PT: I would like to discuss about your architectural practice; how came you into the urban issue? Is it not difficult to run an architect office and also create urban workshops? How do you relate your practice to urban issues?
C: In principal I am thinking of setting up an alternative architectural practice: a kind of a collaborative practice. Today we know that there are two types of practices: One is the corporative office which is more like a company, a business oriented organization. The second type is more European which is more of an atelier for individual architect and more artistic.
I think there is another type or maybe there should be another type. That type is of a kind in between these two types. This in between type could be more about a networking of architects who share same ideas and similar approaches and work collaboratively. The network differs from a group of avant-gardes in a conventional sense. They still maintain each identity while interact towards the mutual goal. It is close to a NGO if you may want to have a reference.
And another realistic aspect is about the projects we could acquire. For corporative office they usually get more commercial jobs. Individual architects may have smaller commissions of individual residences or sometimes eye catching public projects. I think we could also try to formulate a new type of work. It will be sort of suggestions from the architect side to initiate projects rather than being passively waiting for the clients. Architects could be very actively involved in the social process to formulate projects. You see what I mean? That is another type of work. We initiate something for the society then we proceed to work out the design. That is a different kind of work.
PT: Initiating projects by architects… what is the debate or outcome of that? I guess it is very difficult for an architect who wants to follow to initiate projects, to deal with the power structure and established system. According that how an architect could take an active role in the society? How is it possible?
C: That is what we initiate which could be private or public, also both, a mixture of work to do. What is important is that with this kind of work architects are taking a positive role in the society. We try to solve the problems in the city and try to make it into a proposal then manage to realize it. This is the other way around. To work out something for the people rather than the client ask us.
The globalization as it is may end up only islands for the rich and the rest will be drowning. We feel that architects are so helpless in this. In many situations we can only obey our clients and can do nothing. Or, we could just stay within our own imagination and try to do something interesting to please ourselves. But, still no hope for the betterment. Quite depressing somehow… I think all architects feel so… even the big ones or the ones successful in commercial circle. Urban Flashes was certainly out of this motive.
PT: Do you think by this way, with this architectural practice you can reach all levels of the society?
C: I think each time for the UF workshop I try to get in touch with the local people, both ordinary people and high-ranking officers at the same time. In Istanbul I was trying to direct it to the public, but we didn’t go through enough. Maybe the system is a bit more rigid in a way to get in touch with the government and for people to understand what we are doing.
Before I came here this time I was in Bergen of Norway. We had a quite good discussion with urban planning officer of Bergen city government. There were seeds planted and we could wait for the growth. That’s the thing that it is very good for the city. Here, in Istanbul is more difficult.
PT: What it is the reason behind it; maybe the city is too huge and the system is unorganized but rigid…
C: Yes, but also the social system is hierarchic. The decision-making people are being hidden, sitting behind the society and looking at the society. Architects, on the other hand, are not motivated and being considered as draftsmen like in many countries.
The first UF workshop was in Taipei in 1999. At that time I invited architects and artists from aboard to look at the future planning of an abandoned brewery site in central Taipei. We tried to expose the proposal to the public through advertisement boards, major newspapers, TV channels and, then, the Taipei city government noticed us. Then, after one or two years both the central government of Taiwan and the Taipei city government actually took our advice and designate the site as a visionary park for arts & cultural uses, which is exactly our original proposal.
Before our intervention, they were planning to build a new council building on the side of existing office buildings of the central government. They already had a competition and selected a massive office building design. But we tried to say that we should build something else there, and they agreed. It is now in the process of implementation.
PT: For example in Berlin they transformed the one of the most important public space, the Postdamer Platz into expensive, huge office buildings…most of them are useless. Most of them are so expensive that people are not able to rent them; and also as a public space it was very important place for years, however now is useless. People are spending time and re-creating spaces in other parts of city and Postdamer Platz is now just for tourists or just for buildings. That is a kind of wrong urban strategy…
C: That was a disaster… That is what’s of pity in the current situation in many cities. I think it is a key problem what we are looking at all the time in different cities. The local people actually need our help, need our methods to intervene and to forge visions. And that could more effectively provoke the public and the government in respective city. We hope to work with the local people and try to disclose the true nature in their living environment and kick them to be aware….
PT: Like Yona Friedman since 60s, he has also same kind of strategies in urban and architectural scales. Once he explained a kind of method that operates with group of architects mostly intellectuals between the system and the local people that they can communicate and understand the local people. Mainly housing and this kind of problems and then translate and formulate and try to give a solution as a kind of “in between” group. It could be government or planning group and this group could work for the both sides for the public, local people and then translate and formulated to. But I told also to Yona, there is a kind of hierarchy, if I want to look in critical way. Because sometimes the local people don’t know their needs and isn’t it a kind of another hierarchy to operate as a translator group? If you want to look it in a critical way it is also a discussion I think when you work with local people. What do you want what do they want. Their needs are important not the architects or intellectuals needs.
C: I think Friedman was more about suggesting some kind of mega-structure of the 60’s, but what I am thinking is of a micro-approach. It is more about small things, insignificant elements and trying to activate these small areas in the city and then change the city. So I do not propose any big plans. Friedman’s mega-structure is a different approach.
I think more from the stance of ordinary people. Ordinary people can only have small things, such as a cup of Turkish coffee. They do not possess anything extra and cannot have more than that. They have to use these small things to improve their lives. So micro-urbanism is about how to use these micro-materials to re-organize and re-engage the city as a new architectural and urban design approach.
PT: Do you have or developed specific methods in mirco-urban practice, how you think these methods operate and works in different locations and do you think there is a general method or do you have to find the dynamics for every location itself?
C: Certainly. In contrast to macro-approach usually from top down, micro-approach is from bottom up and inside out. What I usually do is to identify the ‘micro-zones’ in the city, where ordinary people may have more attachments, encounters, and conflicts. Within the microcosms people manage to survive by taking immediate solutions to their problems, which could be recognized as ‘tactics’.
The linkages of micro-zones will eventually provide a map of micro-zone web of a city, which shows the real living conditions within macro-planning structure. The tactics disclosed will be transformed into design tools for shaping future scenarios, which include new programs, projects, and visions.
The new scenarios would deform the existing web found previously and further elaborate the tactics on a broader scale. The deformation is supposed to be the adjustment of urban development as chemical permutations rather than formal interventions. Visual and non-visual design proposals will be delivered accordingly that is the procedure. It is both a general method and an approach for specific locality.
PT: We know that there is the betel nut chewing habit, which affects the physical and also social texture of Taipei with betel nut business. Are there another effective factors like betel nut and if there is how these affect the urban condition?
C: As a small business, girls hired to sell betel nuts has to be very actively engaged with the customers who drive by, so they dress in sexy costume standing in a glass box with flashy lights and flirting with the buyers for fun. This is a common tactic I identify as ‘deception’.
