Urban Ideas Research Articles

‘Nature’s offensive’: The sociobiological theory and practice of Louis Van der Swaelmen

During and after the First World War, Belgian landscape architect and planner Louis Van der Swaelmen attempted to develop a ‘sociobiological’ theory and practice of landscape architecture, urbanism and urbanization. Both in his writings and designs he combined biological approaches with sociopolitical concerns. In this article, I will focus on the ambitions and ambiguities of this approach. First, a history of ideas will show how the sociobiological theory of Van der Swaelmen was the outcome of an intermingling of the science of ethology and landscape theory. This trajectory culminated in the book Préliminaires d’art civique, in which he created a theory of urbanism based on the idea of urbanization as a process following biological laws, and an urban design approach based on geographical and geobotanical knowledge. The second part of the article will trace the translation of these ideas into the design (process) of the garden suburbs Le Logis and Floréal and will further question the use of a biological approach in urbanism, offering a critical reflection on today’s (lack of) sociopolitical questions in ecological urbanism.

Um mês que não terminou

O artigo desenvolve uma reflexão sobre as mobilizações do Movimento Passe Livre-MPL, de junho de 2013, na cidade de São Paulo, enquanto forma específica de ativismo contemporâneo. Inicialmente, a partir de literatura internacional e nacional especializada, analisamos as principais características das mesmas. Em seguida, com base na produção de um conjunto de 15 entrevistas, tomando como fundamentação teórica e metodológica a história oral buscamos compreender melhor os vínculos entre processos de subjetivação, identificação e ação coletiva e suas interfaces com dinâmicas específicas da memória individual e coletiva em questão, associadas a relações de aceite e tensão relativas uma ideia e modelo dominantes de cidade e urbanidade, espaço público e cidadania, na ordem urbana neoliberal em tela. Enfim, iniciando um ciclo que certamente não acabou e do qual devemos esperar ainda inúmeras consequências.
 Palavras-chave: Ativismo contemporâneo; Movimento PasseLivre (MPL); Ordem urbana; Neoliberalismo; História oral.

Bauen im menschenfreundlichen Maßstab

AbstractTo build in human-friendly frame. Architecture and urban concept of the University of PassauAfter 1945 the foundation of new universities in the Federal Republic of Germany consisted of three phases. The university of the independent city of Passau belongs not only to one of the last provisional universities in Bavaria, but also in the old Bonn Republic (commissioning winter semester 1978/1979). Main arguments for this new foundation were among others a tradition several centuries long as a place of education and research (Higher Education Institution of Jesuits 1622, Philosophical-Theological University 1923 –1978), equality of opportunity in the area of education anchored in Bavarian Constitution and the lack of university in the administrative district of Lower Bavaria. The legal anchoring for the location of the University of Passau in 1972 as well as the decision to a combined urban idea- and construction-competition in 1976 paved the way for the progressive realization of a modern campus area which was in spatial and structural connection with the four-wing complex of the former Augustinian Monastery of St. Nikola in west of the historic Old Town. Concerning the architectural and urban design of the new university, Passau, like other German cities, received inspiring ideas both from home and abroad, the model of the campus area being a good example. However, specific solutions related to the regional situation were searched and found in detail. The structural and landscaping design of the university area in Passau can be considered as an outstanding urban project. It’s relevance goes beyond Passau

Understanding project mobility: The movement of King’s Cross to Brussels and Johannesburg

This paper builds on policy mobility research to question how loosely deployed references to specific models or sites reveal how tacit and explicit knowledge are required to effectively replicate urban ideas in new places. Departing from existing analysis of policies and the public sector, we use policy mobility framing to critically engage with the strategies of the private sector. We analyse King’s Cross’ arrival in two large-scale redevelopments: Brussels’ Tour and Taxis and Johannesburg’s Modderfontein, questioning how it was referred to, the success of its deployment and the politics of urban learning. We draw three main conclusions: first, the comparison demonstrates private sector agency in their ability to shape the way expert knowledge arrives. Second, we argue that private sector actors require locally embedded practices and tacit knowledge to leverage international points of reference in their projects. Third, in placing the analytical gaze from the perspective of the project ‘arriving’ and adopting a specifically comparative approach, we reveal the myriad of possibilities developers and consultants face and the politics of what they pick from each. Theoretically, these conclusions draw from economic geography’s politics of learning and mobility research to demonstrate the benefit of analysis that traces a project, rather an idea or a policy, and from ‘arriving at’ and the subsequent assembling of different project components.

