tear rmer The MIT Press Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MassachusettsEdited by Alison Smithson for TEAM 10 idual positions. In a way it is a history of how the ideas of the people involved have grown or changed as a result of contact with the others, and itis hoped that the publication of these root ideas, in their original often naive form, will enable them to continue life. The first part of the original Primer—the ‘Role of the architect’— is concerned with the attitudes which the subsequent material ‘speaks about in another way. The material has been roughly grouped into three sections—‘Urban infra-structure’, 'Grouping of gs", and ‘Doorstep’. Each of these sections tends to be by one person or group—he or they, whoever de- veloped the root idea—and the complementary or commentar; material by others is printed alongside making a kind of counte! point, The ‘carrying text'—that which is intended to carry the main message—is laid out in the largest face on the left hand side of each pair of pages. On the right hand side of the pair in a smaller face is the supplementary text. Between them, in italics, are the ‘verbal illustrations’, and in the smallest faces of all, are the footnotes, and, in italics, the captions. EXPLICATION EN LANGUE ETRANGERE DU ABECEDAIRE Uobjectit de PAbecédaire est de réunir sous une seule couverture des textes, Contlnuss laches, en eontrenint, tes sinévonts evs des inaividus gui ont forme tette famille nebulouse s'intitulant Equipe 10. ‘Aucun des textes ne fut écrit spécifiquement avec Equipe 10 en téte; ils forment ‘de construction et de réflexion surla facon de mieux fence est dans I'esprt et Ia saveur des piéces individuelles choisios Dour étre cousues ensembleun nouvel ensemble, quelque chose de nouveau Comme un Annie est erbc. tend Btre un kaldidoscope de pensées, d'idées, d'opinions, de craintes, de questions, de doutes, d'examens; en faire un resumé ne vous laisserait rien de Cette qualite transitoire, changeante. Comment résumerions-nous un Jouet, ou Sin fle Eames? Un Intrus pourrait le faire—et les critiques peuvent le faire parla suite. Mal document contenalt un résumé les lecteurs le liraient, basoraient leurs opt dessus, liraient les textes a travers ce résumé, examineraient les diagrammes Sgalement ainsi et fonderaient leurs discussions deseus. Un tel support ou clef wahirait cet Abécedaire, EXPLICAGION DE LA CARTILLA EN LENGUA EXTRANJERA Elobjeto de la eartilia ex coleceionar en un sole voliimen textos sueltos, co Yai contrapunto, los diversos escritos de personas que constituyeron ia familia, Zontusa—que se titulan Grupo 10. Ninguno de los textos fue escrito especificamente tomando on consideracién Sl Grupe 40, sino que formaban parte del proceso de conatuccion y eshucrzes para sor ligad: Se propone ser un Calidoscopio de pensamientos, ideas, epinios ia nada de esia calida eambiante y pasajera. z Como podemes resumit un juguente o una pelicula de Eames? Podria hacerlo un extrano—y pueden hacerlo los critics mas aK sise ofreciese un resumen junto con este documento la gente lo leeria, formar ‘miraria'a fos di ue opiniones sogun el resumen, lear ugramas bajo la influencia del resumen y levasla a Tal apoyo o ayuda violaria el fin de. J. B. Bakema Aldo van Eyck G. Candilis A &P. Smithson Shad Woods Giancarlo de Carlo J. Coderch C. Pologni J. Soltan S. Wewerka Holland Holland France England France Italy Spain Hungary Poland Germany Sit, Seed ee ere RLY okra Poot SE. Sten dE, Satsenioca sine ‘ie ese whore he Ciao ‘trou peur of eer fares Contents Preface 4 Team 10 Primer 20 Role of the architect 24 Urban infra-structure 48 Bibliography 106 Copyright © 1968 by alison Smithson First published in the United States by The MIT Press Nasetchusets instive of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts {and in book form in Great Britain by Studio Vista Limited, Blue Ster House, Highgate Hill, London N19, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 68-25090 Brintod in Great Britain by the Whitefriars Press Ltd, Condon and Tonbridge, Kent, England The Aim of Team 10 {Aim of Tearn 10 has been described as follows: ‘Team 10 ie a group of architects whe havo sought each other out because each has found the help of the others necessary to the development and understanding of their own individual work, But Rigmoro inan tnat ‘They came ogether in the fst place, certainly because of mutual fealation of the iacequectes of the processes of architectural thought which they had inherited from the modern movement as 2 Wwhola, But more important, each sensed that tne other had already Tound'some way towards 3 new beginning. This new baginning, and the tong Duld-up that followed, has been concerned with inaucing, as It wera info the bloodstream of the architect an understanding and feeling for the pattems, the aspirations the artefacts, the fools, tne modes of transportation and Communications of present-day socity, 29 that e.can as a natural thing build towerds that society's realzation-ot salt. In'this senge Tear 10 ls Utopian, bul Utopian about the present. ‘Thus their aim is not to theorize but to bull, for only through eon: trustion can 4 Utopia ofthe present be roalize, For them “0 build” has @ special meaning in that the architect's Fesponsiilty towards the individual or groups ne builds for, and towards the echasion and convenience ofthe collective structure to which they betong, is taken as being an absolute responeibliy. No Sbstract Master Flan stands between him and what he has tO co, tnly the ‘human facts" and the logistics of the situation {To Gecept such responsility shore none is trying to direct others fo perform sels whieh his contra techniques cannot encompass, requires the invention of a working-ogether-technique where each pays alfention to the other and to the whale insofar as he is able ‘Foam 10's of the opinion that only in such a way may mosningtul ‘groupings of bulldings come into being, where each building is a iva thing anda natural extension of the others. Together they will take places whare 2 man can realize what he wishes io be ‘Team 10 would ke fo Jevelop tir thought precesses and! anguags of bulling to a port nhera a collective damonstration (perhaos a Nile eelteonesiaus) cquld be mado ata scale which would be really ffiecive in ferme of the modes of Hfe and the structure of a corm munity. Fmust be said that this point is stll some way of. Primer Preface 1988 Here Team 70'ries to explain, in a similar edited form tothe original Primer, what we atand for today, why a republication of the Primer is of point, and why, because ef our continually evolving atitude, {he Primer is stil a valid document for sludents of architecture to nom ira first dracted in December 1962,Preface Team 10 know one another well enough not to get involved in our different personal strengths and weaknesses—i.e. are a ‘family’. We already represent a sufficient variety of backgrounds and attitudes, but have a common link To continue to meet these people (not more) would be of enor- mous value, giving possibilities for discussing, exchanging and developing the ideas that are occupying our minds—both ideas of a general nature and our attempts to their precision in the jobs we are doing. Should we be able to achieve, by mutual interchange, a cerlain excellence in our own workin architecture and com- ‘munity building, in speech and writing, Team 10 could have much dgreater importance for us and for others than as an arranger of meetings! For the internal meetings the need for a formulated common themo need not be pronounced, though it might be found during correspondence before the meeting that a bias in a certain direc tion could be of common interest. Stochlm, February 2nd 1967. Erskine Is the sincere wish of many of us—and mine—of going on with Team X a sentimental or a lazy habit or—what would be worse—a lack of new ideas? J think that in our discussion we should start from this point: what kind of approach is each of us carrying out and where does it lead? believe that it's no longer enough to trust that our theoretical lines are similar even if our formal research and our philosophical background are dissimilar. (There is, of course, a dialectical re- lation between the three that can't be disregarded.) | mean that if we want to discover the real quality of our being together, it is important to face the meaning of our theoretical statements through the forms we are able to give them in our architectural production. At the same time it is important to face their ideo logical background: the moral, political, rational, utopian pattern from which we derive both theoretical lines and architectural forms. Ifforms appear expressive, unexpressive, unrhetorical,ambiguous, unambiguous, open, closed, elemental, complex, and so on, each of these reflects a difference on the theoretical lines and on the ideological background. If the ideological background includes to be pro-affluent society or co-it, pro-motor car dominated or co-it, and so on, each of these reflects a difference on the theoretical lines and on the architectural form. To assess the reason of our being together implies now a con- frontation of the whole system of our personal behaviour from ideology, to theoretical lines, to forms. Paris, February 2th 1967. de Cerlo 41 do not feel that the Primer ‘5 dietonary need be revised row. Only an Appendix has to be aitached to if now, and from time fo time, with 2 Collection of paricular solu- fons which were influenced by the Tear 10 way of think ‘ing and in which Team 10 approach was influenced by Conditions pecufar to the ‘Situation. Dialogues provoked inthat way and the continuous ‘contact between members will help inthe evolution of the ‘ideas, enabling them to continue ther life Mis very aifficut fo say ‘exactly how the ideas Geve- Iaped within oF around Team 10, Influenced today's thinking. The diatogues, the meetings among clos friends, Where the roots of ideas were Tormilated into arnciptes,. continued thel fe through publieatons, through the fctiniles of the members of the Team who were engaged In-actual construction as well fein leaching near'y all aver the world, The responstbity to salisly present needs Is 25 real 6 10 respond (0 the fever increasing rate of con tinuous change and growth To establish a continuous And real dialogue with the authorities wito represent the ‘hint tho real clent—the Socteiyitelf—is as important as te dialogue with serentists, Specialists students or men- ers of the group. The Team 1O'Primer became a widely used dictionary inthis, dialogue. But a good die- tionary doesn’t mate the poet. Not even everyone using {he Same dictionary arrives al the same meaning for 8 ‘given word. Itis easy to agree in the ‘xtreme cases, but as we birive at particular solutions, fer aceriain point the braluation, the decision ‘making becomes a very in dividua! matter. Thus dialogue becomes difieult even among very close fiends who ‘leveloped the general ideas logether. But ifitis not possibe fo Sustain a clalogue between those who agree on the generaiies by showing land explaining to each other ‘ur own particular solutions fer our own particular pro- biems, the particularities may themselves deviate from the’ We can put on paper what has to be done and in the next moment verde atte another ihn ‘The difference and the sameness are not in the doing, but in what we think we wil do.and what we do while thinking: all that Wwe think has to do with the making of environment and it's impossible to say i this environment will be ar additive process ff buildings or # it has to be bullding of a network in which we atch house-schoo!-workshop. ‘At the momont it seems that American architecture |s developing bby making the finest buildings on campuses or Park Avenue Stuations: There ars many pictures In magazines but ‘down- tovn'—the flesh of the earthaisoase called sprawl in America land walleup fate in Holland—are not influenced by the pub- Tieations and existence of the campus bulidings. Ie goes its. own administrative way and slays away from the decision-making momants dedicated to stafue-like buildings \uhich ere small bright-coloured dots in an over grayer getting ‘gray-background of the painting called town. ‘The noise of stencil machine is everywhere, multiplying ceports about hatha abe Gone ving never wider ecles around the problem. COurproblemis the high density part of our environment and these problems are not solved in campus buildings and saying hello £0 Meiting professors at studont partes. ‘Schoole for design should be part of high density areas trving 10 Solve sutrounding problems for people who now are not able {o solve their problems themselves which always is 30 with people who are poor. “The house will be creative again fit does away with the necessity ta¥ee from it: making interruptions in life called weekends. Wenavetogotothe lowast cost housing programmetofind where ur prablem-stone is thrown inthe water and wo must stay close {fo that spot because i gives meaning to all other problems. And I the solution for the problem of lowest cost housing. in high Genny creumstonces isthe hy for ttl urbanization of the art Philadelphia, April 1967. 1B. Ik wa try to see curselvas against the general background of frchiteclure/urbanism today. would oom we have to take position as to the promises maile to socio inthis our field. An Erchitect ean know clearly what promises he can Keep as an frehitect, but knows ogually trom his nce. that many promises that ‘plenning consultants’ and so on make are im- possible to keep. Yet because plans of this type are called for by politicians—one act is simoly.a tool of the ather=it is never Ekought to fake any stand to question thoi? validity. Paper oro- mises, by omission condoned; continually made by political Erchitect Urbanist planners who like To go along with the State, Saying only such things ao the politicians ike to hear; such as We can make a new town or rerplan” an eld city to make it work for trafic, ‘These and the following linked phenomena are all things which we discuss in 1967: how-—and whether-to take arms. against them, yet are realy the same things that Codereh spoke about in 962 (gee pages 35, 37 and 39). Untruthfuiness presses the pro- fessions of northern Europe closer than ever before, for whereas the commercial world of men like these we speak of has always tisted—a law unto their purpose—outside tho main cultural Grective streams, now fone to be by the Wellare State plated Info tho cultural stream. What was the rift 1s become a crack {unning through honour in our society. The new socialism in the Weifere State 1s to do with the responsibility of ‘staying with’ a truthful promise to build until itis realized. If we examine our position in England, we must also. in the {eneral political context question whether the Weltare State in Choosing 29 much for us might not be freezing our ife pattern, foreing social benefits to answer a time sefore, unopposed by tilowing no incentives. Incentives naturally generate decisions of Choice. Freely made choices aro the redirective factors in society. Without free choice bureaucracy becomes a dead load and its 5Since 1953, Aix-en-Provence, 9th Congress of C.1.A.M, July 1953, Europe has accomplished a change of life-style: its symbol is the motor-car. The new style reaches almost the whole of society through pop styled clothes and ‘gear'—the very word gear, carrying ‘overtones of sport and sport technology tells of envied and en- viable qualities previously available only to the few. The streets of the big cities and towns are pretty with ordinary girls going to ordinary jobs. In the metropolis, at least, gay throw-away styled (but still costly) furniture is available. Light colours on the inside of ordinary houses are now quite normal. Television has opened people's minds and made a new class conscious of its existence as a group with a need for a life- style of its own. We as architects have still not found a built-mode appropriate to this life-style—we have not yet built the places ‘where it can all happen’. Our housing especially is rigid and unfriendly. A tradition of style has ridden the carriage-trade (for both coaches and farm-carts were always. stylish—pethaps especially farm- carts), and the garment-trade (with its unabashed concern with ‘emphasis, with line, with social mood, with the feel of material as well as its look), through serial-production and out the other side with style still in the saddle. Whereas one cannot feel anything but shame for our trade (we lost our style tradition through the late 19th-century moralists) in letting the serial production of houses ride right over us. We have yet to offer their fabricators either a dream city to build towards or a model of a fragment they will want to copy out of envy. The building industry today is like the garment- trade without the couture houses. Like fashion designers, to design effectively we must face the situation. We have to accept as normal motor car ownership, the proliferation of radios and various other sound-producing domestic equipment and ap- pliances, the higher living standards, and higher purchasing powers, all of which require more house volume per family. These things of their nature need lower urban densities, more distance between things, more openness. A different feel, a different style. We must also accept industrialized building methods—that build- ings can be as uniquely designed as they were in the middle-ages, but that they will be mostly of concrete. (The towers of Drancy excepted, pre-cast concrete facing started with the Unité, and reached a real industrialized level at Roehampton only in 1958. Since then a whole new industry has grown up, an industry which now has a great deal of know-how just waiting to be tapped.) That we have been unable to catch the mood of our times, unable to take advantage of these newly perfected means, is mostly because we ourselves are not sure where we want to walk and where to ride in our bouncy new clothes and in our shiny new cars. generals. The group Itself fas fo be restricted im number In order to maintain the emotional sensitivity of the ‘personal discussione, The Iewledge retained of personal and emotional discussions acts asa disciplinary influence when making design de- Cislons. Computer-adminis- trated wortd-sale organizations, with their humerous advisers, might be Successful in formulating hheutral and polite manifestoes Fin distributing information. This might also help us fo ‘make our buildings better, but tens cant be developed, can't be kept live that way. Just asa fre always goes but ifa small number of eople are not on fire trem Selves. Tear 101s needed to heep the Primer ave. Shane Be, Faoen When a Pressman asked me what I thought of the new igh rise housing blocks by te water in Perth, I replied, ‘Tdonit think they behave very nicely In relation to the Ile red nouses—and I on't {think al the little ved houses ‘behave nicely to the high blocks.” The problem Is that these are childish categories, You are not going to solve the problems of te future with Mie red houses and a ow high ise blocks. I's not 2 question of either or=It Ts a ‘question ofa far richer Tequence and seape for the ‘mingling of funevonshnown {and unkrownso that all Sizes, quantities and mean. Ings ean be familiarized. You ‘can't Just edd an absolute type of house to another absolute type of straet and, ‘fler adaing a lol more ‘Absolute items, eal! this a lly and expect 3 nice replySoraenes Soe aac Cee. 1k ll soon be twenty-seven ‘years since I began to work ag.an architect and even 60 Thave very litle fo say about Imp work sat all that I had {sayin my fist letter. Since 1am a member of Team 10, my co-operation fas nev ban 8 grea 35 imy desire fo be helpful. hope even so to continue, and fo try to loan o7 my com ppantons even iF s only frit my worries and my presence, [At present there are several things that worry me 1. The incoherence and diversity of the architect's Work tal prevents the rot nd experience he would ‘bata if his work was coherent 2 Tha necersty wo nave to broject great blocks of dvel- Ings. Before this problem | think Candis was right when hheanswered men Royaumont that we had to face the problem and answer yes Keung ase rant os tions that cannot compete wth tne modern systems of construction. 2° The problems of teaching Arehitestre and our position In front of the students. Thave romarked that there triste 3 grest cowardice In front of the young. Our own Confusion very often Brings Us fo accent ther ideas, fearing abe jedi and out.ofdate.A great Spanish ‘doctor said recently thal never Inthe Human Story had there here the politico/planner/bureeuerat, jammed in the manipulation Of the administrative machine now too big for anyone to fends fo act against any re-establishment of honesty and Sultant trust n'a community. We aro locked in a wasting struggle vith Wellare State Bureaucracy ina very similar way to how men Wore in tho size-kind wat of 1914/1918. Even at a simplo day to Uday level, useless struggles with committees arowasting valuable \norking energy and time. Only by the reduction of friction between Beraaeracy an action con teva ln be rend asf 5 ‘needs to be It is particularly necessary in the Woltare Stato to be honest ‘about te economics of any operation. This is made dificult for All people, trom the professional to the petty criminal, when we fave before us the example of the traditional apparently un- Stoppable system of money taken by taxes being used for war arms when it should (n honesty be Spent on human beings for ite The excess spending on Self ar State by any potentate was hover on such a scale ae logal governments today spend for farms; this without any bleat of protest to ask that money spent Smbut one boat plane of rocket Be spent instead tofind the house orth mass producing to replace ratlen afeas. of our cities, Besides this it is a small act, but one on our doorstep, to protest bout economic ireesponsibilty of planners who make drawings Gf roads for one town that would absorb the whole national road Budget for several years. Thooe who might protest are perhaps rightly suspicious that statistics on which might be based an Sveral rationally judged picture are swung about by politicians iho hear of cultural status fashions In butlding as in defence. Promises at politielurbanist level are involved with fashion as fashion carries cultural status in the world. We must therefore mphasice at thie moment that eutural status must ret inthe right (gesture af the right place even iti takes such an ‘old fashioned! fom asa single drase tap in an African community. The big thingthe autestrade, the site covering many city Blocks, the western ste brick bungalow-—all sclutions givon cultural situs bythe communications media and commercial pressures may be {90 grandiose, too destructive, economically preposterous, for the Gal situation or the actual socioly. It may therefore be that {he 1967 variation on Van Eyck's great word NO is perhaps Imoderation through commitment; whereby It is shown thet small Sctions actually carried out, might be more worthwhile or society and callurelly Correct and honest, and-mast Important ACTIVE, than useless paper work society has fo pay for In old European societies fashions in cultural status take Aestructive turns. Cultural fixes are wantonly destroyed with meaninglessness and ¢poed rominiscont of those blood cultures. Of Sumer, Assyria and Babylon. In England in particular cultural Stracturing, original railway routes, canals, old turnpikes, historic fown centres, land formations, aro being trampled under by those ‘whose minds are on an entitely different level of gain, Cultural fixes such as the Euston Arch, old houses in and around towns, fnarkat halle and 20 on, are being removed with a vengeance Sey equaled except a putech a i they alone reresened 2 past culture whieh Ht wiped away stould miraculausly gain our ECuniry the cultural status of the Rivera. Destruction of cultural fominders which could act as roots and fixes is an obvious) ‘deep-seated human reaction to stress, These stresses of mod Selely we have to mitigate when we cannot plan to stand of entirely. At this point is also obvious the greatness of the divide between ‘Moise creating architecture and the stross-Ires Team 10 way of thinking, ‘The most commited. of the big thunder styles 3 in Japan. Unlike the spaco-gun type theoretical projects, Team Jepan act out their pramigae and bulld "Samural architecture, iti no doubta racialy diferent reaction to the stress engendere today by open. soci feticent sete of quiatude, Team dapan with the violent gesture, foud seary noise, heavy armoured form, wild grimace. Neverthe: less in our noise and movoment-wortied societies there must be ‘2 hind. of restraint and beyond. certain. point feiek enjoining the rata the space-gon man and the commercial man—who take no 1What draws us to Paris is the stil-live sense of the city as a collective art-form: it is that which pins us to the pages of Simenon, envious of the carnal connection of places and life- pattern. A connection we know we have lost. We can rebuild that connection only from the assoc people with places we know to be alive. We live around our house-group, we transit; we live around our work-group, we transit; we shop, and we transit again. The main difference from the past life-pattern is that we hardly ever walk (or ride so that we see the people, houses and sky) from district to district if the distance is more than a third of a mile, so we don't experience the city as a continuous thing anymore, rather as a series of events. For the new life-style a city pattern of large-area comprehensible livable-around house-groups with inviolable quiet spaces, of com- prehensible livable-around work-groups, of Disneyland-type amble-around shopping areas, with easy anonymous transit between, would offer a mode of organization which corresponds to our everyday experience and our retained picture of ordinary urban life. It would then be clear where we would walk in our bouncy new clothes, and where we would ride in our shiny new cars. To build one of these livable-around groups, stable, identify- ing and identifiable should be possible, and this is what we should work towards. If we can build a group large enough to be life-style sustaining within its own boundaries, tough enough for its es- sential place-nature to survive—to be enhanced by—change, we properly discharge our role, For if there is evolved a good infra- structure such areas are what it serves, but if, as mostly happens, the town is badly organized