publi-city.

Amrit Seera, Canterbury School of Architecture Year 1.

Text Post

Reflection.

Thebrownarchitect blog has come along way from it’s humble beginnings, this unit’s focus was on public spaces; there has been a prevalent undertone of the future in my blog, therefore I decided to have a focus on these findings in this final post. The focus is on how our public lives will change and how public spaces will change and develop in the future; to achieve there would have to be comparisons and predictions based on the history of public spaces, how public spacers are at present and how people envision them to be in the future.

 

Public spaces at are spaces where we mass participate in our everyday routine; we travel on the sweltering tubes of London to go to public offices where we then work together, we then go to the pub together after to enjoy socialising with one another. We celebrate some of our greatest moments together in public spaces i.e. the scenes seen along Westminster for the marriage of William and Kate in April last year, the scenes seen in England’s streets on Victory in Europe Day in 1945 (May 8th 2012). We lose our sense of individualism in our public spaces, its not until we shut the doors behind us in our domestic homes do we regain our lives as an individual.

 

Throughout history our public spaces have been spaces where we would socialize and in most cases we would have markets in those spaces especially during Greek, Roman and Medieval times, where markets were the basis of a person’s income. The origins and uses of ancient public spaces were discussed in the “Polis – Greek Space” (Feb 12th 2012), the Polis is a space where people of all classes came together in unity for to this financial, political and social hub. However as well all know income opportunities have changed, we are not just limited to producing and selling; also the rise of the automobile has reduced the need for giant market spaces as we can simply cram all good that were sold in market space into a giant ASDA or Sainsbury’s, with more available such as televisions, insurance and clothes. A utopian idea that has developed around the rise of the automobile is Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City, I read further into this idea in my review of Robert Fishman’s Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century (May 5th 2012), where all spaces would be able to be reached by car, which to a certain extent has become true.

At present our public spaces are where we spend the vast majority of our lives, they are the spaces in which we work, socialize and play, the only thing we cannot do fully is live in a public space, I explored this in my post for the “City as a Home” (Feb 12th 2012). The spaces that are presented in a city will then dictate the opportunities and lives we live outside our private domains, similar to Patrick Geddes habitual ideas (Mar 6th 2012), if there is a river in your village work can be fishing, if there are offices in your city you can work in finance, if there is a gym you can go and work out at this gym.

The rise of the automobile was a pinnacle for shaping our public spaces; another peak in our public lives has become the rise of the Internet in becoming such an important part of our lives. I mentioned my ideas of the cyberspace becoming a very important part of our public lives in my second post made about two public places I use in my daily/weekly routine (Apr 9th 2012). This change in public life has altered our social relationships, we can group ourselves into more refined tribes and create social relationships not only on a local scale with people that frequent the same public spaces but on a global scale we can create social relationships. Much of our shopping and trading which was for many centuries conducted in market squares and large public spaces are now done online, in ancient times the public would unify to watch great plays unfold in front of them now we can download the latest movies from Netflix and watch it from the comfort of our own rooms, then review and talk those films on IMDB’s vast forums. The Internet is privately owned and privately maintained, however the spaces we create in cyberspace are public spaces in accord to the tradition ideas of a public space being a social space that is generally open and accessible; this notion also reflects real public spaces as many of them are privately owned in some way. Could our cities of the future become just pieces of data as described in MVRDV’s MetaCity/DataTown (Mar 9th 2012)?

 

As I expressed earlier I was very much interested in the future of our cities and our public spaces, I believe much of our public lives will be enacted, this can be explored in the loss of many of our public spaces, especially towards shopping centres. An article I reblogged from NY Times explored the decline in the American Shopping Mall (Feb 15th 2012) c, as they are being used for other public uses including council offices, libraries, etc. So I have a feeling public spaces of the future, especially those for shopping, could become obsolete. Another idea emerging is combining public spaces with private spaces, whereby towering skyscrapers become used for multiple uses. Residential spaces are being mixed with commercial, office and recreational spaces, creating these giant cities within a city; an example would be the upcoming Shard in London Bridge.