The contemporary image culture is bred under the human need to obtain mis-oriented satisfaction. The advertisement alluring the viewers and conditioning the sensation and conception of the reality is not new. How we see these tactics in the light of a form of exchanges and re-place it in the architectural and urban design is more challenging.
PT: Do you borrow some ideas from the Situationists International (SI) movement from 60’s? Their spirit of urban tactics of SI is quiet influencing in urban and visual issues. What do you think of it?
C: Of course, if you see the design of the cover of Urban Flashes books, the red color and the arrows, which I use different kind of shape and simple line drawings of Letrism made by computer software are out of influences from Situationists. They are the main sources. But, what I am doing is probably different from the 60’s. My work is more about the next step to re-shape the city than being critical about its failure.
PT: How do you differentiate the Western and Eastern cities? What is the difference between those two types of cities physically, socially and culturally? Generally big eastern cities seem more chaotic than western cities, how do you evaluate the term ‘chaotic’ in urbanism?
C: Cities of the East in general are after Chinese models. Western cities in general are after Geek & Roman models. The Chinese model emphasizes supernatural orientation and the hierarchy of streets in grid system. The Greek & Roman emphasize the public enclaves and grand diagonal axises. The third major model is the modern mode of anonymous grid with building volumes distributed by land value.
Today European cities evolved more like a patchworks of different periods. The segregation of social classes is more obvious and somehow you have a sense that Europe is not really looking forwardly in term of cultural transformation. People prefer an idyllic environment. Modernization is more an utilitarinian tool than a new way of life.
Asian cities are more of a complex overlay of the traditional patterns and modern planning. In Taipei, you do not recognize the social differences from the area and the look of the buildings. Rich people may live next to low-income housing. And, a rich person may just be the owner of a food stand at the corner of the street nearby. Recent telecommunication technology is altering the priority of infrastructure in the city. More digital signboard, computer game shops, monitors, electronic devices, halfway stations are exigently installed and integrated into everyday life.
‘Chaotic’ is a meteorological term we use to describe the above-mentioned condition. For an analysis of a complex phenomenon, Chaos theory could illuminate a part of the transitional process in it. There always exits discrepancy in scientific reduction including the association with swarm of bees to decipher the urban complexity. I like to use plasm, plasma, or plasmodia to relate to urban condition which is in reality primitive, incidental and irrational. But, more importantly I think it is a new way of life which is of fast moving images, mobile connections, rearranged mixtures, time-sharing mechanism and intelligent animations. And people enjoy it.
PT: Generally non-western societies searched their own modernization process/paradigm. How was it for Eastern cultures?
C: In the East, people gradually adapted to the western ideas through intellectuals and books over hundreds of years process... The modernization was not forced by colonization. Only Hong Kong and some countries in South East Asia on the trade route were long term colonized by the West. Japanese emperor set up modern policies in 19th century and Chinese overthrew imperial dynasty in 1911. I think it was after WWII Taiwan and Korea starting to fully grasp technology and world market. Especially After 70’s, cities in East Asia were rapidly developed, including Tokyo, into a hyper-complex condition.
PT: I think they adapted new economical model, political and social strategies. I think they did in a very short time and maybe this is where complexity comes from; a complexity with the combination of local…
C: No, that happens before the 70’s. The modernization process occurred much earlier. After 70’s, it was another story of new conditions. The crazy development is not really a part of modernization, rather post-modern phenomena. In fact, I think we need to get out of the Western discursive track to find another term for this after-modern development in Asia.
PT: Yes, Yes, this is the problem from general economical crisis in 1970s. So, economical system gained power over states/nations. Private companies lead to post-Fordist economical strategies. So, I am speaking not about 1970’s, I am speaking about the economical problems above the cities after 1970s. How the cities where shaped with post-Fordist economical strategies?
C: Maybe before the 70’s, especially Taiwan and Korea are having the role as production backyards for the developed countries. Japan may already go beyond that stage at that time. After 70’s, Taiwan and Korea also went beyond that. Now China is taking this role as a production yard of the world where cheap labor is available. Paradoxically, when investment of production going to these places, in the meantime the technology is also being imported. Taiwan and Korea were under these forces gradually building up their competence of high technology and being more active as providers of sophisticated products.
The less formal sector was always an inevitable part of economy in Asia. The ‘home factories’ and entrepreneurs of small industries of specialization were key factors in the process of laying the ground of economy, especially in Taiwan. Japan also started from low-end industries after WWII, then reached the 2nd world economy in the 80’s.
That is why cities took rapid changes out of many inner sorts of drives after 70’s. People create new life styles, new types of public space, and new kinds of program and urban fabrics. Then, reached an unprecedented complexity, a kind of complexity in one way very interesting, on the other hand is quite mystic. So Rem Koolhaas is quickly tempted by these phenomena. However, he looks at it from a distance and doesn’t really understand it. He is simply using it as a tool for his work. May not even be interested in its true nature. Thus, we are very important voices here in this aspect. We have to say something from another angle.
PT: How do you see recently the western approach? How do you situate yourself as an architect in western paradigm? Do you think that architects from non-western societies could speak for themselves?
C: I think one of the reasons that they don’t understand is it is very new. I think they are thinking as they were in the 70’s in city planning and architecture. The Western cities and their profession haven’t really changed. For example, Archigram from the 60’s is considered farsighted in the West as they had proposed instant city, network city, image apparatus and mobile lodges, etc.. Those proposals are actually being part of everyday life in Asia at least since 20 years ago.
In general, The Dutch circle is quite productive with less quality. They continue to sell their aesthetics. The English-speaking circle is disinterested in reality. Some just merge themselves in form genetics through CAAD and CAAM. The German circle is hardheaded as usual. I think a new condition arrived and should try to do something else.
We also know architects in the West who do not like to be in a crowd. Therefore, I think a network of independent architects and artists globally is necessary. It is a fight.
PT: Do you want to say something about Istanbul and compare to Taipei and Istanbul?
C: Istanbul is a city I can learn a lot of things. It indicates the city in the process of formation. It is not about planning. It is more about the interactions of people. And then eventually evolves into this condition. I think Istanbul is a case probably more useful and relevant for today’s discussion. The condition here to me is a database showing how tactical moves define spaces. If we can achieve doing something here then we can apply the experiences to any other places.
Taipei is flat. Istanbul is hilly. Taipei is not a harbor city as Istanbul is. The population and density is roughly similar but Istanbul exceeds Taipei according to statistics. Taipei does not have deep history and not much left today while Istanbul has historical layers of thousands of years. I think what’s in common is the rawness of both city which displays a naked state of how people manage to survive in the city.
PT: You also wrote some books about architectural thinking and cultural observations. It seems to me that you are interested in more emotional and spontaneous way of thinking of architectural practice? How could it have effect on the education of architecture?