Mies: A Fighter for Film

<p>At the beginning of 1931, a short article entitled “Film fighter from the outside” appeared in the industry magazine Film-Kurier. In the introductory sentence, the author, who remains anonymous, asks: “How does Mies van der Rohe come to film? - Not a difficult question to answer: As a person who takes a stand on the spiritual things of the time, he naturally also addresses questions of film.” But the article neither explains what Mies’s involvement with film was, nor how the architect and then Bauhaus director became interested in film. And even today the assumption of an affinity between Mies and film is anything but self-explanatory. Neither the research on Mies, nor the field of research of ‘architecture and film’ covered by architecture theorists and film scholars has so far dealt in detail with the question of a possible relationship between Mies and the new visual medium. This shortcoming can be explained above all by the fact that his buildings, drawings and published writings do not contain any direct references to film. Although he apparently was a regular moviegoer, Mies built neither cinema theaters nor film sets. Nor did he take part in film productions or wrote movie scripts. This is exactly what many other representatives of the avant-garde did in the 1920s: Hans Poelzig and Robert Mallet-Stevens designed film sets, Bruno Taut integrated film projectors into some of his buildings, built innovative “daylight cinemas”, patented a vertical cinema for reclining viewers, and wrote screenplays; Le Corbusier used film as a propaganda tool to spread his architectural and urban planning ideas.</p>

An ancient and industrious place: visual geographies and urban identity in a Danish provincial town,c. 1780–1915

AbstractThrough the example of Danish provincial town, Odense, the article explores the role of visual culture in the construction and transformation of nineteenth-century provincial identities and placemaking in an industrial town. It demonstrates that while representations may follow certain aesthetic conventions of urban imagery and ideas of urban prestige, they both reflect and contribute to the construction and reproduction of a specific local, imagined geography; an imagined geography where initially history and nature and as time progresses signs of industriousness and in particular an infrastructure of civic culture merges into a narrative of an ancient and industrious place.

Regional cities: international references in Brazilian regional planning in the 1950s and 1960s

ABSTRACTA new stage of urban planning emerged in Brazil in the 1950s, with the region as the object of planning. Planners began to recognize the international contribution to the institutionalization of planning and to the development of proposals for Brazilian cities, as well as the connection between planning and urban decentralization ideas. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to delineate the city model that was being proposed within regional scale plans as the result of international urban practices and ideas. Two examples of such plans are presented in this paper: the Regional Plan of Santos (1950) and the Basic Regional Plan for the Coastline of Parana State (1966). As a result of the international references incorporated into these plans, a mixture of urban principles can be identified in these territorial proposals. The regional city model is the predominant principle arising from these plans, derived from the association of two planning scales: urban and regional.

The Role of Integration of Architecture and Landscape in Shaping Contemporary Urban Spaces

The public spaces of many cities and towns face numerous problems, manifested by the broadly understood disintegration of both social and spatial aspects (e.g. vanishing neighbourhood bonds and communities, the anonymity of the individual within the city space, and the commercialization or neglect of public spaces). The search for methods for the broadly understood integration in space proves necessary, and even the precondition for harmonious development and the effective functioning of a community. Integration of architecture and landscape can be understood and interpreted spatially in different ways. It is pursued not only through references to organic shapes, but also through the use of the site context in order to blend the architecture with its surroundings, to make references to historical and cultural motifs, the use of which allows people to create spaces that are functionally and narratively coherent, to “domesticate" the space by introducing the idea of agrarian urbanism, urban gardening and agriculture into the urbanised space, combining ecological solutions with art, allowing the passing time for a slow but permanent blurring of differences between cultural and natural elements, as well as using symbolism and philosophy. The purpose of this article is: to show the possibility of interpreting the integration of architecture and landscape and to introduce its new definition based on literature studies and analysis of selected architectural projects; to analyse and evaluate two selected examples of development concepts in the context of the adopted original definition of the integration of architecture and landscape (as a synergy of spatial factors); to identify the universal factors (actions) whose synergistic function contributes to the integration of architecture and landscape. These objectives are pursued based on the bibliographical analysis (interpretative studies) and axiological studies (including studies of source materials and field observations) of the two selected development concepts. For the purposes of the studies original definition of integration of architecture and landscape as a mutual complementation and strengthening of elements acting in a synergy was formulated. Each case has been analysed for the manifestation of values relevant to the adopted definition. As a result, actions integrating the architecture and the landscape in these examples and the universal factors whose synergistic function contributes to the integration of architecture and landscape were identified.

