mixed-use diagram
A diagram from the Metro/Education study by Michel Lincourt and Harry Parnass (published in 1970):
to quote the bigness man…
‘Bigness is no longer a part of any urban tissue. It exists, at most, it coexists. Its subtext is fuck context’.
stadium + apartments
Herzog & de Meuron’s design for stadium and apartment megastructure in Portsmouth, England.
Bettina Funcke talks with Peter Sloterdijk in Against Gravity:
But when I highlight the apartment and the sports stadium as the most important architectural innovations of the modern, it isn’t out of art- or cultural-historical interest. Instead my aim is to give a new account of the history of atmospheres, and in my view, the apartment and the sports stadium are important primarily as atmospheric installations. They play a central role in the development of abundance, which defines the open secret of the modern.
spatial multitudes… urban assembly containers…
from Antonio Petrov’s translation (in New Geographies Issue 0) of Sloterdijk’s Foam City:
In looking at assembly architectures, the topological particularities of modern cities become visible: On one hand, they are defined as locations for collectors, who move toward the gathering crowd; on the other hand, they accommodate apartment buildings that serve as dwelling pods to small families and singles; and lastly they host the diverse institutions of the Arbeitswelt (world of labor), in which the majority of urbanites secure their economic existence.
utopia…architecture…provocation…
Behrang Behin interviewed by Bryan Boyer on Archinect, an excerpt:
That said, I think architecture is in a unique position to be very practical, addressing current-day issues, but to simultaneously work as a provocation (the way, as you point out, modernist utopias operated). In a sense, architecture can be provocative by engaging the banality of current concerns as the reference point for speculation, because by doing so, it can point out that alternatives exist as latent possibilities within today’s realities.
rules of foamspace
The architecture of foam according to Sloterdijk’s Foam City from the ‘carcass of a weblog maintained by Bryan Boyer while he was a thesis student in the architecture dept. at the Harvard Graduate School of Design‘ :
- Foamspace must “enable both the isolation of individuals, and the concentration of isolated entites into collective ensembles of cooperation and contemplation.” It is both/and.
- Foamspace is the recapitulation of previous spaces, rinsed and washed of their former structures but never completely evading them. It is historical.
- Foamspace must allow “occasional assembly” even if society is so large that this assembly must always function as a synechdote. It is representational.
- Foamspace creates the largest structures (“the masses”, “the nation”, or “the people”) only when the physical assembly is elaborate. It requires affect.
- Foamspace must degrade gracefully: it should make sense to those who can read it, entertain those who simply look at it, and command the attention of those who may only gaze. It is layered.
capitalism/accumulation…connection/segregation
from Pier Vittorio Aureli’s contribution to Log 11:
The enclave can be understood as a direct consequence of the economic mastery of capitalist accumulation, because capitalism always connects and integrates the urban territory when it must absorb, exploit, control, and organize labor and transform it into profit; but it always segregates when it comes time to accumulate and distribute that profit.
spectacularization of urban spaces
interesting article by Anouk Bélanger on the Canadiens move from the Forum to the Molson Centre (now called Bell Centre), here is the abstract (link):
As global corporations scan the world for preferential locations, particular places are forced into a competitive race to attract inward investors. All of this is leading to increased global inter-urban competition around entertainment industries, where cities must reimage and reimagine themselves in order to position themselves as `world-class’. Sports stadiums and other complexes have become increasingly important in this dynamic. In this article, the shift in sports venue from the Montreal Forum to the Molson Centre is examined as a means to explore a variety of issues: the privatization and spectacularization of urban spaces, the local customization of those developments through a marketing of nostalgia, the increasing importance of sport teams and venues in investment in civic images and infrastructure.
The 60s Montreal Thinks Big
Book published published to accompany the exhibition The 60s: Montreal Thinks Big at the CCA in Montreal…
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