C: I always want to emphasize one thing: city or even architecture is not out of rationality. We had mistakes trying to rationalize it and provided the market for that. I think we should try to get a control of this rationalist idea and find another way to work. It is very important to set up a track in the future that could be a new route for education. Now the school is being kidnapped by mentality, which is out of insecurity of insanity. My idea is not really new. It has been tested throughout the history of architecture. I hope our UF workshop for example is a kind of educational platform. It is an education not only for the youngsters but also for all the participating architects. Gradually we will built up consensus and become clearer and to be confident about our approaches. And then we would be more on solid ground.
PT: It is a level of communication, creating a communication level. Architects, Urban Planner, Artists and Social Scientist have different methods and ideas, but with interactive way of establishing communication ways to create a consensus.
C: Also it is nearly more artistic. Artistic ways are not about working on clever stuff. I think it is more spontaneous more lively, basically, more from instinct and basic knowledge of life. Architect doesn’t need to be more intelligent or to be able to produce certain forms. I always say architect has to be formless. I think there is a side of very simple realm and at the same time artistic. It seems too individualistic from outsider’s view. But it is not individualistic at all. Everybody is an individual. The flow of actions and each has his own tactics to survive are so important and artistic.
PT: Could you please give examples from the project about your ideas/approach that are realized in various cities?
C:In Venice Biennale 2000, I exhibited a project entitled ‘Z Tunnels’ to demonstrate how to place small elements to enhance the urban transformation in a major park zone in Sin-Chu, Taiwan. The original commission to us includes a new museum, a new park, renovation of several old buildings, and reservation of a historical Confucius temple. We suggested to the city government to add new programs and new tunnel-like structures to weave detached tasks on the urban scale.
The tunnel-tubes were very detailed designed and carefully positioned in a random fashion to create a new layer of city orientations and walking network. Each tunnel serves a different function for the park zone and its related facilities. One of the tunnels was as humble as a drainage ditch on the ground with extra use as sitting bench. One located inside of museum is equipped with monitors, LED signs and interactive fiber lightings as an information tunnel. Some are more visible as a building or a public space being part of landscape.
These elements are seemingly useless and unnecessary, and it approaches formless. My intention is to give an example of micro-urban diagnosis and treatment by employ low cost means to improve the city. At Arsenale exhibition hall, we piled up hundreds of square candles to make a low wall on top of the flat design drawing on the ground. It is like the way we put simple elements in a city, which direct the viewers in the space. When candles lit up and burned out, the process is an ongoing journey of Odyssey.
( Interview with Ti-Nan Chi by Pelin Tan, XXI, Istanbul, 2004 )
¶ 2:53 PM9 comments
Friday, July 15, 2005
Disappearance of Politics
Reality is the consequence of conflict within human will and energy. We commonly place great importance on intention and action, with the result that social movements and the decisions and acts of power holders become the focal point of world attention. On this premise, the built environment in particular is treated as an object and medium to be fiddled with and fabricated into all sorts of masses and shapes. This kind of fiddling and fabrication is in a certain sense an excessively sedulous display of artificiality.
Generally speaking, under sociopolitical functions, the principles of our environment often come from monotonous, cause-and-effect concepts, to the point that reality is changing in a predictive mode. At the same time, applied through our faith in social justice and concern, the need to change reality expands as so-called public consciousness or collective will. Consequently our living environment continues to be shaped by the optimistic beliefs of the public. Yet people stress the weakness of the human role in this world, noting for example, the futility in fighting with nature, the vicious cycle in the urban megalomania, or the hopelessness of understanding and communication, and the struggle between individuals and the state. All of these phenomena show the baffling and unfathomable nature of reality, yet people are still determined to fabricate reality for their personal satisfaction and the satisfaction of others in the unending, muddled rush.
I am not saying that fabricating reality is false or empty. What I want to say is that the tangible and formalized method of fabrication is execrable. On the other hand, the intention to fabricate can be aimlessly accidental, following the intimate reactions of the experiential world. At this time, the fabrication of reality will no longer be a pre-supposition nor will it echo ethical norms. Rather it will gradually become a part of reality and develop and evolve with reality. This kind of fabrication, which may be called the 「disappearance of politics,」 can be used to replace all political methods and slogans. Most importantly, it is a way to consider spatial situations as the fundamental arena of reality and a basic paradigm for political application. In this way we can completely escape from the interior war of social forces and fully merge with the adventures of life to create a new beginning for human society.
Simply said, the composition of society can escape the cage of human planning and artificial constructions. We can break the very nature of manmade constructions and try to use instead non-human, non-material knowledge and images. Social content will multiply in the flow of corporeal desire, and in the twists and revolts of spatial situations, individuals will become the essence of political activity, completing the stages of human self-revolution and transcending the collective nightmare.
There is no doubt that architecture will clear the way toward the disappearance of politics. Architects no longer play a divine role and have no right to carry out any divine decrees. Nor ought they feel like representing any public opinion. Architecture is only an image of another world from an architect’s personal world. Brought into reality, the spaces become an oppression and self-indulgence that impacts every minute and second of our thoughts and feelings as it accumulates chaotically in cities. Through learning and selection, people gradually begin to live in a state of sudden encounters.
This begins with the touch of a wall, walking down a bright corridor, weaving through furniture and lights, or entering a room under the eye of a video monitor, pausing to look at the face of a singer on a TV wall, touching another person and being squeezed into a small, sealed cell. Sometimes it alters the habit of sleep, passing from a dream to another city, or being submerged in a bathtub. One cannot help but swallow some unidentified stuff from the network download. Sometimes it is the degree of ease of passing between glass and air that creates the basic impression of a building. All of this imperceptibly forms the concept and reality of our lives in which architects participate but are not necessarily present.
The disappearance of politics is not an alternative for politics. It is an alternative for wandering into the corner, replacing it with a fortuitous encounter on a stroll. Even a guerrilla warriors uses certain concepts to support their moves. Nihilism is a ubiquitous meeting and parting, giving rise to many dimensions, levels, and universes. Architecture thus, is endlessly through material morphogenesis in the immaterial state of non-human environments approaching annihilation.
Ti-Nan Chi ( tangibleintangible, Garden City publication, 1998, pp56-61 )
Things of the world often appear in various form. In architecture, the principal image has been one of spectacle. Its hypothetical existence attempts to fill out the contours of objects, eliminating in course their primary elements. Perhaps this is because of lacking substance, requiring exaggeration to attract notice. The problem is that what seem to provide appropriate stimuli are in fact random and unnecessary: impenetrable outgrowths consuming space until nowhere is left to escape.
This is in fact a form of social engineering. Architects might already be accustomed to and compliant with this global fakery. This is apparent when merging in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Singapore, Seattle, Frankfurt, Milan, New York, Chicago, Osaka, Toronto and ……………. My purpose is not to criticize the urban strategy the 20th century offers, and thus I have no intention to discuss the history of urban development or urbanization problems. Urbanization is essentially a mixture of the material and immaterial. Between matter and non-matter lies the consciousness of a city. Inevitably, though, accretion turns cities into inexplicable chimeras. City builders attempt to reverse the irreversible possibility of chaos; using superficial means to cover what underneath has long been human degeneracy and nature.