at least we have made somewhere livable. January 28th 1967. P.D.S. ns of Isn't it obvious that in urban design one should proceed basically from the first clustering stage to the second and third, reaching ‘outward in an orderly manner to gain some insight into the total urban organism. The higher the level of clustering the greater must be the concern for community life. Conversely, in the basic cells, particular attention must be paid to individual needs, particularly for the real sense of privacy. Proceeding from the general to the particular means finding solutions to the problems of the whole town organism by examin- ing the local implications of national and regional planning pro- Posals. While previously we proceeded outward from the cell, here we reverse the process by moving inward from national and regional considerations. The urban texture thus becomes derived froma concept that covers an entire region. We know that the town has definitely ceased to exist as an island. It is now time to state that the very notion of a new town has become obsolete—the term ‘new town’ being connected with the old town-conceived-as-an- been so many scientists alive and so few wise men. We Teara tecnigues. We do rot earn to five 4."The orobiem of cola- boration Between architect and contractor and the con intuit of is eolanaraton Again something general: our ‘eal dilemma seems to bs {hat we are condemned to do ‘reseue-work or a kind of repairing’ especialy in the [eld of ely-renowal. The rasults are, as we know, more for less fragmentary and ‘meaninglacs, offen more a Bocking than an opening action and cily planners Seldom see that» liny burlding which has to be situated In aan existing structure (what ‘ver the character or function {of sueh a ely is) can slop or ‘pen future events. This is the lack in modern architecture movement: the ‘ver-imporiance of styling ‘modern materials and 80.00, ail that fs and was O.K., but {oday itis mors the question where a building with its processes Is located. A good building wrongly situated ts warse than a bad building ighty placed. (A plattude ) We have to react fo special ‘environmental circumstances ‘more instinelvely, more iret. ‘Gur main job will tl be ‘apairing hore and there in ur old tes and ane has to fry to do the best; think itis not a way to break down Duildings to get wider strets with ore automooies andthought of the type of human society we want ourselves t9 be. Rilo soon “Sarrurai' architecture moves up to the divide where {he issue 18 whether itis moral to publicize how to make a space frame that would detract Irom life} or moral to think of making & dome when one of fs omly concalvable uses is to store arms. Moray of statement, promise, intention, today seem more than (ver tied to action. I 1067 it may be that to take a money grant {0 write ¢ paper on “The problem of the Indian Village’ ts loss than praiseworthy. probably it is. culturally debilitating and Hownnont dishonest, The more correct action might be to use fhe'money to slow you to mend the village well with your own hands, Even more culturally respensiblo might be to build the ght house for your own culture, To march in Cambridge for Ufetnam is a sereaming sieam-age Immature pglitical farce, whereas {0 sandbeg a narrow ploasant stroot in Cambridge 10 Qoop ews out so that fe. canbe lived freely there and Fevexperionced and de-stressed-then label it perhaps Good action here by students ‘Why not sight action by Vietnamese? wld eetually start @ movement to change the spirit of the ‘word March 1967. AS. “The structural order of a new urban growth can be said to rely Upon a ‘backbone’ of definable elements as Shadrach Woods Bie thei: This ‘backbone’, composed of such facltios as the General network of ublties (water, sewage, power) and the Eeculetion-tansportation systems, fs the main strategie tool of the urban designer Responsibility for and control of) the ‘back- one’ rests with the community. The less-definable elements, eonnected to and ergenized by the ‘backbone’ are subject to linervention by the individual. Am overlapping of the influences Ul the individual’ and. community occurs in the subsiciary Clements of the ‘backbone, such as local commerce, education ‘and mesting places One observes in urban design projects of today a tendency to- Word total physical integration of all parts of this “backbone’. Wiheteas inthe. twenties and this, they were deliberetely Separated. Pedestrian and vehicular traffic systems must ob Sfdusly continue to be divided. (This is not only because of the hnecossity of Keeping the natural slow speed of people away trom {he mechanical, fast speed of the machine for physical security, but also each demand a totally dfierent rhythm experience, with properly differentiated peyenological stimuli to reach their slow And fast moving eyes.) The implomentation of the backbone! of definable elements cor, esponds min the implementation of the lase definable parts of {he agglomeration, The size of the isl element or increment ig Obviously crucial (and debatable). The increment quantum’ Should be the sinallest optimum: an cloment should be small enough to be workable and efficient, but large enough te be Suftclent fo the needs. The next Increment would be the result of fa study of the original one, The whole concept of agglomeration is today in the process of Iaing Its definitive physiee-vsaual character and acquiring the meaning of ‘control device" conceived to hold variables betwoon Gesirable limits. The whole concept has to possess as an in- itinsie feature the possibsity of recognizing a field of changes in Alrits increments: The changes would be controlled by the backbone’ and Irom there they would extend to the freer less defined and less controlied domaine of habitat, work, etc. & very iiferent process indeed 's requited from that which made the 1d des! ans for new towns ever to the early fillies ofthis century. Plarvard 1987. Soltan First thing we have to do is: to change the conditions of the factual Slum-areas. ‘These aroas can be the tost-grounds of research for art-of-iving~ Conditions an urbanistic-architectural scale. Planaing should be concentrated at testground-operations and their connections.island period. Today the town is just one element of a regional pattern, Itis at the higher, regional levels that the primary reasons for proposing an agglomeration are generated. These incentives. result in decisions which affect the raison d’étre of the whole region and must account for an entire spectrum of activities. Thus, 4 comprehensive regional pattern must be envisioned. The old principle of the CIAM that a healthy town should be a complete organism was moved by Le Corbusier from the level of the town to the level of the region. With the advent of officient rapid trans- Portation, even large urban areas are no longer autonomous and self-contained. Today it is possible that urban areas the size of the new towns of yesterday, can be specialized. In other words, a town, a new town in particular, becomes (again?) just one element in a pulsating line along which the catalystic activities change following regional requirements. It may be commented that in many countries the process from general to particular is made almost impossible because their regional or national planning process is not sufficiently developed to supply the necessary data. While philosophic, economic, or political arguments may be put forward, isn’t this exactly where a responsible designer can contribute by asking intelligent questions and demanding data? In other instances, regional planning processes are often better than the urban designer is willing to accept. He thus finds it easier to dismiss a sizeable part of the existing research as being of no consequence so that he can proceed more on his own. When regional data is limited, making the general to particular attitude uncertain, shouldn't the urban resort to the process of working from the particular to the general: a route always accessible. Sollan Evolution in structure of towns is based on evolution in structure of society. Evolution of structure of society is the growing awareness of man about what is existence. Part of existence is consciousness of space—qualities, During the past sixty years the anonymous man (employé) got basic rights in society. (In the Netherlands the first housing act, giving conditions for mainly state-subsidized housing, was made in 1902,) In the coming fifty years the employé (the anonymous man) will have to develop enterprise-responsibility: also enterprise- responsibility of his own environment, He will only get his own kind of environment if he knows space-quality has to do with his life-quality. The weakest part of the population still is a big part which takes the smallest opportunity for improvement of its own environment. In the USA the hottest part of the planning-housing problems is how to replace slums by good built-environment. In slums live 19 My present preoccupation is inthe design of mechanisms forhorlortal movement Cis inthe past were com- act everthing uta waking distance, Maybe tis {an idea! to be aed 3 {nour new eis, Implemented byen abundance of aiferent Systems of movement” Today these are inited I ind, bus, far, fi, ain, and none ae sill forte shorter Uistance morement of 2-3 ‘ples often 9 dstance to fart wal We design burtngs vertically around the it sha a con= Yeniont and silent device, ‘But ne deston horizontaly ‘round the ear, 3 device ineving none of these qualities, “Time dstanc! factor is important in deciding whether orhow to more: 30 minutes wall, 3 minute ave or 10 Imimites ride by bus. Places we know vr fone, ve walk about I The ear becomes problematic when there ae oo many ethel=moving or parked. ‘Then delight to tee anges. Giren ethor moremont Sensex conventent and enjoyable fo se, the cor may come sure toy. “The Japanese leave tert hoes ou before entering Teday cites are bocoming ‘nore and mare unpleasant Blaces Because ofthe prescure &f motorzation, A physical and psychological burden for le fnabitantona cote ‘uation forthe whole ofthe fityerganizationimpocablo {fo feorganize meanngfaly. The of street patter, once died by men, horses tnd Iorsezarnages fs constantly being changed and remodeled. This cost a considerate mount of money without Schering satisfactory resis ‘in metropolitan cies the process of destruction can be lopped bythe improvement “of ensting means of mass ‘Gansporaton In Parle and Borli for instance the under. ground and Expresstrain {Systems ae constant being enlarged and mozernce Such a net dense and perfect, an preser'e and hod together an existing ely sactre sl mel ietbon coisas et,‘ents hasan onset int alte Bakang che ‘Sliedphewpraphe Werner Up to the present, time has been the element of variation in ‘fbanization of the house, the block, the building ‘The house so far is a protectar-against-nature, but this function ecomes extended arid overlapped by tho function of being- space-detector, Man likes to choose space-qualtis iting to his own wondering Mhink wwe are reaving this. period of putting-together-houses- fand-buildings andare approaching the period in which test. Ground-groups can be the element of variations and scale of Speration We have to offer space-quslities instead of types of houses (Space qualities have to be produced, advertised and distributed Ge te done forall other production inour society, as food—clathes Selevision) Tho politcal administrative production of houses around Washington, The Hague and Moscow, moro and more result in a "Notlg-wide monotony fiting for non-existing monotypeman. We are stil assisting in planning of Asian and Airican con- tinents, filing them up with houses. Doing so we become housing-missionaties, denying the right of Changing-man to trust his own Individual wondering and the manifestation off by an own chaice of partcular-space-quall ‘ling-iove-perticular-person-in-a-particular-stuation. Each test Ground-action could be done by a particular association of GSers—designersproducers and should result In realization of 1 particular in-and-outside space-quality which can be tested by using them, Exch test-ground-action for chango of slums could be financed by‘aiving of the annual national building-budget for research of Space-quality-dj-a-group-ol-usors, designers and producers. Ta ehomicale, food, clothos, a's, television, spacecratt-pro- duction, more is done for research. But research in space-qualities has to be done by use, by people, {All societies on earth are making road networks, radio and television stations, knowing that we are in the period of the rehitecture of connections. But iis also the period in which the grectest client ofall mes (the anonymous man) got the right {o-eapress nis individual wondering about lie. ‘Test-ground-action on slum-sites could make the weak counties feally believe in strong countries: because in slums are living ‘weak people who really need help. Hive dont give tit will be taken. Rotterdam, duly 1967. JB. We have offered Stackholm a technique of modern city building, Of trate separation, of motor toads and of pedestrian dis- fubution from arrival points at undarground-talway and bus Stations and at parking buildings. But mast ofall have we offered Something of ‘Capital City, that fantastic human invention ‘with its many faceted needs and activities, its capacity to offer mare. and moro and more, ts hardness but also generosity and Grandezza. ‘The process of growth from city to town can, as in London, Tetgely be a process of physical expansion. Citos like Paris, oF feven smell towns such as Florence or Rome achieve elty situs By'a change of mental attitude and physical form. Each time & Stra Lows becomes a eity of world import it achieves the im- possible. Will Stockholm patch up its small town past, in a process of \Nidening existing streets and bullding larger bulldings ina series of "improvements" of the Kind which has proved so fruitless in Londen or in many bombed Gorman towns, or wil it achieve the mutation to city statue in lis Centre and Its outer parts? Has it a ‘sion and a ream oF only a fechinical programme which ean be ‘embellished by certain individual buildings "people who are poor and being poor in the USA means often that youare black.It is a universal law that the weakest part of existence, if ignored in evolution, can grow to revolutionary force. At tho moment the coloured part of the population is economically and politically the weakest part and I think that the towns of America ‘can only be improved if we concentrate on methods of change for these parts. Only this can avoid war-revolution. The evolution of planning and architecture in Europe since 1910 was part of evolution of living conditions in workmen's quarters. Housing for the great number was tried by Berlage, Tony Garnier, Corbusier, Gropius, Oud, Rietveld, Wright (Broadacre City, Suntop houses near Philadelphia 1939). At the end they had to give up and make houses for rich clients who spiritually were ahead of the institutional housing diplomats. At the moment it seems to me that the evolution of USA- architecture becomes too much a kind of free-lance-action being non-engaged in the real problems and making great-statement- buildings at university campuses or along Park Avenue-like streets, ignoring the hottest part of the problem which is housing for those who really need help. How is it that almost no School of Architecture is a centre of help for those who need it? The education of many planning-archi- tectural students becomes more abstracted from the real problem. Our reality is that we have to produce in the next fifty years more cubic-meter-built-volumes than were produced by the whole civilization in the past 1950 years?’ And we have to do it for a type of man who can be characterized as the... changing man . ‘Changing from living in African and Asian jungles and deserts into inhabitants of towns from man working a whole day in workshops— and plants—into man working in a pushbutton-process some hours a day and for the rest having free-time. It is the changing-man (the biggest client and consumer of all times) who is trying to find ‘ownness’ by using food—clothes— transport—communication—space—sound—light. If we go on trying to produce for him types of houses multiplied ‘@ million times we never will produce enough nor make just the contrast of what we pretend to be. We know we cannot do this by using actual methods. Finding built form for changing-man becomes a religious value. Man's need of identification-in-space through built-environment corresponding to ‘ownness’ has more to do with the kind of space ‘he uses than with the amount of space he owns. (And I think this is true for all scales, from house to region.) The relationship of space-quality to life-quality is under-developed. Rotterdam, May 1967. 8. R pd tie ata What we are after is a new asyel uninown configurative discipline. Its hard to tell ‘anybody about it because nobody inthe twentieth Century has made it his. The ‘iselpline fs stil not ours— the art of humanizing vast number hasnt advanced beyond the fist vague preliminaries. We Know Inothing of vast multptciy— Wwe canna come fo gripe With Itnot as architects, Dlanners or anybody else ‘and there's the challenge. No discipline available fo us now can sie the sel ara farm problems whieh vast number poses. We have lost touch with what Teall harmony in motion, or the aesthates of number.For tho town with a dream all is possible. f the dream is lacking {Today's problems make a vision of the future Impossible and a tity is leit ‘improving’ the “backyards” which it knows, London fnissed its chances once in the seventeenth century when its city Burnt end Christopher Ween wae commissioned to do buildings, hot city, and again alter the Second World War. Will Stockholm Seize é chance when by Hs own planned activities it demolishes the major part of ls most central city? 41. We have offered Stockholm 2 structure for its most central part not precisely dosigned buildings nor precisely defined Spaces. 2 The precisely defined buildings and spaces will be formed by Clients and thelr architects at each point where a defined pro- firamme ane finance ereate a dynamie moment in city building, {This process will happen in the neat futuro as this part of Stockholm becomes progressively domalished and rebuilt. It will also happen inthe future as the new buildings become obsolete and a falure generation rebuilds. The bull form wil vary but the Structure wil remain ana we can but hope that et each time the best clients and architects create the form. 4. We offer a flexale structure and donot requlte detailed design decisions for each pert untll development is envisages: ‘The disadvantage is that floxibilty means that policies must in port be conceptual and not stated in concrote terms moro easily Understood by the publie (or even by architoctural or art erties). ‘Stockholm, 1967. Erskine ‘The problem of having to pay forthe preservation of the historic Centre with the prolongation of backward social conditions is particularly felt by the local authorities. The tendency towards a Brogressive. destruction of tho formal values. of the ‘Centro Storico™ witha consequent deteroraion in the quality of the “alole urban pattern has a precise parallel in what is happening in that other preserve of formal values, hati the countryside around the town, ‘The wesk mechanism of local politics, incapacitated by its lack GF instrumental power, 13 al tha less in 4 position to oppose this Gestruction in the name of principles which aro reckoned to be futside the understanding of public opinion. This problem Is an urgent and pressing one for historic cities: nore urgent and preseing where factors are more varied and Complex’ and where ‘mistakes represent ‘teperable loss to Svilizstion and mankind. Urbino’, de Carlo In Paris existing transportsystams are: Underground (Metro), railways (SNCF), bus routes in the city and out to the country 'Ail'tnese public tranport-systems exist. Sometimes some of these systems meet each other a one paint (trafic interchange), These mechanical systems, with their different scales and {poeds, are fopetner one immense, large labyrinth, The different lanspert-systems are hooked and linked together with diferent hots of human activities, The traMc-nets are the armature of a metropolitan city Cities are the compact bundles of overlaid net-structures, the Sum of many different systoms, In all metropolis there are these unfinished systems. We should finish and complete raw ends of systems. ‘St W. ea chien 3| think that it’s perfectly senseless, faced with the problem ot habitat for the greatest number, to say, as do most of our dear colleagues, who are not interested in it, that there is no problem. Itis obvious a problem exists and has several facets. Not long ago, in a lecture at the Technische Universitat in Berlin, Jean Prouvé revealed one of the facets of the problem when he said that if he compared our technological possibilities (bicycles, aeroplanes, missiles, etc.) with the houses that we build, he had to conclude that we are a bunch of dimwits. No intelligent architect would dare say he is wrong. There is another side to the problem: our sociologists, those eminent technocrats, wake up in a cold sweat at the thought of the disintegration of family and social life in the housing schemes which are supposedly ‘moderate rental’ and other settlements. After all, itisn’t all cake to live in these rabbit hutches; do-gooding on the cheap is a dirty game. ‘Do-gooding’ is already a little bit suspect; on the cheap it is disgusting in the literal sense. We have pointed out two aspects of the problem of the ‘greatest number’ which seem to us to be essential respecting housing proper, or more specifically dwellings. Another aspect of the problem is in the grouping, the dwellings in relation to the city: the influence of the city on the dwelling and the dwelling on the ity. This side of the problem touches us less in Markisches Viertel in 1967 because all the important decisions about it were already taken in 1963. There is no question of going back on those decisions; at least before the construction of the fifteen thousand dwellings provided for in the plan. (It is discouraging to note that those contributions to the urban fabric which have a certain value—notably those of Team 10 and others—were widely available before this date.) We can only regret that, Nothing short of a revolution will change anything in that direction. We can but ‘examine the technical aspects and the quality of the construction on the one hand, and the organization of space on the other. | believe that housing for the greater number, i.e. housing sub- zed by public funds, should in no way be considered as a poor relation of architecture (as too often happens). A large part of the built world (our world, after all) cannot and should not be only the product of a false calculation on the part of insufficiently informed cost-accountants. Naturally, we can't close our eyes to figures (but we can't forget that mathematical figures are only the result of ‘mathematical operations, statistics, and are not determinants). Since these buildings are financed with public money, everybody's money, | think that we (everybody) are entitled to insist on better quality. If we consider that it is an investment of our own wealth, that we transform our money (the product of our work) into real estate, without other counterpart, we should make sure that these buildings are the best possible. The buildings, the dwellings, are all we have left at the end. If the buildings are bad, the dwellings out of date and inadaptable, we can say that we have been bilked, 4 Aeron abana and erban designs tay thre dingo ondency ab tanh foetal «par of the design process fem te com BletaoeressConcenialing Sno coal part ofthe process narow ues of ‘mai ban fons are fn aca of te narrow tess of theo, f0 Ireentnty eee yb- tele and mosty ual than pete, uch gm mick bing arbi fo not ren lend themselves to, Fee ond stating tic Casson. Scene flonan aston iaete prove roi espe ie tine ard eft Seni on tem’ The wold is Etat ana fo up mtn, Segall Thy oanae nahing mare than aie Hwelar ie te shy epee of san cei ey ‘ete ot botwoen the rma of te eis ro [eco the ring Bde Ide rote de designs overt ward do to tain he prove ea Src rom the pres gen utdans cootinasec ath ant and content. {tian unteatyparadon tha ia domain so pag mati, ina since dd at rte api at sn dasign theo fe tht remarsfthe maatiy fle practioner Wat, ‘oud become of apt Diyas shot be fred {ofheoree mo medicine withoot practice? Bow many tj ua design rojas fre barn enery aay Pub ied in areola trapalned She any of them rach reateston? What isthe elation between Bhlosoohy the sink of he Sreraterning sry of le projected the ob Stora etived urban ino they olen ‘epesenng compte Gan oe btn uel fad Seek foram ntronige Brnarh ong pee Scontervatne oes sechonardooking Feat? ‘Hom lng can one deeuss whan acing?1 he ect du ein er concent 1 think there is a recurrent hought-mistake Incorporated ‘whenever poopie simply fetend what happens (righty happens) inthe world of small thingealong 2 straight line— Into thal of larger (quantitatively larger) things. Take plug-inism: as an ism (aware Titan ‘plugcin" without plugophiles {alright because it's 2 valid concept as Jong as itis hol extended info an ‘absolute abstract. Dovit- ‘yourself in a none dovit- ourself society's a nation which might make from a f0 J But itis simply foolish to extend it beyond j 0 2 (which {2 dream) fo 30 imaginary situation, Le. when dont ‘yourself deals with everything rom #102 ‘nol going to let unpoetic tutopists (hata paradon) browbeet our realism which nas as much utopianism init 48 society can absorb. We annot do more than we can without doing fess, Others may one dey do more, but the pesudo-vtopian browbeaters do less, usualy very much fess. 15k Cin Ere 6and our money thrown out of bureaucratic windows; we are left holding a very poor bag, valueless either for renting or for re~ selling. Market value zero for second-hand flop-houses; what can we do with these awful pads? Figures: there is need, throughout Europe and throughout the world, for lodgings—hundreds of thousands, millions even, just to fil present needs, without counting the natural increase in the number of people to be housed. Itis recognized that a man, in the beginning of his productive life, almost never has enough money (excepting, of course, heirs) to buy himself the dwelling he needs immediately. We have therefore invented some sort of contract between him and us, his