2019
163
09052019
09052019
VÍTOR OLIVEIRA vitorm@fe.up.pt
Universidade do Porto, Portugal
EDITORIAL
FOR A NEW VIEW ON ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING
POR UMA NOVA VISÃO DE ARQUITETURA E URBANISMO
VÍTOR OLIVEIRA vitorm@fe.up.pt
Received: 09 May 2019
Accepted: 09 May 2019
A key feature or, in other words, a unique privilege of scientific research work is to have time to “stop”. Having time to stop means gaining critical distance, aiming to “look” at a given reality and organize knowledge, define the state of the art and then refine or reinforce existing paths or even propose new directions.
A look at current architectural practice reveals an increasing focus on the production of exceptional buildings at the expense of the other urban form elements. This professional focus is reinforced by a university education which is more interested in training architects who dominate the design of these iconic objects rather than mastering the design of the city (CATALDI, 2015; STRAPPA, 2018). In addition, research in architecture also seems to have an increasingly closed interest in these emblematic buildings. Many studies seek to understand the building design in the work of the author and often compare it with the work of their peers. This type of research always carries a narrative logic that fundamentally explores “authorial architecture”. As a result, there is an absence of research and references to the repertoire of traditional and anonymous forms and spaces, with a negative impact on the end product (OLIVEIRA, 2018).
On the other hand, an analysis of professional practice in planning reveals a bureaucratic conformation to the national planning systems. Local authorities, for different reasons, seem more likely to ‘react’ to the multiple actions of private actors than to think and act systematically about the city. This reality is underlined by a university teaching that privileges the procedural dimension over the substantive dimension. Indeed, the academy explores a set of themes that, even though they are important, necessarily constitute an unbalanced body of knowledge in themselves (without the complement of substantive aspects). While it is true that planning research seems to have a broader scope and a more assertive look at reality, unlike practice and teaching (or practice, teaching and research in architecture), it is also true that such research should engage more effort in building an effective communication channel with this teaching and practice.
All this problematic framework, which dramatically materializes on each territory and on the daily life of those who live or work in it, also contributed to the creation of a gap between architecture and planning, which is expressed either by the actors (professionals, academics and researchers) or the stages for action (practice, teaching and research).
Over the course of six millennia, the process of city building has been carried out through a succession of permanencies and transformations. Millennial cities such as Rome, Istanbul, Baghdad, or Beijing are notable examples of this extension and development. However, no rupture would have been as dramatic as the one that began just over 100 years ago. The substantial increase in urban population, the development of the real estate sector as a key agent, the increased use of motorized means of transport - all framed by a new understanding of the “time” factor and supported by new theories of architecture and planning, has led to the production of radically new urban areas in terms of their physical dimension. In fact, this physical dimension is characterized by a reduction of spatial accessibility, density, diversity and continuity, finally leading to a worrying decrease in urbanity (AGUIAR & NETTO, 2012).
In early twentieth-century theories of architecture and planning, the break with the past was a fundamental premise. The garden city and the modernist city have developed as models in clear opposition to the medieval city (which, in many cases, incorporates permanencies from previous historical periods) and the nineteenth century city. Letchworth and Frankfurt are initial materializations of these two models. The conception of Letchworth seeks an antithesis to the industrial London, and Frankfurt expanded into residential fragments that deny the city as a whole and materialized into purposely-disjointed urban forms in relation to those inherited from the nineteenth-century. For all this, it is not surprising that the theories that begin to emerge in mid-twentieth century, after realizing the numerous weaknesses of these models, try to recover the lost connection with the past. Yet, a fundamental misconception arises, and the dominant theories seek to recover this connection by focusing on building forms and architectural styles. Based on this assumption, new urban areas are produced throughout the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries that, despite differences in architectural style and building envelope, share a set of problems with the urban areas from the first half of the twentieth century.