Beneath this temporary facade, we can still peel back the thin, frail membrane and dig for latent vestiges amidst the scars. When we consciously look for these remnant emotions waiting, it seems, for extinction, the whole environment is implicated beyond credulity. Yet through persistent effort and unintentional contact a new landscape is depicted. At first glance it seems an aberration. But on closer inspection we discover another way that matter adheres to reality. This attachment is neither escapist nor destructive. Rather it is the true face of existence. All things await death. Death uses various forms of reluctance to let go to warn us. Except for the overly optimistic or delusional, people generally accept that death has registered their allotted space and time here.
If architecture ceases to produce totems of spectacle, its momentary features must thus be chosen from various derivatives of things and nothing, even though this may fail to attract attention. At this point, architecture will no longer be classified as visual art. In other words, visual art will create, through non-plastic theory, indistinct shape and texture. In the end, architecture will ceased to be confined to the visible world. We have long been too busy to differentiate the distinction between existence and non-existence. Being not being is to actively engage in the city between the world we live in and our existence.
Tangibleintangible is neither a pre-fixed position nor a building theory. It is an unclear condition related to the disassembling building techniques can be disassembled. It is also difficult to describe in serial chapters. I believe the basic dilemma of modern architecture in the 20th century begins with its impatient rush into a specialized, systematic lanes.
Unintentionally, it has locked itself a grand cage and neglected the delicate constitution of material existence. Clearly I also am alluding to a phase of social and political revolution, in which the basis of the real world is reshaped. The state of being not being can induce evaporating of political incidents. In the manifest activity of new man and matter, we can enter a new society of tangibleintangible. Ti-Nan Chi ( tangibleintangible, Garden City publication, 1998, pp12-16 )
¶ 6:11 PM0 comments
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Playing while Revolting
As French film director Guy Debord indicated :" The capitalist need which is satisfied by urbanism in the form of a visible freezing of life can be expressed in Hegelian terms as the absolute predominance of the peaceful coexistence of space over the restless becoming in the passage of time" . It is noticeable that present urban area as developed in this century represent forms of commodity for the mass society. Cities usually provide image of efficiency, regulation and prosperity under a simple unification rational to generate streets and volumes to occupy the natural land.
To be more specific, current architectural profession has long been part of the production system which direct building industry to conform investment. Architecture has to take the crust of a building in order to prevail, while inevitably programmed and reduced into pseudo-needs to maintain economy. Those seemingly active theorizing of Modern, post-modern or deconstruction, chaos, fold etc. are vulnerably pushed aside as irrelevant stylistic indulgences. The hard-core determinant of built reality could never been truly independent as a free expression of genuine situation of living. In another word, architecture now could never be truly human and livable in a sense, let alone ushering creativity and imagination of 21st century.
Architects of my generation bounded to face the unknown changes of next century. Prophecies, whether mythical or scientific, allure us to an even greater uncertain and dreamy mood. My acquainted contemporaries probably all share a resisting hunch, trying to push architecture into the realm of sensational techno-syncratic topography to awaken individual situations, and to fight with the spectacle , imagery of urban empire, hierarchic society and grandeur of past memories.
Back to the Asian world, I would particularly state that, after post-colonial restructuring of global economy and politics, Asian societies jump into world cyber-information networks, which, in my view, risks continuing feudalism with a different costume. The masses could be just sleeping in an ongoing megalomaniac manipulation from an outer space of busy transmissions, simulations and amplifications. Meanwhile our urban development optimistically follow 19 century modes. Natural environment and traditional cityscape and texture are there for exploitation. Architectural innovation would usually mean the succession of national economic growth for which cost efficiency, profit security and profound image of massing are considered.
In 1984, when I just came out of military service of Taiwan, I started to watch closely the everyday space and people in Taipei. Some half-way done house and illegal constructions attracted my attention. What interests me is that these built works are spirited with very natural and spontaneous reaction towards living in a congested and always humid conditions. These habitants re-arranged their living environment by building up alternative structures of their own to meet specific needs, expressions and changing milieu. Some of these works are ugly. Some are utilitarian plain. And you can find some quite articulated and thoughtful cases. They respond to the surrounding forces in a very resolute, yet plastic way.
Groups of these kind of settlements scattered in the city, like nomadic wanderers seeking better place for home . They are particularly sensitive about genius loci of the site. Having been intentional squatting city corners or vacant lots, these structures revitalize the existing city. Sometimes these areas occur to be the most fun place for certain people in the city, either strolling or gathering. Until one day, when the city official starts regulating actions on these areas, soon they will disappear hardly leaving any traces except memories with local people and dwellers themselves.
The observation resulted in a drawing for the Shinkenchiku international competition 1984, A style for the year 2001 , in which I tried to delineate the chaotic phenomena of Taipei city while choosing the site of Rome, the eternal city in the West, Professor Koji Taki commented:" It does not depict poverty or slum conditions, and it would be a mistake to see its village of anarchic, primitive and punk-like vitality as the fate awaiting today's cities or to see the Asian city depicted in ironical contrast to the modern city" . Indeed, it was intended to be a positive and optimistic proposal for the city future, suggesting a playful and complex synergy of the formation of urban space without imposing any formal precedent.
I will not get too romantic in order to keep focused on the issue of urban architecture with psycho-geographical nature. Again, a situationist invention, psycho-geography is conceived of as the studies of the laws of specific effects on the emotion and behaviors of individual in the environment. My experiment on fluctuating lifeworld took the art form of installation. The work titled realism on space of Taiwan displayed at an alternative space in 1991 was an investigation on the private and sensual space obsessed by Taiwan people. The work occupied an ordinary townhouse floor with 10 narrow subdivisions as rooms in which re-designed traditional benches inserted and a TV monitor mounted on the inner wall. Flashing light bulbs were on top of several standing panels to create commercial signboard effect and an ephemeral atmosphere. It was a critique on the status quo, the kind of space one sees in the massage barber shop (brothel) or MTV, KTV chambers common in Taiwan. On the other hand, I realized that, with slight differentiations, the environment could alter drastically and the power of individual space is crucial.
In 1994, Z house project had the opportunity in dealing with both public and private domains. The site is a typical townhouse lot located alongside the major boulevard of Kaoshiung city, the largest industrial city in Taiwan. Within rapid high-rise real estate development and facing traffic flow, it planned to include private residence, research laboratory and gallery space altogether in 5-story building; it has to take a strong hold of its authenticity in contrast to the fake glory of the expensive housing nearby, a stance congruent to client's role as a sturdy historian. By compressing one site of the box, I created a concaved room for courtyard and for acquiring light for the interior space. Then, the frontal shape began twisted a little, standing as a figural gesture to the street. Inside of figural corn became an enclosed dark space of protection. Therefore, it is responsive and reserved at the same time, lively transforming the typical box-like townhouse into an individual situation asserting a rather idiosyncratic quality, while defending against the final siege of banalization by capitalist society.