brothers, to advance him his dwelling, to give him credit for it. This operation has become normal. To undo this contract is always possible, but to do that we have to be ready to face all the consequences. We do not know what they could all be, but wo can imagine several of them—an upset of the whole social structure, with an ensuing drop in production, a return to the good—for some—old days of before the revolution, and after a While, the Revolution, but this time on another scale and with another violence. It is undoubtedly better to respect the contract, to make the advance of the indispensable dwelling, even to try to make a larger contract, to go beyond the state of make-do and to take a more positive view. Any action, including inaction, calls forth a reaction. Let us then make a broader contract. I would not say that every man has the right to his own dwelling and that society should give him the credit to obtain it at the time when he needs it most. | would say, however, that society needs the fact of this man being well housed, where and when itis necessary. We are not ‘do-gooders'. We realize that the society which we have fallen heir to is some- what rickety and we can only keep it from breaking up at the price of some effort to see clearly into its mechanisms. But man is nota toothed wheel, needing a crank case and regular greasing. This fact is manifest—if anything | said holds the smallest atom of truth, ifall of this is nothing else but asininities, itis in the interest of everybody that every man has a decent dwelling. | think that we all agree on this point, Unfortunately, we haven't been able to explain clearly to our agents—those devoted bureau- crats who execute our contract with ourselves for us—what the rules of the game are. So, first out of it, then more and more with it, they invented the rules. They latched on, as anybody would, to the first plank to float past. Shipwrecked and uncompassed in a sea of numbers (i.e. population) they fell upon figures, which provide a nearly absolute haven, And the statistical man will have, by con- tract, a right to his own statistical house. Count them! Right! Next please! (Not even ‘Thank you'.) But itis not and never will be too Tate to tell them, to rectify the omission. We only have to realize it and re-establish the pricrities. To have a society we have to have mon living in the society. For this, given a certainty of eating 6 sua uly fe bling of in Shee econ hesitate) eset rate re ats: i 2 ”regularly, we must have individual dwellings tor men. If the life of ‘@ man can unfold (who folded it?) in a framework adapted to him, the life of the society can but be enriched. But we haven't finished with the figures. Figures are, after all, not astronomical but human—i.e. very large. Enough to make an industry. Enough to operate the biggest factory, And we don't ‘seem to be interested at all. Our greatest industry is war. After- wards, cars. It is true that both of them tend to diminish the de- mand for dwellings, but to such desperately little extent! (If it weren't for the bomb we would be tempted ta shoot ourselves.) When we think of the lovely industry we could create! First the eating industry. What could be finer than to feed the world? At the ‘same time (it would be idiotic to assign priorities here) to house ourselves more than decently. To discover the pure joy of being alive. (Joie de vivre.) | say discover (perhaps | should say uncover) the joy of living, because it is buried beneath such dirt, a sticky, slimy layer of completely uninteresting petty private interests, that you have to dig deep into, but it is worth the sweat. What are we waiting for? To read the news about a new armed attack with even more esoteric weapons, news which comes to us through the air captured by our marvellous transistorized instru- ments, somewhere deep in our more and more savaged dwellings? Our weapons become more sophisticated; our houses more and more brutish. Is that the balance sheet of the richest civilization since time began? Why wait? It is time to think, not of the solutions, but of the problems. We can't care less about solutions. Moreover, there aren't any. To think about problems, which are for humanity human problems, is already something. For architects, a little stunned by the mass of people, there are two paths: either to think about solutions or to think about problems. The firstis a dead end, we know it, we can see the proofs all around Us. It is looking backwards, because if we say, ‘solutions’ we say, ‘knowledge’, and what we know is already old hat. To think ‘pro- blems’ means to look to the future. Architecture is primarily intelligence and wit. We have to think otherwise, to imagine ‘une cture autre’ (and other politics); as we began to do together, you and Peter, Jaap, Aldo, Georges, Giancarlo, Jerzy, Ralph and Oskar, José Antonio, and, with all the best will in the world, | believe that we owe it to ourselves to go a good bit further along this road together. Leller fo A.S.: Marhisches Viertel, Berlin, 1967. Shad Woods The problem is not how to build houses for individual ‘people or for smaller groups. The constant increase of population and their con- Septain inert areas ‘alse problems of how t9 fina tving conditions for the There are three rea factors which demand buildings in great volumes—big-forms Inahighiy developed industrial Society. The enormous num ber of dwellings: eight milion units were builtin West Germany after the war. The unfavourable relation between eferk and a house {or oneself. (Only five months {workman has 0 work for 2 VW, eight years for an partment of $0 sq.m) The scarily of land (4s milion people lve on 60 ‘sqm: in Paris, that means 20 spmiperson) ‘Quantities produce new ‘uals of fore. The contraform of the “big-form Is parssitee architecture, The ‘bo-form’ creates the frame, the order and the Blanned space for an un- Gelerminable, unplannabie, Spontaneous process: for parasitic architecture. Without ‘is component every planning 1s rpid and ifelee. The gothic cathedrals with smal shops in the outside arches, the fown of Arles, ‘uiltnto a Roman amphi theatre, the S-bahn In Borin, with different shops and workshops in the arches of the construction, are examples for big-forms as an element {in which a temporary and Spontaneous building happens. This process can change ‘everytime without changing the seructre Bern 967, M, Unger We might say one of our Primary aims in trying to find ‘adequate solutions for larger ‘roups of houses 1s fo make athaven within which the Individual dwelling ests secure and peaceful. Within Ihis haven the individual should be able fo establish private ldenity, find meaning fer the small acts of his or her daily if, and ultimately some satisfaction through & Sense of well-being, in being here stale ncWe toon a hog ander Toate seen, ified Metron ey Exits seated cle Perko ae eimai mactems nara ee eet gst i ete ein ee fiona Thule aneurin te RODS The dilemma ofthe architect planner ts that, ifhe en- eavours by sketcn forms 10 five an understandable Indication of the environ- ‘mental potential of tre Structure these ae im- mediately given the dignity of a well-studied building pro- lect, and subjected to 2 ‘dialed criticism on this: basis, whilst if he abstains he Communicates no vision fo those for whom, quite ight, the vision fs of great import Init possible that new com ‘munication fechnigues such 2: film could present change 35 the mast permanent factor in city buildin Fetus 96 rskine Sve ofthe tes of free ‘pb of eran zane: ened Sy rom ees ite Lock, two kinds of order—a very uninteresting kind-just a sort of drawing board geometry translated into concrete, upright ‘ahitestripes,athousand of those would be a wicked kind of order, Buta very endearing kind of order fs that which you discover In each of these little human occupancios. You will find teal order {tere only in Hong Kong—such a capacity to accommodate all [tivities ina Single hard cubicio ft by Sit—and everything inthe fight place, And enildren creeping from under the table with their blouses snow white, This isa magnificent example of how human beings transcend the Norrors which architecture provides, This | tall ordereolourful, human order. That woman is probabiy dead fired trying to mainiain order in that sily geometry, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Perth, 1968, van EyekTeam 10 Primer There was a time not so long ago when the minds of men moved along a deterministic groove; let's call it a Euclidian groove. It coloured their behaviour and vision, what they made and did and what they felt. Then—it had to happen sooner or later—some vory keen men, with delicate antennae—painters, poets, philosophers and scientists most of them—jumped out of this groove and rubbed the deterministic patina off the surface of reality. They saw wonder- ful things and did not fail to tell us about them. Our unbounded gratitude is due to them: to Picasso, Klee, Mondrian and Brancu: to Joyce, Le Corbusier, Schénberg, Bergson and Einstein; to the whole wonderful gang. They set the great top spinning again and expanded the universe—the outside and the inside universe. It was a wonderful riot—the cage was again opened. But society still moves along in the old groove, in bad air, making only sly use of what these men discovered; worse still, applying on a purely technological, mechanical, and decorative level, not the essence but what can be gleaned from it in order to give pretence of moving more effectively. Moving securely and lucratively along the old circumscribed groove. We know this, it can't be helped. But do we know that architecture has been doing the same for the last 'y years or 50? No need to mention the few marvellous excep- tions. A damnable truth this. When are architects going to stop fondling technology for its own sake—stop stumbling after pro- gress? When are they really going to join the riot and stop gnawing at the edges of a great idea? Surely we cannot permit them to con- tinue selling the diluted essence of what others spent a lifetime finding. They have betrayed society in betraying the essence of contemporary thought. Nobody can really live in what they concoct, although they may think so. Now what is wonderful about this non-Euclidian idea—this other vision—is that it is contemporary; contemporary to all our diffi culties, social and political, economic and spiritual. What is tragic is that we have failed to see that it alone can solve them. Each period requires a constituent language—an instrument with which to tackle the human problems posed by the period, as well ‘as those which, from period to period, remain the same, i.e. those posed by man—by all of us as primordial beings. The time has come to gather the old into the new; to rediscover the archaic qualities of human nature, | mean the timeless ones. To discover anew implies discovering something new. Translate this into architecture and you'll get new architecture—real con- temporary architecture. Architecture implies a constant rediscovery of constant human qualities translated into space. Man is always and everywhere essentially the same, He has the same mental equipment though he uses it differently according to his cultural or social background, according to the particular life pattern of which 2When | am one month in Philadelphia Pennsylvania University, ana I wath past an eslienirance of Drere! Institute of Technology and man fe leaving the buldings with books undor is eft arm an umbrella under the ‘ther, and having Kind of baseball shoes on his foet and for the rest a white shirt find gentioman black-te-ike pants: I don't know if he is Shadying beseball, rain, or technics from Drexel Books ‘and then I walk on and the Same street is ending ina dia space with trucks under ‘big gray slone granite post fee but before coming ner it itis sla street and atone side a man clothed in Sine gentioman suit is Swinging aeickto.calch 2 plece of idberbal which {thrown to him from the other ide by a gantieman-clothed Iman and {understand that they are playing baseball or hockey ih an edministrative~ fice like surrounding and Phnow that you can study technics in basebal-fiting chovs-shirt can have an bella under the army ane hata baseball or hockey stick ‘and that you can be a post fice administrator playing infunehiime that you are hockey or baseball man and that we al are still happy mixed up in spite of 90 called Separation by specialization, t's gelting cold again over heremand always when it (foes sac thinking about hrow to warm up architecture, hhow {6 make it fedge round us. After al, people buy clothes and choos the right size and iinow when the i feels good! Its time we invented the Bult thing that fs thers. ahe happens to be a part. Modern architects have been harping continually on what is different in our time to such an extent that even they have lost touch with what is not different, with what is always essentially the same. This grave mistake was not made by the poets, painters and sculptors. On the conttary, they never narrowed down experience. They enlarged and intensified it; tore down not merely the form-barriers as did the architects, but the emotional ones as well. In fact the language they evolved coincides with the emotional revolution they brought about, The language architects evolved, however, and this after the pioneering period was over, coincides only with itself and i therefore, essentially sterile and academic—iterally abstract. It's all so obvious: we must evolve a richer tool—a more effective way of approach—to solve the environmental problems our period poses today. These problems will not remain the same, but they concern the same man, and that is our cue. We can meet ourselves every where in all places and ages—doing the same things in a different way, feeling the same differently, reacting differently to the same. ‘Otterlo Meeting. Van Eyck We have no time to waste, Beiter suppyy the right fruits alitiounripe than supply none tall or the wrong Sort over- iipe. Harty, switeh on the stars before ie fuses go!Seco ee Narre ees nee re igo oF Viollat-le-Due describes how the chango in social patterns gave a Shange in the structure of medieeval churches and town halls. ‘Altes the mediaeval period in 1798 there opened a gap between feehniquo and art by the foundation of "Ecole Polytechnique’ in Baris, where technique was concentrated, while at concestrated inthe “Ecole des Beaux Aris In 1829 in Holland books containing illustrations about old styles Were circulated for use as facades of bath-houses, public works, Plants and railway stations. The nineteenth century accentuated fhe balance between to work’ and "to possess: Sulliven, Morris, Van de Velde, Gropius, were the first to attempt fo abandon ihe gep between technique end art, but they could hot make a bridge between technique, art and society-pattern:the [otter pattern, towadays, 's made, principally by the anonymous ‘dient The idea of Gropius was "Bauhaus’ in which under one Foot was technique and ar, The Bauhaus introduced the workshop idea, ‘The idea of Taut-Scharoun a.o. was the ‘Bauhol, a courtyard surrounded by technique-art end government ‘Tony Garnier and Kalian Futurists brought about thefirstapproach Concerning buildings and_cities based on an acceptance of modern means of Industralization. Apoliinaire and Corbusier Geveloped from it the Machine Ago images stated in the Esprit Nouveau Movement, Holland always became part of these move mhents by the actvitige of Berlage and Van Doesburg The CIAM-movement became a kind of platform on which architects met to siscuss their Ideas about architecture and planning, In 1947 there was a new attempt by young architects in CIAM to abandon the gap between thinking and feeling, They stated: «we have to work forthe creation of a physical environment that will Sat'sty man's emotional and material needs and stimu: late his spiritual growth Bokerna, 1989 3Role of the architect t The role of architectural expression and of town-planning in contemporary society is the same as that in societies of the past. Architecture and town planning are simply the spatial expression of human conduct. Thus we find in human conduct many constants which do not change; man is happy, he is sad, he makes love, he dies. But there is one aspect which is evolving rapidly. It is the relation between man and total universal space. In past societies the relation between man and total space was shaped by: religion (medieeval age)—to have faith; political economy (nineteenth century)—to possess; administration (twentieth century}—to manage. New society will provide man with opportunities so that he will be able to maintain an individual relation to total life: the right to have a personal opinion about life. So we should create for men, by technical means, physical, psychological and esthetic conditions, 80 that he may have the possibility to define in space his personal ‘opinion about life. Constructed volume is a tremendous instrument in attainment of this goal First, man croates environment and environment, in its turn, influences man. Environment is created by simple means: walls and openings in the walls. It is of small significance which materials the walls are made of, But constructions of man will bring about more and more variations in walls and in openings of walls. The vocabulary has enlarged and it is becoming more and more rich. During 2000 years man was living under trees, immediately above ‘ground, Only in the last 500 years has he been able to live above trees in contact with the horizon. So now the whole alphabet has to be used. We have to harmonize life on the ground and life which is in touch with the horizon, We shall be very rich as the constructions will multiply our possi- bilities to live in a given space and establish a personal relation to this total space: they will allow the development of an esthetic or ofa style based on the right of everyone to have a personal opinion of life, on the presumption that the material conditions, in order to achieve this spiritual freedom, have been granted to everybody: this is real democracy. Let us return to the past. If one sees old towns like Amsterdam or Paris, one sees the built volume still there; houses of those who produced goods. One does not see the constructed volume of the anonymous population because very often this population was not entitled to own a permanent home. They lived in transitory, improvised dwellings outside fortifications of under the roof of those who had a leading role in society. The eyslum of the nineteenth century was the first manifestation of a population which escaped anonymity and came nearer to the sun, and which intended to make recognized its own right to define itself in relation to total space, § OP ate cee ete thee 2 Bo 3 Ri ) metals ay . eed ot Ue Me we taney(Saray Rah Arebitectureplanning in ‘general—breathos with great Uiuity today. The breathing Image epitomizes my concep- tion of twinphenemena-we ‘cannot breathe one way—either Jn or out. am concerned with einphonamens, with unity ‘and diversity, part and whole, Small and large, many and few, Simplely ano complet, Change and constancy, ardor ‘and chaos, individual and Collective: with why they t00 Sre ignobly halved and the haves hollowed out; why they fre withheld from opening ‘nindow's ofthe mind! As:soon {they materialize Into house {rely their emptiness maleri- Shizes into cruelty for in such places everything is aways foo farge-and too small. fo0 Tew ad too many, too fer and f00 near, too much and too Iie the same, too much and too ite afferent. There is 90 ‘question of right-siza (by right- Size! mean the right effect of Size) end hence no question ‘of human scale. What has right-sze is atthe ‘Same time both large and ‘Smal, ow and many, near and far, simple and complex, open nd elosed wil furthermore ‘always be both part and whole Sand émbrace both unity and “versity. No, as conflicting polarities oF false alternatives these abstract antonyms all tarry the same evil: oss of Identity and its atnbste, ‘monotony. -Right-size wil flower 2s soon se bbe ml eis of eciro tity start warking=in tre Climate of relativiy; In the landscape ofa twingheno- Yes, we must stop splitting the making of a, habitat into two disciplines architecture. and urbanism. Why? ‘That's a long Story, As | have already sald, a house must De like a small city t tS % be a roal house elf Ike a large house if i's to be a real ty: In fect, what is large without being small has,no more real Sise than what Is small without being large. I there's no real size {hore il be-no human size. ta thing Is just small or just large We sont cope with f The same counts for many and few. Urban- Tom hasiet Succeeded in reconciling them yet: large and small, than and Yow ge ape fo pal and yar and any Small and few. Think about that and you'l know why the thought process in planning ean't be divided on the basis of part-whole, Smalclarges fewmany, Le. into architecture ang planning, Giterio Meeting, Van Eyck | believe that architects must leain to become specialists in ‘pace, Educational methods should aim to ensure that architects Wltespond to any stuation with procise spatial ideas, Symposium on Education, 1959. Vs "Neue Sachlichkeit’ eannot be the stimulating idea forthe postwar station bocce atts eoncenvatin on hinge which canbe analysed’ latin things which cannot be touched by words, anelyses and Teports have to be touched by architecture. The relationship man fo'man fs too narrow it must-be man = nature | idea about ature” Shall we travel, aot anly to the moon, Dut shall we rave! In total universal spaco? ‘To make man Taiar wih apace ‘endlsenogs' wil bsome the main funetion of the art of making space (architecture). Discussion with architect Kioos about ‘Neve Sachiichkeit’& and Opbouw, 1942. Bakema ‘A world is growing in which there will be the need to recognize ‘nore that the moment now's resulting from what was yesterday nd what will be tomorrow.’ The struggle for earning every day Jour bread and wine 's no longer decisive for a man in modern AGelety, but will be more man's struggle to become aware of what iS lfe: which will make the contents of man’s life. ‘Architecture wil be a function in this process. (intioduetion at 3 meeting at Doorn of sludents of the Delt Tech= Miter University eod the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture) In the middle of World War Il” 8 end Opbouw, 1942. Bekema drach ie Soersundins Bondage sie| believe that if so many architects are interested nowadays in the habitat of the Indians (the Pueblos) or in that of the negroes in Arica, it is because here one may still recognize the spatial ex- pression of the whole population. We should not forget, neverthe- less, that this population is leading a fierce battle in order to be ‘equipped with modern techniques which were developed in the different countries of Europe, of America and Russia, Here is the drama. Here in our society we are attempting to establish for the anonymous client a spatial expression of his way of living. In primitive societies this way of living still exists, but it lacks pre- cisely those techniques which help to get rid of fear and to attain total life; we should not forget that those primitive societies are frequently based on the exploitation of this fear, It is extraordinary to think that in the very moment that man and races are confronted with each other every day, there is taking place a confrontation, between on the one hand primitive societies with integrated habitat, whose members claim a right to be provided with modern tech- niques, and on the other hand our society, disintegrated by these very techniques, that seeks new disciplines of integration. For this reason we need each other whether we may be white, yellow, black. We have to mobilize ourselves simply as architects and as archi- Yoct-planners able to co-ordinate and to integrate. It is only the architect who may give man the possibility to express his right to live a personal way of life, through constructed volume, The elements required, therefore, are simple: walls, roofs, doors, staircases, lifts, materials and technical equipment and the style is the relation between these things. Itis possible to use elements negatively or positively in an active or passive way. By the combination of these elements one may stimulate the rela- tion of man with light, horizon, trees and spaces. Each man has the right to be in contact with that phenomenon called total life and it is through constructed volume that it may be attained. Here lies the function of architecture and of town-planning for the develop- ment of the new society. See This i a problem directly related io the general problem Of structure of soctety ‘A civie centre is part of human settlement, The name includes the ward “ive which makes one thing about Iman as'a member of2 secret, {nd the word "centre which imakes one think about the Central part of anything Sometimes we use the word ‘core’ instead of centre” Mt Indicates a place which isthe heart of a mater is also useful to realize that ‘society means enduring co- ‘operation of 3 group to main- tain self We are accupled with an essential element thet fanetions in the enduring co- ‘operation of 2 group fo main- tain tse. To make a ‘eve’ centre we heveto fouch inteliectvelly and ‘emotionally the forces ofthis enduring co-operation called SCocely" in order to ind out where these forces are con eenvrating.27 Dig, Bakeno Today, when one is searching desperately for some senso of ontiduity and hoping for development and not destruction, some Krowledge o! our position in timo, as well as in space, is essential. retetote consider thatthe learning of history in an academic or Usicmatic way is necessary. It probably seemed unimportant Rcnuyefive years ago, in s0 far ae the polemical desire of archi- Teela Wes t6 break tree from the past, architectural history had Become an impediment for these who were secking the now frchitecture and a sanctuary for those who were net However, today, the boundaries which separate our direct Deverlonte tom past knowledge and future possibility aro in- Skiinct For example we feel a part of the modern movement, Getic can criticize it and sea I as a distinct historical force 2ffecting the ways in which we build Itis necessary to ask what sort of history should be learnt, There LUE Betao objective history, for wo know that, even in scientific Sieersation, the synamie connection between the observer and fhe tilag observed Is more significant to Us than the appearance Gane ting observed. Any interpretation of historical