It is argued in this paper that a new view of architecture and planning must be based on an effective ability to link past, present and future. However, unlike theories that have developed from the mid-twentieth century, it is argued, close to Conzen M.R.G. (1960) and Conzen M.P. (2018), that the focus should be on the most structuring and perennial elements of the urban form, elements that paradoxically are the least visible. These are the elements that make up the “town-plan”, i.e., the street system (meaning the public space system including not only spaces for circulation, but also spaces for permanence), street-blocks, plots and buildings, or more specifically their block-plans. It is important to clarify that this two-dimensional approach distances itself from the generic modernist “plan” composition - usually simplistic, abstract and centered only on buildings. On the contrary, the two-dimensional approach proposed in this Editorial recognizes the full complexity of the urban phenomenon. Firstly, in terms of the three-dimensionality of the natural support and the building fabric - distinguishing residential from institutional fabric - in this respect, see the concept of fringe belt, in Whitehand (2019) - and land uses. Secondly, in terms of accumulation of historical layers. All this is expressed with greater permanence on the “town-plan”.
A focus on what is structural, and not on what is most visible and most ephemeral, will establish a continuity line between past, present and future. Let’s take the example of regular narrow frontage plots (with variable depth) existing in so many cities in different parts of the world, regardless of whether this creation and development is “more” or “less” planned. New York, in its 1811 plan, would exemplify a planned genesis; Amsterdam and London would illustrate a less planned genesis. By defining a narrow plot frontage, which in these three cities varies between 5 and 7.5m, a greater density, diversity and continuity is induced. However, this density, diversity (of buildings and people) can be offered by medieval buildings, nineteenth century buildings, twentieth century buildings or even early twenty-first century buildings. Moreover, these buildings can be single-family, multi-family or a mixture of both. Throughout the urban history of several cities (and not just the above mentioned three), this type of plot has been able to support all these types of buildings. At the beginning of the Twenty-first century, these areas seem to be those that concentrate the greatest social, economic and environmental advantages (OLIVEIRA, 2016).
It is therefore argued that a rigorous understanding of the “town-plan” should be a central concern of a new view of architecture and planning. On this first layer of analysis and design, in different parts of the territory, the inevitable tension between conservation and transformation will then be developed. Some parts of the territory will “ask” for more conservation, other parts will “demand” more transformation. While musealization and obliteration will be extreme options that are rarely justified, it is important that the definition of what is indispensable to conserve and what is possible or desirable to be transformed is supported by careful morphological analysis. Barke (2018) tells readers how this morphological analysis can contribute to an intervention in the built environment in a way that promotes the maintenance of our collective memory and our sense of belonging, bearing in mind that in order to have a present and a future, it is necessary to have a past.
Another key issue in a new view of architecture and planning, closely linked to the “town-plan”, is the understanding of land as a scarce resource, framed by a metabolic perspective. For a city to function, it needs a set of resources - energy, water, materials, food and land (to name the most important). The pattern of consumption of land has undergone a fundamental transformation with the introduction and widespread use of motorized means of transports. Generally speaking, from a certain point onwards, and as cities no longer needed to be walled or even compact, the extent of daily travelling could grow in a way that pedestrian modes would not allow. This apparent freedom, with no cost, has led to a progressively ineffective management of land use. This ineffectiveness is visible at the macro scale, and this is where the literature has focused, but it is also evident at the micro scale. At the micro scale, the management of each urban area has been losing effectiveness in terms of the decisions on what is public space (of circulation and permanence), what is private outdoor space and what is built space. The balance resulting from a long learning process - and the progressive adaptation between people and urban forms - which is still expressed today in parts of the city of medieval and nineteenth century origin, has been completely subverted by the models of the garden city and the modernist city. Moreover, the way the “artificial” articulates with the “natural” and how the “impermeable” articulates with the “permeable” has also undergone unsustainable changes. All this must be rebalanced in a new view of architecture and planning.
Recent scientific advances in urban morphology (OLIVEIRA, 2016; KROPF, 2017) should be a fundamental support for a new view of architecture and planning. Although this influence is not straightforward (refer, for example, to Holanda (2018) and Maretto (2018) for two conflicting positions), it is evident the relevance of morphological support for a professional practice that is more attentive to “time”, “place” and people, and that can make cities more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
