect and make available economic and financial data about the reconstruction of Central Italy territory after the earthquake of 2009.
It is a structured and exportable archive, which promotes the informed participation of citizens in decision-making and allows a public accounting of expenses, in accordance with national and European legislation.
The project is certainly commendable, especially in a closed and bureaucratic environment as the Italian one. But the idea behind it is even more exemplary.
Urban environments are always complex scenarios; and urban planning is a complex science, which can not be reduced to a handful of architectural best practices and legal standards (Forman, 2014). Yet more and more often we seem to forget about it.
Examples are innumerable: much better than me, Salvatore Settis authoritatively argued in his wonderful style the death of Venice (Settis, 2016).
Venice: a magnificent city that lives on tourism and that in a short-sighted adaptation to this, is dying. Among the most prominent sample, we have the MOSE, as well as many of the more or less valid proposals submitted in those years for the protection of the city (‘Acqualta 2060’ is perhaps the most striking example).
All of these do not seem to understand the underground reality of Venice - their approaches regard Venice as a showcase, a relic of the past, something to crystallize and to keep, not to live.
Instead valuable interventions have received strong criticism. The town in 2013 renamed part of the 'nizioleti' (the old streets), using the last historical 'Catastico' (1786). This choice has aroused controversy by many citizens and organizations, not knowing the great philological study had preceded it, who have regarded the change as an annoying modernization and not as a return to the Venetian koiné.
Any intervention should instead be realized as well.
We must always respect the historical and human context, and try to recover the Vitruvian ideal, the idea that man is (also) the full centre of the city and in general of the territory (Anderson, 2013).
An open data archives would represent a valuable resource in this process.
It would collect technical, scientific and humanistic; moreover, it would lead these different concepts to talk to each other.
The art historian would see not only the monuments, palaces, and artworks but also the physical and structural connections networks involving them. The architect and urban planner instead would not only have access to facilities and maps but also could observe the connections of thought and style that make up the culture of a city. Culture over the years has become increasingly specialized; an open data archive compensates in part for the lack of eclecticism which studies condemn us, providing us with information and tools but above all research ideas, to enrich our personal cultural background and to produce more complete and perhaps better studies.
In recent months another earthquake has hit central Italy, involving towns, cities of art, nature reserves and museums. The reconstruction will be long and complicated, articulated in several stages and expensive.
'Museo condiviso' (Shared museum) is a project based on open access culture that has been proposed to institutions and stakeholders as a possible instrument to contribute to a harmonious rebirth of the area.
There are two objectives: the first, more modest, it is to create a high quality of open resource database that can be used to deliver marketing campaigns for the territory. The second, more ambitious, involves the creation of a digital library, an open archive of scientific research based on the area that allows to observe, learn and study cities and towns with a transverse view, without excluding their geographical, cultural and social background.
It is obviously a work in progress, incredibly complex, that perhaps will never see the light in its entirety.
But we believe that our program will become a useful tool, not only for us but also for other realities.
The project has just started: we are still gathering forces and consensus, creating a series of guidelines and defining priorities and best practices.
But we would like to share with you this experience. And most importantly, we believe that the opinions and advice, especially by scholars and experts from abroad can be a great help for us.
Perhaps this is more a plea for help and support that a valid argument for a call. You can judge better than us.
But we followed your instructions to the letter: you have said: 'Research as Open Work - please interpret this as you wish'.
We have a project based on Open Access that will appeal to researchers, to organizations and citizens.
A project that still has not been defined at all and you could help us improve. We hope so much that you would like to discuss it with us.
_
GSSI: http://www.gssi.infn.it/
Open Data Ricostruzione: http://opendataricostruzione.gssi.it/
Museo condiviso: http://museocondiviso.riletture.eu
Anderson, C. (2013). Renaissance architecture. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Forman, R. (2014). Urban ecology. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Settis, S. (2016). If Venice dies. 1st ed. New York: New Vessel Press.
Bibliography
Mario Andrea Valori obtained a Master of Laws (Università di Milano) and a Master of Science in Public Policy and Administration (Università di Macerata). He has worked as a private consultant in law and economics from 2009, he has worked for public and private institutions, as well as for the European 7th Framework Program. Currently Mario Andrea Valori is interested in cybernetics related to law and public administration, with a special focus on new technologies and on cultural and environmental heritage.
Session B: 001
Name
Kon Kim
Affiliation
University of Westminster
Title and Extract
Open-ended responses to urban void: temporary use of long-term vacant spaces in the developmental-state context of Seoul.
Since the second half of the twentieth century, world cities have undergone the economic and political restructuring, which affected the global division of labour, and subsequently confronted many old industrial cities with a dramatic urban decline. The 2008 global financial crisis has prompted a widespread politics of austerity in post-industrial cities, and pushed their property market into deep recession. The result appeared as an increasing urban vacancy, and resultant socioeconomic polarization of the spatial production across the globe. In response to the emerging vacant spaces, many global city governments have recently attempted to introduce experimental policy platforms to benefit from temporary uses of long-term vacant land. In such temporary platforms, socially interactive and spatially open actions have been encouraged through the bottom-up creativity among communities, corresponding to Umberto Eco’s ‘open situation in movement’ (Eco, 1989). Yet, the institutional responses to this change vary significantly, while city governments correspond largely to their specific social, political, cultural context. In the sense, this paper explores temporary, flexible, and experimental responses to vacant properties in the urban context of South Korea where the spirit of developmental state has still lingered in planning. Drawing on examples from Seoul, the paper may sheds some light on how to start a conversation with the public in the contemporary planning processes, which have been often overlooked in the developmental states’ urban context.
Reference
Eco, U., 1989. The open work, trans. Anna Cancogni. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.
Biography
Kon Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in Urban Studies at the University of Westminster. His Ph.D. research, sponsored by MOE (Ministry of Education, South Korea), centers around the theme of ‘temporary urbanism’: the understanding of roles of informal urban players, and their impacts on the longer-term transformation of the temporary urban spaces in the different institutional contexts, London and Seoul. He obtained his bachelor degree in Architecture from Korea National University of Arts (RIBA Part 2), and holds a Master of Science degree in Urban Regeneration from University College London (2015). Kon worked as a design coordinator in different architectural practices in Korea and Japan between 2009 and 2014, and also has professional experiences as an urban researcher in the city government in Korea. He is a chartered RIBA Architect, and a licentiate member of RTPI in the UK.
Name
Kon Kim
Affiliation
University of Westminster
Title and Extract
Open-ended responses to urban void: temporary use of long-term vacant spaces in the developmental-state context of Seoul.
Since the second half of the twentieth century, world cities have undergone the economic and political restructuring, which affected the global division of labour, and subsequently confronted many old industrial cities with a dramatic urban decline. The 2008 global financial crisis has prompted a widespread politics of austerity in post-industrial cities, and pushed their property market into deep recession. The result appeared as an increasing urban vacancy, and resultant socioeconomic polarization of the spatial production across the globe. In response to the emerging vacant spaces, many global city governments have recently attempted to introduce experimental policy platforms to benefit from temporary uses of long-term vacant land. In such temporary platforms, socially interactive and spatially open actions have been encouraged through the bottom-up creativity among communities, corresponding to Umberto Eco’s ‘open situation in movement’ (Eco, 1989). Yet, the institutional responses to this change vary significantly, while city governments correspond largely to their specific social, political, cultural context. In the sense, this paper explores temporary, flexible, and experimental responses to vacant properties in the urban context of South Korea where the spirit of developmental state has still lingered in planning. Drawing on examples from Seoul, the paper may sheds some light on how to start a conversation with the public in the contemporary planning processes, which have been often overlooked in the developmental states’ urban context.
Reference
Eco, U., 1989. The open work, trans. Anna Cancogni. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.
Biography
Kon Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in Urban Studies at the University of Westminster. His Ph.D. research, sponsored by MOE (Ministry of Education, South Korea), centers around the theme of ‘temporary urbanism’: the understanding of roles of informal urban players, and their impacts on the longer-term transformation of the temporary urban spaces in the different institutional contexts, London and Seoul. He obtained his bachelor degree in Architecture from Korea National University of Arts (RIBA Part 2), and holds a Master of Science degree in Urban Regeneration from University College London (2015). Kon worked as a design coordinator in different architectural practices in Korea and Japan between 2009 and 2014, and also has professional experiences as an urban researcher in the city government in Korea. He is a chartered RIBA Architect, and a licentiate member of RTPI in the UK.
Session B: 002
Name
Silviu Medeșan
Affiliation
Faculty of Architecture - Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania & visiting PhD student at School of Architecture, University of Sheffield
Title and Extract
“La Terenuri” [At the Playgrounds] – from the construction of situations to common spaces
Using concepts coming from Situationist theories of intervention in the city is an option of interpreting contemporary experiments in temporary architecture, participatory urbanism or urban interventions. Although these experiments do not directly take upon themselves the realization of the Situationist project, rather simply inheriting a language and concepts that lost awareness of their origin, they still function as Situationists described them. The International Situationist Movement is the first avant-garde that builds a frame/tool of direct action based on the urban form, with the goal of changing it and, simultaneously, of transforming society as a whole. Of course, this project has been a utopian one, and the extreme radical character of the theory of Situationists bothers, however, in noticing the fact that “hedonistic, domesticated and attenuated forms of Situationist constructions have find a place in existing societies” (Hecken, 2007, p. 75). This text intends to look at the experiment-project “La Terenuri” (in Mănăştur – mass housing neighborhood in Cluj-Napoca, Romania) through the “Situationist” prism, in an operation of placing in a thought-system a project that wishes to work in an interdisciplinary manner. Dana Vais notices how today one can hardly make the difference between the mode of action of architects and that of artists: “artists focus a lot on urban space, while architects sometimes perform like artists” (Vais, 2010, p. 48); in this overlapping, of the two disciplines, what counts more is “the understanding beyond aesthetics of art itself – art’s capacity to expand its traditional scope and means, to enter also the spaces that were conventionally assigned to the disciplines of architecture or urbanism” (ibid.).
Introduction to the “La Terenuri” project
[…] Specifically, the “La Terenuri” area has been attractive to the project because it is an open green space, unbuilt, with a potentiality to become a public park, which would be extremely needed in the density of Mănăştur. On top of this, the area has a complex history that brings into discussion the brutal intervention of urban planning on a rural fabric: the agricultural lands of the former Mănăştur village (Belkis, Coman, Sîrbu, & Troc, 2003, p. 147) . The consequences of this impact can be still felt and there are ongoing trials of claiming back the lands. This status of provisionality left room to interesting phenomena, which have their origin in the first years of the neighborhood: urban gardens appearing on spots that were former agricultural lands, “mutant” practices of using urban space, invented by the population massively moved in from the rural areas surrounding Cluj (Troc, 2003, p. 155). It is remarkable, however, that this use is very fragmented by groups that often run into conflicts: groups of children, groups of teenagers, groups of pet lovers, groups of those who are using it for relaxation (picnic, tanning, walking), groups of those who are into various sports.
[...]
The “Dacia” Cinema
The building of the former “Dacia” comunist Cinema, in the proximity of the “La Terenuri” area, was recuperated, renovated and opened for the public in the summer of 2016 by the municipality of Cluj. This cultural center functions on the same basis as other centers owned by the municipality: organized events are planned according to the order of rental requests for the spaces. Therefore, practically the municipality does not take responsibility for any form of filtration of the hosted content. This simplistic mechanism of “curatorship”, although it seems at first sight as the most democratic that can be, presents a series of problems: big events are encouraged (festivals, corporate events), which have no relationship with the local community (often residents do not participate in these events), their schedule is established long in advance (because grand organizers have their activity plans programmed well ahead), and identified local actors remain without a space for expression. They are excluded from the programming because, without experience in this sort of matters, they do not know how the access to space functions and are not encouraged by any means to participate. Thus, these centers, very well localized within the neighborhoods, therefore, with a great potential of contributing to the cultural life of the neighborhood, become only “exotic” satellites of large central festivals or spaces for commercial events. […] By constructing situations in public spaces, the “La Terenuri” project has created a platform were residents can express themselves. As I was showing above, the overcoming of spectacle makes the public go on stage and create its own spectacle. One of the most successful instruments used by “La Terenuri” on the external stage is the “open microphone” concept. In these sessions, anybody from the public can express themselves on stage, therefore anybody from the public is a potential artist. This instrument empowers residents to express themselves: in four years of the “La Terenuri” project, there appeared a number of actors interested in culture. These new actors constantly collaborate with the “La Terenuri” collective and benefit from the advantages and the networks of the Colectiv A Association, as well as of the “La Terenuri” project, producing new relations among residents, developing processes and rhizomatically building situations that become independent. The idea of the project for the “Dacia” Cinema is to develop activities with the help of these new actors, activities enriching the program of the center. Unfortunately, however, the management of this institution did not fully interiorize the stake of empowering residents of the neighborhood to produce a part from the activities of the center. Political power feels threatened when a real participation of residents in the production of culture is proposed, because this “empowerment” emancipates the “spectator”. Through situation building, the residents, from simple consumers and electoral masses, transform into active and concerned citizens, who look critically at political decision. The power of micro-politics threatens political power, the latter preferring to imitate participation and to keep force intact. In this case we can observe the direct struggle between genuine construction and the spectacle exposed by Debord in The Society of Spectacle. Spectacle wants to separate and alienate the social through images (Debord, 1967), while situation building, through collective creativity, wants to materialize a common space in the “Dacia” Cinema.