Latin American Cities: From Subservient Reproductions to Intercontinental Dialogues

This paper investigates the circulation of ideas regarding the city among selected countries in Latin America. It discusses convergences between academic and scientific institutions and investigative weakness in partnerships between Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. It identifies two historical moments: one of vertical dialogues between Latin America and central countries in the elaboration of urban plans (20th century) and another of contemporary academic exchange signalling a horizontal dialogue that is fragile and sporadic but distinct from those observed in the past. Empirical reference is obtained from the analysis of scientific events and papers published by distinguished post-graduate programs concerning urban topics in selected countries, during the time frame of 2000–2015. The methodological approach is based on a bibliographic review and content analysis. Results indicate that the old “one-way” of transfer of urban planning ideas from central countries to Latin America is changing; slowly, the continent has been growing more independent in terms of knowledge creation and circulation.

Framing a new discourse on petromodernity: the global petroleumscape and petroleum modernism

ABSTRACTThe concept of the Global Petroleumspace is an analytical tool which engages the roles which different oil actors play in the development of new urban ideas and built forms. Coined by Hein, this concept contributes to enriching our understanding of globalization, modernity, and architectural history and their impacts on space through time. Petroleum is modern industry’s fuel par excellence. For much of the world, it is the arrival of petroleum on the local scene that introduces modernity with its attendant spaces, forms, materials, and discourses. To frame this new discourse on urban development and petromodernity, three events were organized: ‘Petroleumscape Roundtable’ held as part of the 17th IPHS Conference at TU Delft, ‘Petroleum Modernism Symposium’, organized at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and ‘The Global Petroleumscape Conference’ held at the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft. This article briefly recounts and reflects upon the scholarly discussions which took place at these events, in order to outline an emergent discourse on petroleum’s imbrication in architecture and planning.

Revisión bibliográfica sobre la circulación de ideas urbanas en América Latina y el Caribe

Latin American and Caribbean cities share a common history regarding the influence of foreign urban ideas. These ideas, categorized as pioneering or avant-garde, in most cases were conceived in relation to European and North American experiences, and implemented even simultaneously in several cities across the region. Adrian Gorelik, Arturo Almandoz, Alicia Novick and Guillermo Jajamovich, are the authors whose works have been taken to start building a bibliographic reference able to guide the flow of urban ideas studies in the region.

Revisión bibliográfica sobre la circulación de ideas urbanas en América Latina y el Caribe

Latin American and Caribbean cities share a common history regarding the influence of foreign urban ideas. These ideas, categorized as pioneering or avant-garde, in most cases were conceived in relation to European and North American experiences, and implemented even simultaneously in several cities across the region. Adrian Gorelik, Arturo Almandoz, Alicia Novick and Guillermo Jajamovich, are the authors whose works have been taken to start building a bibliographic reference able to guide the flow of urban ideas studies in the region.

Imaginario y guerra desde New Babylon

La segunda guerra mundial y sus horrores, la promesa de la tecnología y la libertad marca- ron el imaginario del artista holandés Cons- tant Nieuwenhuys, creador de New Babylon, un proyecto cuya construcción estaría en manos de nómadas en una deriva constante, que sueñan, crean y hacen uso de la tecno- logía en una acción lúdica, colectiva y libre. New Babylon planteaba una nueva ciudad para el ciudadano del futuro, formalizando la idea situacionista del urbanismo unitario. El artículo expone las correspondencias entre el proyecto y las acciones de la guerra, entre el juego, la tecnología, las formas, lo colecti- vo y los mapas, para crear nuevas ciudades e inspirar a otros.