material is Sfrectoe net only by our position in time nom, but also by the fact Ghat we are architects, For the social historian the constitutional [Bene af government may be his primary Material, deduced from Emass of secondary material, which may well include buildings Sau records of nets Construction. For tho at historian a group ot pictues of bulinge, oof seulture maybe primar ater Pat Yor tse architect the primary material is space CL'espace Indgeile of Le Corbustet) and this is because an architect tsi practical and every-day purpaseis to make spaces; spaces kick il be comprenensible fo the people who use them now {nd will use them for some time to come. This summarizes for me the presont iiculty in teaching history Jo arenitects, Sometimes, in conversation amongst historians thd srehiteets, = building’or group of ouildings is discussed in BES St space organization, The significance that is attached {o these. spaces 1s examined. Far example, Smithson on, Gre te tes snnam on Antonio. Santelia, Colin Rowe and John Phe on porspeetivo; ar a generation earlier, Wittkower on the vanteaied Church, Psnoweky on the connection between the {opie of scholesticism and the construction of Gothic space, | [Riggost that such studies provide" the primary material around Sings Secondery. material (the primary material of other his- forians) may be woven Lectures and seminars centred around such spatial experiences fright provide the first islands ina history of space. Lite by litle Fate Bight connect up with one anotner so that architects could Unperionge tne continulty of Ume and space, and should therefore Serle to design itn increased certainty and precision. ‘Ae April 20rd, 1989. JV. Since wcrcOne may see in Nimes the great difference between an active and a passive architecture. For instance on the same site, given elements and standards are used passively by architects who are not inter- ested, whereas the same elements and standards are actively used in buildings designed by the team Candilis-Woods. But what a difference! The individual flats are here disposed like the leaves of a tree: the trunk (the staircase) enveloped by the leaves (the flats). The individual and the collective, like entities in relation to each other, explain the phenomenon of the total life. Our task is to introduce into social life the play of volumes in space as a function. The new society will be that one which will enable the individual to express his personal opinion about total life. It is our task to transform the fear of total space to a respect and confidence in this space, These are the oldest and at the same time the most recent functions of architecture and town-planning. \__ Means are simple: walls, pilotis, windows, staircases, lifts, loggias, “technical equipment, and the plan as a frame of a new freedom. This forms the spirit to which one can subordinate specialists, technicians. It is with such a spirit that the architect may co- ordinate and integrate. We have to start the battle in order that architecture may be recognized as an essential function in society. Creation or routine. Way of living or aesthetics. Freedom or dictatorship. Simultaneity or hierarchy. Integration or chaos. Town-planning or administration. Structure or decoration. Func- tion of architecture or functionalism. Bakema, ‘Carré Bleu’, 1961 We shall have to make habitable places of our sick cities before it, is too late. We know this and we forget this, as we choose, whilst the borderline of the uninhabitable lies just ahead. We are cer tainly catching up with it at an alarming pace; for ours is a tiny, flat, open and appallingly crowded country. We must, therefore, act quickly and dispel at least the excessive stupidity for which there is really no room, In the meantime architects continue to occupy themselves with matters which, although not foreign to our time, are often clearly foreign to the constructive task they should set themselves which is simply this: to provide the urban ‘interiors’ society needs; the built counterform of its dwindlin: To those architects who are still inclined to believe that all this has nothing to do with ‘the story of another idea’ I can only say: go and take another walk in one of the new towns—as an outsider, guiltil implicated. It seems to me that any idea concerning the architect's task which may be lodged in their heads will soon make way for another. And then the ‘story’ begins—but not until then. It seems to me, furthermore, that the making of a habitable place for all citizens—and this implies another sort of place—is also a task for another sort of architect. In order to accomplish the indispensable union of architecture and urbanism within a single discipline, a severe revaluation of what both really stand for is a 0 Having found this concentra tion of forces, we can begin fo discipline (channe)) them Spabially by means of eon- shructod form. Warking In this way we do planning by archi= feture and architecture by Blanning. To channel the forces of society by means of construc {ed forms towards a focus aled 3 ewvie centre makes the Structore of life n ahuman settlement understandable, But as tis focus is part of a whole structure, iis clear that ‘thas io be introduced step by Step by this structure and simulfaneously the focus must introduce the Several steps ‘making the whole structure, We could say 2civie centre or core sa kind of dimensional ‘communication by con- Structed form about what hhappens fn the ole harman settlement (town). We have fo ‘ee fowne builtin tho past in ‘der fo know how the focus Of the town structure can ‘make the foal structure clear, While in many modern towns ‘you need days or weeks to Understand were you are, Gur interest in old towns isnot ‘only interest In histories! forms, but think that its also the fact that these constructed forms aro sil commanleating fous ins clear way about the Structure ofife in those days. Aad I think itis nol unreason- able that we should be able to Communieale aout ifn our day ina clear way by 4 dimensional expression. To maintain ourselves by means of enduring cooperation We need understandable clear Spatial structures for our Settements st 2 we no ‘oxygen for our respiration, 10 ‘matter whether ities house, workshop, village, own, metropolis or ole region, For everyone using the cy structure the heart of the ‘matter nas to be clear. Architectural and urbanistie forms can be hind of dimensional language explain ‘ng to man what lifes. This fs proved by history. Iverhave fo take care of the fact that this function of Lrchitecture and civic expres ‘ion is often Ignored 1” ‘modern buildings and towns Gnd we cannot work together ata civic centre plan for St ‘Louis if we don't find a working ‘method thal can ro-eetabishThere is more fo this business of community faites than the eonventence they offer (0 the eilize, and thelr counter- action fo te wasteful exodus from the big cities which takes place every weekend. Com ‘munity facilities are the raw ‘materfa forthe construction Of social space. {As far as architecture is concemed, the question of appropriate Rest is 9 matter for radical organizational thinking; Buti fs also question ef language, What ara the appropriate organizational otis of buldings and building groups which respond to today's needs? How is the response to this need to be communicated? If no forme are discovered and no suitable language is evolved, the feeds are not met and there remain unfulfilled, undefined, long- Inge in society as a whol, TWA Catalogue, 1961. P.0'S. ‘Can architects meet society's plural demand? Can they possibly Substitute the prosent lose of vernacular and still build city that place for & large multitude of people. bie to cope with plurality In former days. in fashioning thelr on ff overall amework? You see, wher one says ‘ety one implies the ‘people’ in it, not Just ‘population. This 1s the frst probiem confranting the archi- {ect Urbanist today, If society has no form—how can architects build the counterform? ‘Architects have always been concerned with single buildings oF 2 Complox of single buildings. | believe there i a paradox involved in his task today, Van Eyck What you should try to accomplish is built moaning. So, get Close to the meaning and build! Van Eyek 28 Nephron 2 naling oes, aepreliminary prerequisite. For the sake of the task and its inherent 7%is,Saranrigseeom of limits, Van Eyck By definition there could be no modem architecture before there was a machine asthetic and this did not come into being in 1851 or even in 1909, but arrived between 1923 and 1927. De Stijl, ly @ continuation of L'Art Nouveau, has to be fully ab- sorbed before a real deadpan, un-selfconscious machine esthetic can be said to have arrived, (Rietveld chait—Mies chair.) The Germans certainly found a way of making buildings that responded to the new feeling for the machine—the houses at Dessau, the Gropius exhibitions, or the Barcelona Pavilion for example—but somehow it was and is the Villa Savoie that made the old architecture look really ridiculous. One has only to compare the buildings by Mies with those by Le Corbusier at the Weissen- hof Siedlung (1927) to see what | mean: MIES IS GREAT BUT CORB COMMUNICATES. These arguments do not diminish the work of German architects, especially that of Mies van der Rohe, but give a special place to Le Corbusier for somehow breathing life into us. On the level of the individual building, | hold that although Berlin in the ‘twenties generated quantities of heat, only with Le Corbusier did other people catch fire. The German movement was rational and severe more than anything else, and in spirit was a continua- 2Theft dtl oer oe (eine ihe gon oe ‘Architecture, pethaps to a more tangible extent than any other ark reflects ahd expresses foeas about space and time. Good architecture expresses in microcosm but with precision the Staining concopta of the universe. Such expression is noither fle nor arbitrary, fort Is only through cosmology thet a sense of bphysieal-and social location in time and space can be com- frunicated."This sense of location, however changeful or however Permanent, Is essential {0 tho health and life of human com- ‘unites, ‘Sign and’ Symbol... Architects and urbanists have become true specialists in the art dV organizing the meagre. Fetch a mirror, architects, and you will Siscover again what mirrors are for-—and why itis always futile to transfer the cause of failure, Van Eyck ‘You may ask what aro the charactorstics of the Now Modern ‘Architecture, Well, think that tis. pragmatic rather than old Shve rational, Its basis is 8 sort of active socio-plastics Ru tots imagery, tho magic Raving flown irom the rectangle it is much er ine use of form, more Feugh and ready, and [ons Complate ang classical. Teehnolegieally it accepts industrially produced components as the natural order of the architect's ery, not as something special or magical that will do the architect's work for him 4D. March, 1958, Evrope|USA", 1957. P.0.S. Although architecture (planning in goneral) answers very tangible Ainchons, ultimately it object difers inno way fundamentally fom that of any other ereative activity .2 to express through men Sedtor men (rough us' and for Us) the real sesenco of existence. {The more tangible functions are only relevant In so far as they duct men's environment more accurately to his elementary ‘Ralinations, But this, sural. Iz no more than a necessary pre- Hminary 33tion of a previous tradition—the ethic of nineteenth-century architecture. It was certainly not one which would make a man leave home and start a new life, which I hold Le Corbusier's work could, Le Corbusier is a great visionary and this word to me has a special significance, cartying a more religious meaning than words like idealist or revolutionary. For a visionary can make other people's minds take alight almost as a by-product of his personal struggle. And | hold that without Le Corbusier there would be no modern architecture as an ideal, although there would be modern buildings. What was Le Corbusier's vision? A humane, poetic, disciplined, machine environment for a machine society (probably a society of technicians with a preity strict hierarchy). Now it will be held that the definition of a machine environment as an aim was the work of the Futurists, but for me their environment was one dominated by machines. The essence of Futurism was the display of mechanisms and this is an early nineteenth-century attitude towards machines. Le Corbusier's dream of a Ville Radieuse has the machine firmly under control, and even although some of his esthetic techniques may have been carry-over ones, he was never confused about his all-over objective. His city was to be one of shining towers in a sea of trees, with the automobile used at the scale at which it is a moving poetic thing and not a stinking object; an essentially controlled, quiet environment with the energies of transit and communication channelled and not randomly and wastefully displayed, He saw at once that the skyscrapers were too small. No other men have succeeded as have Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe in building complete systems. Their concentration is such that the nature of their systems is implicit even in the fragment. One has, for example, a perfectly clear notion of the sort of city and the sort of society envisaged by Mies van der Rohe, even though he has never said much about it. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Miesian city is implicit in the Mies chair. Le Corbusier's system is of course more familiar because of his constant reiteration of the part even his smallest objects play in his general scheme of things. And, what validates both their systems is that they are conceived in the terms of the technology of their time and that both men have a capacity for rejection and reconsideration in the face of changing circumstances. Le Corbusier Exhibition, February 1989. P.D.S.issoge a mgs ro ‘itiponds este dint Seabee ave fae ACES har bute, Only imagination can detect wat is basic and what is not. The ‘alles withahigh architecture's concerned (should be concerned) fare elementary values—hence basic, Van Eyck How can we have—through modern architecture—contact with the people for whom we build? We have the confrontation of local pepulation with world-wide problems by medern means of communication; but lack of time fovintegrate this process In our personal life. We protest against the existing structure of society that makes Some eorn-slevators not big enough to stow the over-measure of food, while there is Aungor in other parts of the worl. We have tho big halls in which an automatized machine-process is part of a cellactive enterprise economy in which each individual ‘wll participate for a short hours-labour-day. Resulting from this there will be simultaneously a tre private enterprise econany. lin the migcle of World Wear I), 1942. Bakema Criticizing the working method developed by the government at Some reconstruction centres such as Middelburg and Rhenen: Teaditionslistic ewsthotical_ interpretation of Granpré Moliére theories are becoming barriers against the possibilty to make irom the reconstruction of war damage a start for expression of Social_structure which eould give more responsibilty to "the ‘eat number’ Young architects have to be critical about the social forces of the postwar period in order fo find a real base for structures: housing "ihe great number. The actual working mothodt gives footie chanes for realizing madern architecture es promoted by the 'B and Opbouw'-architects, “The working method also for that reason is anti-democratic devel as ignoring an mportant cultural aspect of post-nar iiotland in the reconstruction ork (ne year after Works War I), 1945, Bakema ur relationship with total life has te be acknowledged as the ‘basic clement in the evolution of aur social pattern, the architect has fo abandon his artificial 'soation "Be Vrije Kunstensar, No.2. Groningen, 1945, Bakema First publication in Helland about the relation between architec- ture and society, just afer the liberation “The artist has to build a ‘mocliy' for society; he touches values Hidden in each member af society so that the work of the artist Can stimulats members of societies to become aware of what are thelr own ideas about life, Real architecture in aur day can only be developed by those who The to construct new soclal_patterns: differentiation In archi tnctural form has fo be based on real differentiation in the ways, bi life, a street has t0 express total life ‘De Vile Kunstenear, Nov 1. Groningen, 1945 {tis neither my intention nor desire to oin the ranks of those who alight in telling and theorizing about architecture, But | have fad state my views and have, therelore, felt obliged to submit, invall humility, the following. ‘An old and famous American architect (i my memory serves me field, said to another who was much younger and was asking for his aévice. Open your ayes wide and look; itis much easier than Jou think’ He also said te him: "Behind every building that you Ree there is. man that you don't see.” A man, he seid. He did fel mention whether he was an architect or not 35One of the fundamental tenets of the Modern Movement in archi- tecture has been the industrialization of building. In the absence of genuinely industriaiized building techniques the architects of the “twenties concerned themselves primarily with creating an archi- tectural language in the spirit of the machine. A good many people are interested in technology, but far fewer are interested in the changes it can bring to the way of life and shape of things. “Design, May 1958. AP.S. What, for example, is the good of neat prefabricated metal bunga~ lows sitting on little plots of ground in a layout pattern we all know to be obsolete and which collectively looks dreadful? Is there no feed-in from urban theory, or feed-back from fabrication technology (which is in many cases highly advanced and elegant as in the United States and France) which might suggest new modes of urban organization, now sorts of buildings? Thus for the architect the question of the industrialization of building is still a question of what to fabricate, not how to fabricate it WA Catalogue, 1961. P.D.S.No, I do not think that itis @ gonius thet we neod at this time, Geblus is an occurrence thet Is an Actof God, Nor do we need High Priests. or dubious Prophets of Architecture, or greet Godtrinaires. There is something of a living tradition that is st ‘itthin’our Teach, and also many ancient moral doctrines cor erning our trade or profession (and | use these terms in thelr fest taditonal sense) of architect and ourselves. We need to take advantage of what litle there Ts left of the constructive {facition, and: above all, the moral tradition in this epoch when the most beautiful of our words have fost their real meaning, We need thousands and thousands of architects to think less. Shout ‘Architecture, money, or the elties of the year 2000, and nore about their trade 28 archtocts, Lot them work tied byalegso {hat they cannot stray too far fromthe earth in which they have Toots or from the men they know best; let them always Chitch a firm foundation based on dedication, good will and honour. ‘To bring this about | believe that we must fist rid ourselves of thay ideas which appoarcleac but arefalse, of many hollow words, and work with that good will that's translated into one's own work and teaching father than with a mere concentration on Goctrinarism I think that the est teaching is that which teaches Sur trade; teaches us to work with great faith or, in short, that ihieh teaches us to be architects, Knowing, atthe same time, 3 ia musi that we can all make mistakes. IL /s also the exemple of Working” continuously watching in order nat to confuse human Fatty the right to be mistaken (a elosk which if wrongly used an Cover a multitude of sins), with Inconstancy of wil, m= frorality or the cold calculation of tho climber or ‘getter-on'. In Spain, my parents used to tall mo, a gentleman, an aristocral is ite person who fings himsell unable to do certain things which ‘Sven the Tew, the Church, and the majonty approve of or permit, We must al, every one of us, individually constitute a new “Gristocracy’. This |s an urgent problem, so urgent that must be {tackled at ance, The main thing's fo begin fo work and then, and ‘only then, can wo talk about it We must pit ourselves against money, against the vanity of Success, against excass of property of earnings, against in- Constancy and hasta, and against the lack of spintdel life oF [Shetienges we must put instead dedication, craftsmanship, ‘Good wil, Lime, he bread wo need for every day, and above al, fixe, whien is accaptance and giving, not possession and dominetior—all these must be taken hold of and clung to, for these are the true values, Seeing and knowing more of less profoundly the works or forms {ihe onterior signe ef apiriiual richness) of the great masters is Considered fo be culture, or architectural formation ‘The same means of classification are applied to our craft or protession as ave used (exterior signs of vconomic richness) frvour materialistic society. And then we lament or complain because there are no great architects under sixty, because the Inajority of architects are bad, because the new urbanization Is Enlctuman, because our ancient cities, towns and villages are Gesiroyed, and houses and towns are built like fim-sets along fhe length of our beautiful Mediterranean coasts, It is strange {hat somuch {9 said and pudlished about the exterior signs of the Great Mastors (truly vet valuable signs) and that their moral value is hardly mentionod. May it not also be considered curious that people write and talk Of their weakness snd Trallty as an attractive oddity or a tt-bt {or gossip or just a8 being misteken, and at the same time con- Coal es a forbidden subject or as an anecdote their attitude 10 Iie of to their work?Is t also not curious that here we have Gaual, very near to us (I hnyssif know persons who have worked with him) and so much Is Enldof his wark and 80 tle of his moral position or of his dedica~ Eon? It stil more curious to contrast between the great value placed on Gaudi work and the silence or ignorance that exists Bi the moral position oF attitude presented by Gaudi to the pro, Blom of architecture, The former, that is. Gaudi’s work, is Beyond Ourreach to do, and the lator, which is Gaudl's approach to fis work, is something which we can all do, or at least attempt, We Cannot reach his ganius, but we must emulate his devotion nd works And every architect can do it easily if he wishes, We ‘rust concentrate on the things we can do, and not on what we cannot “Tho real spiritual culture of our profession has always belonged {ora few. The clreumstance that enables nearly anyone to have the possiblity of access to this culture is the heritage of all, and is. Bre that”is not generally taken. Nelther unfortunately do we Stop car! bahawauc which should e abigatory and nthe Consciousness of us all. But the conditions on which wo have to base our work vary Continuously. Thete ate religious, moral, social and economic probloms, together with those of teaching, and, in this modern Worl, possisy the most important sources of eneroy, which an a play apart im changing, unsuapectinly, the ce and Structure of our society (some brutal changes whose meanings Erelost fo us are also postible). All those diferent problems can ‘impede honourable fong-range planning. It is ingenious to think that the ideal and the practice of our profession may be condensed into slogans, such as the sun, fight ait, glosnness, social architecture and so many others. & ormalstic bose, Gogmatic, above all tite only partial, isin itselt padi'save in exceptional and catastrophic occasions, From all {his it may be deduced that, in my opinion, among the many erent paths that each thinking architect will choose to follow there must be something in common, something which must Bein all of us; and here {return to the beginning of what | have taritens this | have done without wishing to give anybody a [eSson, but only with a profound and sincere conviction. Barcelona, August, 1961. . A. Coderch de Sentmenat For the coming period, study of techniques and aesthetics are fot of primary use, but rather the study and understanding of a ow structure of society. Regulations now being made for the Feconstruction programma must be based on ideas about life. ‘An architect's offcs has to bo more a workshop than an ofice. In our day we must find an approach to ‘total life by means of Ideas, Ideas about life cannot grow on @ decision made by 60 preewar votes 1 Itis a mistake that in this conference students are warned agains ‘experiments. A soclety can only find its cohosion—belonging together, ‘by ‘means of the way we express in housing how to ive together’ Young architects have to identify themselves with structures Yased on big-scale. planned production with its short-hour- labour-days and small-scale-freestime private-production. ‘Also on the knowledge that man wil live in universal spac by planned production will have more free ime each day such a3 he never had before. “These are decisive facts for the change of structure of cities and towns. ‘Architects must know that the culture pattern of to-morrow can nly be a great-number-partc pation culture “The modern architect must be able to communicate with people. 