References:
Belkis, D., Coman, G., Sîrbu, C., & Troc, G. (2003). Construirea urbană, socială și simbolică a cartierului Mănăștur [The Urban, Social and Symbolic Contruction of the Mănăştur Neighborhood]. IDEA arts + society, (15–16), 135–151. Accessed at http://idea.ro/revista/?q=ro/node/40&articol=185
Debord, G. (1967). La Société du spectacle. Paris: Gallimard. Accessed at http://cataleg.upf.edu/record=b1252048~S11*spi
Hecken, T. (2007). The Bohemian Life - the Politics of the Avant-garde. In J. Steiner, S. Zweifel, & H. Stahlhut (Eds.), In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni - the Situationist International (1957-1972), (74–75). Zürich: JRP|Ringier.
Troc, G. (2003). “După blocuri” sau despre starea actuală a cartierelor muncitorești ["Behind the blocks" or of the Current State of Working Class Neighborhoods]. IDEA arts + society, (15–16), 152–157. Accessed at http://www.idea.ro/revista/?q=ro/node/40&articol=184
Vais, D. (2010). Secondary agency: learning from Boris Groys. In F. Kossak, D. Petrescu, T. Schneider, R. Tyszczuk, & S. Walker (eds.), Agency: Working with Uncertain Architectures, (47–60). London: Routledge.
Biography
Silviu Medeșan (1984) works as an architect in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He's interested in design, art, architecture and cross disciplinary interventions in public space. He coordinated Cluj Architecture Biennale in 2009 and he participated in Venice Biennale in 2010. Since 2012 he works with the Colectiv A Association in the neighbourhood project ‘At the Playgrounds - Common Space in Mănăștur’. He is a PhD Student at Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism in Cluj with the thesis 'Form follows situation - contemporary city as foreseen by situationists' supervised by Prof. Dana Vais. Currently, he is a visiting PhD student at Sheffield School of Architecture, supervised by Prof. Doina Petrescu.
Name
Silviu Medeșan
Affiliation
Faculty of Architecture - Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania & visiting PhD student at School of Architecture, University of Sheffield
Title and Extract
“La Terenuri” [At the Playgrounds] – from the construction of situations to common spaces
Using concepts coming from Situationist theories of intervention in the city is an option of interpreting contemporary experiments in temporary architecture, participatory urbanism or urban interventions. Although these experiments do not directly take upon themselves the realization of the Situationist project, rather simply inheriting a language and concepts that lost awareness of their origin, they still function as Situationists described them. The International Situationist Movement is the first avant-garde that builds a frame/tool of direct action based on the urban form, with the goal of changing it and, simultaneously, of transforming society as a whole. Of course, this project has been a utopian one, and the extreme radical character of the theory of Situationists bothers, however, in noticing the fact that “hedonistic, domesticated and attenuated forms of Situationist constructions have find a place in existing societies” (Hecken, 2007, p. 75). This text intends to look at the experiment-project “La Terenuri” (in Mănăştur – mass housing neighborhood in Cluj-Napoca, Romania) through the “Situationist” prism, in an operation of placing in a thought-system a project that wishes to work in an interdisciplinary manner. Dana Vais notices how today one can hardly make the difference between the mode of action of architects and that of artists: “artists focus a lot on urban space, while architects sometimes perform like artists” (Vais, 2010, p. 48); in this overlapping, of the two disciplines, what counts more is “the understanding beyond aesthetics of art itself – art’s capacity to expand its traditional scope and means, to enter also the spaces that were conventionally assigned to the disciplines of architecture or urbanism” (ibid.).
Introduction to the “La Terenuri” project
[…] Specifically, the “La Terenuri” area has been attractive to the project because it is an open green space, unbuilt, with a potentiality to become a public park, which would be extremely needed in the density of Mănăştur. On top of this, the area has a complex history that brings into discussion the brutal intervention of urban planning on a rural fabric: the agricultural lands of the former Mănăştur village (Belkis, Coman, Sîrbu, & Troc, 2003, p. 147) . The consequences of this impact can be still felt and there are ongoing trials of claiming back the lands. This status of provisionality left room to interesting phenomena, which have their origin in the first years of the neighborhood: urban gardens appearing on spots that were former agricultural lands, “mutant” practices of using urban space, invented by the population massively moved in from the rural areas surrounding Cluj (Troc, 2003, p. 155). It is remarkable, however, that this use is very fragmented by groups that often run into conflicts: groups of children, groups of teenagers, groups of pet lovers, groups of those who are using it for relaxation (picnic, tanning, walking), groups of those who are into various sports.
[...]
The “Dacia” Cinema
The building of the former “Dacia” comunist Cinema, in the proximity of the “La Terenuri” area, was recuperated, renovated and opened for the public in the summer of 2016 by the municipality of Cluj. This cultural center functions on the same basis as other centers owned by the municipality: organized events are planned according to the order of rental requests for the spaces. Therefore, practically the municipality does not take responsibility for any form of filtration of the hosted content. This simplistic mechanism of “curatorship”, although it seems at first sight as the most democratic that can be, presents a series of problems: big events are encouraged (festivals, corporate events), which have no relationship with the local community (often residents do not participate in these events), their schedule is established long in advance (because grand organizers have their activity plans programmed well ahead), and identified local actors remain without a space for expression. They are excluded from the programming because, without experience in this sort of matters, they do not know how the access to space functions and are not encouraged by any means to participate. Thus, these centers, very well localized within the neighborhoods, therefore, with a great potential of contributing to the cultural life of the neighborhood, become only “exotic” satellites of large central festivals or spaces for commercial events. […] By constructing situations in public spaces, the “La Terenuri” project has created a platform were residents can express themselves. As I was showing above, the overcoming of spectacle makes the public go on stage and create its own spectacle. One of the most successful instruments used by “La Terenuri” on the external stage is the “open microphone” concept. In these sessions, anybody from the public can express themselves on stage, therefore anybody from the public is a potential artist. This instrument empowers residents to express themselves: in four years of the “La Terenuri” project, there appeared a number of actors interested in culture. These new actors constantly collaborate with the “La Terenuri” collective and benefit from the advantages and the networks of the Colectiv A Association, as well as of the “La Terenuri” project, producing new relations among residents, developing processes and rhizomatically building situations that become independent. The idea of the project for the “Dacia” Cinema is to develop activities with the help of these new actors, activities enriching the program of the center. Unfortunately, however, the management of this institution did not fully interiorize the stake of empowering residents of the neighborhood to produce a part from the activities of the center. Political power feels threatened when a real participation of residents in the production of culture is proposed, because this “empowerment” emancipates the “spectator”. Through situation building, the residents, from simple consumers and electoral masses, transform into active and concerned citizens, who look critically at political decision. The power of micro-politics threatens political power, the latter preferring to imitate participation and to keep force intact. In this case we can observe the direct struggle between genuine construction and the spectacle exposed by Debord in The Society of Spectacle. Spectacle wants to separate and alienate the social through images (Debord, 1967), while situation building, through collective creativity, wants to materialize a common space in the “Dacia” Cinema.
References:
Belkis, D., Coman, G., Sîrbu, C., & Troc, G. (2003). Construirea urbană, socială și simbolică a cartierului Mănăștur [The Urban, Social and Symbolic Contruction of the Mănăştur Neighborhood]. IDEA arts + society, (15–16), 135–151. Accessed at http://idea.ro/revista/?q=ro/node/40&articol=185
Debord, G. (1967). La Société du spectacle. Paris: Gallimard. Accessed at http://cataleg.upf.edu/record=b1252048~S11*spi
Hecken, T. (2007). The Bohemian Life - the Politics of the Avant-garde. In J. Steiner, S. Zweifel, & H. Stahlhut (Eds.), In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni - the Situationist International (1957-1972), (74–75). Zürich: JRP|Ringier.
Troc, G. (2003). “După blocuri” sau despre starea actuală a cartierelor muncitorești ["Behind the blocks" or of the Current State of Working Class Neighborhoods]. IDEA arts + society, (15–16), 152–157. Accessed at http://www.idea.ro/revista/?q=ro/node/40&articol=184
Vais, D. (2010). Secondary agency: learning from Boris Groys. In F. Kossak, D. Petrescu, T. Schneider, R. Tyszczuk, & S. Walker (eds.), Agency: Working with Uncertain Architectures, (47–60). London: Routledge.
Biography
Silviu Medeșan (1984) works as an architect in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He's interested in design, art, architecture and cross disciplinary interventions in public space. He coordinated Cluj Architecture Biennale in 2009 and he participated in Venice Biennale in 2010. Since 2012 he works with the Colectiv A Association in the neighbourhood project ‘At the Playgrounds - Common Space in Mănăștur’. He is a PhD Student at Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism in Cluj with the thesis 'Form follows situation - contemporary city as foreseen by situationists' supervised by Prof. Dana Vais. Currently, he is a visiting PhD student at Sheffield School of Architecture, supervised by Prof. Doina Petrescu.
Session B: 003
Name
Fatemeh Rostami
Affiliation
University of East London
Title and Extract
Urban Form and Culture Case study: Yazd, Iran
This paper uses mixed methods to consider how an urban place can be formed and defined by its residents’ beliefs and religious practices using the city of Yazd, Iran as a case study. Yazd has a diverse urban form composed of three distinct parts: the Historic, Old, and New parts. This unique urban form gives rise to a question as to why the city has been developed the way it has. Some earlier research has been done analysing the physical form of the city. However, at the present time, no research has been done concerning its social effects. This paper attempts to fill this gap.
The information presented here forms part of my doctoral field trip taken in order to understand the present state of the city through its residents’ daily activities. In this paper, a Zoroastrian community inhabiting a district located in the old part of Yazd was surveyed and interviewed to examine their everyday activities. The participants were of an age range between 19 and 84, genders, and occupations. 46 Zoroastrians filled their questionnaires along with 7 individual interviewees. This information was combined with the researcher’s personal observations of how the place is used.
The data gathered shows that the Zoroastrian neighbourhood has been influenced by its inhabitant’s beliefs and religious practices that have affected the neighbourhood formation and inhabitant’s social relationships. These findings put forward an open question to what extent resident's beliefs and unconscious bias should be taken into account in the design of an urban place.
Keywords
Urban Place, Yazd, Everyday Activities, Religion, Zoroastrian Community.
Biography
Fatemeh Rostami holds a Bachelor's degree in Architectural Engineering from the Islamic Azad University of Taft, Iran and a MA Architecture: Urban Design from the University of East London where she is currently a PhD candidate. Her interests are in exploring the human and social component of cities. She will be presenting a paper entitled 'Urban Change and Memory' at the Symposia Iranica at Cambridge University in April 2017.
Name
Fatemeh Rostami
Affiliation
University of East London
Title and Extract
Urban Form and Culture Case study: Yazd, Iran
This paper uses mixed methods to consider how an urban place can be formed and defined by its residents’ beliefs and religious practices using the city of Yazd, Iran as a case study. Yazd has a diverse urban form composed of three distinct parts: the Historic, Old, and New parts. This unique urban form gives rise to a question as to why the city has been developed the way it has. Some earlier research has been done analysing the physical form of the city. However, at the present time, no research has been done concerning its social effects. This paper attempts to fill this gap.
The information presented here forms part of my doctoral field trip taken in order to understand the present state of the city through its residents’ daily activities. In this paper, a Zoroastrian community inhabiting a district located in the old part of Yazd was surveyed and interviewed to examine their everyday activities. The participants were of an age range between 19 and 84, genders, and occupations. 46 Zoroastrians filled their questionnaires along with 7 individual interviewees. This information was combined with the researcher’s personal observations of how the place is used.