REVIVING CONTEMPORARY URBAN DESIGN: CASE OF HISTORIC CITY SULTANPUR LODHI, PUNJAB, INDIA

Cities have a long and varied urban history, but cities in developing countries have had a relatively brief experience with the modern city. What are the current urban ideas of Indian Cities? How does this ideology affect modern city design? And how is city design related to traditional City design of related province? These questions have led the author to undertake this study. Urban planning and Designing into towns is the beginning of the difficulties of cities’ futures. Whether the main problem is the way of designing and planning or the policy of increasing the population, what New Towns today mainly suffer is the lack of identity and the differentiation between other cities.“For Indian cities, need of multiple models for well-functioning cities with some common ingredients, including a commitment to equality of opportunity, smart designs for upcoming cities, improved housing facilities, smart designs for upcoming cities and a drive to improve the quality of life for habitants has been felt in the twenty first century.”Sultanpur Lodhi with its legacy to have historic palaces, vital landscape, relics from various architectural styles offers a possibility to explore city module for reviving of historical cities. It was found that 81 percent of the urban population in city lived in overcrowded and substandard houses (Office of Punjab urban planning and development authority, 2017). Therefore this is one amongst the top three most densely populated cities in Punjab, India. Its culture combines Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Sikh and British influences. As the economy of this city is based on Agro based industries like Rice Sheller and other small scale industries and subsequent housing demand, there is need to protect vibrant culture and impressions. A fine tunings between available local resources and Contemporary urban design practice need to be explored. The study of Sultanpur Lodhi attempts to give reviving a historical and coherent summary of fragmented information about Punjab’s urban design practice.

Making Jerusalem “Cooler”: Creative Script, Youth Flight, and Diversity

The creative city approach, already one of the most popular urban development models in recent years, continues to spread to new destinations. When urban scholars explain how ideas become canon, including the particular case of the creative city approach, they usually focus on political–economic mechanisms, the role of global elite networks, and the interests of local economic growth coalitions. These explanations are insightful but miss the political–cultural projects that cities pursue concurrently to the creative city approach, two aims that sometimes reinforce each other and sometimes contradict. Using interviews and fieldwork, I follow the importation of the creative city approach to the contested city of Jerusalem, and argue that the drive to adopt the creative script cannot be explained only by political–economic forces, but also by the local political–cultural projects of preserving Jerusalem as a Zionist city. Moreover, I suggest three directions for interpreting the role of local forces in the adoption and translation of urban ideas.

Vorarlberg. Baukultur für alle. / Vorarlberg. Building culture for all.

We cannot understand the development of Vorarlberg’s architectural culture without its spatial, topographical, and socio-economic context. There is a great contrast between rural valleys and the busy, semi-urban Rhine Valley. With their exemplary buildings, states and municipalities model the production of excellent, contemporary architecture. Industrial and commercial architecture has achieved an impressive corporate identity as well. However, we rarely find the same quality in residential construction. Because of the high cost of real estate and construction apartment buildings have grown up like mushrooms, intruding upon areas formerly predominated by detached housing. Urban sprawl has eliminated the borders between the 29 municipalities of the Rhine Valley, resulting in a giant suburban landscape. To remedy this process, the players cooperate with the regional authorities as they carry out their vision of urban planning, including guidelines and ideas. Because planning and production have become so complex, urban and regional development has turned into an immense challenge. Provincial and municipal authorities value openness, participation, common good, ecology, and sustainability and involve citizens and adapt the process to their needs. Still, they must consider subsidy rules and regulations, which, until now, have privileged private property over common good and have prioritized ecological standards over architectural quality and the concerns of urban planning. Since 1997, the Vorarlberg Architecture Institute, has inspired, challenged, and spoken for the architectural-cultural scene. It continues to mediate and complement the discourse and activities of the Central Association of the Architects of Vorarlberg. In addition, the Chamber of Architects strives to improve competition procedures. The Energy Institute Vorarlberg supports ecology and promotes sustainability. The Quality Association “vorarlberger_holzbaukunst” has promoted the renaissance of timber construction. Carpenters and architects actively support the prefabrication and development of new technical solutions. Similarly, the members of the Werkraum Bregenzerwald, a craftsmen’s association, continue and transform the cultural heritage in sophisticated and resource-friendly ways, as evidenced by many buildings and the “Werkraumhaus” itself. Vorarlberg’s hospitality industry plays an important role in supporting and promoting the architectural culture. However, thoughtful and coordinated master planning is necessary to expand the quality of individual architectural projects to urban and regional planning and construction. This transition will be the most important challenge for the period of urban densification. Vorarlberg may be Alpine – even rural – but it is urban without doubt.[English translation by Ingeborg Fink].