1n our days beauty has to express openness in human relation- hips in ordar to makes now style. ‘Vaio Ratheder’, No. , 1946, Bekeme 9New architecture is the expression of a new relationship between men and man-made universe. More and more a building is made from elements, each of them having their own relationship to total space. In our day it becomes necessary for governments to give financial aid to experiments in architecture, about space, construction, and working methods. Before the war private enterprisers like Van der Leeuw gave just such possibilities for experiments in the Van Nelle plant, Development of spatial conception is of the same value as the development of construction and prefabrication methods. Forum’, Ne. 7, 1956. Bakema ne ei1 have spoken of placo: of house and cy as bunches of places— Both fhe inetncen ein as Thave identified the buit artifact init those lt shelters (the building with that same buding entered) — nd, having done so, defined space Simply asthe appreciation of it, tnusexcluding al frozen properties ‘attributed to t academically whilst including ‘what should never be fetuaed: man appreciating ‘man oporeeratng it! have ‘even “ealled” architecture Buill Homecoming. With this in'mind 1 now regard frehitecture eoncelved primariiyin erms of space and. willy as abstract and arbitrary; only phy: ‘Sealy accessible and therefore closed, Space and time must be opened— Inlerorized—so that they can be ‘entered; perstaded to gathor mess Into their meaning—include him By virtue of what memory. and “ntieipation signiy, place acauites tenpra meaning and ecasonal Spatial meaning. Thus space an lime,” identified reciprocally “in the image of man) emerge human ‘zed, a3 place and occasion. Places. remembered and places ntiepated dovetail inthe fem= poral span of the present. Memory frdantcipaton Inc conetite re rea! perspecive of space; give legen. What matters 's not space bu the Interior of space—and the inner horizon ofthe Interior The large house ile city state iment (the one that says: ahouse is {ing city, acity is @ huge house) is amarguous and consciously 50 in fact Its ambiguity [sof hind I ‘should like to $2e transposed 10 architecture. It points, moreover, towards a particular kindof larity helther house nor city can do with Out; 2 kind which never quite Felinguishes its fll mening CALL IT LABYRINTHIAN CLARITY Such clay (ally of significant ambiguity) softens the edges of time and. space and transcends Wilby (allows spaces. fo enter teach other and occasions f0 en eure each eter nthe mins is haletdoscopie The inbetween Realm is never snithout it 7 Right-size goes hand in hand with it itharbours bountiful qualities ‘bountiful qualities; Scope for what's small yet Targe—iarge yet ‘small; near yet far~far yet near ‘pen yet closed-—closed Yet open: Aifferent yet the same—the same Jel diferent; scope for the right ‘olay, the right release, the right Educating architects so that style is @ serious consideration for thom has became unknoxtn Io the key year of 1918 thore were the beginnings of four distinct Mehtectra sles, Constructs, de Sih Puram and Baur Each of these movements had an attitude and a complete compre- Fonsive plestic systen—and that is what used to be known a5 a Sivle The schools ang institutes, the academies of today do not fedch syle. They make no approach tothe problem ofarchtecture, they make an epproach te. technology, to technique, but the Contral problem of creating an actual architecture, thoy fgnere, ‘This escape from styles feflected, quite naturally, n the buildings that are going up around us. It would be wrong to say that the builders are using the language of building badly, because they ave not realized there is such & thing as a language of building: they do not know the words from which to construct sentences In ty opinion, an architecture which is incoherent is useless 10 society Style is a problem that | think has been completely neglected Side the days of William Morris, certainly for 70 or 400 years Now you may say such 2 statement in favour of academies con- iets ‘with, my. personal opinions, which have been lifelong, Uirected against academic architecture. But is impossible, 10 EGnatruct & meeninglul dynamic between @ new system and a fnuadles if people were aware of what they were doing and why they were doing it t would be possible to comprehend the Shuthosis, the new aystom. One finde mere and more that one |S, {aking in stylistic void. Such stylistic void makes any teaching fny fling, any talking, almost a waste of time. ‘Futurlem Banham's RBA. Lecture, 1959. P.D.S. Democracy is now only of significance fits a kind of approsch Quaess's’socely which avery member gets his chance #0 SoSaine aware his own personal wey of whats total ie. [A man's tree choice of a way of Iie foresees a kind of archi; {dclurel space expressing this awareness. The development of building techniques only becomos meaningful in this respect. The architect working in this direction helps to make the nest Hep in sociely's evolution. To develop a housing technique so that every individual family Zan make a kind of space fitting to their particular circumstance, {n'a certain place at-a certain time, is not only an esthetic goal, bout one concerning the spirit of society te0, It would make it possible for a man to be more respansible for his being ‘Tho relation of what is happening in a building with what is happening outside in total space will certainly result in space Gefining elements as walls, beams, floors ‘The relation between men and things seems to become more Important and in tun makes t necessary to recognize the relation ‘oF architecture te town planning in order to take the next step ft architecture. ‘The new sion of {otal life as experienced in physics siso gives direction for architecture. ‘Architecture is simply one of the tools available for man to get familiar with total fe n order to have his own art of living ‘Architecture is based on use, space and form. Use has to be social (functional), Space has to be universal (cosmos) Form has to be total (organic) ‘and the nevt step. ‘Forum, 1947. Bakema aThere is no room for the imponderable, for the things that escape the limitations of the architect's ameliorative thinking—no place where it can nostle.certainty, the eight suspense, the ‘ight surprise, the right security. ‘kha, whtnal’ scope for mult- ‘meaning. Theres kind of spatial apprecia~ tion which makes us envy birds in Tight there is also a kind which Imakes us recall the shellered erelosure of our origin. Aveta live wll fal fitnogects either the fone or the other hind. To gratify nish" means eratifying Caliban iso for there sno man whos not Doth at once. Labyrithian clarity, ‘tany rate, sIngs of bath! SaCHITECTURE NEED DO NO MORE THAN ASSIST MAN'S HOMECOMING First collactive publication after the mar: “The period of "fo possess’ Is being roplaced by the period of ‘to gy Re measure space by means of ‘house’ as we measure time by means of hour and day. Spiting of the atom wil become Cbnstruction of a new labour process; by imagination we can fransform the wonder of total space with sun and stars into an habitable environmont Imagination turns “battle against into “to be familar with: ‘Now Is always social.” “Forum, No.2, 1949. Bakerma ‘Architactural planning in eur day can only be done in teams. ‘A necessary condition for good results is that co-operation jn {he team is based upon the acceptance by the members of the sronship between tne afferent pects which make up the prablem. ‘The shopping building tet Meulen-Wassen-van Vorst in Rotter~ Jam hae four blockike elements inter-related by spatial order. Bh described the building as 2 next stop in modern architecture Intas office of van den Broek and Baker this was made by team man ina by the aecpiance of fhe Hea ot mer-eeher- ship. ‘The relationship betwoon the things has to be recognized and this fhas to be suslized' in ardor fo put things in a good order. CHAM Hoddesdon, 1987. The Heart ofthe City’. Bekema ‘Tne architect will slways be the space specialist and this gives: fies the right to leadership in teamwork om architectural (spatial) problems, Presont working methads generally are based on administative Greer This hag fo be replaced by an order based on use of Imagination (De Groene Amsterdammer, 6. 12, 1952. page 6.) Gpen discussion with Oud about teamwork, 1952. Bokema For me, categorically, architecture and technology are nat homo [lous terme, Archivocture is 4 diselpline because its a process involving © person and technique, Technology is no more than & (eyositery of knowledge which can be used negatively or posi- Enely, upstairs or downstairs, indoors of out, by anyone, Contfibution AAJ. Discussion: LV. | consider thet, atthe present time, there is @ general orientation foward loch-man ideology whieh emplors analytic! methods tnd inevitably Teads to a high dogroe of s anit tor atehitecture to absorb this orientation for the rosuit will fe. and to some oxtent has been, the replacement of architec by a variety of specialist. ‘Symposium on Education, 198. It wasn't the pioneers that started fliting with science but the hordes that came after, tho next generation, they flirted with Rat they imagined science to be. You can't realy fallin fove with What sclonce really is today without somehow faling in love With wat at really i2 today (perhans you can but | personally tean't $20 how) Van Eyck It is highly probable that the objects that we are so painfully euising may be the wrong ones and itis a good thing every now Gea than to let other specialists nto one’s private world to soo f ‘$Rsic Specialization makes one’s own ireelavant or, what is more probable; to produce mutual modifeation of concepts, Itis part; Pitan obvious, for example, in the ease of cars and signs and Foade’ and buildings, that the underlying concepts are wrong, Tears quite mado think in terms of styling and notin terms of Zhange in the fatal living pattern, notin any philosophical sense, Sut pragmaticaly as things affoct the use of other things. "Design, 1960. P.S: 8Instead of the inconvenience of filth and confusion, we have now got the boredom of hygiene, The material slum has gone—in Holland for example it has—but what has replaced it? Just mile upon mile of organized nowhere, and nobody feeling he is ‘some- body living somewhere’. No microbes left—yet each citizen a disinfected pawn on a chessboard, but no chessmen—hence no challenge, no duel and no dialogue. The slum has gone Behold the slum edging into the spiti Again we have only to take a look at one of the new towns or a recent housing development, to recognize to what extent the spirit has gone into hiding. Architects left no cracks and crevices this time. They expelled all sense of place. Fearful as they are of the wrong occasion, the unpremeditated event, the spontaneous act, unscheduled gaiety or violence, unpredictable danger round the corner. They made a flat surface of everything so that no microbes can survive the civic vacuum cleaner; turned a building into an additive sequence of pretty surfaces (I find it difficult to find words for those | saw in the United States) with nothing but emptiness on both sides. To think that such architects are given to talking devotedly about space whilst they are actually emasculat- ing it into a void, Van Eyck “You a know what happens after a heavy snowstorm? The Chifd takes over—he is temporarily Lord ofthe City. You see him darting in every direction collecting snow off froven automobiles. A great trick of the shies, thi, 2 temporary correction for the benefit of the neglected child Iisup fo you now fo conceive ‘of something forthe child ‘move permanent than snow— ‘ess abundant, sometning (quite unite snow in tat it Brovokes ehild movement ‘eithout impeding other ‘essential finds of urban move- iment 1 must be conceived further- more not as an isolated thing (or isolated set of tings, but as Something which can be Fepeated on sutablepleces In the ily. Theelty must be able to.absorb it both cesthetically land py sieally It must become part of the cily's everrday fabric. 1 must be elementary in that Ik must respond fo te child's ‘elementary Inclinations and ‘movement (he latter doos mmol completely cover the former) and activate nis Imagination. [i must be able fo survive the impact of city Mie fauity construction, choice of Inaterlas or design Inevitably {gohhand in hand wilh un frecessary danger. What you make should Inthe fist place De attractive to children of four {eight years old. Tow are [ree as £0 your choice of materials You are not bound to a parti= cular site "ough be Hap wl in [Rc codintanty HS ” i iat ad We are concerned with problems of form and we need, im mediately, t0 develop techniques which enable us to transform Our experience 22 20c'al Bolngs into the plastic expression of frehitecteurbarists, Gommission 8, Alr-en-Provence, CIAM 9, 1953, Smithsons and Howells ‘A building ike any other man-made object, can make the universe ‘nore intligiaa to those who experience the modulations af its orm and volume. An architect who builds with this intention {Sentone the parts of his ullding not only a mochanical com. ponents of construction, but also as clear Signs In a language of form. ‘Sign and Symbol. LV. ‘At this point it seame suitable to define further ‘new archi tecture The open form oF the at ofthe great number Which are the objections one may ¢aise against Architecture as wo kaow it? 4. Itdid nol solve the problem of number—the need for necessary Accommodations and social amenities instead of decreasing, 1S ‘constantly rising. 27'as an expression of the closed form contemporary archi- acture cannot be adapted fo change; It becomes often outdated, tven before being completed. S'Biesent architectural conception doos not sufficiently take Fo necount the personay ofthe Inhabitants and i 00 often 12 itis wasteful ofthe financial moans at ovr disposal 5, The regiede Jou in architecture today sanctions the dissipation ff group traits (the problem of cosmopelitism. “Carré Blew’, Oscar Hansen Generally, people will experience much dificult in utilizing such possiblities as are facilitated by today's architecture. Tradition, Pranner of living and conservative iews constitute major attach- ments. The architect is therefore faced with a great task having [oiprovide people with buildings liberated from tradition and of IeBand eng destan the demands of our es big hs ie ff achievement. He should give evidence of power of imagination and be of 8 Constructive and alert mind, composing all materials in a simple Shd'tmpressive manner. ‘tall times. he will have to keep an industrial production in ‘mind, rendering the houses cheap, Sturdy and adapted for all ends and purposes. Even to the arenitect the result may often be a rather wretched ‘ne, and only the best and most persevering will succeed in brevaing, thet results Boing reatzod by completed buildings, {te use of which people may learn how fo appreciate (AD, May, 1980, Geir Grung, Norway oui, variability, elasticity are important factors in the archi- tecture of today. Logic, economy, structural clarity of architectural solutions are by themselves & source of poetic satisfaction for even the least eveloped human being. | fake the liberty {0 stress this paint in {he lace of what is happening in this world today and is discussed by many active architects and theoreticians. In fact, during the laat four to six years, tho approach to the mmatierh movement has changed vary much Everybody everywher now expresses ine wish to be modern. No more war between the new and the old! The old, as it sooms, has coased to exist! ‘The important centres of academic, quasi-classical, decorative Approach fo architecture in the USSR and the Ecole des Beaux ‘Aits have also. changed their position. But it is obvious that ‘Modem’ does not mean the same to everybody. For CLAIM t ftotion “modern” was backed and supported by a philosophy fogie and economy, reliably, a straightforwardness in function In structure, ete! ete, connected with poetic, emotional and Plastic values, For CIAM esthetic values did not exist per se in fn aulonamous way." 45If you say aesthetic control is ethically wrong (as it clearly is), and ‘one man should not have taste control over another man, itassumes that one has a responsible society, and that you can do away with control to a very large extent. The architect has to take that res- ponsibility—social responsibility—on himself. At each moment one acts, as it were, creatively, with one’s building, that is as an architect, urbanist in one operation. There will obviously have to be overall discipline in town planning, or social disciplines, to do with general economic trends, etc. But at the detail level, the actual town con- struction which is at the heart of architecture, one has to take responsibility for the form of the town oneself. The client naturally wants to express his ego, and he really is only terested in his own requirements; the architect must stand, as it were, between the client's ego and society. And the architect's traditional role is to produce a comprehensible community. The responsibility for this must be taken by the architect in a new way. In the situation where the architect takes his position between client and society—the community—he interprets the needs of the client in terms of community structure in order that the community structures become more comprehensible by each act of building, Whatis the role of the ‘planner’ in this set-up? Maybe the role of the planneris to provide social information which the individual architect cannot assess for himself; the economics of a given situation, the trends of development, the general pattern of traffic; and somebody has got to do the work that civil engineers used to do in the mechanical aspects of a town, to make the ‘hard’ analysis of drain fall-outs, of water supply, of road construction, of how many people come in, of what are the likely developments in the number of motor cars, and so on, which is the sort of infor- mation you need before you can start to think about the kind of building you should make. In a situation where the architect gets more responsibility and the planner less control, the architect must have more information and have less implied. Discussion, AD., November 1958. P.D.S, If anything could be a symbol of the aspirations of the second half of the twentieth century it would be the hydro-electric dam— perhaps because it is the essential anti-monument. Silent, out of sight, serving the organic and the mechanical, making contem- plative action a possibility for every man, An architecture which could satisfy such an aspiration must use similar techniques—largeness of organizational scale (not neces- sarily large in volume or density, that too is part of the jungle), and at some level the acceptance of the anonymous. WA Catalogue, 1961. P.D. 46 These playgrounds are built ‘on empty plots of land, those formless islands left aver by the road engineer and the demolition contractor: they fare constructed from the “Simplest materials often immediately obtainaate within the vicinity ofthe site, The playgrounds are significant al the present time {or two reasons. Firstly because they reveal the importance of Time to the lirbanist,an ematy plot of land isan inescapable reality i ‘must be used, else the com ‘munity in its immediate heighBourhood I, t0 some. ‘exon, deprived of ts frosdom Of morement and right to expression: since it must be ised if must be developed as the situation, social and economic, allows. All fo frequently empty city sites ie Ile, tagnating until the lime comes and funds are availabe’ Such phrases ‘oflect a0 utter contempt and Gtsregard forthe nature, the force, of time; evizens are Inevitably deprived for 3 Considerable period, of large hunks of ther ety. In the ena, real ime having ‘clog, tho site Ie absorbed into Some hasily conceived and Usually worthless develon~ ‘ment. The second reason why these playgrounds are impor. tant is because they represent a paricular scale of work ‘eesential tothe urbanis, for hhere he may come into personal contact with some of the more positive and vital elements at work n'a com ‘munity. He's able fo combine in. single process both Creative achievement and research: Through a playaround, and similar simple urban func the existing urban associs= tions, in hitherto Isolated Stree for instance, may be extended the urbanist wil fchire tis extension through the clarity and relevance of the forms he makes; this is archi- tecture. By observing the way In which this architecture is Used the urbanist wil be {guided to future, more exten= Sire, socially more complex, and inevitably more expensive developments in that location + Iniaieresearche otal‘Breror ef use, she Lynas, Not 0 with the ‘now modern’, where everything from town lanning to building relies on applied decoration with modern Clemens. T have seen, in Lebanon, housing units designed very ‘much under the influence of Le Corbusier, erected at a distance Gi'Some Bf from each other and lined up four fo six in a row. | Rave seen, in the USA, sun-breakers suspended an northern Siovations: The list of such examples tram all over the world can be Tengthened ad infinitum. “The reasons for this are certainly complex, but the main ones ar that the vnew modernists’ did not change their approach (i is not so easy), they changed only their manners—whereas the Buble, the sponsors, always want their buldings to blossom. If Frey cannot blossom wth classicist detall, fet them be right ‘mith some modern ones. ‘Also, among some of the ‘true modernists’ one feels @ need to foke{ against the senievements of the previous generation. This ood for reaction often has no sensible background other than {he wish to be different, Now is obvious that the research and Hue seeking of new solutions = our task, but this task often egensrates today inte some shallow droam of being diferent ‘rom # Corbu or a Mies. 1 am strongly convinced that superficial bourgeois modernism in Atchifecture, supported by some superficial tends in other plastic fa of today to of utmost danger to tho sanity and health of the ity planning and building, “The previous goneration of CLAM had fo fight an enemy that was dutside the movement, Our task isto fight the inner enemy, the SNathersmodemist The task of the previous CIAM was, maybe, move hovale-our task needs more moral strength. Could not therefore the aim of the new CIAM be two-fold: te holp Gidevelepmont of really sane and worthy new ideas on the basis cee silignes by the previous CIAM, but slso to unmask and fight down everything that claims to be modern but is thriving on what fe superficial and mean in human nature? {hb May, 1960. deray Solten, Poland aUrban infra-structure Traditionally some unchanging large-scale thing—the Acropolis, the River, the Canal or some unique configuration of the ground— was the thing that made the whole community structure compre- hhensible and assured the identity of the parts within the whole, Today our most obvious failure is the lack of comprehensibility and identity in big cities, and the answer is surely in a clear, large scale, road system—the ‘Urban Motorway’ lifted from an amelio~ rativo function to a unifying function. In order to perform this unifying function all roads must be integrated into a system, but the backbone of this system must be the motorways in the built-up ateas themselves, where their very size in relationship to other development makes them capable of doing the visual and symbolic unifying job at the same time as they actually make the whole thing work, From our first interest in the life-of-the-street we have been obsessed with the concent of ‘mobility’ in all its meanings, and particularly with the implications of the motor car. For the architect this is not only a matter of traffic system for he is concerned with the invention of building types appropriate to the new urban pattern that motorization demands. “Uppercase’. iP. The aim of urbanism is comprehensibility, ie. clarity of organiza- tion. The community is by definition a comprehensible thing. And comprehensibility should also therefore be a characteristic of the parts. The community sub-divisions might be thought of as ‘appreciated units'—an appreciated unit is not a ‘visual group’ or a ‘neighbourhood’, but an-in-some-way-defined part of a human agglomeration. The appreciated unit must be different for each type of community. ... For each particular community one must invent the structure of its sub-division. In most cases the grouping of dwellings does not reflect any reality of social organization; rather they are the result of political, technical and mechanical expediency. Although it is extremely difficult to define the higher levels of association, the street implies a physical contact community, the district an acquaintance com- munity, and the city an intellectual contact community—a hierarchy of human associations. IAM 9, Aen-Provence, 1953. A./P.S. In general, those town-building techniques that can make the community more comprehensible are: (1) To develop the road and communication systems as the urban infra-structure. (Motorways as a unifying force.) And to realize the implication of flow and movement in the architecture itself (2) To accept the dispersal implied in the concept of mobility and to re-think accepted density patterns and location of functions in relation to the new means of communication. gprs nt AP‘There is no doubt that a decisive moment has erived in the development ofthe modern movement... Forthese who followed the main road there was one goal --. {9 stimulate independently the development of man's awereness of the phenomoncn called lite... Teday in'many countries mechanization commands and \we see a development of planning which could not have been Predicted at the star of the contury. Many ideas of the modern movement have found employment h society, "But disappoint iment ia often folt In that the originators of ideas sometimes see inuch other workused, nat on abasi fiove and understanding utona bests of prostitution and expleitation,Itis offen apparent that the development of certain principles of the modern move- mnent is now faced ven batrlers which cannot be surmounted ‘aithout reorganization of working methods. People are contranted with a mass-produced way of living ‘The possibilty of comparing different ways of living expressed inthe diferent types is lost in dally environment, If one cannot Compare one wil forget the relatvity of our own way of Ife and evelopment wil csass. Comparison is essential to 2 democratic way atte. But to make this next stop, methods of work ofthe acchitect must be changed and the resistance to him will be stronger than ever betore, because awareness of inter-relationships demand {het he penetrates with his imagination in those circles where {oday specialization in every farm is master. The town planner Ean Sniy give indications of the King of use Tor a part of a town, But itis she architect who can touch the special conditions that have to be recognized for the future development of that part {The variety ef types, for example, is an essential part of the Zrchitectural expression, and the lation between the types is of cclave influoneo in the davelopment of cach type in tee. This tan never bs done by the town planner, who has to recognize a Series of citcumstances of @ quit eifierent kind. if the architect has no feeling for the relationship between types, he may well fall buck on decorative solutions of spaco to escape from mono- tony. $8, Que ge aaron, Form is a visual means of communication between people. The adern movement cannot ignore this without losing qu “Architects! Year Book’, 8, 