The data gathered shows that the Zoroastrian neighbourhood has been influenced by its inhabitant’s beliefs and religious practices that have affected the neighbourhood formation and inhabitant’s social relationships. These findings put forward an open question to what extent resident's beliefs and unconscious bias should be taken into account in the design of an urban place.
Keywords
Urban Place, Yazd, Everyday Activities, Religion, Zoroastrian Community.
Biography
Fatemeh Rostami holds a Bachelor's degree in Architectural Engineering from the Islamic Azad University of Taft, Iran and a MA Architecture: Urban Design from the University of East London where she is currently a PhD candidate. Her interests are in exploring the human and social component of cities. She will be presenting a paper entitled 'Urban Change and Memory' at the Symposia Iranica at Cambridge University in April 2017.
Session B: 004
Name
Ula A. Khalel Merie
Affiliation
School of Architecture, University of Sheffield
Title and Extract
Exploring of the reflective urban relation between the city and the university; with special reference Baghdad university, Iraq
The spatial structure of the university is strongly tied to the urban context on which it is based. This paper looks fundamentally on the complex role of the urban configuration of the university and the surrounding urban context. It will explore this on two particular urban configurations of the university campus, the campus as city and the inner city campus in the context of Baghdad city. Baghdad as an urban context has witnessed a series of conflict situations in the last decades, whether they were associated with: political changes; war; sanction or terrorism. These challenges have impacted the dynamism of the city development in general and in turn has influenced the university campus relation with its surrounding. This paper argues that such circumstances could decline the potential roles of the urban configuration of the campus which might affect the quality of the urban relation with its surroundings.
To address this, the research will explore the urban relation between in the University of Baghdad and the city in terms of the urban configuration of the campus and the university as a research environment and public engagement. The literature review indicated four main variables as a framework to understand the urban role of the university, in terms of social, cultural, economic and urban planning. The suggested methodology proposed three main phases: Descriptive and interpretive approach will be used to understand the policy changes, fieldwork and site observation to understand the urban changes, interview with the main stakeholders and policy makers. The primary source of data is university achieve, government legislation, city master plans, fieldwork material (photograph, note taking).
Key words
university campus, university - city urban relation, urban integration quality.
Biography
Ula A. khalel Merie Holds a bachelor degree in Architectural Engineering in 2007 and Master’s degree in urban design and housing planning from the University of Baghdad 2010. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Sheffield, school of architecture. Where she awarded a scholarship from HCED Iraq. Ula worked as an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Architecture at the University of Babylon before joining the scholarship, an architect and an urban planner in different architectural practices in Jordan and Iraq.
Her Ph.D. study focuses on the education environment, campus design and the urban planning of the city. Particularly it is concerned with the question how to enhance the relation between the education environment and its urban context in order to improve the integration between them and promote the city identity. Taking Baghdad city as the main case study to explore this relation.
Her PhD research is going under the supervision of Dr. Florian Kossak, Sheffield School of Architecture.
Name
Ula A. Khalel Merie
Affiliation
School of Architecture, University of Sheffield
Title and Extract
Exploring of the reflective urban relation between the city and the university; with special reference Baghdad university, Iraq
The spatial structure of the university is strongly tied to the urban context on which it is based. This paper looks fundamentally on the complex role of the urban configuration of the university and the surrounding urban context. It will explore this on two particular urban configurations of the university campus, the campus as city and the inner city campus in the context of Baghdad city. Baghdad as an urban context has witnessed a series of conflict situations in the last decades, whether they were associated with: political changes; war; sanction or terrorism. These challenges have impacted the dynamism of the city development in general and in turn has influenced the university campus relation with its surrounding. This paper argues that such circumstances could decline the potential roles of the urban configuration of the campus which might affect the quality of the urban relation with its surroundings.
To address this, the research will explore the urban relation between in the University of Baghdad and the city in terms of the urban configuration of the campus and the university as a research environment and public engagement. The literature review indicated four main variables as a framework to understand the urban role of the university, in terms of social, cultural, economic and urban planning. The suggested methodology proposed three main phases: Descriptive and interpretive approach will be used to understand the policy changes, fieldwork and site observation to understand the urban changes, interview with the main stakeholders and policy makers. The primary source of data is university achieve, government legislation, city master plans, fieldwork material (photograph, note taking).
Key words
university campus, university - city urban relation, urban integration quality.
Biography
Ula A. khalel Merie Holds a bachelor degree in Architectural Engineering in 2007 and Master’s degree in urban design and housing planning from the University of Baghdad 2010. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Sheffield, school of architecture. Where she awarded a scholarship from HCED Iraq. Ula worked as an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Architecture at the University of Babylon before joining the scholarship, an architect and an urban planner in different architectural practices in Jordan and Iraq.
Her Ph.D. study focuses on the education environment, campus design and the urban planning of the city. Particularly it is concerned with the question how to enhance the relation between the education environment and its urban context in order to improve the integration between them and promote the city identity. Taking Baghdad city as the main case study to explore this relation.
Her PhD research is going under the supervision of Dr. Florian Kossak, Sheffield School of Architecture.
Session C: 001
Name
Chuan Wang
Affiliation
University of Edinburgh
Title and Extract
Decoding Planning Concepts from a Perspective of Lacan’s Four Discourses - A Case Study of Urban Village in British Planning Policy
In the contemporary age of information explosion, numerous new planning concepts are being invented in pursuit of better urban environment, whilst many concepts in planning disciplines remain notoriously difficult to define. Many planning scholars and practitioners doubt the validity and effectiveness of some planning concepts, such as public interest (Campbell and Marshall, 2002), smart growth (Downs, 2005), and sustainable development (Marcuse, 1998). This article infuses Lacan’s Four Discourses into planning theory to decipher how the complex social effects influence the process of applying planning concepts to urban policy and urban projects, with a focus on the urban village in British planning policy.
This article employs Four Discourses theory since the complex social relations behind urban policy and urban projects can be decoded through the tangible analytical tools of Four Discourses schemata (Lacan, 2007). Lacan’s theory provides an insight into the process of how ideology shapes social reality (Glynos, 2001), and enables scholars in other fields to understand a cautionary portrait of thinking-as-it-happens (Bowie, 1988). Therefore, the discussion and implementation of planning concepts can be analysed according to four fundamental social effects in the schemata: indoctrinating; governing/rationalising; desiring; analysing/subverting. It helps to find the real motivation, the targeted audience and the actual production of planning discourse.
After a brief introduction of some fuzzy concepts in planning disciplines, this research focuses on the vicissitude of urban village in British planning policy and urban development. This concept, supported by the Prince of Wales, was popular among planners and estate developers in the 1990s and early 2000s and was applied to more than 50 urban development projects (Biddulph et al., 2003). At its peak popularity, it was included as a section in UK Government’s core planning document - Planning Policy Guidance 1 (1997).
People involved in the British Urban Village Campaign were categorised into several groups depending on their positions in the campaign: The Prince of Wales, Urban Village Group, UK Government, real estate developers, rational researchers and intuitive commentators. Through the analysis of public speeches, governmental documents (planning guidance, funding initiatives and regional plans), interviews, academic publication and media reports, it uses the analytical schemata of Four Discourses to probe how people in different social positions understood, participated in and reacted to the then-new planning concept and how they interact with other social groups.
It reveals that the planning concepts like urban village are understood differently depending on the individuals’ social positions. To some extent, their social positions, rather than how progressive the planning concepts really are, determine their potential actions towards planning concepts. It explains the uncertainty and mutability of planning concepts in planning disciplines and discloses the real production of the discussion of planning concepts.
References
Biddulph M, Franklin B and Tait M. (2003) From Concept to Completion: A Critical Analysis of the Urban Village. The Town Planning Review 74: 165-193.
Bowie M. (1988) Freud, Proust and Lacan: theory as fiction: Cambridge University Press.
Campbell H and Marshall R. (2002) Utilitarianism’s Bad Breath? A Re-Evaluation of the Public Interest Justification for Planning. Planning Theory 1: 163-187.
DoE. (1997) Planning Policy Guidance 1: General Policy and Principles (PPG1). London: The Stationery Office for Department of the Environment.
Downs A. (2005) Smart Growth: Why We Discuss It More than We Do It. Journal of the American planning association 71: 367-378.
Glynos J. (2001) The grip of ideology: a Lacanian approach to the theory of ideology. Journal of Political Ideologies 6: 191-214.
Lacan J. (2007) Seminar, XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis: New York: Norton.
Marcuse P. (1998) Sustainability is not enough. Environment and urbanization 10: 103-112.
Biography
Mr. Chuan Wang is a PhD Candidate in Architecture at the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA), University of Edinburgh, sponsored by the University of Edinburgh / China Scholarship Council Joint Scholarship. His doctoral research probes how urban ideals are understood, discussed and implemented in planning disciplines from linguistic and philosophical perspectives, with the title ‘Deciphering Contemporary Urban Ideals’. Chuan has published an English book chapter in Encore l'architecture Encore la philosophie and Chinese research articles in Beijing Planning Review and Proceedings of Chinese Annual Planning Conference 2015. He graduated from Tsinghua University with a Bachelor of Architecture (2011) and a Master of Engineering in City and Rural Planning (2013), both granted with National Scholarships. In Edinburgh, he also teaches in design studio and theory courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Name
Chuan Wang
Affiliation
University of Edinburgh
Title and Extract
Decoding Planning Concepts from a Perspective of Lacan’s Four Discourses - A Case Study of Urban Village in British Planning Policy
In the contemporary age of information explosion, numerous new planning concepts are being invented in pursuit of better urban environment, whilst many concepts in planning disciplines remain notoriously difficult to define. Many planning scholars and practitioners doubt the validity and effectiveness of some planning concepts, such as public interest (Campbell and Marshall, 2002), smart growth (Downs, 2005), and sustainable development (Marcuse, 1998). This article infuses Lacan’s Four Discourses into planning theory to decipher how the complex social effects influence the process of applying planning concepts to urban policy and urban projects, with a focus on the urban village in British planning policy.
This article employs Four Discourses theory since the complex social relations behind urban policy and urban projects can be decoded through the tangible analytical tools of Four Discourses schemata (Lacan, 2007). Lacan’s theory provides an insight into the process of how ideology shapes social reality (Glynos, 2001), and enables scholars in other fields to understand a cautionary portrait of thinking-as-it-happens (Bowie, 1988). Therefore, the discussion and implementation of planning concepts can be analysed according to four fundamental social effects in the schemata: indoctrinating; governing/rationalising; desiring; analysing/subverting. It helps to find the real motivation, the targeted audience and the actual production of planning discourse.
After a brief introduction of some fuzzy concepts in planning disciplines, this research focuses on the vicissitude of urban village in British planning policy and urban development. This concept, supported by the Prince of Wales, was popular among planners and estate developers in the 1990s and early 2000s and was applied to more than 50 urban development projects (Biddulph et al., 2003). At its peak popularity, it was included as a section in UK Government’s core planning document - Planning Policy Guidance 1 (1997).
People involved in the British Urban Village Campaign were categorised into several groups depending on their positions in the campaign: The Prince of Wales, Urban Village Group, UK Government, real estate developers, rational researchers and intuitive commentators. Through the analysis of public speeches, governmental documents (planning guidance, funding initiatives and regional plans), interviews, academic publication and media reports, it uses the analytical schemata of Four Discourses to probe how people in different social positions understood, participated in and reacted to the then-new planning concept and how they interact with other social groups.
It reveals that the planning concepts like urban village are understood differently depending on the individuals’ social positions. To some extent, their social positions, rather than how progressive the planning concepts really are, determine their potential actions towards planning concepts. It explains the uncertainty and mutability of planning concepts in planning disciplines and discloses the real production of the discussion of planning concepts.
References
Biddulph M, Franklin B and Tait M. (2003) From Concept to Completion: A Critical Analysis of the Urban Village. The Town Planning Review 74: 165-193.
Bowie M. (1988) Freud, Proust and Lacan: theory as fiction: Cambridge University Press.
Campbell H and Marshall R. (2002) Utilitarianism’s Bad Breath? A Re-Evaluation of the Public Interest Justification for Planning. Planning Theory 1: 163-187.
DoE. (1997) Planning Policy Guidance 1: General Policy and Principles (PPG1). London: The Stationery Office for Department of the Environment.
Downs A. (2005) Smart Growth: Why We Discuss It More than We Do It. Journal of the American planning association 71: 367-378.
Glynos J. (2001) The grip of ideology: a Lacanian approach to the theory of ideology. Journal of Political Ideologies 6: 191-214.
Lacan J. (2007) Seminar, XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis: New York: Norton.
Marcuse P. (1998) Sustainability is not enough. Environment and urbanization 10: 103-112.