 

My recent posts have, as afore mentioned, been focused on utopianism and ideas for the future of our cities, from this I want to analyse how our public lives will alter in the future or indeed visualize what they’d be like in these imagined utopias. Frank Lloyd Wright’s idea was to reverse our public lives to ideologies of ancient times whereby there was only social relationships regarding trade and business, Wright wanted to revive individualism. We long moved from the Italian Renaissance’s ideas of social relationships being in piazzas to creating more developed intricate versions of what we have at current, however for there to be a utopian designer and creator he would ultimately put us all under surveillance to ensure we acted right, were in the right places etc. Which would most definitely hinder our public lives and we would be a lot more considerate outside our public domains.

Throughout this task I believe my understanding of public spaces, public lives and social relationships has greatly increased. Through my own means of exploration and research I have been able to understand the complexities of public spaces and how they are designed and used. I have thoroughly enjoyed this blogging task as it allows me to present my research behind this final statement and explore my interests of architecture and design further, it’s been a good way of communication for this assignment. I shall be continuing this blog further with the ideas I have stemmed from this assignment, but also present my work, current projects and project references.

 

TEXT REFERENCES:

  • Text references are from the contents of Thebrownarchitect blog, dates are given in brackets next to them.

 

IMAGE REFERENCES:

  •  LONDON 2012 (2012) Public Transport in London [Online image] Available from: http://www.london2012.com/images/travel-advice-for-business/3.2.1-public-transport-in-london-460x306.jpg [Accessed 13/04/2012]
  • GREEKLANDSCAPES (1985) Agora plan [Online Image] Available from: http://www.greeklandscapes.com/images/destinations/agora/agora_plan.jpg [Accessed 12/02/2012]
  • LONDON BRIDGE QUARTER (2012) home [Online image] Available from: http://www.londonbridgequarter.com/ [Accessed 10/05/2012]

Posted | 2 notes
Quote Post
To truly make good public space, you have to erase the distinctions between architecture, urbanism, landscape, [and] media design.
— Liz Diller 

(Source: a-squaredblog)

Posted | 4 notes
Photo Post
RUTH EATON (2002) IDEAL CITIES: UTOPIANISM AND THE (UN)BUILT ENVIRONMENT . LONDON: THAMES & HUDSON, REVIEW. Ruth Eaton explores the various Utopian visions, visionaries and ideas that have been presented since Thomas More, which is where the book starts in 1516 where Eaton explores More’s understanding of Utopia as being derived from the Geek meaning of “no place” or a “place of wellbeing”; the latter definition being the basis for most Utopian ideas. These ideas of Thomas More are echoed throughout artwork of the Italian Renaissance where painters would depict imagined idyllic cities in the forms of great public spaces around squares. Eaton explores Utopianism chronologically next is William Morris’ 1892 organic utopia that was suggested to be achieved in the year 2102, where there is a communist society, no state machinery control. This utopia would arrange itself naturally in irregular yet naturally-formed towns, there would be lots of greenery, no crime and enjoyable work. Only in a perfect world. William Morris (and later Frank Lloyd Wright) rejected the ideas of a dense city prescription to those seen in later visions from Le Corbusier’s City for 3 Million and Richard Rogers’ Lu Jia Zui the circular city outside Shanghai, not featured in the book however of similar ideas. Eaton’s writings made me think about the types of people that would be designing these Utopians, to put it simply, they must be total control freaks! If they are to design and rule a Utopia they will need to know exactly where everyone is, know how many there is and exactly what they are. Similar to the ever popular video game The Sims, which allows God-Like abilities to control the environment and the people, gamers are given the opportunity to become Utopian designers and create their very own digital Utopians. Is The Sims just a breeding ground for Utopianists?  The cities of these Utopians would become machines for life, work and surveillance, if these visions were realised. This would hinder our public lives if we knew a god-like-big-brother-figure was constantly watching us, I think we’d be a lot more considerate outside of our private domains.  Eaton concludes with the idea of America being a fertile ground for British and French Utopianists and social reformers, however what forms of Utopia does Great Britain have to offer? There are the “Garden Cities” of Letchworth and Welwyn built in Ebenezer Howards, historical Utopias of Bath and Milton Keynes. In London there are the Nash terraces and villas, and the Barbican complex, there are also illustrated visions in the form of Archigrams Plug-In City and Instant City. Eaton ends with a forewarning for future Utopianists to act locally as the 20th Century Utopian experiments were way to ambitious.