1957. Bakema ‘Thete are the probloms of mass-communication and the prob- Tems of the whele change of society towards the middle-class Suiely with ferent. sorts of orives—alfferent sorts of status {rges, and se on: but in adeition you have the Business of teriic EGisplexty of actual physical communication—the cars and the fmator-way situation—whieh seems to mean that we have got to To reaize te npicaions Role 2 completely new sort of asihetic to begin with—a new Sate elton ie Sort of diseipline—whieh can respond to growth and change. opine a ezrons AD., November, 1958. P.D.S. ‘The form and esthetic of such a community has been presented Inthe artils on ‘Cluster City. "ARS, November, 1957 ‘The attitude that provails in architectural education which sug- ests that architeets should bo trained to synthesize, that they SRould ‘be. coordinators of specialists, does not seem to be proving eflective, It is, | believe, an’ attempt to escape the Characteristics of the prosant time: Furthermore, I do not believe hat it ig possible te synthesize of coordinate without somo Clearly Stated architectural ideals. Synthesis and coordination ‘must be to somo cleary defined end: ‘Symposium on Education, 1989. V. How again can architectural discipline function in daly life? ‘And how can rosearch in planning and architecture be done in Such a society where the command was to build for the anony- mous client? rceevee pete nanan ia ire discipline the different phases in ges, and buildings, malntaiing in sion? How can planning-archites the extension of towns, every phase relationship and var How can industrialization produce building elements by means fof which the different variations in way of life cen be expressed? Hw san the fle pon sore the change In the needs of fam How in the agglomeration of townships can Holland's natural Space be urbanized in order to be an element of daly life, recog rising the Tact that Holland recently became the country with the highest density in the world? "Magazine Bouw, No. §. Towards a new concentration of force 1957. Bakema Mobility has become the characteristic of our period. Social and physical mobility, the feeling of a certain sort of freedom, is ane ‘Bf the things that Keeps our socley together, and the symbol of this freedom is the individu Key beth socially and organizationally to town planning, for mabiity is not only concerned with roads, but with the wholo Coneapt ofa modle, fragmented, community. The roads (o> fetnce with the main power linos and drains) form the essential Skysical infia-structure of tha community. ‘The most important {hing about roads ip that they are physically big, and have the ame power as any big Topographical feature, such as a hil or a fiver, fo create geographical, and in consequence social, divi- ‘ions, To lay dawn a road therefore, especially through a built-up fares, is a very serious matter, for one 1s fundamentally changing fhe structure of the community. "Uppercase’. APS. {As long as cities exclude particular kinds of motion that belong {Meoparaby fo urban io, their human valigit—they have no other I'remain par The time has come to orchestrate all the motions that make a Giy a ety tis somehow In the nature of cities in general and of(8) To understand and use the possibilities offered by a 'throw- away’ technology, to create a new sort of environment with different cycles of change for different functions. ed building (4) To develop an zsthetic appropriate to mecha techniques and scales of operation. (5) To overcome the ‘cultural obsolescence’ of most mass housing by finding solutions which project a genuinely twentieth-century technological image of the dwelling—comfortable, safe and not feudal. (6) To establish conditions not detrimental to mental health and well-being, Past legislation and layout were geared to increasing standards of hygiene; in countries of higher standards of living this is no longer a problem. Criteria” have to be found to define under- mining environment. These might be: noise level, polluting and polluted environment, overcrowding, pressing and pushing, no space for the social gesture, all those demands made on the individual in societies inhabiting accumulated built forms. * Crier for Mats Housing oe ‘Forum (Holland), 7, 1959. A.P.S, The studies of association and identity led to the development of systems of linked building complexes which were intended to correspond more closely to the network of social relationships, as they now exist, than the existing patterns of finite spaces and self-contained buildings. These freer systems are more capable of change, and, particularly in new communities, of mutating in scale and intention as they go along. It was realized that the essential error of the English New Towns was that they were too rigidly conceived, and in 1956 we put forward an alternative system in which the ‘infra-structure’ (roads and services) was the only fixed thing. The road system was devised to be simple and to give equal ease of access to all parts. This theme of the road system as the basis of the community structure was further explored in the Cluster City idea between 1967 and 1959, in the Haupstadt Berlin Plan 1958, and in the London Roads Study 1959, Uppercase’. A./P.S. Roads can be deliberately routed and the land beside them neutra- lized so that they become obviously fixed things (that is changing on a long cycle). The routing of individual sections over rivers, through parks, or in relation to historic buildings or zones, provides a series of ‘fixes’ or local identity points. The road net itself de- fining the zones identified by these ‘fixes’. 52 $9, Donnse diem,ion ue Gate ceri rom. s ees eriggzeg ice ag 4 SSS STE wie un wt traffic in particular to suppress certain kinds of motion which, i Ieas insistent, are certainly no less fundamental to the idea city. Cities today demonstrate an ly limited range of move- ‘rent. Theit rhythm Is.88 vehement as it is monotonous. {A city if its really a city has a very compouns rhythm based on inany kinds of movement, human, mechanical and natural. The fist’ Is" paradoxically suppressed, the. second tyrannically emphasized, the third inadequately expressed. Wheels or no wheels man is essential Fe veally wants tobe, wlll again become, [p quite arbitrary, He ist 'Side" walk ind ‘To cater for the pedest Which overlooks the child's presence ig poor place. Its movement Wil be incomplete and oppreesive. The chilé cannot rediscover the city unioss the city rediscovers the childoffice ClusTER 2: 5257 enges Hin hin, [| toms ae FUrban motorways thus designed form the structure of the com- munity. In order to work they must be based on equal distribution of traffic loads over a comprehensive net, and this system is by its nature apparent all over the community, giving a sense of con- nectedness and potential release.1 eee The form oi the city must correspond tothe net of human relations a2 wo now see thom, “The changing arrangements of this not are effected by changing Systems of communication and changes of social sims. “The architect can act directly In this situation, He can control Systeme of physical communication and he ean offer new con- cepts. ‘And in fact the two things are wrapped up with each oth fulting increased emphasis on physical communications in- Solves throwing over tragitional esthetic values which were Thostly concerned with fixed relationshipss and on the other hand Mejectlon of Cartesian esthetics, because they are incapable of ing the cultural loading of our time, inevitably leads to an SButhotc of change’ the plastic reselution of the problems of smobilty. By increasing or decreasing the possibiltios of communication, tho potential intensity of use can be manipulated. The increas bf density ofthe trathe net in a given area will induce an increase of use intensity in that area. The road net is, therefore, a tool to Groduce s change of the pattetn=to break down the ‘density Pyramid into a looser clustar of ‘density high points’ (points of franimum fatonsity of use) with arcas of lower residential density Betwaen, Each area, being more specife to its use than those fliowed iy present density ‘blankets’ London Roads Study. AD, May, 1960 “The identity of the whole should be latent in the components Uhilst the Identity of the components should remain present in the wholo, It does not imply, however, that these identities need Or shoul remain constant in the face. of mutations. On the Contrary its exactly this potential to change face without losing Stitch cities must acquire in order to fulfil their purpose in space nd time: the provision of placos where vast numbers of people an ive, benefiting from sll he varied forms of human association ‘and activity large cies can best furnish cis should embrace a hierarchy of superimposed configuratve Gystoms multlaterally conceived (2 quantitative and a qualitative Nerarehy). The finer grained systoms—those which emorace the trultipiieg dweling and it extensior—should reflect the qualities OT ascending repetitive configurative stages. 1Roads are the one big urban reorganization job which are neces- sary to the general economy and, therefore, money and resources will be made available, Although the roads system can be thought of a priori as a triangu- lated net of varying density (no hierarchy of routes, equal distribution of traffic load over whole net, equal accessibility to all parts, only one decision at each intersection, etc. etc.), the realities of route finding and respect for (and wish to revalidate) the existing structure, as well as the desire to modify the town pattern generally, produce a road net which is not a pattern in the con- ventional formal sense, but is nevertheless a very real ‘system’ to which the architecture must respond. London Roads Study, AD., May 1960 We have to accept the dispersal implied in the concept of mobility and to rethink accepted density patterns and location of functions in relation to the new means of communication. In the dense, built-up areas of big cities the problems of move- ment are more complicated than those on out of town highways. Movement in cities must include the functions of parking and stop- ping. In general, national, inter-city, inter-sector and local (low- speed car, pedestrian) traffic should each have separate systems which offer no short cuts—all movement must proceed through each stage of the hierarchy—and the town-building should respond to this hierarchy of movement. Louis Kahn's Plan for Midtown Philadelphia demonstrates how movernent can be organically reorganized so that it is one with its inter-related functions of parking, shopping, etc. The idea of relating the architecture to the type of movement can be shown most easily in an example un- ‘complicated by existing conditions. The latest plan for Alexander- polder has a low speed road at its centre meandering backwards and forwards serving family houses on the ground; and the direct, high speed road runs around the periphery where the buildings are large Unités at quarter-mile intervals. AD., October 1968. 4./P., uneimsaeeeeue All aystems should be familiarized one withthe other in such & Page ‘ay that tis combined impact and interaction can be appreci- i ied'as single Complex. system—polyphonal, multrhythmicy i Usietdocopie and. yet perpetually and. everywhere compre Roneible. A. single omogenous configutation composed of Ina subcayiema, cach fovrng the same overall aaa ang i a asim grain, sce of movant PAE sean sie ote wre ce pate athe so configraed tat one evolves out of - Teesgrctemg ale Whr8 sean ning tee stem must | Inatte i parle. heer" yg autores iat i suf the mean te cohol tr wn J Shey must above all—this is the crucial point—assist the overall Compronensioilty of tho minutely configurated intimate fabric Gihieh constitutes the Immediate counterform of every citizen's ber Weryday lite. They must not oaly be able to absorb reasonable fnutations within themselves, but also permit them within the intimate emeller fabri they serve. Van yeh Most towns exist because of mesting of people atthe crossing of Megland water-roads. An old town centre can only existin modorn == Line tthe kind of trae of this time is allowed fo be part of the Hourt of the town, ig always the death of life in towns it modern ttatfc becomes forbidden. Most towns already have some main op emi eg {faffe ince on which the buildings have alreedy lost their cultural Sth sare {histore) function, Thesa mainlines could be transformed into (riiteevel trae roads and buildings corresponding to the scale GF production of our days could be in visuel relationship with these new trafic roads Jationship between these now clemonts and tho remaining ones of historic value is a dificult but normel Mrealteetural ‘problenn, In those ‘parts of the town expressing patterns ‘of culture based on non-mechanical circulation, the Fae et ate thes tobe auandones., They wil be the aoe refuting resi numan need as 6 the cele areisaeosonnge ony motor ca Se ctiate oie, Bolan town centes of histori vale as Amsterdam, “Het FEROS Sai oe Sent enalila Febuary &i, 1960, Bara 4 Histose conte 2B New urban n06es 3 Local ros Urban motorways 2 Local roadses a a a A eel Sa ea Expressways are like RIVERS. thetic 2 ‘Those RIVERS {reme the area to be served RIVERS have HARBORS HARBORS are the municipal parking towers {rom the HARBORS branch a system of CANALS that serve the interior the CANALS are the go streets {rom the CANALS branch cul-de-sac DOCKS the DOCKS serve as entrance halis to the buildings A town is by definition a specific pattern of association, a pattern unique for each people, in each location, at each time. To achieve this specific pattern it must develop from principles which give the evolving organism consistency and unity. A town-plan can be defined as the method of applying those principles, “Unpercase’. A./P.S. It is somehow not right to rebuild to the old pattern, If one considers movement as the mainspring of urban building, more radical forms come into being. AD., October 1958 60Sea ig {in small villages in Germany, peopio gather on fine Sundays at vantage pointe overlooking the autobahn just to see the cars go ty And fais's a very moving experience, ‘or one feels in contact ‘wiih the itestream of Europe, and not just of Germany itself POS. {A typical situation occurs where @ new urban motorway is driven thrBugh the built-up area following an old street, one side being Yorn down to accommodate ft. The side that is Teft consists of Sie’atorey commercial bulldings from the nineteenth century, with Gomestc type windows and a doormay on to the street. ‘Two problems result; how to develop on the cleared side, and how 0 infil or redevelop on the existing side which now faces fino a sirlane highway. The noise has increased by ton times ‘Since haree-and-cart days. ‘Should windows therefore face the motorway at ell? Or would it Bommare eortect forthe buildings to have thair backs to the motor- ‘tay and an indication on the facades of development in relative {Quiet behind or atthe side? Surely such drastic re-thinking of the Siuetion is taking place at the wrong level. The urban motorway Sesign must be such that a now solution fo adjacent building Is. Imptteror even rrelevant. 'AD,, October, 1858 The patteins of thought, and ideals of behaviour, of the new ITachine society are already wol established. In some curious ay the intellectuals who ‘raditionaly helped to establish these Patleins and ideals, find themeolves in the position of having to Patch up. Everyone how knovws that no one can push him around, hie is certainly a new feeling which has come into Being since 1095, Theres @ genuine egaltaracism in the air the result most Cbviovsly l'a prosperity that con be taken for granted, and of {clension, (eulting people down to size; broader level of interest) Everyone also has fairly wall defined material ideals: morelleisure, nore pleasure, more tavel, more education for their children. ‘Those’ Ideals are largely trase.of the younger man im his best gamning and most confident years, and, of course, they are helped SSformulation by the popular press and by the advertising media, But thers is no doubt shat they are the genuine popula taste.” Tis new sort of society needs a now sort of environment, An Open society needs an apen city. Freadom to movo—goad com- Munications, motorways and urban motorways. And somewhere [o goboth ineide and outsiéo the cil. Freedom to move ‘Tho main structure of the urban environment to which our every- dy actiites can be related ie @ special sort of road system. Such 2 ystem, designed to act as a structure for the whele community, Reuteaized bya green stip of bull landscape, need not in fact Be'very large ia relation tothe town—to or three great highways, bre slthost sufficient to serve even Los Angeles. (Where motori- Jation is gradually approaching its seturation point of one car to ‘very two persons.}F ‘This road system is a “Ax for movement” running through the whole community; but the big motorway intersections lke. the {tbe Angeles ‘Mixinaster" of the San Francisco Skyway take-off for Oakland Bay Bridge, are more like traditional architectural fesures. A whole network of motorways related to existing (Rees" in th’s way could serve not only for the purpose of travel ot could ais0 define the areas into which the urban region is Gilded. ‘The use of the road-systom In this way would keep our Spparent lovel of mechanization under control; we can chennel AAbloe and excitement to where they cosm approprate, or can do hho harm, and create pools of cali where they are not {pMecory een of his Hamel conden a Samatprc zones 6‘meration to be ‘a community’ in the twentieth century tis notneces- The main case that is being put here is that for a human agglo- tng, Beh on” een E&P ‘sary, practically or symbolically, for it to be a dense mass of buildings, but that does not necessarily mean that a bigger overall area need be covered than is covered at present. It is essentially a matter of regrouping of densities. There is no need for example for low-density family houses to be excluded from the central areas of the city, noris there any need to think conventionally that housing HSC af more To recogni make a fun, we have fo investigate them and visualize them ona map. To know the aya proctssof change of the forces making the town we have to underetand these forces in the past, nowadays fand as they expect fo be in the future. Daing this wo can Identify ourselves withthe ‘moment now. We can discover from this first period alse the structure of houses, workshops and ublic buildings and the ‘elationship botween the Structure ofthe sellement and the structure ofthe Butteup volume. The house, for example, inthe days of 1700- 17800 in St Louis had steps leading to galleries whieh gave access fo the rooms of the house. Bigger bulldngs hed Simp steas feng fo a front The fist Washington Univer- sity buildings were surrounded by 3 hind of courtyard and Wall, while the older buldings Of St Louls University had an interior courtyard. The most ‘remarkable charactrietle of Locust Stret 0 St Louls of 1850s si ho small scale of individual buildings, andnearer the country should be at low densities. It depends on the life pattern of the people who live there what sort of environment is needed and what sort of density results. The overall pattern of the community is of clusters of varying densities, with many parts, as high as 300 per acre (Towers or Streets-in-the-Air.). Such concentrations will allow for the creation of the new road/green space system that compensates for family living development, without increasing the occupied area and without forcing people into an unwanted pattern. Dispersal of course must be disciplined 80 that any resultant development does not become absolutely structureless. Experience has shown that it is possible to maintain large-scale green belts and parkway strips, and indeed the relating of the green areas to the major road system is an obvious way of providing the main urban structure. Itis the intention, by using the road-system as the town structure, to keep the apparent level of mechanization under control. We are no longer in the position of needing to play up our devices, but rather to play them down, channelling mechanical noise and excitement and creating ‘pools of calm’ for family living and regeneration. Density and intensity will be related to the function of the zone, resulting in communities of much greater genuine variation of living pattern. ‘As has been stated elsewhere, this feeling of being trapped-in-a- jungle-of-irresponsibilities has made the car and its corollary, the urban motorway, into necessitios for mental quietude in’ the metropolis—they represent escape and freedom. At some point must be a place of maximum intensity. Somewhere must be @ place which not only allows for the contact of mind with mind, but also symbolizes it. It can only happen at the ‘centre’ (there can be only one place where the experience of the community reaches its maximum, if there were two there would be two communities), but it follows that in a dispersed community it will be smaller and more intense than existing ‘city centres’, But it is in the question of social foci that the difference between the Cluster City idea, and what itis commonly compared with, Los Angeles, can be seen. Los Angeles is fine in many respects, but it lacks legibility—that factor which ultimately involves identity and the whole business of the city as an extension of oneself, and the necessity for compre- hension of this extension. The layout of Los Angeles and the form of its buildings do not indicate places-to-stop-and-do-things-In. What form it has is entirely in its movement pattern, which is virtually an end in itself. 6 popscraen satrtattatir locks iret pede ro cry es Eero apes We tt ? ze Hh isBroadway of those days had ‘covered sidewal. There were also transitional elements between the space ofthe buildings and the space of the town. About this time the building ‘occupying a whole Block Became characterielic instead of several individual bulings Deing together In one block Sand Lourie Sullivan builtone of the fst skyscraper construc tions in St Louls about 1690 he Wainwright butaing. The relation between tho sret pattern ofthe town and Ihe structure of such shy tcrapers woe no more By Courtyards or galleries, but ‘Simply by @ door giving direct ‘accass (0 the street. Think about this! Nomare transitional element between bullding and town Structure for 3 building in Which mere working pechaps ‘500 fo 7000 people, while for a building with 10 f6 20 people this elament wae sill there in 1860. IC's Inthe period 1050- 1900 that the relationship ‘belween city patern and building structure became purely mechanial. The ‘volvtion from small-scale ‘production units Into big Scale production units was too ast and the various aspects of life stil expressed in a picture (of Broadway in 1850 became all Suberainete ote tens of suying and selling mass-pro- ‘sueed goods. Thinking and esigning ‘civic centre’ for ‘St Louis, you nave fo think this over because we are still, ‘sccupled with the problem of {he relationshin between these big-seale buildings and the ‘space of th town. And I am Sure that when 3000 people working in building come ip the buiiing of leave tat tho Deginning ar end oftheir work- ing hours this cannot be done by pouring these people in and ‘ut by some doors Inte the ‘erowded streets So thinking about the design ofthe builaings of aciviecentre Wwe have to give special attention fo those elements Which have to function be- ‘ween the spedite working Ives and the level of pubic Interest (sree). Jace Icey! eae ueItis quite clear thatin an ideal city at the present time, the communi- cation net should serve (and indicate) places-to-stop-and-do- things-in. This is somewhat different from saying that every city needs a core. When Los Angeles is criticized for not being a city in the old European sense, itis not generally realized the colossal scatter of the places people go to; up to the mountains for a picnic; to the desert for a trip; to a far-off beach for a bathing party; or to Marshall Fields (in Chicago) for shopping. The social foci are almost all outside the so-called down-town, and they are not really based on the sort of facility that can be readily moulded to help the legibility of the town pattern. AD, Seater, Apri 1950. A(P.S. Old town centres still inspire more than new neighbourhoods. We are now in a period when people have to be taught how to visualize—by word and design-thought about social structures. We have to communicate by built forms the next step in the evolu- tion of tho structure of social relationships. This is research which can make the work of an architect become a necessity—as bread and wine are. For us to re-establish the function of form in daily life Schools of Architecture have to educate students in a way that they can build, by planning and architecture, the morality of their time. The design process of ‘recognized’ kinds of buildings, as, for example, new headquarters for firms, or government centres, has to start with the design of the programme for the building because by this programme is fixed how people can be alone—or can meet— while working in the building. Such buildings have to be more and more a kind of village and town, while towns have to be more and more buildings. Neighbour- hoods must be kinds of castles with towers, rooms, galleries, secret corridors and surprising courtyards. ‘Amsterdam Students’ Magazine ‘Poorlers Periodlek\ 1959. Bakema The needs of the new mobile society and the communications systems which serve it invalidate existing town planning tech- niques of fixed building hierarchies and anonymous space. The grouping of buildings must both give meaning to and communicate function, function in the complex sense of the part they play in the activities of the community as a whole. Such a way of considering town building will inevitably require the reflection in the buildings themselves of such non-static things as flow, and speed, and stopping and starting, and all the other varied manifestations of human occupancy, APS.The Lever House and Seagram Building in New York give Some direction about what I These transitional elements of the building willbe of decisive Significance for thecivie centre iecause these eloments can Visualize spall te relation Ship between the buildings. We have to revitalize for our big-sealebulldings the prineple as was realized in Broadway of 150 for small. Seale buildings by recognizing the actual forms of our present social. The road a8 liberator Aivendy, for example, we can recognize that an adequate urban- ‘notorviay system fs 4 psychological es weil as functional reauiro- ment of an urban region-it afers the possibility of release. To help them enioy thelr spare time, the densely populated aroas snl have toe ablo to empty & large proportion of thelr population ito the surrounding countryside, and where possible on to the hearest cogs, pleasantly. and within reasonable timo, each Meokond and on summer evenings. In response to this demand, for example, our coastline will have 13 Boteorganized along its lengih in order to keep some parts vmithout people, and fo cope with the influx to the Test The pattorn of disperse! Some parts ofa solution are already obvious Pea general system of motorways, which amongst its many JaseuSne provides access to ihe countryside and to the sea. (At tnilech paints proper vehicle and people handling facilities n We be provided: more or less on the medel of Jones Beach which |S part of the New York Parks Service.) 