Biography
Mr. Chuan Wang is a PhD Candidate in Architecture at the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA), University of Edinburgh, sponsored by the University of Edinburgh / China Scholarship Council Joint Scholarship. His doctoral research probes how urban ideals are understood, discussed and implemented in planning disciplines from linguistic and philosophical perspectives, with the title ‘Deciphering Contemporary Urban Ideals’. Chuan has published an English book chapter in Encore l'architecture Encore la philosophie and Chinese research articles in Beijing Planning Review and Proceedings of Chinese Annual Planning Conference 2015. He graduated from Tsinghua University with a Bachelor of Architecture (2011) and a Master of Engineering in City and Rural Planning (2013), both granted with National Scholarships. In Edinburgh, he also teaches in design studio and theory courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Session C: 002
Name
Pablo Jimenez-Moreno and Hafsa Olcay
Affiliation
University of Edinburgh
Title and Extract
H is for Homes
This study flows on comparisons between how the concept of “home” has been utilised to be highlighted over other terms corresponding to dwellings. The comparison starts from an artistic point of view and travels through different types of selected representations and contexts closing with the ways [construction] companies are using the concept of “home” to promote their products.
First, this study first presents how the distinction between “home” and apparent synonyms can or cannot be identified in certain languages; and then, uses the availability of such distinction in English to examine how the use of the concept of home informed the representation of dwellings. The argument is woven with artistic installations, photography, poetry, book making, architecture, music, film, journalism, graphic design and, finally, with representations for marketing purposes.
A virtual archive of images was developed simultaneously to the text as a visual research device, which did not only serve as a presentation tool, but also allowed us to envisage all the images collected in one display creating visual connections. A chiasmus was generated between the creation of the digital archive and the text, where an action on one was reflected on the other and vice versa. Aiming at engaging the readers [and the spectators] on thinking about the concept of home throughout, this study concludes by raising questions on the pretended relationships claimed by the forms of representation.
Biography
Pablo Jimenez-Moreno is a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh, with research interests on how industrialised processes are utilised for sustainable housing design. He holds an MArch from The Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art (GSA) specialising in Zero Energy Mass Custom Homes (ZEMCH) and is an active member of the international ZEMCH Network. With practice in Mexico and in Scotland, his work varies from architectural design, to research and construction.
Hafsa Olcay is a PhD student in Architecture at the University of Edinburgh. She obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Interior Architecture and Environmental Design from Bilkent University, Turkey. Her interest in design pedagogy and the formation of interior architecture as an academic discipline motivated her to explore the emergence of interior architecture education in Turkey for her master’s thesis. This was followed by professional practices throughout which she undertook collaborative design projects on varied scales. Her academic research as well as professional experience prompted her to probe the role of spatial practices in shaping the relationship between people and environment. Her current research revolves around spatial processes and questions of agency with a focus on experience and formation of memory.
Name
Pablo Jimenez-Moreno and Hafsa Olcay
Affiliation
University of Edinburgh
Title and Extract
H is for Homes
This study flows on comparisons between how the concept of “home” has been utilised to be highlighted over other terms corresponding to dwellings. The comparison starts from an artistic point of view and travels through different types of selected representations and contexts closing with the ways [construction] companies are using the concept of “home” to promote their products.
First, this study first presents how the distinction between “home” and apparent synonyms can or cannot be identified in certain languages; and then, uses the availability of such distinction in English to examine how the use of the concept of home informed the representation of dwellings. The argument is woven with artistic installations, photography, poetry, book making, architecture, music, film, journalism, graphic design and, finally, with representations for marketing purposes.
A virtual archive of images was developed simultaneously to the text as a visual research device, which did not only serve as a presentation tool, but also allowed us to envisage all the images collected in one display creating visual connections. A chiasmus was generated between the creation of the digital archive and the text, where an action on one was reflected on the other and vice versa. Aiming at engaging the readers [and the spectators] on thinking about the concept of home throughout, this study concludes by raising questions on the pretended relationships claimed by the forms of representation.
Biography
Pablo Jimenez-Moreno is a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh, with research interests on how industrialised processes are utilised for sustainable housing design. He holds an MArch from The Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art (GSA) specialising in Zero Energy Mass Custom Homes (ZEMCH) and is an active member of the international ZEMCH Network. With practice in Mexico and in Scotland, his work varies from architectural design, to research and construction.
Hafsa Olcay is a PhD student in Architecture at the University of Edinburgh. She obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Interior Architecture and Environmental Design from Bilkent University, Turkey. Her interest in design pedagogy and the formation of interior architecture as an academic discipline motivated her to explore the emergence of interior architecture education in Turkey for her master’s thesis. This was followed by professional practices throughout which she undertook collaborative design projects on varied scales. Her academic research as well as professional experience prompted her to probe the role of spatial practices in shaping the relationship between people and environment. Her current research revolves around spatial processes and questions of agency with a focus on experience and formation of memory.
Session C: 003
Name
Mohamad Al Taha
Affiliation
Sheffield School of Architecture
Title and Extract
The crucial role of intangible heritage in safeguarding the architectural heritage of Baghdad conflicted city
The past thirty years have seen increasingly rapid advances in the field of architectural conservation and its wider field of cultural heritage. A significant development has been in recognising the distinction between tangible and intangible heritage which shifts the focus from a material environment towards corporate consideration of physical and spiritual milieus. The notion of heritage as built fabric and as “places we want to keep” is superseded by an understanding that heritage encapsulates both the tangible built environment and intangible values expressed through meaning, lived experience, memories, traditions and practices.
This paper focuses on Baghdadi cultural heritage amidst the drama of conflict. Indeed, Baghdad has lost significant parts of its architectural heritage over the past 40 years due to the successive wars, international sanctions and a constant battle against global terrorism, all of which have contributed directly and indirectly to the heritage destruction of the city.
With respect to tangible heritage, the paper will demonstrate the architectural heritage loss in Rusafa, the historic core of the city, by re-surveying the citywide architectural heritage survey of 1977, the only comprehensive survey conducted prior to the instability. While intangible heritage is discussed through the case study of Al Mutannabi, which is considered by Baghdadi people as the prime cultural street of the historic city. Sadly, the street was subject to a terrorist attack in 2007 when a car bomb exploded killing 39 people and devastating a large part of its buildings and shops.
The paper argues that in spite of the wholesale destructions of Baghdadi tangible heritage, surviving intangible heritage in and around the devastated heritage places has provided the catalyst for the conservation of the architectural heritage of the city.
Biography
Mohamad Al Taha is a PhD candidate at Sheffield School of Architecture, University of Sheffield. He studied architecture at the department of Architecture, University of Technology in Baghdad. After obtaining an MSc degree in Architecture, Mohamed has worked as an assistant lecturer in his home department, designed and supervised several commercial and residential buildings in Baghdad. He is a registered architect in Iraq, a member of the Iraqi Engineers Union and the Federation of Arab Engineers. Mohamad’s PhD focuses on Baghdadi cultural heritage amidst instability and its impacts on continuity of place and identity.
Name
Mohamad Al Taha
Affiliation
Sheffield School of Architecture
Title and Extract
The crucial role of intangible heritage in safeguarding the architectural heritage of Baghdad conflicted city
The past thirty years have seen increasingly rapid advances in the field of architectural conservation and its wider field of cultural heritage. A significant development has been in recognising the distinction between tangible and intangible heritage which shifts the focus from a material environment towards corporate consideration of physical and spiritual milieus. The notion of heritage as built fabric and as “places we want to keep” is superseded by an understanding that heritage encapsulates both the tangible built environment and intangible values expressed through meaning, lived experience, memories, traditions and practices.
This paper focuses on Baghdadi cultural heritage amidst the drama of conflict. Indeed, Baghdad has lost significant parts of its architectural heritage over the past 40 years due to the successive wars, international sanctions and a constant battle against global terrorism, all of which have contributed directly and indirectly to the heritage destruction of the city.
With respect to tangible heritage, the paper will demonstrate the architectural heritage loss in Rusafa, the historic core of the city, by re-surveying the citywide architectural heritage survey of 1977, the only comprehensive survey conducted prior to the instability. While intangible heritage is discussed through the case study of Al Mutannabi, which is considered by Baghdadi people as the prime cultural street of the historic city. Sadly, the street was subject to a terrorist attack in 2007 when a car bomb exploded killing 39 people and devastating a large part of its buildings and shops.
The paper argues that in spite of the wholesale destructions of Baghdadi tangible heritage, surviving intangible heritage in and around the devastated heritage places has provided the catalyst for the conservation of the architectural heritage of the city.
Biography
Mohamad Al Taha is a PhD candidate at Sheffield School of Architecture, University of Sheffield. He studied architecture at the department of Architecture, University of Technology in Baghdad. After obtaining an MSc degree in Architecture, Mohamed has worked as an assistant lecturer in his home department, designed and supervised several commercial and residential buildings in Baghdad. He is a registered architect in Iraq, a member of the Iraqi Engineers Union and the Federation of Arab Engineers. Mohamad’s PhD focuses on Baghdadi cultural heritage amidst instability and its impacts on continuity of place and identity.
Session C: 004
Name
Jingru Cyan Cheng
Affiliation
Architectural Association
Title and Extract
A Territorial Project: 'Building a New Socialist Countryside’ in China
The fundamental alliance between a centralised planning regime and a household registration reform steers the transformation of Chinese countryside - a radical reorganisation of the rural territory and an aggressive relocation of rural population. In predominant planning strategies, growth centres are given the role of stimulating rural development yet in fact become the frontier of capitalistic accumulation. Spatial planning marks the moment of distribution and production by functional zoning and circulation arrangement, in which the process of appropriation is often concealed and naturalised. Through the hierarchical urban system extending to the rural territory, labour, land and capital are being drained from the countryside, a process stretches from a single village at one extreme to the ‘urban core’ of the world at the other extreme.
Based on these understandings, the paper revisits two alternative strategies in regional planning theory, characterised as modular and network models, in relation to China’s commune system during the national collectivisation (1950s-80s) and rural organisations in Qing Dynasty (mid 17th cen. - early 20th cen.). Through deconstructing elements from these precedents, a series of ‘moments’ in the contemporary context are identified as feasible foundations for an alternative model. The project puts forward a new territorial structure, consisting of a rural hybrid unit as the modular unit and systems of social welfare and production as interwoven networks, to work in parallel to the state apparatus as a force of counterbalance. Through fostering an alternative social entity for welfare provision and production organisation, it is, on the one hand, to induce the formation of local economic circles in order to reduce dependency on the chain of appropriation, and on the other, to establish a bypass in the hierarchical urban system.
Biography
Jingru Cyan Cheng is director of Architectural Association Wuhan Visiting School - Collective Forms in China. Cheng is currently a candidate of PhD by Design at the Architectural Association and her thesis focuses on Chinese countryside at levels of territory, settlement and home. Cheng has given presentations internationally, including the research on the people’s commune in Columbia University, the United State, the design project of the new rural collective in Ireland, research on deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation of Chinese rural society in Beijing Design Week, China and etc. She graduated with an MPhil in Architecture from the AA (Projective Cities Programme). Her MPhil research work was exhibited at the AA Graduate Honours Exhibition, the AA Director’s Selection Exhibition, at the China Design Centre in London and in the Beijing Design Week in Beijing, and featured in ICON and Urban Flux. Cheng is the co-founder and co-director of ACROSS Architecture, an independent academic association consisting of Chinese AA graduates and current students.
Session D: 001
Name
Pallavi Swaranjali
Affiliation
Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, Carleton University, Ottawa
Title and Extract
Architectural Storytelling-A subjunctive mode of architectural conceptualization and experience.
Architecture and storytelling are integral to each other in the works of Indian architect Balkrishna. V.Doshi (b.1927). For him the conception of architecture starts with and results in stories. These stories answer the question that he asks himself when thinking about architecture, ‘Is there a binding thread that joins the real and the imagined together? He describes the mythical stories he enjoyed as a child which often talked of imaginary people, places and animals. These for him triggered various thoughts and images. This paper derives from the study of the three works of fiction- The Revelation, The Sacred Spring and The Legend of the Living Rock written by B.V. Doshi as epilogues to three of his built projects
The first story, named Revelation, which talks about the project Ahmedabad ni Gufa, built in 1992-95 in Ahmedabad, India, draws heavily from the myth of Kurma, God's first avatar, the tortoise.
In the second story, named The Sacred Spring, Doshi explains his proposal for the project National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT, 1997) in New Delhi. The fiction fabricates that the building blocks around the central court for the Institute were the remains of ancient village homes surrounding a sacred tank with healing properties, now renovated for the needs of NIFT.
