Obstruction: Grammer of a city
Authors Note:
In the 1920s form was supposed to follow function.
In the 1960s form was supposed to follow movement.
In the 1970s form was supposed to follow programme.
In the 1980s form was supposed to follow itself.
Abstract
Architectural form is inherently paradoxical. It is grounded in existing conditions, yet it constantly evolves and does not anticipate the future. We grapple with the question of why a particular form is selected. Why this specific form and not another? This prompts us to question the necessity of architectural form as a whole. It is crucial to discern the distinction between recognition and perception.
Spaces within a city often bear remnants of streets with programmatic infrastructure integrated into them. However, due to their inherent mutability, they fail to respond to their context, needs, and community. Instead, if we propose the concept of a space devoid of streets, where form evolves over time and is guided by principles akin to democracy, such a city may foster cohesion among its inhabitants.
Form Paradox
Architecture form is always in a state of paradox. The form often arrives based on existing conditions, but with constant variability and change, they do not respond to the upcoming. But designing for the upcoming cannot be done because of the number of variables involved and even if it is designed it would be according to one of the infinite futures that could be. Hence form is always in a state of paradox. [Ref V]
Formalism attitude is often associated with process techniques, and materials, in short, how: how from is produced and composed. We find this attitude comforting yet we are unable to answer the question of Why? Why form? Why this form, not another? Awareness of a form is necessary and this leads us to the question why is an architectural form necessary at all? [Ref III]
Recognition Vs Perception
“It is crucial for us to understand the difference between recognition and perception. Recognition of an object works through its symbols, formal and conventions, while perception is a dynamic act of seeing and the first step towards estrangement from architectural techniques of what, until when, had not and could not have come into view”.
Post-capitalism uses imaginary, craftsmanship offering a person’s ability to gain awareness of their own position. [Ref IV]
Life Between Walls
If life of a city of summarised in one gesture, it would be that of passing through walls. Every movement of our existence is defined through walls and spaces. [Ref VIII]
Mutability of Life
Even among these constants architects cannot define how a programme changes, how movement performs, how life unfolds and how change occurs. The only programme that can be reliably attributed to architecture is its specific inertia in the face of life’s mutability. Here inertia is its ability to stay constant, change according to its own time, resist variability and open up discussions of what could be.
Today, many large-scale urban projects are looked after by private investments, and sometimes they do not look beyond their own interest. What is needed is a mere set of programs that transcend private, to a sense of commonality. [Ref X]
Bounding Principles
Democracy does not mean absolute freedom, but it is a set of guiding principles that guarantee equality enabling individual freedom. the belief is that while the city is a playground for private industries the playground itself should contain a set of intelligible set of shared and visible principles.
One of the proposals to design for such mutability is a city of rooms instead of a city of streets. These city walls establish a space for development and are the most basic inhabitable architectural infrastructure. Bounding yet transcends the private, the public, the ever-changing programme and commonality. [Ref XI]
The Proposal
Their choice of four alls blurs the distinction between the urban interior and exterior.
“The space of an urban room emphasises accessibility as a communal space rather than infrastructural plug-ins”. Instead of assigning programmatic infrastructure, it prioritises the accessibility to build a communal space and the nature of its form nurtures the growth of the programmes. It organises the intangible in some manner. [Ref XII]
Public transportation hubs foster development, hence having a rigid peripheral ring limiting the extent of the city, with development moving inwards, with flexibility towards its core. [Ref XIII]
The idea is that streets do not make the city, not the movement, not the programme as all of these are variable but the space. A city without streets, plazas interior or exterior, just the idea of uniform space. I believe as people begin to inhabit the space, and begin to incorporate their programmatic infrastructure, their interests, and their plazas a natural organisation of streets will emerge. The one that responds and will evolve with time. [Ref XIV]
Source
[1] Obstruction: The grammar of a city (Pier Vittorio Aureli, Kersten Geers, Martino Tattara and David Van Severen)
AA Files , Summer 2006, №54 (Summer 2006), pp. 2–7
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