2. An increase in mass-transit faclities, particularly to existing Fesorls (Whose major features, promenades, ple’s, ely ar ‘itcady incapable of handling motorized holiday makers.) 1Just as our mental process needs fixed points (fixed in the sense that they are changing over a relatively long period) to enable It to classify and value transient information and thus remain clear and sane, so the city needs ‘fixes’—identifying points which have along cycle of chango by means of which things changing on a shorter cycle can be valued and identified. With a few fixed and clear things, the transient—housing, drug stores, advertising, shy signs, shops and at shortest cycle of all, of course, people and their extensions, clothes, cars and so on—are no longer a menace to sanity and sense of structure, but can uninhibitedly reflect short-term mood and need. If this distinction between the changing and the fixed were observed there would be less need for elaborate control over things for which no good case can be made for controlling, and legislative energy could be concentrated on the long-term structure, At the present time the road system seems an obviously fixed thing, changing on a long-term cycle of up to seventy-five yoars (even in Los Angeles the cycle is fairly long). The road system deserves therefore to be treated as a fix. Butitis a fix that connects, and this makes its implications quite different to those of historical fixes. The non-building environment is increasingly transient: posters change on a monthly cycle, sky signs on a half-yearly and shop windows, clothing, magazines, and so on, on varying regular and irregular cycles often related obscurely to each other. ‘The establishment of an zesthetic of change (or transience) is in fact almost as important to the feeling for the structure as the maintenance of the inviolability of the road system.77 Benen. bitin, 3. Protection of areas of great natural beauty. What is less obvious Is the form dispersal communities must {ake 80 that they will not Become merely low-amenity suburbs of stuffy townships. People want country retreat co thal they canlive closer to nature fand ina more clsorganized way (or it a more organized but ‘quite different way, should thoy choose to go up a mountain or Into the arctic for rigorous physical/manhood-test conditions). To really provide these conditions, the shack has either to be by Tiself out of sight of other shacks (minimum 2 to 5 acres) or there hhas to be a packot of shacks crowded together, but surrounded by ‘eal country’ ‘What can definitely be sald about caravan sites, roups of holiday Bungalows, extended villages end so on, Is that they must be at (189-200 families) and well dispersed (3 miles apart or the Inhabitants of these dispersed groups should use the existing regional towns or newly created out-of-town shop: ping centres (inked to the motorway. system—for leisure-dis- pergal assumes motor ears) to do thelr shoxping, and they should ROT be built up inte mechanically tidy satelite communi Leisure dispersal may well stimulate a demand in the built-up ‘ty for maximum-conventence town apartments (no maintenance, fo outdoor space to keep Up, maximum anonymity, maximum tase of servicing and so on), and this usvally means high density blocks of 200 persons to the acre and up. Those sorts of ideas are of cours, the result of thinking about human agglomerations, and ties in particular as "places'—the architect discipline—but If any of the ideas are to be realized, they have te be introduced, legislated for, and administered, in the fel of politics. Weal City. APS. sty ate the ame at 78 Wa bore t corm Fp een eee boing, FO 195 GeetAn ‘esthetic of change’, paradoxically, generates a feeling of ‘security and stability because of our ability to recognize the pattern of related cycles. AR, December 1960. A.\P.S. The first step is to realize a system of urban motorways, Not just because we need more roads but because only they can make our cities an extension of ourselves as we now wish to be. AD., October 1958. A|P.S. 29 od spend Brin Bon se Ss Benita eatn the pasteles were compact, transport was siow fand people ved and worked lose fo one another. A ‘reat deal of movement was fn feat, and people could mest one anather quiely and feasily. A few men Such as Howard and Soriay Mata saw the Importance of using transport as an element to ‘give new form tothe city. The form of future cites will depend on the decisions image nom. To pla uly motorised city fs possrble today, and for some countries, where the economy of the ‘country Is inexorably bound fo the mater industry, such ties willbe Inevitable. The second possibility wil be to allow for » balance of, tse between private and publi transport, and ts {nis whieh is considered to be the most vald selution, at Feast dersty populated countries. Re Meer in Cie 1966 ‘Toia generation of architects must suwiteh their focus to. the problem of making the community structure moro comprehen isles and this is not only a matter of ‘city planning’, but must alter ihe nature of architectura tselt—at least as fac as the nature Sf erchitecture has been understood since the Renaissance. ‘AR, Docember, 1950. A.)P.5. In the complex of associations which is a community, social Cohesion can only be achieved if ease of movement is possible, Fhe assumption that a community can be created by geographic [polation (a invalid. Real gecial groups cut across geographical bawrersy and the principal eid to social cohesion is looseness of froupings. and ease of communications rather than the rigid Melation of arbitrary sections ofthe total community with impos- iby dificult communications. SOCIAL ORDER | ENVIRONMENT ‘CHANGES OF ATTITUDE “Uppercase’, 3. A./P.S. ‘The esthetic of the buildings in an urban environment should faflect the appropriate cycle of change. Fixes! should look fixed and “transients! transient, even if their ‘gctual lie as @ building (so called permanent construction) Is the came. Inthe related cycles-of-change of a community, certain historical buildings are often regarded as fixed in perpetuity, and are indoed ued 2 long as they are socially felt fo be important. Others, like Row. courts or municipal buildings, ave almost unchanging fanelions, orike power stations and heavy industrial plants— Fepresent investments too massive to be altered frequently, ‘Those are the architectural fixes: the architectural transients are the shops, and houses end eimilar small structures, which are Aout, atered or completely rebut on shorter eet of change. ARs, Decernbor, 1960. A./P.S. Today we are inyolved in mass production, mass distribution, ass’ Consumption, mass housing, mass education, mass Itieure, We are especialy concerd with the relationships between these mass setivitiee, We have to define the use of publ nd private transport, from rocket ships to bicycles, and to relato {heir different seales of speed to each other and to man as he Continues to be despite these hurrying marvels. These problems Sre most acute where the mass is greatest, ic. in our cities and than regions, The constant and rapid evolution of our society Wil not slow the stratfieation of cities. The question is not to build exible buildings but to establish an onvironment in which ulldings appropriate te their function may occur, and 10 ei Courage an interaction between these bulldings and their environ tient is clear that no formal composition can provide an answer [oithis problem; for the nature ofall formal composition ia static, precise, and fixed. Buildings which formerly took fity years to Fic now fall in five, We aeume that technology will solve the Jem af the five-year ecanomic life by considering the total ‘anomie context, Our problem 1 to seek a vay to allow the five- oar building fo occur when and where its needed. The object Sot to make the building exible but to make the urban complex flexible enough to foster snort-lfe bulldings es well as long-ived ‘Carré Blew’ 3, 196. Candis, Josie, Woods 1The time has come, | belive, to approach architecture urban- Teteally and urbanism arch tecturaly. “The present situation is due, among other things, toa wrong con- Captlon of the relation partamhote. The result, of course, Is weak Srahitecture and atrocious urbanism. Wheroas the dilemma ot host contemporary building lurks in tho half-hearted way the vallable background is understood and handled, the dilemma of ost contemporary urbanism lurks in the intrinsic insufficiency Ol the avallable background, quite apart from the half-hearted way Rig understood or handled, And this brings me on tothe problem Df number and multiplicity. We've forgotten most of what there is. fo know about the asthetice of the single thing, whilst we know Iftte yet about the aesthetics of multiple things. The capacity toimpart order within a single thing—to make It rest within itslt te unlortunately no longer ours and that’s a terble thing—for we Gan go withect classical harmony. The capacity to impart order Stthe same time fo-a multiplicity of things is as unfortunately not Set ours, and thats a terible thing too, for we can't do without Bhat | wish to call harmony In mation. Wagele Schools. Van Eyck BGrouping of dwellings Throughout the years ATBATS has studied the problems of ‘habitat’ for the greatest number in all its aspects and peculiarities, thas not arrived at an all-round solution, but one solution for each case. It has found many solutions and many variants, but the spirit of search remains the same, the spirit of the greatest number with its laws and its disciplines, Statement of principle Itis impossible for each man to construct his house for himself. It is for the architect to make it possible for the man to make his house his home. “Bodianshy, Candis, Woods 84 Haig for Horace a Res sta ont Selle Aerande Beran chen a” "THE DOORN MANIFESTO {itis useless to consider the house except as a part of a Community owing to the inter-action of these on each other. 2. We should not waste our time coditying the elements of frohouse until the other relationship has been crystallized. the 3, ‘Habitat’ is concemed with the particular hou particular type of community. (3) Yowss of various sorts (industrial/admin.jspecial). (@) Cities (multistunctional). 5, They ean be shown in relationst Ghabitad in the Geddes valley section. 3a a sa 2 F 6. Any community must be internally conveniont—have fase of eireulall ‘consequence, whatever type of transport is avi lensity must Increase as population Increases, | st dense, (#) is most dense, 7. We must therefore study the dwelling and the groupings That are necessary to produce convenient communities at Various points on the valley section. 8, The appropriatonoss of any solution may lie in the field of Srchitectural invention rather than social anthropology. Hettand, 1954 Ithad become obvious that town building was beyond the scope of prey analticl inning thatthe prabim of human lations Putticough the net of the four tunctigns'.In an attempt to correct [eisrine Bosrn Manifesto proposed:"To comprehend the pattern of human associations we must consider every community in fs particular environment What exactly are the principles from which a town is to develop? ‘The principles ofa community's development can be derived from the acology of the situation, froma study of the human, the natural {Ind the constructed, and their action on each other. If the validity of the form of a community rests in the pattern of Tienghea it follows that the frst principlo should be continuous UBbjeetive analysie of the human structure and its change. ‘Such an analysis would not only include ‘what happens’, ‘the ctganiamns" habits, modes of life and relations to their surrouné- Pret sgh things as living in certain places, going to school, {reveling to work and visiting shops, but also ‘what motivates: {he raasons for going to particular schools, choosing thet type iver and visiting those particular shops, In other words, tying Sere ora pattern of reaity which includes human aspirations. “The social structure to which the town-plannar has to give form iifok only aifferent but much more complex than ever befor. ‘Tho various public services make the family more and more independent of actual physical contact with the rest of tne co mmunlty and more turned in on itself. Such factors would seem to make incomprehensible the continued SuSgptance of forms of dwellings and their means of access Recep let Rer very tle from those. which satisfied the social Falormers' dream betore the first world wa, %Up to now the house is built down to the smallest detail and man is pressed into this dwelling—in spirit the same from Scotland to Ghana—and adapts himself as best he may to the life that the architect furnishes him with, We must prepare the ‘habitat’ only to the point at which man can take over. We aim to provide a framework in which man can again be master of his home. In Morocco, as in all countries which are developing rapidly, the fundamental problem is that of housing ‘le plus grand nombre’. The question is one of housing the Mussulman population who live in the huge ‘bidonvilles' on the outskirts of the great urban centres. According to statistics about 70 per cent. of the population of ‘bidonvilles' come from south of the Atlas, their original habitat is therefore collective housing (vide the Casbahs and mountain villages). In accordance with the ethical and climatic conditions, the dwelling of a Moroccan family consists of rooms which open on toan interior court, a patio flooded with sunshine. This patio is the true hearth, the meeting place of the family, and is enclosed by high walls to ensure complete privacy. ATBAT AFRIQUE set itself the task of finding a multi-storey solution where the patios would be flooded with sun and at the same time the rooms accessed from it would be protected and the whole completely private. AD., January 195. Canalis The Golden Lane Deck Housing project is similarly concerned with the problem of identity. It proposes that a community should be built up from a hierarchy of associational elements and tries to express these various levels of association (THE HOUSE, THE STREET, THE DISTRICT, THE Itis important to realize that the terms used: Street, District, etc.,” are not to be taken as the reality, but as the idea, and that it is our task to find new equivalents for these forms of association for our new, non-demonstrative, society, The problem of re-identifying man with his environment (contenu et contenant) cannot be achieved by using historical forms of house- groupings, streets, squares, greens, etc., as the social reality they presented no longer exists. {In the complex of association that is a community, social cohesion can only be achieved if ease of movement is possible, and this provides us with our second law, that height (density) should increase as the total population increases, and vice versa. In the context of a large city with high buildings, in order to keep ease of movement, we propose a multi-level city with residential ‘streets- B no 95hSLE degen eS i 9 Wea hamping aldo By erg Sain eget Baas ne considers the increasing use of ‘This is particularly so whe that we wil approaen the American tho ear. it must be assume "iandstd of mobility. A footpath off @ windy ill-defined vilage freon 1s.a poor link between a heated car and a heated house, Bor tne design of buildings and layout of towns in tropical areas, ieis'an acespted method to establish the general principles of design by considering the ways In which the bad effects of the Sfevdte can be ameliorated and ils beneficial effects exploited, fn Esoland itis rany and cold for about eight months every year. This gould seem to cal for houses that would both give and look as it they gave, disround protection. Double walls, double roofs, Souble windovis, covered approaches, covered drying yards and possibly covered means of accessin-the-air’, These are linked together in a multi-level continuous complex, connected where necessary to work places and to those ground elements that are necessary at each level of association. Our hierarchy of associations is woven into a modulated continuum representing the true complexity of human associations. This conception is in direct opposition to the arbitrary isolation of the so-called communities of the ‘Units' and the ‘neighbourhood. We are of the opinion that such a hierarchy of human associations should replace the functional hierarchy of the ‘Charte d’Athénes’, CIAM 8, Air-en-Provence, July 24th, 1952. A.|P.S. The assumption that a community can be created by geographic isolation is invalid, Real social groups cut across geographical barriers and the principal aid to social cohesion is looseness of grouping and ease of communications rather than the rigid isolation of arbitrary sections of the total community with impossibly difficult communi cations, which characterize both English neighbourhood planning and the ‘Unité’ concept of Le Corbusier. The creation of non-arbitrary group spaces is the primary function of the planner. The basic group is obviously the family, traditionally the next social grouping is the street (or square or green, any word that by definition implies enclosure or belonging, thus ‘in our street’ but ‘on the road’), the next, district, and finally the city. It is the job of the planner to make apparent these groupings as finite plastic realities. In the suburbs and slums the vital relationship between the house and the street survives, children run about, (the street is com- Paratively quiet), people stop and talk, dismantled vehicles are parked; in the back gardens are pigeons and ferrets, and the shops are round the corner; you know the milkman, you are outside your house in your street, The house, the shell which fits man’s back, looks inward to family and outward to society and its organization should reflect this duality of orientation, and the looseness of organization and ease of communication essential to the largest community should be present in this the smallest. The house is the first finite city element. Houses can be arranged in such a way, with only such additional things that prove necessary to sustain physical and spiritual life, that a new finite thing, the plastic expression of primary community is created, The street is our second finite city element. The street is an extension of the house, in it children learn for the first time of the world outside the family, a microcosmic world in which the street games change with the seasons and the hours are reflected in the cycle of street activity. 8I think that an architect planner faced withthe probler of slum areas in St Louls nas {plan housing conditions fo improve the welling of the Inhabitants, because these inhabitants cannot do Itthemselves, having nat the Drganfzaion talents. Often they did not create their ow sees ‘The English climate is not characterized by intensity, but by Ghangesbilty. The house, therefore, should be capable of Grasping what fine weather itcan get, grasping solar heat through South wendows into al rooms and giving easy access to sheltered patios, root gardens or terraces which can be arranged in & Froment fo catch the pleasures of our climate and then closed up Ina moment so that we ean ignore it. Such an atttude towards fprotection and chengeability coule guide the form of the whole fayout. ‘Any new development exists in a complex of old ones. It must fevaldete, by modlying tem, the forms of the old communities, The concept of a balanced self-contained community is both theoretically untenable ana practealy wasteel. The relation of {his conception necessitates a complete chango of atitude. The anne’ sno longer the social reformer but a technician in the fel of form, who cannot rly on community cenies, communal Idundries, community rooms, ete, to camouflage the fact that the betllamert gs a wiolé Is incomprehensible. Certainly in planning new development, the size of the new community in terms of ‘apulation would have to be estimated from the Deginning as is fae prosent procedure, fo enable a suitable sito to be chosen and the linksreads, dramage, power, etc.—to the existing complex tobe planned. But municipal pre-planning cannot create the form of @ now ommusity, Form is gonerated, In part, by response to existing {orm and in pert by fesponse to the Zoligelst—which cannot be prevplanned. every addition toa community, every change of Elreumstance wil generate a new response. ‘An aspect of this response is scale—the way in which the new pari orgenized plastaly fo give meaning wt the whole Comptes. As the complor changes with the addition of new parts, So'the ecate of te parts must change in order that they and the lahole remain @ dynamie response to each other ‘Scale has something to do with size but more to do with the effect ot size ‘AD, July, 1955. A\P.S. ‘The lack of love of architects for the problems of ‘the greater umber" makes i 80 we don't know how to do ‘housing’. We must know how individuals and groups live with sun + wind ‘rope | horizon, The labour movements are out of date now we approach the period af Yyou-and-me' No more a society with speculative so-called labour market, but Tote a socioty in which getting-aware-of isa right of everybody. Iti bettor to touch dally in ovetall-cloth-roality than to develo a tind of Sundey-cloth-art style not based on what has to be done Jorthose now called he greeter number’. ‘The art of discovering that'!’am a great aumber. The process of {Getting famniiar wih the wonder called space. pBut in suburb and slum as street succeeds street itis soon evident that although district names survive, as physical entities they no longer exist, but we all know that once upon a time those streets were arranged in such a way and with such additional things that proved necessary to sustain physical and spiritual life to form the third finite city element, the district, the plastic expression of secondary community. The difference between towns and cities is only one of size for both are finite arrangements of districts, with only such additional things that prove necessary to sustain physical and spiritual life, The city is the ultimate community, ‘the tangible expression of an economic region’. To maintain looseness of grouping and ease of communication, the density must increase as the population increases, and with high densities if we are to retain the essential joys of sun, space and verdure, we must build high. In the past acceptance of the latter part of this thesis has led to a form of vertical living in which the family is deprived of its essential outdoor life, and contact with other families is difficult if not impossible on the narrow balconies and landings that are their sole means of communion and communication. Furthermore, outside one's immediate neighbours (often limited to three in point blocks) the possibilities of forming the friendships which constitute the ‘extended family’ are made difficult by complete absence of horizontal communication at the same level and the ineffectiveness of vertical communication. The idea of ‘stroot’ has been forgotten. Itis the idea of street, not the reality of street, that is important—the creation of effective group-spaces fulfiling the vital function of identification and enclosure making the socially vital fe-of-the- streets possible. At all densities such streets are possible by the creation of a true street mesh in the air, each street having a large number of people dependent on it for access and in addition some streets should be thoroughfares—that is leading to places—so that they will each acquire especial characteristics. Be identified in fact.eect Building is 2 function inthis process. Architectural form is developed by planning in which architects land town planners have to. Work simultaneously and not fierar~ chicaly. (After one year in the concentration camp.) During a conference of Srchitects énd town planners in the Mumeipal Museum of Amster= ‘dom, 1944. Bako [believe that, in a given material situation, tho present ‘swelling’ society has an arsenal of means. That unfortunate problem of quantity, unsolved up to now, lea in the naturalistic manner in Sihieh the hentage af the closed form ie taken over in order to Solve other substances~the large quantity. The sooner we cast bff the shackles of the closed form (the form on the basis of which two havo been braught up and consequently often do not perceive IS deleterious effect), te sooner will wo colvo the basic task of architecture, {consider that the problem of quantity can be resolved without lowering the standards by taking the open form as a basis. ‘The half-century of reducing architecture to one decision has made it~and by the same token also the tenants—barren of the potential enorgy of self-detormination. ‘The open form, unlike the closed form, doos not exclude the energy of the tenant's initiative, But on the contrary treats it as @ Basie’ organic and inseparable component clement. This fact is bf a fundamental significance to the tenant's psychology and Rence to tho work output. The thythm of aurtimes—the elements Ofwhich are attainments in the field of science, paltical changes, etaclysms and the functioning of the closed form which appeers lis particularly drastie form in the faulty interpretetion of indus- ftial material out of which emerges tho monstrous shape of dull Standirezation™caunes tel ineiiduay fo Become fst nthe "Carr Bleu’, 1951. HansenEach part of each street to have sufficient people accessed from it to become @ social entity and be within reach of a much larger number at the same level. Streets