The third story, named Legend of the Living Rock, accompanies the Diamond Trading Bourse project (1998) in Mumbai. To consolidate the work needs and shared amenities of the Indian Diamond Trading community, a single trading bourse was planned for its 4000 members on a twenty-acre plot. The story derives from how a dream guided the design of the Bourse for the community of the diamond traders.
The written stories narrate the experience of building the projects and are comprised of his dreams, the oral stories that he encountered and told during the design process which are influenced by local stories and myths, along with chance encounters and events during the execution of the projects. This method of making the building is like the cut-up technique (découpé)- the aleatory literary technique which can be traced to the Dadaists of the 1920s, in which a text was cut up and rearranged to create a new text. With Doshi’s stories, the text is not the end-in-itself but leads the imagination of the architect and his team to design the built. His cut-up technique manipulates multiple stories from across regions and time periods which he has studied and researched. The stories weave this otherwise unrelated collage of multiple images into a whole. Some fabricated elements in the stories are so believable because they are made bespoke to the built, the site, the region and culture.
This paper derives from Umberto Eco’s ideas of interpretation, model reader and empirical reader. Eco defined the empirical reader as one who can read a literary text in many ways and there is no law that tells them how to read. Such readers use the text as a ‘container for their own passions which may come from outside the text or which the text can arouse.’ On the other hand, the model reader is a sort of ideal type that ‘the text not only sees as a collaborator but also tries to create.’ For Doshi’s stories, who is the reader and what do these texts impart to the reader? Is Doshi the reader or the author? There are multiple authors in these architectural stories. Doshi comes out sometimes as a narrator of the stories while at other times as the author who contributes to the making of the stories. At other times, he is the reader, who derives from his stories and his interpretation of the story manifests in the built. The stories which are a wonderful mesh combining reality, dreams and myths aid the subjunctive mode of architectural creation as advocated and followed by Doshi.
The stories (oral as well as written) are open ended. Much, nothing or disparate things can be derived from them by different readers. In 'Limits of Interpretation' and 'Interpretation and Overinterpretation', Eco writes that ‘if we seek to use the literary work to seek something embedded in our private memory we are not interpreting it but using it instead.’ He adds that a text is not ‘forbidden to be used for daydreaming but daydreaming is not a public affair.’ How is the interpretation of these architectural stories different then? Doshi by understanding that we are all beings affected by associations and memories and dreams, tries to wane the physical image of architectural creation. His stories and in turn his architecture are open ended in many ways for personal interpretation and use in unpredicted ways.
Doshi’s stories do not provide a singular prescriptive image but a kaleidoscope of images, hence adding a multifarious approach to architectural creation. The stories are successful in two ways. First, they create a model reader who believes that architecture should have the ‘magic of a story’ in its relationship of the building to its physical, social and cultural milieu and to memories and associations. Second, these stories aid the ‘empirical readers’ to unearth elements of imagination and fantasies based on memories and associations. In this sense, they are texts not for ‘interpretation’ but for ‘use’ to whet the imagination, and amalgamate chance encounters, dreams and fantasies.
Biography
Pallavi Swaranjali is a PhD candidate and Contract Instructor at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, Carleton University, Canada. She has a Bachelors in Architecture and Masters in Industrial Design from India where she is a licensed architect. Her research interests harbour around the intersection between architecture and storytelling, various modes of non-conventional architectural representation which combine the normative and the fantastical, and how they transform architectural creation and experience. She was awarded the CCA(Canadian Center of Architecture) Collection Research Award for Doctoral students in Europe, USA and Canada in 2015 when she was in residence at the CCA, Montreal perusing the archives of Villa Chimanbhai, an unbuilt villa designed by Le Corbusier for the Mayor of Ahmedabad between 1951-54. Her architectural drawing ‘Walking the Architectural Dream’ will be exhibited at the Frascari Symposium iii at Washington Alexandria Architecture Center on April 21-22, 2017.
Name
Pallavi Swaranjali
Affiliation
Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, Carleton University, Ottawa
Title and Extract
Architectural Storytelling-A subjunctive mode of architectural conceptualization and experience.
Architecture and storytelling are integral to each other in the works of Indian architect Balkrishna. V.Doshi (b.1927). For him the conception of architecture starts with and results in stories. These stories answer the question that he asks himself when thinking about architecture, ‘Is there a binding thread that joins the real and the imagined together? He describes the mythical stories he enjoyed as a child which often talked of imaginary people, places and animals. These for him triggered various thoughts and images. This paper derives from the study of the three works of fiction- The Revelation, The Sacred Spring and The Legend of the Living Rock written by B.V. Doshi as epilogues to three of his built projects
The first story, named Revelation, which talks about the project Ahmedabad ni Gufa, built in 1992-95 in Ahmedabad, India, draws heavily from the myth of Kurma, God's first avatar, the tortoise.
In the second story, named The Sacred Spring, Doshi explains his proposal for the project National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT, 1997) in New Delhi. The fiction fabricates that the building blocks around the central court for the Institute were the remains of ancient village homes surrounding a sacred tank with healing properties, now renovated for the needs of NIFT.
The third story, named Legend of the Living Rock, accompanies the Diamond Trading Bourse project (1998) in Mumbai. To consolidate the work needs and shared amenities of the Indian Diamond Trading community, a single trading bourse was planned for its 4000 members on a twenty-acre plot. The story derives from how a dream guided the design of the Bourse for the community of the diamond traders.
The written stories narrate the experience of building the projects and are comprised of his dreams, the oral stories that he encountered and told during the design process which are influenced by local stories and myths, along with chance encounters and events during the execution of the projects. This method of making the building is like the cut-up technique (découpé)- the aleatory literary technique which can be traced to the Dadaists of the 1920s, in which a text was cut up and rearranged to create a new text. With Doshi’s stories, the text is not the end-in-itself but leads the imagination of the architect and his team to design the built. His cut-up technique manipulates multiple stories from across regions and time periods which he has studied and researched. The stories weave this otherwise unrelated collage of multiple images into a whole. Some fabricated elements in the stories are so believable because they are made bespoke to the built, the site, the region and culture.
This paper derives from Umberto Eco’s ideas of interpretation, model reader and empirical reader. Eco defined the empirical reader as one who can read a literary text in many ways and there is no law that tells them how to read. Such readers use the text as a ‘container for their own passions which may come from outside the text or which the text can arouse.’ On the other hand, the model reader is a sort of ideal type that ‘the text not only sees as a collaborator but also tries to create.’ For Doshi’s stories, who is the reader and what do these texts impart to the reader? Is Doshi the reader or the author? There are multiple authors in these architectural stories. Doshi comes out sometimes as a narrator of the stories while at other times as the author who contributes to the making of the stories. At other times, he is the reader, who derives from his stories and his interpretation of the story manifests in the built. The stories which are a wonderful mesh combining reality, dreams and myths aid the subjunctive mode of architectural creation as advocated and followed by Doshi.
The stories (oral as well as written) are open ended. Much, nothing or disparate things can be derived from them by different readers. In 'Limits of Interpretation' and 'Interpretation and Overinterpretation', Eco writes that ‘if we seek to use the literary work to seek something embedded in our private memory we are not interpreting it but using it instead.’ He adds that a text is not ‘forbidden to be used for daydreaming but daydreaming is not a public affair.’ How is the interpretation of these architectural stories different then? Doshi by understanding that we are all beings affected by associations and memories and dreams, tries to wane the physical image of architectural creation. His stories and in turn his architecture are open ended in many ways for personal interpretation and use in unpredicted ways.
Doshi’s stories do not provide a singular prescriptive image but a kaleidoscope of images, hence adding a multifarious approach to architectural creation. The stories are successful in two ways. First, they create a model reader who believes that architecture should have the ‘magic of a story’ in its relationship of the building to its physical, social and cultural milieu and to memories and associations. Second, these stories aid the ‘empirical readers’ to unearth elements of imagination and fantasies based on memories and associations. In this sense, they are texts not for ‘interpretation’ but for ‘use’ to whet the imagination, and amalgamate chance encounters, dreams and fantasies.
Biography
Pallavi Swaranjali is a PhD candidate and Contract Instructor at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, Carleton University, Canada. She has a Bachelors in Architecture and Masters in Industrial Design from India where she is a licensed architect. Her research interests harbour around the intersection between architecture and storytelling, various modes of non-conventional architectural representation which combine the normative and the fantastical, and how they transform architectural creation and experience. She was awarded the CCA(Canadian Center of Architecture) Collection Research Award for Doctoral students in Europe, USA and Canada in 2015 when she was in residence at the CCA, Montreal perusing the archives of Villa Chimanbhai, an unbuilt villa designed by Le Corbusier for the Mayor of Ahmedabad between 1951-54. Her architectural drawing ‘Walking the Architectural Dream’ will be exhibited at the Frascari Symposium iii at Washington Alexandria Architecture Center on April 21-22, 2017.
Session D: 002
Name
Gloria Lanci
Affiliation
CAVA Research Centre, University of Liverpool
Title and Extract
TRANSLATING CITIES: urban spaces in contemporary art maps
This project aims to investigate how cities are perceived, represented and enacted in contemporary art maps, analysing its aesthetic, informative and cultural meanings. The ongoing research approaches the diversity of current mapping practices through a series of semi-structured interviews with artists, enquiring how they apprehend, process and re-create urban spaces. The focus of analysis is on the performative dimensions of art maps rather than their representational aspects, its performance relying on the capacity to re-shape territories along imaginary geographies.
In this paper we will discuss the idea of the map as an open ended practice that can unfold collective endeavour, personal narratives, contestation and protest, embodiment and play, and where knowledge is culturally produced. It goes along with academic debates that have been challenging traditional notions of the map as scientific artefact for information and way finding, representing a neutral knowledge produced through accurate measurement and surveying. A preliminary analysis of four art maps produced for the city of Liverpool between 2008 and 2014 will illustrate our discussion of how contemporary art works can be related to traditional and non-traditional cartographies and how they contribute to engage on new ways of understanding, experiencing and imagining urban spaces. On that respect we argue that maps, as cities, are work-in-progress and they are continuously conceived as urban spaces are transformed through urban planning, political ideologies and socio-economic forces. The art map is thus part of the transformative knowledge that is recreating urban spaces.
Bibliography
Gloria Lanci has a MA and DPhil in Architecture and Urban Planning, having completed her studies at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. She has been conducting research on cultural heritage, urban regeneration and cultural tourism with partners in Brazil and Europe. In the UK she undertook a postgraduate programme on Applied Geographical Information Systems (GIS) at the University of the West of England, where she also collaborated in diverse research projects. Recently she concluded a project on urban history and football at the University of Bristol. Currently she is undertaking a second PhD at the Centre for Architecture and Visual Arts (CAVA) at the University of Liverpool.
Name
Gloria Lanci
Affiliation
CAVA Research Centre, University of Liverpool
Title and Extract
TRANSLATING CITIES: urban spaces in contemporary art maps
This project aims to investigate how cities are perceived, represented and enacted in contemporary art maps, analysing its aesthetic, informative and cultural meanings. The ongoing research approaches the diversity of current mapping practices through a series of semi-structured interviews with artists, enquiring how they apprehend, process and re-create urban spaces. The focus of analysis is on the performative dimensions of art maps rather than their representational aspects, its performance relying on the capacity to re-shape territories along imaginary geographies.
In this paper we will discuss the idea of the map as an open ended practice that can unfold collective endeavour, personal narratives, contestation and protest, embodiment and play, and where knowledge is culturally produced. It goes along with academic debates that have been challenging traditional notions of the map as scientific artefact for information and way finding, representing a neutral knowledge produced through accurate measurement and surveying. A preliminary analysis of four art maps produced for the city of Liverpool between 2008 and 2014 will illustrate our discussion of how contemporary art works can be related to traditional and non-traditional cartographies and how they contribute to engage on new ways of understanding, experiencing and imagining urban spaces. On that respect we argue that maps, as cities, are work-in-progress and they are continuously conceived as urban spaces are transformed through urban planning, political ideologies and socio-economic forces. The art map is thus part of the transformative knowledge that is recreating urban spaces.
Bibliography
Gloria Lanci has a MA and DPhil in Architecture and Urban Planning, having completed her studies at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. She has been conducting research on cultural heritage, urban regeneration and cultural tourism with partners in Brazil and Europe. In the UK she undertook a postgraduate programme on Applied Geographical Information Systems (GIS) at the University of the West of England, where she also collaborated in diverse research projects. Recently she concluded a project on urban history and football at the University of Bristol. Currently she is undertaking a second PhD at the Centre for Architecture and Visual Arts (CAVA) at the University of Liverpool.