Cited in SD review 1995, this design also emphasized the changing milieus and homelessness as the key issues for architects today. We no longer believe in a grand solution for human habitation, which tends to stagnate our life and history. Dwellings need not to be necessarily rooted in the ground. Each unit of living space is essentially temporary waiting to be changed, like one day a house could sit on the wheels moving to the seashore to watch sunset. This mobile inclination violates territories, shaking the urban condition into a new type of anarchy in which cooperative multi-layering social and cultural interactions can emerge.
Current rural landscape was under the same ideology reflects the other side of story of urbanism. Large industrial zones, amusement parks, vacation villages, suburban housing and shopping centers are integral parts of the urban strategy with consumeristic logic and values. Relief X , the national art park project won from the competition attempted to rescue natural land. I managed to redefine the land form by extending continuities of topographical features, by bending geometrical edges, by digging caves and, above all, by squeezing the land skin into a relief on earth, similar in shape as occurred in Z house. Man, as wanderers, will be encouraged walk on and through the site of feel this found landscape in which artist workshops, artist residences, galleries and other supporting facilities merge in. Thus, natural environment will be re-introduced and re-created, rather than deployed for purpose.
This radical attitude lies in the same direction as that of urban approaches which hope to set forth the ultimate concern of creative understanding and appropriation for the particular situation. Architecture is a way of discovering the truthful, not necessarily the truth, in the voyage of life and time. Architects have to play with the substance at hand while triggering the collapse of the edifice of dominance.
Being innovative without imperative.
Ti-Nan Chi ( This essay was presented at the International Symposium on Innovative Architecture in Asia 1996, Osaka, Japan )
¶ 2:19 AM0 comments
We have a responsibility for what the visual language should include today. We are used to learn in our profession a tradition where we consider the fewer things – or one by one. We need a visual language that talks about the greater number, to make all people and situations visible. The Visual vocabulary; Individual “marking” ,and develop a personal language. It is our signature in the landscape. The totality is more then adding up the different pieces into one.
Here at our school we are operating with a term called DAV (Den Andre Verden = The other World) – DAV is the key to visual understanding. “Visual Structure” is included under this umbrella. Visual Structure is built upon the teaching of form, at the artist academy in Warszawa, by the professor Oskar Hansen*.
We teach visual structure as an introduction to the 1th year students, then more advanced courses throughout the 2th and 3th year, and as group courses in our 2. part the 4th class students. Professor Svein Hatløy who teaches is in collaboration with the other teathers. We will also build one of our courses in part 3, the post-graduate program on our visual structure methods.
Here are some examples from the teaching prosess:
visual structure–drawing:
It could be useful to work on a drawing over a longer period – to learn to see. As one of the traces this is row of practicing, from simple expressions of a few elements in a closed space, to complex expressions in open form with various objects.
visual structure–“form of space”:
As professor Oskar Hansen taught it – Looking and Seeing, this is training the ability of seeing. As with most of the practices in visual structure, this refers to a situation already given, or which is created during the process. Looking and seeing – what makes you choose what you do? Show it!
time–space:
It is important to create a reflected and controlled relationship between person and object, seeing the object walking around it.
visual structure–contrasts: Concrete qualities of form characteristics–different types of contrasts between objects. Of size, of shape, of heavy and light, all presented visually.
visual structure–the concept of pressure and tension
visual structure–open form, dynamic expression, continuity and simultaneity.
visual structure–by the great number of elements:
Making a great number of identical elements legible by adding more elements in a visual structure, not taking away existing elements.
The richness in this expression lies both in the number of elements and in their individual identity. To make this comprehensible more elements are added artistically. The readability lies in an expanding order by a visual structuring. The quality of all the forms, as well as the richness of the whole, would get lost if we take away elements to make it readable. An open form as this will loose its qualities if the elements were restructured into a geometrical order.
* Oskar Hansen, Architect and artist, professor at the Art Akademi in Warzow (ASP) gave name to the theory ”Open Form” in 1959 on the TEAM X-congress in Otterlo, Nederland. Oskar Hansen have worked directly from this scheme on the different prodjects he and his wife Zofia Hansen has developed. He evolved and clarifyed the visual language through his didactic work, and through his engagement at the sculptural classes by the Art Akademy in Warszawa. He has advanced the subject visual structur and worked in order to make a dialog in between and to incorporate together the different subjects -space/ landscape/ and sculpture. Oskar Hansen had introduced the topic, visual structure and taught the subject Visual structur at BAS.
Line Frøyland, Bergen School of Architecture, 2005
¶ 6:41 PM0 comments
TL: Why architects are involved in the Gwangju Biennale?
C: When the people from the IT PARK people asked me to be the architect for the exhibition, I wasn’t sure about about my role in this.
Later, I found my task was to catch the moment of IT PARK as people gathering in, rather to bring the physical space of this altered street-house with illegal additions, and manage to acquire eight installation works of the participating artists within a tight budget and given conditions.
The size of space we proposed was asked to be reduced several times, which was a drama to us as each reduction unveiled a new idea and new dimension of our work, or a trauma at the same time as we had to keep the communications, negotiations and drawings through emails and faxes with the Gwangju side. The situation was close to working in constraint projects at norm for we also flew to the site for further clarification and supervision two weeks before the opening.
TL: How do you see the show as a whole?
C: The show was a mess.
I like their attempt to push the alternative further to include architectonic aspect with the milieu for genuine art production, or to present the genius loci of contemporary art with context.
One could find that the layout of the exhibition space was followed after the orthogonal grid in the earlier drawing and another set of drawing showed how these bulky boxes were scattered to simulate a spontaneous and chaotic condition to make the mock up seem more interesting with gesturesque and image-making stuff buzzing around.
TL: Which art piece you like most and why ?
C: I must say that I like works that are least about cultural heritage but culturally dense and clever. Yoshiharu Tsukamoto’s shrine of comic books quickly came to my mind, a funny and nice piece.
I think culture prevails when unprecedented novelty and mutation occur. Established legacy will collapse at times. Architects and artists are key persons to pick up by instinct and knowledge. It is by no means a creation in a conventional sense, which is the culture product leading the society.
TL: Would you consider yourself an“artist”? why and why not?
C: Sure, but speaking of it does not do me any good as an architect in Asia.
Architects have to appropriate the world and open up the world as if were in the position of artists in an epistemological sense. I think we Asians need some time to recollect this awareness and appreciation buried under our utilitarian mindsets.
On the other hand, artists and architects are already taking different roles in the society. It is not a question of an architect being an artist or vise and versa. Architects need to identify themselves once in a while and fight their way through the social-cultural complexity of today.