would be places and not corridors or balconies. Thoroughfares where there are shops, post boxes, telephone kiosks. Where a street is purely residential the individual house and yard- garden will provide a viable life pattern as a true street or square, nothing is lost and elevation is gained. The flat block disappears and vertical living becomes a reality. “architects Year Book 8", Golden Lane Project. A.iP.S. Each generation feels a new dissatisfaction, and conceives of a new idea of order. This is architecture. Young architects today feel a monumental dissatisfaction with the buildings they see going up around them. For them, the housing estates, the social centres and the blocks of flats are meaningless win en BO Eee and Irrelevant. They feel that the majority of architects have lost 97 Bokewra's dicgraras of contact with reality and are building yesterday's dreams when the sia eee Iovecetried pce at rest of us have woken up in today. They are dissatisfied with the ideas these buildings represent, the ideas of the Garden City Movement and the Rational Architecture Movement. L236 507 eee eo ee oe cd98 er ln exam, bos 97 sore Differentiation and unity theough rhythm and sub-rhythm—an Old story alte forgotten. As | havo sald befor, it we aro to over ome the menace of quantity faced with the tersfic problem of Rebitat for the greatest number, we shall have to extend our isthetic seneibilty: uncover the sil hiddon laws of what | have Exiled Harmony in Motion=the osthetics of number, Quantity ESnnot be humanized without sensitive articulation of number. This, by the way, can't be done as long 2s we don't know what a Thrge number of people really f, or for that matter, what a single person realy is, Wel, a kind of planning based on the physical Pealty of place and cceasion rather than on the abstraction of Space and time; a kind, to follow this lead, which is Based on Shareness and subsequent realization of the right in-between, Since this is Ihe common ground where split polarities can once guin become twinghenomena. This signifies a kind of planning Gdneeived as the bull countarform of a more completo and ompiex human reality than that which (apart rom @ few obvious Sxamples) fines a questionable harbour in hollow spaces the frogern habitat provides. A kind of planning above all which is ot merely the expression of human values, but which actually Constitutes their very counterform, @ counterform in which they Eenvenist survive 30 that man can bo where he wants to be: home no matter where ne Is. Raagele Schools, 1960. Van EyckThese two movements achieved their built form by discovering the zasthotic means to achieving social programme. The Garden City Movement is basically a social movement; Ebenezer Howard saw in the idea of combining town and country a ‘Peaceful Path to Real Reform’. The image left in the mind by his book is one of a railway archi- tecture for clean but bewildered working men. The Garden City idea was Ebenezer Howard's, but its form came from Camillo Sitte, who first conceived of ‘Town Design’. Until Camillo Sitte it had not occurred to anyone that a town could be anything other than the most convenient and significant ‘organization of the social hierarchy. After Camillo Sitte, meaning was to give way to ‘Townscape’. The Garden Cities as realized owe more to the misunderstanding of the mediaeval town than to the reforming drive of the railway age. From the Garden Cities has come forty years of town planning legislation. In the more ‘progressive’ places, the Garden City tradition has given way to the Rational Architecture Movement of the ‘thirties. The social driving force of this movement was slum clearance, the provision of sun, light, air, and green space in the over populated cities. This social content was perfectly matched by the form of functionalist architecture, the architecture of the academic period which followed the great period of cubism, and dada, and de Stijl, of the esprit nouveau. This was the period of the minimum kitchen and the four functions, the mechanical concept of architecture. Today in every city in Europe we can see Rational Architecture being built. Multi-storey flats running north-south in parallel blocks, just that distance apart that permits winter sun to enter bottom storeys, and just that high to get fully economic density occupation of the ground area. Whore the extent of developments sufficient we can see the work- ing out of the theoretical isolates, dwelling, working, recreation (of body and spirit), circulation; and we wonder how anyone could possibly believe that in this lay the secret of town building, The dissatisfaction we feel today is due to the inadequacy of either of these Movements to provide an environment which gives form to our generation's idea of order. The historical built forms were not arrived at by chance or Art, they achieved order through signifi- cant organization, and the forms have a permanent validity, a secret life, which outlives their direct usefulness. Each one of us recognizes the Street, the Place, the Village Green, the Grand Boulevard, the Kraal, or the Bidonville, as urban inventions, extensions of the house and components of the town which satis fied the needs and aspirations of past generations in other places. Why is it we cannot find for each place the form for our generation? In England the key problem is that of the ‘Council House’. A form u01 ‘css Now aa B towse B podestian close GS covered porch DB Garcon Ii you think back to the pioneer days of modern architecture you tall see that the Hilberselmors and the Le Corbusiers and the Gropiuses were producing ideal Towns in the Reneissance sense, Inthe sense that their ssthetie was infact the classical wsthetic, fone ef fixed formal organization. Now the attitude of Team 108, that this ls an unreal attitude towards fowns, and we think that Flanning i @ problem of going on, rather than starting with @ Elean sheet, We accopt ee.s fied fact that in any generation we tam only do s0 much ork, and mo havo to select the points at \ihich our action can have the most significant eflect on the total fy structure, rather than ry fo enwsage ts complete reorganiza; fon, whieh ie lust wehful thinking. Our current esthetic and Ideclogical alms are not castles in the air but rather a sort of new fealism and new objectivity, a sort Building matters, and (te sirese again) a matter of acting ima given situation PDS: Yoni Hea gram of 1 ita tenermust be found for the house which is capable of being put together with others of a similar sort so as to form bigger and equally comprehensible elements which can be added to existing villages and towns in such a way as to extend the traditional hierarchies and not destroy them. The relationship of the country and the town, the bank and the house, the school and the pub, is conveyed by the form they take. Form is an active force, it creates the com- munity, it is life itself made manifest. We are involved in mass housing not as reformers, but as form aivers, We must evolve an architecture from the fabric of life itself, an equivalent of the complexity of our way of thought, of our passion for the natural world and our belief in the nobility of man. Let us therefore start our thinking from the moment the man or child steps outside his dwelling, here our responsibility starts, for the individual has not the control over his extended environment that he has over his house, which can become palace or pigsty irrespective of what is provided in the first place. We must try to find out in what way this basic contact should take place, how many houses should be put together, what should be their shared facilities—the equivalent to the village pump, continually questioning the arbitrariness of existing solutions. This is the basic step of the ecological approach to the problem of habitat: the house is a particular house in a particular place, part of an oxisting community and it should try to extend the laws and disciplines of that community. AD, dune 1985, A[P.S. Consider for example the commuter—the Travelling Man. The man going to—or returning from—work should be able to find eye rest in the street scenes he passes. Housing in the mass presents an essentially hostile face, there are few eye-rests, The ‘eye wants to see what the man can eat, can do, make, take, wear, buy. The mind wants to receive suggestion for action—or relaxa- tion—as a relief from tension if it has no wish or need to think about work. The clerk, the mechanic, seeks release from work when going home. A few gardens can be interesting, but forty tiny plots are a bore and the man hurries past head down. The approach to the house forms the occupants’ link with society as a whole: a lengthy climb up a stair; or down into a basement; up an avenue; up an estate road past twenty or forty semi-detached houses; along an air-conditioned, artificially lit corridor. These are men’s links with society, the vistas down which man looks at his world. In the housing areas there are certain simple ‘principles of mobility’. A road must: feel as if it is going somewhere; North or South; towards or away from; orientate you, even if itis pitch dark or on a grey day. Car movement is flow movement, not the irregular stopping and starting; changing direction; turning around, of the walker. Iman ern af sn theft cho 1 Agate he ee.It i now accepted thatthe ‘making of good paces to live ininwatves more than the provision of good houses. Wissaloo widely understood thatthe housing group within the neighbourheod needs to be visually comprehensible and thatthe housing group is the fist step towards establishing 4 form of tently beyond the hhousehotd. But itis ere Una theory and brace sop, Housing groups ggregated into neighbour eds of roughly lke 520, Which are thought of 25 objects pul down in avoid, the add fional community facies, as they become necessary, are placed around. ‘kis common sense to suppose that 28 far as estebishing janity is concerned, the neighbourhoods would be Deller off of lfferent size, and ‘iflerent density and different Intensity of use. But it would bbe made fo imposea difference ‘on identical needs, We have no Fight to turn houses into fowers or easbahs for purely formal Korba Lelus for a moment imagine 2 puble space beatully Srtculated with a singte seat imeigfly tute under Shwe un ates i am ery tred and very sor~ prised fo encounter a Bace $0 fell sccommodited o- Inclination and so apparent ‘esl foo, Naw, what 11 discovers warning: wel pat! Gntheseatatthelast moment? Grone that says: for whites nig? The space fr me—hot, fired and perhaps dhvk skinned, fea atonce no, ‘anger the place thought it wos Will eit nine I believe that the use of space is not merely a statistical mater. One's home is one's Nome because one has learnt to use its Spaces, ita brieke and mortar. Tho neighbourhood outside it ihe Guster of the town in which it I placed and the fown, even the fegion, should be extensions of this, space, coherent and difering many choices of activily. All too frequently today, each Suecessive layers a barrior and the home is a refuge from a dark dane unknowable environment. May, 1900. LV. “The question of the optimum density for various sorts of family Haris ted up with the increased avallablty of personal transport land the relationship of the carta tho house. i the caris to be a Zonvenionce and a pleasure, t must bo easy to uso it. A family Stcursion with babies and baskets and buckets and spades, from {he flteenth floor of an access balcony twoxit slab block via an Underground garage can be no picnic, Then tharos the problem Ol the real space needs of family Lio, especially for children. Everyore needs a bit of sheltered Outdoor space as an extonsion fois house, This space can slso eerve the needs of children up {9 two or tres years old, but from then on children need more find more space, Space to play satoly close by until seven years Std or 80, and space fer wld Funning and little excursions until Sleven, end then places to go and do things in until they are fimost grown up. Maybe none of these requirements can be met simply and leasurably at densities much above 70 p.p.. GF course thore are lots of people to whom ‘hotel life’, by which is meant the maximum of privacy, ancnymity, and simplicity of Teratce, ls suitable and pleasurable-pethaps 40 per cent. of the ‘cies, especially where the population Is grow fig alder, Treve poople are in fact well served by conventional orm of high building such as the Lake Shore Drive apartments Srthe Swedish point blocks, where the access is swil, secret, Ghd completely enclosed and the windows look out into anony- mous space, Such buildings situated near the city centres give @ Maximum of convenienca for students, single people, childless Couples, and grown-up families. Their density can De very high Indeed, up to 300 pp. Family living, except in exceptional circumstances, Is best served by relatively ow denaty development, whatever it location AD, Apri, 1989, Sealer. A. ‘Architecture can assist man's homecoming. Since I tike 10 ‘Sentity architecture with whatever can effect in human terms, [Tike to think of i as the constructed counterform of homecoming. When | speak of house or city as @ bunch ofp [Ninply that You cannot leave a real place without entering another ipl’ a real ‘bunch’, Departure must mean entry. (This_ goes ‘atutaly for both place and oceasion in time and space.) Space {s the appreciation of it {Ceaving nome’ end going ‘home! are dificult matters both ways. Van Eyck Unfortunately almost all known sorts of low-density development fre inadequate, in thelr form, in their system of construction, and in thelr system of access, for our present way of lite. And, most Sertous ofall, they are ‘culturally obsoleto\. To overcome ‘cultural Sbeclescence’ Is not only @ matter of finding the right living pattern for our present way of ite and the equipment that serves ‘Dulit Is slso.a matter of indiag the correct symbols to satisty jut present cultural aspirations. Up to now most architects have evaded the issue and are building Imitation marke-towne both inide and around our greet cto, ‘Conve‘sely, we suggest that in small places multi-level solutions ‘Sie absurd, for no ene wants to lose touch with the earth i he an avoid i. But if itis unavoidable by pressure or density, out. oor space must be created directly outside the dwelling: indeed itigin’a elty that this outdoor space becomes vital AIP. a7To flow means to move evenly at speeds to suit functions, from fast on national roads, to slow on house access roads. AD., October 1958. A.|P.S. We are least sure of solutions for housing very large groups of people. But if, as we suspect, the trend is towards a ‘Leisure Society’, which requires ease of communication and easy func- tioning houses, we might, by having unloaded the population of the metropolis via our transport network to all over the country to areas spoiling for insufficient use, close-in on a vastly different problem—metropolis, emptied of many of its problems of too dis- similar, conflicting uses. Reality will lie somewhere between what exists, and an ideal city of a ‘Leisure Society’ whose working population retreat for long weekends long distances to the family grounds. People could be helped to choose between city, town, village, or hamlet life. And alongside our present schools’ grading system we might think of a classification as to how much stress and tension @ person is capable of bearing, and this information should be used to help the choice of a career by making it clear whether the individual would be more suited to the quieter tensions of country life or to those tensions and pressures of a metropolitan life. Meanwhile, one of our primary aims in trying to find adequate solutions for larger groups of houses is to make @ haven for the individual dwelling. Within this haven the individual should be able to establish his identity, find meaning for the small acts of his or her daily life—the chores of the housewife—and ultimately some satisfaction and sense of well-being in being there at all. A.M1s., 1964 We cannot at the present time aim to teach in the accepted academic sense, there is no contemporary grammar of space. We would avoid all educational methods which aim to perpetuate the “Domaine Batie’ as we know it. All we can do within education is to expose the spatial problems which we cannot ourselves resolve. This orientation towards space is particularly important at a time when the cosmos physically within reach is expanding with terrible rapidity, Between the physical limits of the human body and the orbit of a man-made planet, there lies the inarticulate vastness of space to be humanized. ‘Symposium on Education’ 1989. L.V. The word ‘cluster’ meaning a specific pattern of association has been introduced to replace such group concepts as ‘house, street, district, city’ (community sub-divisions), or ‘isolate, village, town, city (group entities), which are too loaded with historical overtones. Any coming together is ‘cluster’; cluster is a sort of clearing-house term during the period of creation of new types. Certain studies have been undertaken as to the nature of ‘cluster The intention of these studies, in which the conditions were largely made-up and not ‘real’ was to show in terms of actual built forms that a new approach to urbanism was possible. In other words it was to present an ‘Image’. A new esthetic is postulated as well as a new way of life. “Uppercase 3°. A./P.S. 106 Kermaint los,beautiful now tha itis r= Shetber fears Ceranyy whether realy Ts. Certain Ind, forthe creumstance of Ihe seet~the physical place focutsmahes It Inaccessible Weccan also ask what the ‘rnotional impact of the space ‘woul have been, had the Seal been accessible on previous oecosions, or what Asouid have been hadi been naceeslbe on previous dceasions, but ow for tho frat time aceesaible. Space Experience, | repct, isthe feard of place experince. The doorway to arehitectare {ind urbana has gates Sind no warnings in Ove nature of tho one aiscoverad on the Sly sat Bet itis neceessibe hnevertreless, (0 all hose who ‘nay sil ma them there. os Segre FDS 1988 ‘At Bagnols-sur-Coze, wo tried, without being antiquarians, to Construct with today's given elements and today’s technical, economic and social eisciplines something which tes in with the old Each fat hae double orientation, opening to the splendid sur- founding landscape and totheinside outdoor space, whichis inno ‘manner closed in, but reassuring and alive with its shopping Contres, playing felds, and swimming pool. We tried to avoid Snitormity end symmetry, to find an organic disposition of these floments, which ie usualy, traditionally, tho Fosult of @ long ddovelopment in time, Iwas necasaary to give & specific character to the town, to imate the appearance of uniformity, to make the city come live, Thus each natural obstacle, each valid element of the past, Such a6 old parks and gardens, tho open-air theatre, cuins, wells land characteristic farms are respected, Kopt, and are used a5 Gramatization in the composition of tne whole, working within housing regulations, a series of diferent types of apartment bulld- Ingo were found which stil koap the same conceptual standards, + May, 1960. Georges Candils ‘The wonderful thing about architecture is that i's an art—just that. ‘The iemble thing about architects is that they are not always artists. Worse, they're semi-artists (tiny omnitects)—and thats the last thing they shoul be—comfortably engaged in Something super, But architecture is neither a som) nora super arti's an art simply that, notan omnibus for nobody—and that's ‘crucial thing in teell For simost half a century, architects have been tampering with the principle of art, squeezing it into the Jacket of semi-science—notsclence,oh no-—semirscienceapplied! mnean technology and the kind of rubbish that clings to the technolagieal slant progress, weak mechanical thinking; grav ing naturalism; senvimental social thinking, antisopties. Compared wath the other arts, compared with scionce, architecture, and tepecially urbanism, have made a very poor show. Far from expanding realty ae the othors have done, architects have contracteu teality—sidectracked the issue of contemporary thinking. You all know how suspicious architects nave been of the few exceptions—those that defy measuroment in grams or Inilimetres, fll through the coatse mesh of four functions and are therelore regarded as contraband—Nence all the graphic surtaces tnith Rollowness.on oth sides and everybody a nobody on either Side, Heavens, thal we should have boen fooled so long. Architecture 18 an art and we're not going to twist it into some- {hing else because we can't lve up to what I |s, we're not going to re-define t 20 a8 to make it fit neatly round a lack of creative potential. Modern architecture, I'l say this here, has (more {han not) been dishonest with a halo of honesty. Otlerlo Meeting. Edited version. Van EyckIn the centuries before the advent of the architect-town-planner, habitat was the result of the interaction of cells (houses) and environment. In the years since, it has become an arithmetical progression from cell (house) to mass-housing, and environment a by-product of celleplanning. This single-mindedness was per- haps necessary to solve the problem of the production of houses in massive quantities, but it has led architects and planners to the present absurdity of treating habitat as a means of self-expression, a plastic universe where houses are building blocks for the child- architect to play with. The problem of production, at least from a design standpoint, has been solved. Each year more and better cells are made and still the search for the optimum cell goes on. The technique of plan- ning homes or flats is in continual progression and, although the building industry remains archaic, we have achieved today a perfection in design (within the limits of price and volume imposed in most countries) far in excess of what was thought possible fifteen years ago. The question of what to do with the cells that are produced in such numbers has almost invariably been resolved by a more or less new, more or less ingenious plastic arrangement. Cells have been stacked, staggered or spread out in an endless variation of geometric arrangement to make an endless series of virtually identical housing schemes, from Stockholm to Algiers and from Moscow to London. The result is desolation. Nothing so resembles a plan masse as another plan masse, A crossword puzzle universe is springing up around every large city in Europe. This planning process, from cell to block of flats to plan masse, leads only to architectural symbolism. For the justification of the use and disposition of towers, slabs and long or staggered walk- ups is usually based on some sort of symbolism; towers as sym- bols of the structure of the scheme, or of gateway, or of centre, etc. The purely gratuitous aesthetic reason is seldom avowed and the economic basis of such planning is so spurious in the face, for instance, of national defence budgets, that only the civil servant's completely compartmented mind can accept it. Thus in ‘the same way that architects used to hide all the expressions of life behind a neo-classic facade, they are now reduced to com- bining plastic art and plumbing in the search for self-expression. If planning continues to proceed from cell to plan masse, it must remain systematic (additive), and the occasional tower block only serves to accentuate its symbolic and static nature. The addition, almost as an afterthought, of commercial or civic centres, of schools and playgrounds, fitted in to furnish empty spaces in the site, is a confirmation of the deficiency in this concept of planning. Fortunately, the commercial centre is usually at the centre of gravity (usually symbolized by a tower block) but the other pro- Jongements du logis are often only put in where blocks of flats wouldn't look good. Strat ne19 Ze sere AA Theis The house isthe smallest bulding to be found in village, town or an greatly, yet, In a0Qregate, housing occupies a greater volume of we Space than the public buildings which sorvo It Therefore, the Configurations which groups of houses taka, whether they are Separate, horizontally attached, orvericaly stacked, willdetermine foa grosier extent then any other group of buildings theform which tillage, town or ety wil aka, Furthermore, since these configura tions are built up {rom individual houses they present a problem o lunch (3 eharacteristic and signfleant at the present time, the ‘control and positive use of repetition towards human ends ‘The formal significance of housing is matched by its ecological Significance, The house is the contte from which living extonde ‘and fo which It returns: It contains in embryo all the organs of Vilage, town and ety; the kitchen, for example, becomes the Workshop, factory, warehousa and multiple store of the great tity, tne ving roam becomes the cinema, library and dance hall Wt vilage, town and city ara to be comprehensible extensions of living and not unknowable forces. within which the house is hothing but e reluge, the connections Botwaen tho embryo and its development need to be apparont. The design of the house must Imply wat les outside, [At a time when architect and urbanist build for vast numbers of tho form of the house is determined not by the particular it nor even by the particular class oF ‘Secupational group, but rather by the contest in which tis placed. The house isa Town House, a City Owelling ar a Cottage. While tho contort a2 it fe found determines the form of the house, the configurations which these nouses wil take io aggregate wil Serthe agents through which the Inevitable forces of subsequent ‘change, growth and decay are controlled and directed. Housing in lig social role as an image, and on account of its peculiar formal Characteristics, is the most potent force at work in the urban {abrie. The housing group is the modulus of living; itis at once the Instrument of urban research, the meane of urban develop~ ment and an end product of the constructed image, AAS, dune t1th, 1967. JV. In new layouts the roadjbullding relationship should indicate by their form the relative importance of the route. In an existing oad system this could be done with coloured markors, and at fight by coloured lights Roads are also places. Consider for example the social implications of the arrangement ‘of houses around’ smell green, parking lot, or turn-around, Which puts all movement under continuous social scrutiny. ‘AD, October, 1958. PS.