Essay

It happens without us

Nicolas Lupu

It's happening without us

I had intended to write a "counter-point" - on "urban form" - to "Bigness", the essay that appeared in the last issue of Arhitectura. Rereading notes from the 1980s and comparing them with recent publications, I realized the enormous changes that have taken place in recent decades on a global scale and their consequences for territory, urbanism and architecture. The first option seemed almost ridiculous in the face of the urban tsunami.
A term - apparently a slightly harmful one - "l'étalement de la ville"1 can in a way summarize the situation. It is an extension of urban sprawl - in its "peripheral" form - to the whole territory.

Whole regions in North America, Europe and South-East Asia are being affected by this "mitage du territoire" (the "sprawl of the territory").

Population growth, improved social, economic and economic conditions, return on investment, but above all the dream of returning to nature and owning a home2- these are some of the reasons for this exodus.

The "engine" of the new freedom is the automobile. The implications are plethoric, some overwhelming. To take just one example: "France provides a comprehensive illustration of the way in which networks are being deployed across the country. In the sequence of the three determining factors - infrastructure, commercial and office areas, and residential sprawl - we have to start with roads and the automobile"3.a.) for engineers; products, typologies and land for developers; facades for architects"4 and, further on: "in 70% of cases, surveyors, far from being merely surveyors, are real "maîtres d'œuvre" of subdivision. They exercise a genuine urban planning role for which their professional training in no way prepared them"5.

The absence of an overall vision, the extreme fragmentation of interventions, the haphazard nature of skills, the obsession with financial profitability are striking. But let us take a closer look. We will quickly see that it was the architects themselves who opened this Pandora's Box.

At the end of the 1950s, when Peter Smithson rejected the idea (Choisy and Le Corbusier) of the ancient Greek "urban space", he was also doing so to give more weight to the interest he was showing at the time in the "language" of American urbanism based ondistancing as a tool for relating buildings6. He would, moreover, be at the origin of the interpretation of the IIT (Mies van der Rohe) floor plan as a uniform, anticompositional grid.
Read the full text in Arhitectura 4/2012
NOTE1. David Mangin - LA VILLE FRANCISéE, Editions de la Villette, Paris, 2004 (p. 11) The study is remarkable in its analytical part and some of its conclusions. The solutions - limited, seem impregnated with a certain "political correctness".

2. Patrick Leuleu - "La maison est toujours le rêve des français" in LE FIGARO of July 10, 2012: "80% des français rêvent d'avoir une maison individuelle" (p. 15).

3. ".... France offers a good illustration in an attempt to understand precisely how networks are set up in territories. In the chronology of the three determining factors - infrastructure, commercial and business town planning, residential sprawl - it is with roads and the automobile that we must start (D. Mangin - ibidem 1, p. 75).

4 "In today's Europe, the ideological and professional division of urban work has become radical: infrastructure to the engineers; products, typologies and land to the developers; the neglected areas of the roads to the landscape gardeners, the facades to the architects" (D. Mangin - ibidem 1, p. 75).

(5) "In 70% of cases, surveyors, far from being merely surveyors, are the real "master builders" of subdivision plans. They exercise a real role as planners for which their training has not necessarily prepared them...". (D. Mangin - ibidem 1, p. 170).

6. Peter Smithson - SPACE AND GREEK ARCHITECTURE (in The Listener, October 16, 1958), quoted by Jacques Lucan in COMPOSITION, NON COMPOSITION, Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, Lausanne 2009, p. 451.
I was intending to write a "contre-point" to "Bigness" (the essay I published in the last issue of Arhitectura), on the subject of "urban form". Going back to my notes from the 1980s and comparing them with recent publications, I realized how enormous have been the changes that have taken place globally in the last few decades and their impact on the ground, at the level of urbanism and architecture. My initial choice seemed to me almost ridiculous when confronted with the urban tsunami.
The seemingly innocuous term "l'étalement de la ville"1might, in a way, sum up this situation. It is a question of the extension of the urban - in its "peripheral" form - to the territory as a whole.Entire regions of North America, Europe, and South-East Asia are affected by this "mitage du territoire" (the eating away of a territory, like a fabric being devoured by moths).

Population growth, improvements in socio-economic conditions, the profitability of investments, and above all the perennial dream of going back to nature and owning a house 2 - in simple terms, these are just a few of the reasons for the exodus. The engine of the new freedom is the motorcar.

The implications are plethoric; some are overwhelming. Here is just one example: "France provides a good illustration when it comes to understanding exactly how territorial networks are put in place. If we are to take the three determining factors in turn - infrastructures, office and shopping areas, residential sprawl - then we have to begin with roads and motorcars. 3

Still in the area of similar concerns, David Mangin presents the situation as follows: "In today's Europe, the ideological and professional division of labor in urbanism has become radical: the infrastructure (primarily roads - my note) goes to the engineers; the products, typologies and terrains go to the developers; the public highway verges go to the landscape gardeners; the façades go to the architects"4 and "in seventy per cent of cases, the surveyors, far from being merely surveyors, are true 'master builders' of subdivision plans".5

What is striking is the lack of an overall vision, the extreme fragmentation of the work carried out, the randomness of the competencies, the obsession with pecuniary profitability.

Let us look at things more closely. We shall quickly notice that the people who opened this Pandora's box were the architects themselves.

In the late 1950s, when Peter Smithson rejected (Choisy and Le Corbusier's) idea of the ancient Greek "urban space", he did so in order to lend greater weight to the interest he was showing in the "language" of American urbanism at that time, an urbanism based on distancing as a tool for making buildings relate to one another.6 It was Smithson who originated the interpretation of plane/mass for IIT (Mies van der Rohe) as a uniform, anti-compositional grid.
Read the full text in the print magazine.
NOTES:

1. David Mangin, La ville francisée, Editions de la Villette, Paris, 2004 (p. 11) The study is remarkable for its analytical section and a part of its conclusions. The limited solutions seem imbued by a certain "political correctness", however.

2. Patrick Leuleu, "La maison est toujours le rêve des français," Le Figaro, July 10, 2012: "80% des français rêvent d'avoir une maison individuelle" (p. 15).

(3) "[F]a France offers a good illustration to try to understand precisely how networks are set up in territories. In the chronology of the three determining factors - infrastructure, town planning for shops and businesses, and residential sprawl - it is with roads and the automobile that we must begin (D. Mangin, ibid, p. 75).

4 "In today's Europe, the ideological and professional division of urban work has become radical: infrastructure to the engineers; products, typologies and land to the developers; the neglected areas of the roads to the landscape gardeners, and facades to the architects" (D. Mangin, ibid, p. 75).

(5) "In 70% of cases, surveyors, far from being merely surveyors, are the real "master builders" of subdivision plans. They exercise a real role as planners for which their training has not necessarily prepared them...". (D. Mangin, ibid, p. 170).

6 Peter Smithson, "Space and Greek Architecture", The Listener, October 16, 1958, quoted by Jacques Lucan, Composition, non-composition, Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, Lausanne 2009, p. 451.