TL: When and How did you get involved in the first art show?
C: I did graphic works and experimental films back in my college years, but never given serious considerations to exhibiting them. I think it was after my study with Frank Gehry in 1986 when we held an exhibition in the A&A gallery at Yale had I gained a sense of being a cultural creator.
TL: How does the art scene react to architect’s work ?
C: I feel that artists today are kind of spoiled by being treasured as “artists” and being tied up to their history. Architects are often obliged to confront the reality and somehow are not satisfied with the status quo. Courageous works do not necessarily seem bold and are sometimes about subversive act taken in the daily life as architects might do.
For my project in Gwangju, I think artists were more receptive to the designed space than to tempering with it, as the Tate Modern, an overwhelming space for the art scene to stage to which artists are being tamed.
TL: How do you see public art as an architect?
C: Public art is really problematic. I saw quite a few bad works produced in the city, regardless in Europe or Asia.
The division of public art and public architecture since 60’s was a tragedy. The system today is even more hopeless and domed to failure as the definition of public and the mechanism behind it is rapidly changed.
There was time that architect could work coherently with artists or as an artist at the same time to tailor the public space. I always like to remind myself of the city design of less known cities before Modern planning such as those in Eastern Europe. I think we need to find a new equilibrium for the future public realm in which all elements are active in the plasmordial whole.
TL: What projects you are working on right now ?
C: Europe is reaching a crucial point of change. It is not unexpected that Europeans are looking for remedies for their problems from the outside world. I have been recently approached by a number of European urban projects which seek new proposals and new tactics for city centers.
I'm also working with members of the Urban Flashes on a global boogazine of architecture and urbanism which is intended to be a truly transnational investigation on the dirty reality of our environment.
( Interview with Ti-Nan Chi by Tim Li, Hinge, Hong Kong, 2002)
¶ 4:45 PM0 comments
Monday, November 15, 2004
从建筑之树到文化之河
不 久前见《读书》杂志上顾孟潮先生所写的“从‘建筑之树’说起”，言及扬鸿勋先生提出要求纠正西方学者对中国建筑的误解，而这种误解被认为是以那棵弗莱切尔 (Sir. Banister Fletcher) 的“建筑之树”(Tree of Architecture) 为典型意义的。关于“建筑之树”与《弗莱切尔建筑史》( Sir. Banister Fletcher’s A History of Architecture)，在我国的不少有关建筑著述中有所提及，但是或多或少地存在一些误解。而这种误解则从一个侧面反映了我们的建 筑文化观念的落后。笔者希望在此澄清这些误解，并对有关问题进行讨论。
一，关于《弗莱切尔建筑史》和“建筑之树”
《弗 莱切尔建筑史》是一本首版至今已有一百多年历史的巨著，是世界最重要的建筑史书之一。由英国人弗莱切尔 (Banister Fletcher) 及其儿子小弗莱 切尔 (Banister F. Fletcher)于一八九六年首次出版的。但是，所谓的“建筑之树”以及对非西方建筑文化的论述，并没有如我们的大部分学者认为的出现在 首版里。（此错误所见于许多学者的著述之中，吴良镛先生的《广义建筑学》 也未能幸免）首版的佛莱切尔“建筑史”并没有涉及西方以外的建筑文化，而仅仅将正统的西方建筑文化主线，以“历史性风格” (The Historical Styles) 为主题， 从埃及、希腊、罗马，到中世纪、文艺复兴等一一描述。该书出版后，在当年再版了两次。这巨大的成功给了弗莱切尔父子极大的鼓舞，同时也由于西方学者对东方 文化视野的扩大，他们准备将当时已经成为热点的印度、中国、日本、中美洲及撒拉逊尼（伊斯兰）等非欧洲建筑文化列入他们的“建筑史”，并将之定为“非历史 性风格” (The Non-Historical Styles)。这就是我们后来所看到的， 在一九零一年由小弗莱切尔出版的第四版《弗莱切尔建筑史》， “历史性风格”与“非历史性风格”成了该版 《弗莱切尔建史》的基本两大部分 (Volumn) 。那棵著名的“建筑之树”也是第一次出现在这版之中，可以说是小弗莱切尔的所为。当然，这 一版的体列一直延续到了第十六版，也成为在世界上流行最广的版本 。我国建筑师所了解的《弗莱切尔建筑史》基本上都是这版的情况。然而，这种情况并没有一直不变。一九六一年，由考定雷教授 (Prof. R. A. Cordingley) 主编的第十七版《弗莱切尔建史》，在体例上虽然仍然保留原来的两大部分，但是以“东方建筑” (Architecture in the East) 替代了“非历史性风格” (The Non-Historical Styles)，以“古代建筑和西方的继承发展” (Ancient Architecture and the Western Succession) 替代了“历史性风格” (Historical Styles)。考定雷教授明确地指出：“以往版本第二部分的总题目（非历史性风格）是不合适的；东方的建筑应该和西方的建筑同样是历史性的。”与之相应 的，“建筑之树”也被取消了。这充分说明了一种观念上的变革已经在《弗莱切尔建筑史》的后继编者中产生。随后一九七五年的第十八版和一九八七年的第十九 版，都在体例上有了进一步的改进；取消了东、西方两大部分的布局，以全球性的眼光，将各个建筑文化体系按时间分为章节来论述。并请各个国家的有关专家撰写 相应的章节，如中国清华大学的郭黛恒教授和同济大学的吴光祖教授。在内容上则大量增加了民居和市政工程等方面的实例。一九九六年又出版了庆祝该书一百周年 的第二十版，在第十九版的体例基础上更进一步地扩充了内容。
一 九六一年第十七版的《弗莱切尔建筑史》，部分地反映了这种变革的开始。这一版的主编考定雷教授，正是主导英国建筑学术界研究方向和观念转变的一个先驱者。 考定雷教授曾于1948年向“英国科学进步协会”（the British Association for the Advancement of Science）建议对英国本土的民间建筑进行系统地收集、调查，为此以他所在的曼切斯特大学为基础而首次建立了“曼 切斯特项目”（Manchester Project），在五、六十年代曾有大量成果出现。使 英国在这方面的研究走在各国之前列，并对建筑观念的变革有重大的推动作用。
值得说明的是，五、六十年代西方兴起的这场建筑观念上的变革， 在西方建筑理论的发展过程里是承上启下的；对之前的现代主义（Modernism）是一种深化，并使之具有更大的包容性。因为这种新观念在现代主义的赖特 （ F. L. Wright）和勒·可布西埃（Le Corbusier）那里已经被提出。同时，这种新观 念对后来的“后现代”（Post-Modern）主张“多元”的思潮也并无矛盾，因 为这种变革的本身是走向多元的开始。而七、八十年代兴起的对聚落、城市设计、 环境设计、 人居环境研究、生态理论，乃至九十年代发展起来的“可持续性发展”理论等，则更是与之一脉相承的。
It was said to be superficial, yet, I find, directional on the future of Asian architecture through IAA. On the whole, IAA symposium was never too bold an attempt to push architects of this part of the world to be aware of their role at the threshold of a new era. It fully reminds me of the collective effort behind CIAM in the early 20's. Those European architects, facing the transition to new society, decided to build in a different manner by expanding social responsibilities, elevating autonomy, and proposing design strategies under new production method for the betterment of human life. Within those signed the La Sarraz Declaration, there were apparent conceptual conflicts, and their works were not with one accord. However, Modern architecture emerged onto the ground when action taken. And, I would say that Asian architecture became a meaningful category after IAA.
