Effect of Modernism on Urbanisation
Authors Note: The current typologies and methods of development trace back to modernism and its universal culture of one-size-fits-all-all. Quite a few City development proposals were also built around universality or segregation. By understanding how they came to be we can optimise the current and future frameworks in response to the existing situations.
Modernism
Postmodernism started in the ’60s but gained traction by the end of the ’70s. Complexity and Contradiction 1966 by Robert Venturi was the first manifesto of the post-modern era.
Extolling functionalism, it criticised and rejected all eclectic buildings in the 19th century under the slogan “ornamentation is a crime”. Simply shaped white boxes were advocated and later came to be known as modernism.
There are diverse theories as to why it came to being from saying modern technologies replaced craftmanly manual labour to the saturation of the stylistic approach.
The Economic Viewpoint
In the early 80s in Japan, there was a huge real-estate bubble.
After the war, a huge growth in production and industrialisation was observed. The number of individual loans had started to increase. During that time in Japan and countless other countries, land had begun to be used as collateral, protected by the myth that land never loses value. In part the myth initially had a basis in countries such as Japan, land was scarce and more could not be created.
With increased interest in land, there was an increased interest in buildings. By packaging the land together with buildings or buildings, the developer could raise the value of their commodity, thus increasing profit margins, or subdivide the property into more easily marketable portions.
There is an objective method for calculating the price of the land with FAR and the address as variables, but there is no objective method to calculate the price of the buildings. The price of land which was fairly transparent, was made opaque by building to the the investors.
Novel designs were welcomed not only by the investors but also by the construction industry creating a black-box of sorts yielding enormous profits on individual buildings. The developers called rebound international architects with distinct styles to create easily recognisable buildings further increasing the opacity of the price. All this led to a bubble in the 80s, and after the burst, it led to a huge change in architectural culture called modernism. Helping save construction costs by stripping away ornamentation, adding universality and standardisation.
Change Through Typologies
Yes, modernism was brought about by the introduction of a typology called office buildings. These are the true roots of modernism and are not made by avant-garde architects. Architects who designed the prototype of the early office building in the early 19th century, arrived at modernism virtually unaware.
However, in the 19th century, these types of buildings came into being due to the need for space for machinery and were purpose-built for the owner. By contrast, the office buildings '60s onwards were building types which was non-specific, interchangeable subjects.
An office building used by Corporation A today and may be used by Corporation B tomorrow. They had neutral interiors and similar ceiling heights. It was meant to distance itself from arbitrary desires.
Office buildings ended up being the dominant building type in the 20th century. Universal space was seen as a prescription for saving architecture from alienation. Architecture would be disconnected from objects, and be free from alienation, be forever radiant.
[On a side note]
Zoning is a legal system that was adopted to establish and restrict the increase of the typology and volume of buildings that can be constructed in a place. Through zoning we could get the FAR of a place and by understanding the ongoing rent, the valuation of the building could be calculated. In part solving the issue of economic factor leading to modernism.
Zoning did save cities on a number of ocations, Although, with places with high FAR, with an increase in the number of offices, the values of office buildings as assets and rents in those places fell drastically rendering this system moot in some parts.
Modernism Through Regulation
In 1933, The Athen Charter which dealt with the future of architecture and cities advised that various city functions should now be separated. Residences, workspaces, recreation and traffic apart.
Then, in 1998, a new conference was invited to Athens and based on the experience of the 65 years, the new Athens charter was developed that basically says residences, workspaces, recreation and communication must never be separated. A complete turnaround from the initial regulation. It was noted that the previous charter failed to create monofunctional buildings with vaguely defined no-mans-land surrounded by leftover space.
Although this new charter was an improvement of the 30s one, it defined movement would be predominantly vehicular, which led to another whole slew of problems.
Affects On Densification & Urbanisation
It was noticed that urban permeability declined after modernism due to the increasing scale of development, pedestrian/vehicle segregation and as a consequence of culs-de-sac.
Modernism led to standalone buildings disconnected from the street and respectively disconnecting residents. This was further aggravated by the monopoly of the builders who only created a certain kind of development that prioritised profits, leaving residents with no choice.
The incorporation of universal spaces although quite useful at the time seeped its way into other typologies ultimately leaving cities without an identity, being synonymous with any other city in the world.
Source
[1] Architecture of Defeat (Kengo Kuma)
[2]From maximum urban porosity to city’s disaggregation: Evidence from the Portuguese case (Rita Castel’Branco, Antonio ´ Ricardo da Costa)