Workshop A
Name
Nooridayu Ahmad Yusuf
Affiliation
Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University
Title and Extract
The Significance of a Pilot Study in a Research: An Open Work with Many Possibilities
In responding to the conference theme, this workshop will look at the effectiveness of a pilot study as more than just a testing ground for the proposed methods for a research project, but how it can be an eye opener for the research to be looked at from different perspectives, as well as becoming a basis for a discourse in developing the best possible methods that could be adopted through the engagement with the workshop participants. From the workshop, the researcher hopes to receive feedbacks on the methods that have been adopted and the suitability in the selection of collaborative partners, as well as the criteria for their inclusion. The researcher also hopes to be able to receive suggestions and discuss on the more developed or alternative methods after looking at the outcomes from the pilot study. The demolition and redevelopment issues surrounding the building have made some of the proposed methods impossible, with the researcher having to resort to different means of getting the information needed particularly from the stakeholders, which lead to discoveries which were not anticipated by the researcher. With the aim to understand the architectural and socio-cultural patterns of the traditional Muslim-Malay marketplace in the East Coast of Malaysia within their immediate and wider Islamic contexts of other significant communities, this research is designed with reference to three methodologies namely the Historical Research Approach, the Quantitative Research Approach, and the Correlational Research Approach. Founded by a comprehensive literature review from both the Western as well as the Islamic perspectives on what a traditional marketplace is, which provide the answers for the first objective of the study; Pasar Besar Kedai Payang in Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu, and Pasar Siti Khadijah in Kota Bharu, Kelantan, have been selected as the case studies. In fulfilling part of the second objective of the study – to understand the historical evolution, urban morphology, and spatial pattern of the marketplace and its immediate surrounding, a number of methods have been adopted and these include looking at archaeological evidence of trade in the Malay Archipelago; the morphological maps of both cities within which these marketplaces are located; as well as the archival records on the history of the two cities, trade activities within both states, and the marketplaces themselves. Of course, the most important part of the study is to understand the spatial as well as the socio-cultural patterns of the marketplace, and how these two are interrelated. For this, a different set of method is proposed, which include a study on the evolution of the marketplaces through drawings and recorded physical changes; interviews and focus group discussions with the experts on the subject as well as the stakeholders using questionnaires as a guide wherever necessary; and observations by the researcher in both research role concealed and known situations. In testing the effectiveness of the methods proposed, a pilot study was conducted in Pasar Besar Kedai Payang, Kuala Terengganu over a period of six weeks between July and August 2016, in collaboration with Terengganu Museum Board as well as the Persatuan Penjaja dan Peniaga Kecil Melayu Terengganu (the Small Traders Union of Terengganu). On top of providing the access to all the information needed for the research, the Museum has been generous by providing the venue for the focus group discussions with the hope of sharing the information obtained from them. There are four significant outcomes from this little exercise that have given some impacts on the way how the research is going to be carried out, analysed and structured. First and foremost, the issues of demolition and redevelopment of the market have changed the attitude of the stakeholders, particularly the traders, towards any outsiders who are interested to know about the market. The worry of being labelled as the anti-development people have stopped them from wanting to discuss their hopes and fears as a big group in the open, especially in the presence of the authorities within a confined and formal environment. However, should approached individually within their own comfort zone, namely their little shops or stalls, these traders have so much to say about the market, which to many of them is the extension of their homes. Being in a setting that is predominated by the Malays from the beginning, the fact that the architect that is leading the redevelopment project is of Chinese ethnicity has also proved to create frustrations amongst the traders, as the general idea is that the marketplace should be designed by a Malay architect who they perceived to have a better understanding of the architecture and culture of a Muslim-Malay marketplace. This is the second discovery from the exercise, which is something that the researcher feels obliged to put right. Having spoken to the architect, it was found that two facts have not been made clear to the traders, i.e. the architect is a local who grew up in and around the market, and has been so much part of the Malay community; and the new design by the architect have included all the essence of what a Muslim-Malay traditional marketplace in the East-Coast should be with strong incorporation of the urban elements as well as the identity of the site, which is known to be historically significant. The last two findings on the other hand are very much related to the objectives of the study. The first being though coming from different backgrounds and expressed in many different ways, the stakeholders’ understanding on the relationship between the spatial and socio-cultural patterns of the marketplace are parallel, in the sense that they acknowledged that these two are strongly related. Finally, when asked on if there are any particular architecture style that should be used to represent them, they all agreed that architecture is not only about the physical characteristics of a building, but it is more of the amount of accommodation that it can provide the to the users.
Biography
Nooridayu Ahmad Yusuf is a second year PhD student at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, from which she has obtained her Bachelor of Architecture in 2004. Her research is on the architectural and socio-cultural patterns of traditional marketplaces in the East-Coast of Malaysia, under the tutelage of Professor Stephen Kite. Prior to pursuing her Postgraduate studies, Nooridayu was a Senior Research Executive at the Centre for Modern Architecture Studies in Southeast Asia, of the School of Architecture, Building & Design, Taylor’s University Malaysia, in which she has been involved in research as well as a number of community projects relating to architecture which include making an inventory, conducting surveys, and organizing a revitalization workshop for a 300 year-old Chinese settlement in Terengganu, Malaysia. She was also part of the research team for ‘PAM HIStory’ book, a publication on the history of the Malaysian Institute of Architect (PAM).
Name
Nooridayu Ahmad Yusuf
Affiliation
Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University
Title and Extract
The Significance of a Pilot Study in a Research: An Open Work with Many Possibilities
In responding to the conference theme, this workshop will look at the effectiveness of a pilot study as more than just a testing ground for the proposed methods for a research project, but how it can be an eye opener for the research to be looked at from different perspectives, as well as becoming a basis for a discourse in developing the best possible methods that could be adopted through the engagement with the workshop participants. From the workshop, the researcher hopes to receive feedbacks on the methods that have been adopted and the suitability in the selection of collaborative partners, as well as the criteria for their inclusion. The researcher also hopes to be able to receive suggestions and discuss on the more developed or alternative methods after looking at the outcomes from the pilot study. The demolition and redevelopment issues surrounding the building have made some of the proposed methods impossible, with the researcher having to resort to different means of getting the information needed particularly from the stakeholders, which lead to discoveries which were not anticipated by the researcher. With the aim to understand the architectural and socio-cultural patterns of the traditional Muslim-Malay marketplace in the East Coast of Malaysia within their immediate and wider Islamic contexts of other significant communities, this research is designed with reference to three methodologies namely the Historical Research Approach, the Quantitative Research Approach, and the Correlational Research Approach. Founded by a comprehensive literature review from both the Western as well as the Islamic perspectives on what a traditional marketplace is, which provide the answers for the first objective of the study; Pasar Besar Kedai Payang in Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu, and Pasar Siti Khadijah in Kota Bharu, Kelantan, have been selected as the case studies. In fulfilling part of the second objective of the study – to understand the historical evolution, urban morphology, and spatial pattern of the marketplace and its immediate surrounding, a number of methods have been adopted and these include looking at archaeological evidence of trade in the Malay Archipelago; the morphological maps of both cities within which these marketplaces are located; as well as the archival records on the history of the two cities, trade activities within both states, and the marketplaces themselves. Of course, the most important part of the study is to understand the spatial as well as the socio-cultural patterns of the marketplace, and how these two are interrelated. For this, a different set of method is proposed, which include a study on the evolution of the marketplaces through drawings and recorded physical changes; interviews and focus group discussions with the experts on the subject as well as the stakeholders using questionnaires as a guide wherever necessary; and observations by the researcher in both research role concealed and known situations. In testing the effectiveness of the methods proposed, a pilot study was conducted in Pasar Besar Kedai Payang, Kuala Terengganu over a period of six weeks between July and August 2016, in collaboration with Terengganu Museum Board as well as the Persatuan Penjaja dan Peniaga Kecil Melayu Terengganu (the Small Traders Union of Terengganu). On top of providing the access to all the information needed for the research, the Museum has been generous by providing the venue for the focus group discussions with the hope of sharing the information obtained from them. There are four significant outcomes from this little exercise that have given some impacts on the way how the research is going to be carried out, analysed and structured. First and foremost, the issues of demolition and redevelopment of the market have changed the attitude of the stakeholders, particularly the traders, towards any outsiders who are interested to know about the market. The worry of being labelled as the anti-development people have stopped them from wanting to discuss their hopes and fears as a big group in the open, especially in the presence of the authorities within a confined and formal environment. However, should approached individually within their own comfort zone, namely their little shops or stalls, these traders have so much to say about the market, which to many of them is the extension of their homes. Being in a setting that is predominated by the Malays from the beginning, the fact that the architect that is leading the redevelopment project is of Chinese ethnicity has also proved to create frustrations amongst the traders, as the general idea is that the marketplace should be designed by a Malay architect who they perceived to have a better understanding of the architecture and culture of a Muslim-Malay marketplace. This is the second discovery from the exercise, which is something that the researcher feels obliged to put right. Having spoken to the architect, it was found that two facts have not been made clear to the traders, i.e. the architect is a local who grew up in and around the market, and has been so much part of the Malay community; and the new design by the architect have included all the essence of what a Muslim-Malay traditional marketplace in the East-Coast should be with strong incorporation of the urban elements as well as the identity of the site, which is known to be historically significant. The last two findings on the other hand are very much related to the objectives of the study. The first being though coming from different backgrounds and expressed in many different ways, the stakeholders’ understanding on the relationship between the spatial and socio-cultural patterns of the marketplace are parallel, in the sense that they acknowledged that these two are strongly related. Finally, when asked on if there are any particular architecture style that should be used to represent them, they all agreed that architecture is not only about the physical characteristics of a building, but it is more of the amount of accommodation that it can provide the to the users.
Biography
Nooridayu Ahmad Yusuf is a second year PhD student at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, from which she has obtained her Bachelor of Architecture in 2004. Her research is on the architectural and socio-cultural patterns of traditional marketplaces in the East-Coast of Malaysia, under the tutelage of Professor Stephen Kite. Prior to pursuing her Postgraduate studies, Nooridayu was a Senior Research Executive at the Centre for Modern Architecture Studies in Southeast Asia, of the School of Architecture, Building & Design, Taylor’s University Malaysia, in which she has been involved in research as well as a number of community projects relating to architecture which include making an inventory, conducting surveys, and organizing a revitalization workshop for a 300 year-old Chinese settlement in Terengganu, Malaysia. She was also part of the research team for ‘PAM HIStory’ book, a publication on the history of the Malaysian Institute of Architect (PAM).
Workshop B
Name
Jana Džadoňová with Gökçe Önal
Affiliation
The Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava [JD] and TU Delft Faculty of Architecture [GO]
Title and Extract
The Other Danube, Mapping Operations and Graphic Representation of Riverfronts
This exercise unfolds in two trajectories: on one level it operates through the sociopolitical complexities intrinsic to the historical extents of the Danube river, on the other it constitutes an inquiry into the perceptual domain of the river’s spatiotemporality and addresses the representation of flow in a broader context. In disclosing the multiplicities of the urban landscape, the workshop principally adopts mapping as an apparatus of negotiation and further facilitates a discussion on methodologies that emanate from the study along the span of the river and its ports.
In the past, an orient trade company who organized International Fairs in Bratislava was interested in opening ship trade routes to Odessa, Rostov, Batumi, which would reach as far as Persia and Turkmenistan. In which direction were these intentions politically reoriented? The workshop opens up with a pertinent introduction of the postsocialist discourse and the broader picture on topic of Danube.
The participants of the workshop will have the opportunity to test their own mapping tools, exchange knowledge and challenge conventional techniques of urban and architectural representation. In that manner, participants are encouraged to experiment with the multi-dimensionality of the urban realm through both horizontal and vertical mappings, exploring its complexities on different levels, phases and scales. Accordingly, a blank map will be given to the participants consisting of a sketch of Danube’s riverline and location of capital cities along the river, which will be filled with graphic signs, diagrams, notations, comments, pictures or other 2D - 2.5D - 3D means during the course the workshop. The task explores the characteristics of strategic cities on the Danube and their relations with particular focus on social, economic, political, environmental and spatial assets of their waterfronts. It further maintains an emphasis on the mapping of flow -of space, artefacts, individuals- as it is problematized in spatial studies, and calls for the participants’ contribution of exploring the pertinent thematics related to such mappings to cultivate their experimentation with different representational modalities. The epistemological line of movement-oriented research in architectural research will be constituting a viable framework to organize the material at produced.