As anticipated, we discovered things beyond "function xeconomy" bio‑formula, that is, reworking on the vernacular, transformation of cultural form and object, combination of locality and modern design and construction, oriental aesthetics of space, and more idiosyncratic approaches. In general, it appeared that the innovative endeavor was mostly prconceived around the issue of the continuation of cultural identity, and lesser attention to new technology and social-behavioral change.
Since many countries in Asia were colonies of other race and power, Asian history was not a simple story to tell, in which people are constantly seeking their authenticities in conjunction with bewilderment within culturalpolitical dominance. Hong Kong, for example, is a place being cut off cultural ties for operational efficiency in which architects used to look more to their dynamic physicalities rather than racial issues. Place like Taiwan and Singapore are more conditioned by Chinese culture, at the same time, consisting of determinant Japanese, British or American and native cultural facets, where some architects want to redefine themselves through selected cultural symbols, often from Chinese tradition as in C.Y.Lee's case. Continental countries like China, India and Korea seem to have no problem of cultural orientations. However, architects from China showed seriours concern about the manifestation of their racial-cultural legacy, for the fact that inland cultural diversities coexisting in China aroused the cry for national unification policy.
Being culturally composite in reality, quite a few architects had expressed anxieties on how to elongate their tradition perse, While, from their works, we could see vivid British influences coming out of AA graduates, and American and Japanese precedency leading the way of other architects with such connections. The semantic configuration was one of the main topic, and few designers went beyond imageries into structural analysis as in Y.H. Chang's pictographical study and K.N.Tan's calligraphical simulation. Gerard da Cunha, on the other hand, took the pass leading to the persistence of the essential of local constructioti. However, there won't be simple solutions for better representations of culture when the problem at hand is of changing and complex nature.
Unlike CIAM, we saw comparatively less thoughts put on urbanism, though the prescribed topics were about city. Asian cities are now mostly under late 19 century modes of planning, in which architects are vulnerably impotent or just blindly optimistic. In order to avoid former mistakes and to iginite creative explosion, Asian architects should move gallantly to the shaping of the future environment. For people in Mongolia, the decison to embrace urbanization means to abandon normadic living once for all. This is a crucial point of departure for us to reconsider our unban life. When railroad in Bangkok could also be the pedestrian route for the market along each side, we really need much greater imaginations to cope with any easy and habitual judgement. As Rocco Yim commented that architecture is related to what we are and shall be, Asian identities could be more reflected in its living settlements rather than found cultural motifs.
At the last section, Shin Muramatsu mentioned about the new model for Asian architecture, which sets this symposium on the teleological racetrack. My quick response is that we need a much more sophisticate and genuine approaches to respond to many levels of our consciousness, to the frail nature, and to chaotic cities. The innovative model might exist in the process of production, therefore, a sort of methodological theory then leads the way to the end product. Cultural identity is something to be generated simultaneously during rapid societal growth by architectonic talents. It is certainly not a frozen composition, not necessarily a genealogical fetishism, and not the objective set beforehand for the design task.
Fumihiko Maki began his lecture with indication of the possiblities of 100 kinds of modernism and ended with his youth dream of making a vessel, which is illuminating in term of the innovative direction for Asian architecture. I believe we, Asian architects, will testify the alternative modernities and share the spiritual pursuit of space and time in grasping our fantasy within each defferent local condition. As Otto Wagner stated in his writing of late 19 century: "The question 'how should we build?' can not really be answered in a strict sense. Yet today our senses must already tell us that...", in deed, we have to ask ourselves the same question over and over again!
The Asian city defies most conventional (western) urban analysis – identifiable structures and street patterns, or an easily traceable historical lineage – which often prompts generalist descriptions such as ‘dense’, ‘rapidly developing’, ‘chaotic’ and ‘ad hoc’. Taipei Operations provides an alternative model for examination, speculation, and projection, which is based upon an intimate connection to the material at hand, the city, as opposed to the imposition of a formalist overlay from above or afar. This is not a language of hyperbolic qualifiers: extra-large or mega-Dutch; it is an opportunity to question our methods of engagement and provide an alternative to the master plan.
The book charts the research of thirty-three architecture students from Tamkang University in Taipei and RMIT University in Melbourne. Observation is the operative process; all responses to the city are considered valid. The mapping of these individual preoccupations is rigorous, often obsessive – a type of forensic study in the search for clues that reveal hidden phenomena. The studies flip between small and large, from a personal reading to a universal understanding. A specificity of time and place is required in order to avoid generalisation and simplification. Issues become identified, and patterns are revealed from within the system.
Whilst it is often considered a problem to work outside one’s cultural milieu, for fear of a lack of understanding, or misinterpretation, we use this as an opportunity for discourse. The work strives to find common pleasures within the city and to accommodate different readings; what some regard as strengths, others may consider weaknesses. The seemingly banal is reconsidered. This dialogue becomes a paradigm for the city; the issue is that of negotiation, for different voices to be heard and to allow for multiple narratives and complexity. The architect and urban designer can assist in this act of curation.
I fell in love with Taipei on my first visit. It reminded me a little of Paris with its hierarchy of streets: magnificent tree-lined boulevards protecting the smaller grain of the interior of the blocks. The buildings decrease in height as the streets narrow to a network of lanes. What the plan doesn’t tell you is how the city is used – of the quantities of motorbikes loaded with all sorts of goods, or the time when the car got wedged in the lane. 7-11’s are ubiquitous - globalisation at work – but where else would you find fairy lights 24-hours a day? Taipei has adopted the chain as its own (town hall); you can pay your parking tickets and bills there as well as buy snacks. It’s when you get up close that the city is really revealed: the way they stack goods, the smell of the food (delicious). How does one reconcile these two extreme scales? And how does one avoid becoming seduced by the image.
The plan of Taipei produced by the Department of Urban design is an extraordinary document. Building lines and city blocks are delineated; streets and pavements are drawn. However this is where convention stops. Only the hatched buildings exist legally, with approvals from the statutory authorities and in accordance with the master plan. All crossed-hatched structures are illegal in this context, and have been constructed according to the rules of some other system. Laneways are filled in, or become internal courtyards; the footpath disappears completely at times. New typologies are created: arcade kitchens, doughnut buildings, and wrap-around commerce. Any open bit of land is up for grabs. The authority of the map is challenged by the entrepreneurship of the inhabitants. The planners recognise (and draw) this dilemma; they are both rule-makers and citizens who, too, delight in great food available any time and everywhere - the spirit of street-life Taipei.