Theoretical and Practical Influences of Kevin Lynch in China

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Kevin Lynch was a distinguished city designer and humanist whose thoughts, theories, and practices have had a far-reaching influence on planning across the world, including in China. Here we identify the impact of Lynch’s ideas on China’s urban development, design practices, and ideas about urban design education during the various stages of China’s urbanization. Our literature review, supplemented by interviews with Lynch’s former colleagues in China, reveals the qualitative and quantitative dimensions of his contributions. His thoughts on city construction, rooted in humanism and psychological analysis of how people perceive cities, have had a formative influence in the past 3 decades in the evolution of urban design methods and have helped accelerate the new profession of urban design and new systems of regulating urban development.Takeaway for practice: It is useful to understand how Lynch’s ideas, largely the product of American thought, have had influence in China as this country makes a transition to a more pluralistic and locally driven form of planning. China’s vast scale and tempo of urban development and planning provide an important example of the impact Lynch made. We can also learn much from the Chinese experience in large-scale urbanization that has relevance for other rapidly growing cities in the developing world.

CITIES AS CENTRES OF CREATIVITY IN THE EAST-CENTRAL EUROPEAN NATION BUILDING

This paper offers an overview of the philosophical reflections for the change of structure of the scholar public sphere in the 18th and 19th centuries, focussed on the Hungarian examples, with the idea of urbanity in the centre. After the overview of the Scottish Enlightenment, and the Kantian and Herderian approaches, it will be discussed the Hungarian case, within and after the controversy on Immanuel Kant (1792–1822). The topic of urbanitas was often touched both as an ideal-typical environment of the philosophical activity, and the real environment of the authors under conditions of an industrialised machinery of the cultural production. The next topic is the specific features of the same turn of the structure of the scholar communication in East-Central Europe, where the change of the languages of the publications has characteristic consequences and the gap between the spheres of the school philosophy and the public philosophy was deeper. The features of the specialities of the philosophies of East-Central Europe in their self-understanding within the new context after the communicational turn is the last topic, focussed on the Hungarian case, especially on the usage of the concept of urbanity in the Hungarian creative discourse about the public philosophy, and national philosophy.

The Alpine Metropolitan-Mountain Faced with Global Challenges. Reflections on the Case of Turin

The interchange between the mountain areas and the urbanized piedmont within the metropolitan region of Turin is taken as a paradigmatic example of similar situations widely present in the Alps. The analysis helps to identify some general characters of the Alpine spaces included in metropolitan territorial systems. The increasing mutual dependences between them stimulates a reflexion on the integration of rural mountain areas in metropolitan regions, starting from new mutual dependences. This integration can lead to a construction of a bi-polar urban region in which the metro-mountain sub-system become an agent of differentiation in a multi-level relational space. This process depends largely on the perception of the inner mountain as a set of economic, cultural, aesthetic and existential values, complementary and partially alternative to the urban. Thanks to them the Alpine mountain could become a laboratory of settlement and business experiences trying to combine the advantages of the urban life with the radical diversity of local environment. The hypothesis that a new cultural centrality could reduce the functional dependence of inner mountain is discussed in the face of responses to the impact of global changes concerning environment, technology and neo-liberal financial economy. The conclusion is that only an organized reaction to these treats can entail a virtuous circle of growth of new residents, employment and services, implementing the idea of a new Alpine urbanity.

Playing the game: A comparison of international actors in real estate development in Modderfontein, Johannesburg and London’s Royal Docks

In highly internationalised cities, real estate developers must learn to negotiate global-local tensions to territoralise their work and secure planning permission. This paper examines how they do this and positions itself at the meeting point of research on policy mobility and real estate. Developers have been shown to be co-coordinators of development processes, and one of many agents who facilitate the global flow and production of urban spaces and ideas. In these endeavours local knowledge is important, yet developers remain interested in sites beyond their home city. This paper questions what strategies developers utilise to become co-ordinating forces in new cities, a pertinent issue because increasingly urban actors position themselves as ‘global’ or beyond a geographically circumscribed space.Based on 60 interviews across London’s Royal Docks and Johannesburg’s Modderfontein, this paper argues that to work in a new location, developers and their consultants must utilise local knowledge, highlighting three specific strategies: (1) on-boarding local political actors; (2) hiring individuals who primarily work in the city and (3) becoming part of ‘the club’. These illustrate the ways developers localise themselves, ‘learning to play the game’, and evidence the consequences for where and how urban politics happens. Ultimately, this paper argues that at the heart of internationalised urban environments there are transnational networks which are becoming sites of urban politics where assemblages of actors are formed that make the global movement of urban ideas possible.