Thus, every participant will be provided a collection of six various data fragments in the beginning of the workshop. These boxes of information consist of texts and video items to be translated into a map. We will assemble max. 10-20 various versions, ideally different for each participant. The collections will be prepared in advance. Six items of the collection will be sorted in six topics:
The main research questions, which the workshop could investigate are:
1. How the river Danube regulates the flows of raw architectural materials (iron ore, coal, wood..) and waste in Central Europe?
2. How differently have neoliberal urban interventions transformed the post-socialist waterfronts along the Danube and what kind of events have been happening there?
3. How did the post-industrial society transformed the port territories and what is their socio-cultural potential in contemporary cityscapes?
4. What kind of subjectivities does the river hold and how do they relate to the spatio-temporal experience of the river?
5. What are the thematics related with the notion of mapping flow -of space, artefacts, individuals, energies, percepts, molecules…- and how do they relate to the different layers of infrastructure?
6. How can the physical qualities of the different spatial components of the moving image or the sequentially unfolding urban landscapes (architectural elements, infrastructures, natural elements, animate-inanimate objects/people) be deconstructed or notated in relation to the urban context, and what kind of visual qualities can be elaborated upon (pictorial, cinematographic, narrative) in this process?
The individual work of participants will end up with common discussion on the final visual of the map. Books and booklets of similar mapping studies and theories will be present for participants as references to look into. Among them we provide these titles:
1. James Corner, Denis Cosgrove: The Agency of Mapping; Speculation, Critque and Invention
2. Mark Dorrian: Writing on the Image: Architecture, the City and the Politics of Representation
3. Mark Dorrian. Metis Urban Cartographies. (London: Black Dog, 2002)
4. Pelin Derviş, Meriç Öner. Mapping Istanbul. (Istanbul: Garanti Gallery, 2009)
5. http://database.becomingistanbul.org/
6. Michel Tawa. “Mapping: Design”. Architectural Theory Review 3:1 (1998) 35-45.
In scope of this exercise, it is believed that urban studies as a means of architectural intervention is no longer a description of physical space in traditional way - in a form of map of functional zones and paths or access,- but it deals with much broader territories of influence. It involves into the process all kinds of professions such as sociologists, anthropologists, politologists, biologists, businessmen, economists or artists in order to develop new representation of architectural design and set mechanisms free of their conventional bounds.
The research on Danube’s port cities would ideally track the origins of one material’s deposits, treatment, transport, export, and diffraction. The philosophy behind the things, objects and matter will help in thinking through transformation of the raw material into an architectural products - objects. Danube here performs as a free-form transversal line, which cuts across the political borders of the countries, cultures and material sources and demonstrates free trade flows of neoliberal society.
Furthermore, the case-study on Danube is ideally expected to open up further discussions on the representational domain of the landscapes-in-flux and their operational realms. To generate a creative ground on which the conventions of architectural design could be interrogated and experimented with, correspondent cases from both within and outside Danube will be elaborated upon. It is believed that, during the course of the study, a close consideration of the research genealogies of urbanperception studies [picturesque studies, image studies, environment-behaviour studies and place studies] and their pertinent identification with narrative-prescriptive and substantive-descriptive models will provide a theoretical base for situating the produced mappings along different approaches in urban research, and point to the ways in which these trajectories could be potentially challenged or enhanced for future inquiries.
In the contemporary society -often called post-factual accompanied with environmental crisis- it is more than important to base the responsible design on proper needs and informations. It is believed that politics and aesthetics is closely linked and the map imagined as an output of the workshop could demonstrate it. The output of the workshop – the apparatus for negotiation - will be further presented or performed to the ports administrators in every capital as a critical fiction during the prepared Danube low-cost research cruise from Bratislava to the coast of Black Sea.
The workshop is open to participants from any field and any country, who wants to translate their expertise into the drawing or comment and attach it to the map.
Biography
Jana Džadoňová is a PhD candidate at The Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, where she teaches design and urban research methodology courses at postgraduate level. She is interested in a material potential of an underused cityscape and re-inventing urban cartographies. During and after her master studies at Umeå School of Architecture she has been testing the concept of 'intraventions’ (Laboratory of Immediate Architectural Intervention- Alberto Altes, Oren Liebermeier) in cities of Umeå (Sweden), Tallinn (Estonia) and Bratislava (Slovakia).
Gökçe Önal is PhD Student at TU Delft in Architecture with the project 'Translation of the built environment through networks of flux: disclosing the spatial, perceptual and representational complexities of urban daily movement and the emergent city image'. She is a graduate of Istanbul Technical University and completed her M.Arch in Middle East Technical University, where she worked as a research assistant in between 2013-2016, contributing to the design-studio environment, workshops and exhibitions. Her research interests include aerial vision, the interrelation of transportation technologies and urban visuality, and contemprorary modes of spatial representation.
Name
Jana Džadoňová with Gökçe Önal
Affiliation
The Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava [JD] and TU Delft Faculty of Architecture [GO]
Title and Extract
The Other Danube, Mapping Operations and Graphic Representation of Riverfronts
This exercise unfolds in two trajectories: on one level it operates through the sociopolitical complexities intrinsic to the historical extents of the Danube river, on the other it constitutes an inquiry into the perceptual domain of the river’s spatiotemporality and addresses the representation of flow in a broader context. In disclosing the multiplicities of the urban landscape, the workshop principally adopts mapping as an apparatus of negotiation and further facilitates a discussion on methodologies that emanate from the study along the span of the river and its ports.
In the past, an orient trade company who organized International Fairs in Bratislava was interested in opening ship trade routes to Odessa, Rostov, Batumi, which would reach as far as Persia and Turkmenistan. In which direction were these intentions politically reoriented? The workshop opens up with a pertinent introduction of the postsocialist discourse and the broader picture on topic of Danube.
The participants of the workshop will have the opportunity to test their own mapping tools, exchange knowledge and challenge conventional techniques of urban and architectural representation. In that manner, participants are encouraged to experiment with the multi-dimensionality of the urban realm through both horizontal and vertical mappings, exploring its complexities on different levels, phases and scales. Accordingly, a blank map will be given to the participants consisting of a sketch of Danube’s riverline and location of capital cities along the river, which will be filled with graphic signs, diagrams, notations, comments, pictures or other 2D - 2.5D - 3D means during the course the workshop. The task explores the characteristics of strategic cities on the Danube and their relations with particular focus on social, economic, political, environmental and spatial assets of their waterfronts. It further maintains an emphasis on the mapping of flow -of space, artefacts, individuals- as it is problematized in spatial studies, and calls for the participants’ contribution of exploring the pertinent thematics related to such mappings to cultivate their experimentation with different representational modalities. The epistemological line of movement-oriented research in architectural research will be constituting a viable framework to organize the material at produced.
Thus, every participant will be provided a collection of six various data fragments in the beginning of the workshop. These boxes of information consist of texts and video items to be translated into a map. We will assemble max. 10-20 various versions, ideally different for each participant. The collections will be prepared in advance. Six items of the collection will be sorted in six topics:
The main research questions, which the workshop could investigate are:
1. How the river Danube regulates the flows of raw architectural materials (iron ore, coal, wood..) and waste in Central Europe?
2. How differently have neoliberal urban interventions transformed the post-socialist waterfronts along the Danube and what kind of events have been happening there?
3. How did the post-industrial society transformed the port territories and what is their socio-cultural potential in contemporary cityscapes?
4. What kind of subjectivities does the river hold and how do they relate to the spatio-temporal experience of the river?
5. What are the thematics related with the notion of mapping flow -of space, artefacts, individuals, energies, percepts, molecules…- and how do they relate to the different layers of infrastructure?
6. How can the physical qualities of the different spatial components of the moving image or the sequentially unfolding urban landscapes (architectural elements, infrastructures, natural elements, animate-inanimate objects/people) be deconstructed or notated in relation to the urban context, and what kind of visual qualities can be elaborated upon (pictorial, cinematographic, narrative) in this process?
The individual work of participants will end up with common discussion on the final visual of the map. Books and booklets of similar mapping studies and theories will be present for participants as references to look into. Among them we provide these titles:
1. James Corner, Denis Cosgrove: The Agency of Mapping; Speculation, Critque and Invention
2. Mark Dorrian: Writing on the Image: Architecture, the City and the Politics of Representation
3. Mark Dorrian. Metis Urban Cartographies. (London: Black Dog, 2002)
4. Pelin Derviş, Meriç Öner. Mapping Istanbul. (Istanbul: Garanti Gallery, 2009)
5. http://database.becomingistanbul.org/
6. Michel Tawa. “Mapping: Design”. Architectural Theory Review 3:1 (1998) 35-45.
In scope of this exercise, it is believed that urban studies as a means of architectural intervention is no longer a description of physical space in traditional way - in a form of map of functional zones and paths or access,- but it deals with much broader territories of influence. It involves into the process all kinds of professions such as sociologists, anthropologists, politologists, biologists, businessmen, economists or artists in order to develop new representation of architectural design and set mechanisms free of their conventional bounds.
The research on Danube’s port cities would ideally track the origins of one material’s deposits, treatment, transport, export, and diffraction. The philosophy behind the things, objects and matter will help in thinking through transformation of the raw material into an architectural products - objects. Danube here performs as a free-form transversal line, which cuts across the political borders of the countries, cultures and material sources and demonstrates free trade flows of neoliberal society.
Furthermore, the case-study on Danube is ideally expected to open up further discussions on the representational domain of the landscapes-in-flux and their operational realms. To generate a creative ground on which the conventions of architectural design could be interrogated and experimented with, correspondent cases from both within and outside Danube will be elaborated upon. It is believed that, during the course of the study, a close consideration of the research genealogies of urbanperception studies [picturesque studies, image studies, environment-behaviour studies and place studies] and their pertinent identification with narrative-prescriptive and substantive-descriptive models will provide a theoretical base for situating the produced mappings along different approaches in urban research, and point to the ways in which these trajectories could be potentially challenged or enhanced for future inquiries.
In the contemporary society -often called post-factual accompanied with environmental crisis- it is more than important to base the responsible design on proper needs and informations. It is believed that politics and aesthetics is closely linked and the map imagined as an output of the workshop could demonstrate it. The output of the workshop – the apparatus for negotiation - will be further presented or performed to the ports administrators in every capital as a critical fiction during the prepared Danube low-cost research cruise from Bratislava to the coast of Black Sea.
The workshop is open to participants from any field and any country, who wants to translate their expertise into the drawing or comment and attach it to the map.
Biography
Jana Džadoňová is a PhD candidate at The Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, where she teaches design and urban research methodology courses at postgraduate level. She is interested in a material potential of an underused cityscape and re-inventing urban cartographies. During and after her master studies at Umeå School of Architecture she has been testing the concept of 'intraventions’ (Laboratory of Immediate Architectural Intervention- Alberto Altes, Oren Liebermeier) in cities of Umeå (Sweden), Tallinn (Estonia) and Bratislava (Slovakia).
Gökçe Önal is PhD Student at TU Delft in Architecture with the project 'Translation of the built environment through networks of flux: disclosing the spatial, perceptual and representational complexities of urban daily movement and the emergent city image'. She is a graduate of Istanbul Technical University and completed her M.Arch in Middle East Technical University, where she worked as a research assistant in between 2013-2016, contributing to the design-studio environment, workshops and exhibitions. Her research interests include aerial vision, the interrelation of transportation technologies and urban visuality, and contemprorary modes of spatial representation.
Workshop C
Name
Silviu Medeșan
Affiliation
Faculty of Architecture - Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania & visiting PhD student at School of Architecture, University of Sheffield
Title and Extract
“La Terenuri” [At the Playgrounds] – from the construction of situations to common spaces
Using concepts coming from Situationist theories of intervention in the city is an option of interpreting contemporary experiments in temporary architecture, participatory urbanism or urban interventions. Although these experiments do not directly take upon themselves the realization of the Situationist project, rather simply inheriting a language and concepts that lost awareness of their origin, they still function as Situationists described them. The International Situationist Movement is the first avant-garde that builds a frame/tool of direct action based on the urban form, with the goal of changing it and, simultaneously, of transforming society as a whole. Of course, this project has been a utopian one, and the extreme radical character of the theory of Situationists bothers, however, in noticing the fact that “hedonistic, domesticated and attenuated forms of Situationist constructions have find a place in existing societies” (Hecken, 2007, p. 75). This text intends to look at the experiment-project “La Terenuri” (in Mănăştur – mass housing neighborhood in Cluj-Napoca, Romania) through the “Situationist” prism, in an operation of placing in a thought-system a project that wishes to work in an interdisciplinary manner. Dana Vais notices how today one can hardly make the difference between the mode of action of architects and that of artists: “artists focus a lot on urban space, while architects sometimes perform like artists” (Vais, 2010, p. 48); in this overlapping, of the two disciplines, what counts more is “the understanding beyond aesthetics of art itself – art’s capacity to expand its traditional scope and means, to enter also the spaces that were conventionally assigned to the disciplines of architecture or urbanism” (ibid.).