Urban diary: ‘The World Famous Mango Ice Store’. A 24-hour ‘stake-out’ reveals not only the entrepreneurial spirit in the (illegal) appropriation of the public space of the street, but also a social code in the system of negotiation with adjacent businesses. The structure opens at 11am and begins to gradually unfold onto the adjacent lot and footpaths: tables and chairs, service stations, the overflow from the kitchen. The popularity of this fruit and ice treat grows throughout the day; the crowds build, and illegally parked cars and service vehicles expand deep into the neighbourhood. By 6pm an employee from the ice store arrives to establish an unobstructed frontage to the Japanese restaurant next door when the queues get long. This grass-roots response appears to provide a viable alternative to the systems of legislation and planning.
The diary is a summary of our methods. We start small. An object, event or a district is selected and located specifically in time and place. From there we ‘zoom out’ to locate the investigation within a larger space and longer time frame to determine the site or context of the work, and how ‘big’ the idea is - the issues arising. (My views about the architectural project is that it exists somewhere between the scales of 1:1 and 1:100,000 and should be considered within the time frames of a moment and a minimum of 100 years.) All observations start from the personal reading, and rely upon our ‘being there’. We make catalogues, stay in one spot (over time), trace routes, see things in motion, compare them to where we have come from, and position them within the map of the world. The data is broken down, edited, analysed, - compiled as a list, arranged by colour, categorised, and seen over time in order to reveal the particularities of Taipei.
The process of depiction or making the map is undertaken consciously; it is not a neutral activity. All maps lie, to paraphrase Robert Smithson, and reflect the bias of the mapmaker: one set of data is privileged over another; the means of representation selected offer some possibilities for interpretation and exclude others. The construction of the map is the construction of the city - the design of the site of speculation – and the initial intervention. Propositions thus flow seamlessly from the analysis of what is already there.
The position of the author is reflected in the bias of the map, and it is only through a considered social and political agenda that meaningful contributions can be made within the built environment. This is demonstrated in the work of an Australian woman who was uncomfortable with the lack of clear distinctions between the public and private realms. What could she photograph? How does one determine the (public) space of the street where on one hand a shop’s merchandise blocks the footpath while next door domestic rituals take place (in full view)? How could she reasonably operate in an environment without a full understanding of the culture? A series of drawn delineations of her perceptions reveal the nuances of occupation she discovers - alternative plans and sections to those indifferent documents issued by the city, which register property ownership and buildings.
Through representation and critique, the observations of the existing conditions are evaluated; the particular becomes general as the (larger) issues are raised, allowing others to engage in dialogue. All opinions are acknowledged and respected. In some instances phenomena can be considered both positively and negatively. I, personally, remain charmed by the garbage truck that heralds its arrival in my neighbourhood on Monday evenings with a digitised version of Mozart’s A Little Night Music. The neighbourhood congregates to load their rubbish in the ‘village’ square.
The authors of an alternative proposal to rubbish collection in the Yong Kong District are less romantic than me, realising that this ‘ritual’ poses a nuisance to those with large families, during a monsoon, and for the elderly or handicapped. They pose questions that avoid an over-simplification of the problem(s) and thus an expedient response. (They are not seduced by the image.) Their strategy to create neighbourhood recycling centres instead of dumping waste on the city’s periphery not only maintains the community spirit, but also ensures a continuing economic mix with the introduction of additional local employment. Abandoned historic Japanese houses are co-opted and recycled in the process; urban typologies such as the shop house and the light-industrial unit maintain their relevance in the face of impending high-rise development. This is far from preservationist position, yet it enables the urban fabric to remain intact. By dealing with the complexity of the site phenomena at both the local and city scales, and over a period of time, they create a truly sustainable project with its requisite breadth of concerns.
It becomes apparent that starting with the particular does not preclude the scale of the proposal. A fascination with traffic flows and motorcycle culture (the scale of a pedestrian with the speed of a car) starts with time-lapse photography from a bedroom window and concludes with the redevelopment of the movement systems within an entire district. The coexistence between these scales – ‘being there’ and the master plan - becomes the issue as does the varying and often contradictory needs of the population. Zoning and pedestrianisation are deemed to be oversimplified solutions in this context. By using the language of the ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ appropriation of public space a physical system of negotiation is established by reordering the existing; nothing is qualified or removed – only rearranged. Surgical incisions and the subtle addition and subtraction of hawker stalls, kiosks, small structures, stairways, balconies, and roofscapes provide an alternative to the heavy demolition and construction of most infrastructure projects. An evolutionary process is set in place, over a much larger time frame, much like the way one might design a landscape.
The explorations by the individual authors (as outlined above and graphically throughout the book) become part of a larger body of work on the city – and a composite map of Taipei. The specificity of these fragments becomes abstracted into patterns when the work is seen as a whole. The 1:1 scale is read simultaneously with the map at 1:10,000; the phenomenological coexists with the physical. Taipei is perceived as a series of specifically located moments with strong identities and character. These observations build up, as does the work, to reveal a complexity of issues, attitudes and responses that range in scale and types of strategic intervention.
An installation of the work in Taipei and Melbourne disseminates the outcomes of the workshop, and summarises its spirit. A series of identically-sized folio plates are placed on an ‘examination table’ in the centre of the gallery. They can be read as a series of individual projects, by negotiating the piles. The loose plates by their nature have no hierarchy; they become rearranged, reconfigured, added to, or deleted. Velcro installations on the gallery wall invite the visitors, as well as the authors, to ‘curate’ the city by affixing the plates by issue, by location, by program, by project, by media, by accident, and by desire. Overlaps, adjacencies, comparisons, contradictions and tensions amongst the plates underscore the fact that there are many readings of a good city and that anyone can and should be encouraged to contribute.
Curation best describes our activities in Taipei. Who needs a designer in the face of such inventive entrepreneurs? And what is the role of the planner when neighbours can negotiate? And who are we (whether foreign or local) to swan in from high with our bird’s-eye views? Our traditional spheres of operation as architects, at 1:200 scale in plan and section, for instance, are of little use to the growing complexity that practitioners in the built environment are faced with today, such as the scale of a highway or the time frame of a sustainable agenda. When working at a larger scale we are often distanced from our subject matter and create the sorts of disenfranchisement that are addressed by ‘urban agitators’ such as the Situationists in Paris and the Stalker group in Italy. Questions of authorship, and the responsibility that this entails, remains clear in our practice, but we need to remember the common pleasures we share as citizens. It is our responsibility to enable and empower our constituents in the curation of their cities.