Introduction to the “La Terenuri” project
[…] Specifically, the “La Terenuri” area has been attractive to the project because it is an open green space, unbuilt, with a potentiality to become a public park, which would be extremely needed in the density of Mănăştur. On top of this, the area has a complex history that brings into discussion the brutal intervention of urban planning on a rural fabric: the agricultural lands of the former Mănăştur village (Belkis, Coman, Sîrbu, & Troc, 2003, p. 147) . The consequences of this impact can be still felt and there are ongoing trials of claiming back the lands. This status of provisionality left room to interesting phenomena, which have their origin in the first years of the neighborhood: urban gardens appearing on spots that were former agricultural lands, “mutant” practices of using urban space, invented by the population massively moved in from the rural areas surrounding Cluj (Troc, 2003, p. 155). It is remarkable, however, that this use is very fragmented by groups that often run into conflicts: groups of children, groups of teenagers, groups of pet lovers, groups of those who are using it for relaxation (picnic, tanning, walking), groups of those who are into various sports.
[...]
The “Dacia” Cinema
The building of the former “Dacia” comunist Cinema, in the proximity of the “La Terenuri” area, was recuperated, renovated and opened for the public in the summer of 2016 by the municipality of Cluj. This cultural center functions on the same basis as other centers owned by the municipality: organized events are planned according to the order of rental requests for the spaces. Therefore, practically the municipality does not take responsibility for any form of filtration of the hosted content. This simplistic mechanism of “curatorship”, although it seems at first sight as the most democratic that can be, presents a series of problems: big events are encouraged (festivals, corporate events), which have no relationship with the local community (often residents do not participate in these events), their schedule is established long in advance (because grand organizers have their activity plans programmed well ahead), and identified local actors remain without a space for expression. They are excluded from the programming because, without experience in this sort of matters, they do not know how the access to space functions and are not encouraged by any means to participate. Thus, these centers, very well localized within the neighborhoods, therefore, with a great potential of contributing to the cultural life of the neighborhood, become only “exotic” satellites of large central festivals or spaces for commercial events. […] By constructing situations in public spaces, the “La Terenuri” project has created a platform were residents can express themselves. As I was showing above, the overcoming of spectacle makes the public go on stage and create its own spectacle. One of the most successful instruments used by “La Terenuri” on the external stage is the “open microphone” concept. In these sessions, anybody from the public can express themselves on stage, therefore anybody from the public is a potential artist. This instrument empowers residents to express themselves: in four years of the “La Terenuri” project, there appeared a number of actors interested in culture. These new actors constantly collaborate with the “La Terenuri” collective and benefit from the advantages and the networks of the Colectiv A Association, as well as of the “La Terenuri” project, producing new relations among residents, developing processes and rhizomatically building situations that become independent. The idea of the project for the “Dacia” Cinema is to develop activities with the help of these new actors, activities enriching the program of the center. Unfortunately, however, the management of this institution did not fully interiorize the stake of empowering residents of the neighborhood to produce a part from the activities of the center. Political power feels threatened when a real participation of residents in the production of culture is proposed, because this “empowerment” emancipates the “spectator”. Through situation building, the residents, from simple consumers and electoral masses, transform into active and concerned citizens, who look critically at political decision. The power of micro-politics threatens political power, the latter preferring to imitate participation and to keep force intact. In this case we can observe the direct struggle between genuine construction and the spectacle exposed by Debord in The Society of Spectacle. Spectacle wants to separate and alienate the social through images (Debord, 1967), while situation building, through collective creativity, wants to materialize a common space in the “Dacia” Cinema.
References
Belkis, D., Coman, G., Sîrbu, C., & Troc, G. (2003). Construirea urbană, socială și simbolică a cartierului Mănăștur [The Urban, Social and Symbolic Contruction of the Mănăştur Neighborhood]. IDEA arts + society, (15–16), 135–151. Accessed at http://idea.ro/revista/?q=ro/node/40&articol=185
Debord, G. (1967). La Société du spectacle. Paris: Gallimard. Accessed at http://cataleg.upf.edu/record=b1252048~S11*spi
Hecken, T. (2007). The Bohemian Life - the Politics of the Avant-garde. In J. Steiner, S. Zweifel, & H. Stahlhut (Eds.), In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni - the Situationist International (1957-1972), (74–75). Zürich: JRP|Ringier.
Troc, G. (2003). “După blocuri” sau despre starea actuală a cartierelor muncitorești ["Behind the blocks" or of the Current State of Working Class Neighborhoods]. IDEA arts + society, (15–16), 152–157. Accessed at http://www.idea.ro/revista/?q=ro/node/40&articol=184
Vais, D. (2010). Secondary agency: learning from Boris Groys. In F. Kossak, D. Petrescu, T. Schneider, R. Tyszczuk, & S. Walker (eds.), Agency: Working with Uncertain Architectures, (47–60). London: Routledge.
Biography
Silviu Medeșan (1984) works as an architect in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He's interested in design, art, architecture and cross disciplinary interventions in public space. He coordinated Cluj Architecture Biennale in 2009 and he participated in Venice Biennale in 2010. Since 2012 he works with the Colectiv A Association in the neighbourhood project ‘At the Playgrounds - Common Space in Mănăștur’. He is a PhD Student at Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism in Cluj with the thesis 'Form follows situation - contemporary city as foreseen by situationists' supervised by Prof. Dana Vais. Currently, he is a visiting PhD student at Sheffield School of Architecture, supervised by Prof. Doina Petrescu.
Name
Silviu Medeșan
Affiliation
Faculty of Architecture - Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania & visiting PhD student at School of Architecture, University of Sheffield
Title and Extract
“La Terenuri” [At the Playgrounds] – from the construction of situations to common spaces
Using concepts coming from Situationist theories of intervention in the city is an option of interpreting contemporary experiments in temporary architecture, participatory urbanism or urban interventions. Although these experiments do not directly take upon themselves the realization of the Situationist project, rather simply inheriting a language and concepts that lost awareness of their origin, they still function as Situationists described them. The International Situationist Movement is the first avant-garde that builds a frame/tool of direct action based on the urban form, with the goal of changing it and, simultaneously, of transforming society as a whole. Of course, this project has been a utopian one, and the extreme radical character of the theory of Situationists bothers, however, in noticing the fact that “hedonistic, domesticated and attenuated forms of Situationist constructions have find a place in existing societies” (Hecken, 2007, p. 75). This text intends to look at the experiment-project “La Terenuri” (in Mănăştur – mass housing neighborhood in Cluj-Napoca, Romania) through the “Situationist” prism, in an operation of placing in a thought-system a project that wishes to work in an interdisciplinary manner. Dana Vais notices how today one can hardly make the difference between the mode of action of architects and that of artists: “artists focus a lot on urban space, while architects sometimes perform like artists” (Vais, 2010, p. 48); in this overlapping, of the two disciplines, what counts more is “the understanding beyond aesthetics of art itself – art’s capacity to expand its traditional scope and means, to enter also the spaces that were conventionally assigned to the disciplines of architecture or urbanism” (ibid.).
Introduction to the “La Terenuri” project
[…] Specifically, the “La Terenuri” area has been attractive to the project because it is an open green space, unbuilt, with a potentiality to become a public park, which would be extremely needed in the density of Mănăştur. On top of this, the area has a complex history that brings into discussion the brutal intervention of urban planning on a rural fabric: the agricultural lands of the former Mănăştur village (Belkis, Coman, Sîrbu, & Troc, 2003, p. 147) . The consequences of this impact can be still felt and there are ongoing trials of claiming back the lands. This status of provisionality left room to interesting phenomena, which have their origin in the first years of the neighborhood: urban gardens appearing on spots that were former agricultural lands, “mutant” practices of using urban space, invented by the population massively moved in from the rural areas surrounding Cluj (Troc, 2003, p. 155). It is remarkable, however, that this use is very fragmented by groups that often run into conflicts: groups of children, groups of teenagers, groups of pet lovers, groups of those who are using it for relaxation (picnic, tanning, walking), groups of those who are into various sports.
[...]
The “Dacia” Cinema
The building of the former “Dacia” comunist Cinema, in the proximity of the “La Terenuri” area, was recuperated, renovated and opened for the public in the summer of 2016 by the municipality of Cluj. This cultural center functions on the same basis as other centers owned by the municipality: organized events are planned according to the order of rental requests for the spaces. Therefore, practically the municipality does not take responsibility for any form of filtration of the hosted content. This simplistic mechanism of “curatorship”, although it seems at first sight as the most democratic that can be, presents a series of problems: big events are encouraged (festivals, corporate events), which have no relationship with the local community (often residents do not participate in these events), their schedule is established long in advance (because grand organizers have their activity plans programmed well ahead), and identified local actors remain without a space for expression. They are excluded from the programming because, without experience in this sort of matters, they do not know how the access to space functions and are not encouraged by any means to participate. Thus, these centers, very well localized within the neighborhoods, therefore, with a great potential of contributing to the cultural life of the neighborhood, become only “exotic” satellites of large central festivals or spaces for commercial events. […] By constructing situations in public spaces, the “La Terenuri” project has created a platform were residents can express themselves. As I was showing above, the overcoming of spectacle makes the public go on stage and create its own spectacle. One of the most successful instruments used by “La Terenuri” on the external stage is the “open microphone” concept. In these sessions, anybody from the public can express themselves on stage, therefore anybody from the public is a potential artist. This instrument empowers residents to express themselves: in four years of the “La Terenuri” project, there appeared a number of actors interested in culture. These new actors constantly collaborate with the “La Terenuri” collective and benefit from the advantages and the networks of the Colectiv A Association, as well as of the “La Terenuri” project, producing new relations among residents, developing processes and rhizomatically building situations that become independent. The idea of the project for the “Dacia” Cinema is to develop activities with the help of these new actors, activities enriching the program of the center. Unfortunately, however, the management of this institution did not fully interiorize the stake of empowering residents of the neighborhood to produce a part from the activities of the center. Political power feels threatened when a real participation of residents in the production of culture is proposed, because this “empowerment” emancipates the “spectator”. Through situation building, the residents, from simple consumers and electoral masses, transform into active and concerned citizens, who look critically at political decision. The power of micro-politics threatens political power, the latter preferring to imitate participation and to keep force intact. In this case we can observe the direct struggle between genuine construction and the spectacle exposed by Debord in The Society of Spectacle. Spectacle wants to separate and alienate the social through images (Debord, 1967), while situation building, through collective creativity, wants to materialize a common space in the “Dacia” Cinema.
References
Belkis, D., Coman, G., Sîrbu, C., & Troc, G. (2003). Construirea urbană, socială și simbolică a cartierului Mănăștur [The Urban, Social and Symbolic Contruction of the Mănăştur Neighborhood]. IDEA arts + society, (15–16), 135–151. Accessed at http://idea.ro/revista/?q=ro/node/40&articol=185
Debord, G. (1967). La Société du spectacle. Paris: Gallimard. Accessed at http://cataleg.upf.edu/record=b1252048~S11*spi
Hecken, T. (2007). The Bohemian Life - the Politics of the Avant-garde. In J. Steiner, S. Zweifel, & H. Stahlhut (Eds.), In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni - the Situationist International (1957-1972), (74–75). Zürich: JRP|Ringier.
Troc, G. (2003). “După blocuri” sau despre starea actuală a cartierelor muncitorești ["Behind the blocks" or of the Current State of Working Class Neighborhoods]. IDEA arts + society, (15–16), 152–157. Accessed at http://www.idea.ro/revista/?q=ro/node/40&articol=184
Vais, D. (2010). Secondary agency: learning from Boris Groys. In F. Kossak, D. Petrescu, T. Schneider, R. Tyszczuk, & S. Walker (eds.), Agency: Working with Uncertain Architectures, (47–60). London: Routledge.
Biography
Silviu Medeșan (1984) works as an architect in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He's interested in design, art, architecture and cross disciplinary interventions in public space. He coordinated Cluj Architecture Biennale in 2009 and he participated in Venice Biennale in 2010. Since 2012 he works with the Colectiv A Association in the neighbourhood project ‘At the Playgrounds - Common Space in Mănăștur’. He is a PhD Student at Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism in Cluj with the thesis 'Form follows situation - contemporary city as foreseen by situationists' supervised by Prof. Dana Vais. Currently, he is a visiting PhD student at Sheffield School of Architecture, supervised by Prof. Doina Petrescu.