RUTH EATON (2002) IDEAL CITIES: UTOPIANISM AND THE (UN)BUILT ENVIRONMENT . LONDON: THAMES & HUDSON, REVIEW.


Ruth Eaton explores the various Utopian visions, visionaries and ideas that have been presented since Thomas More, which is where the book starts in 1516 where Eaton explores More’s understanding of Utopia as being derived from the Geek meaning of “no place” or a “place of wellbeing”; the latter definition being the basis for most Utopian ideas. These ideas of Thomas More are echoed throughout artwork of the Italian Renaissance where painters would depict imagined idyllic cities in the forms of great public spaces around squares.

Eaton explores Utopianism chronologically next is William Morris’ 1892 organic utopia that was suggested to be achieved in the year 2102, where there is a communist society, no state machinery control. This utopia would arrange itself naturally in irregular yet naturally-formed towns, there would be lots of greenery, no crime and enjoyable work. Only in a perfect world. William Morris (and later Frank Lloyd Wright) rejected the ideas of a dense city prescription to those seen in later visions from Le Corbusier’s City for 3 Million and Richard Rogers’ Lu Jia Zui the circular city outside Shanghai, not featured in the book however of similar ideas.

Eaton’s writings made me think about the types of people that would be designing these Utopians, to put it simply, they must be total control freaks! If they are to design and rule a Utopia they will need to know exactly where everyone is, know how many there is and exactly what they are. Similar to the ever popular video game The Sims, which allows God-Like abilities to control the environment and the people, gamers are given the opportunity to become Utopian designers and create their very own digital Utopians. Is The Sims just a breeding ground for Utopianists? 

The cities of these Utopians would become machines for life, work and surveillance, if these visions were realised. This would hinder our public lives if we knew a god-like-big-brother-figure was constantly watching us, I think we’d be a lot more considerate outside of our private domains. 

Eaton concludes with the idea of America being a fertile ground for British and French Utopianists and social reformers, however what forms of Utopia does Great Britain have to offer? There are the “Garden Cities” of Letchworth and Welwyn built in Ebenezer Howards, historical Utopias of Bath and Milton Keynes. In London there are the Nash terraces and villas, and the Barbican complex, there are also illustrated visions in the form of Archigrams Plug-In City and Instant City. Eaton ends with a forewarning for future Utopianists to act locally as the 20th Century Utopian experiments were way to ambitious.

Posted in ruth eaton ideal cities utopianism william morris thomas more frank lloyd wright utopianists london great britain | 2 notes
Vid Post

A video on a project by Christian Marc Schmidt & Liangjie Xia, it reveals social networks present within the urban environment. Using online services such as Twitter and Flickr, this piece of kit displays geocoded activity on a real time and aggregate map. Real time activity is represented as an individual node that appears when a message or image is posted. Aggregate activity is reflected in the underlying terrain, so when there is a high density of data there will be landscape warps in the shape of hills and if there is low densities valleys will be created.

Information from one realm, the digital and augmented reality are converted in an immersive, three-dimensional space.

“The interplay between the aggregate and the real-time recreates the kind of dynamics present within the physical world, where the city is both a vessel for and a product of human activity. It is ultimately a parallel city of intersections, discovery, and memory, and a medium for re-experiencing the physical environment”

http://www.christianmarcschmidt.com/invisiblecities/

Posted in invisible cities digital reality augmented reality twitter flickr city social networks mapping
Photoset Post

lostsplendor:

VE [Victory in Europe] Day, May 8th, 1945 (via City of Toronto Archives: V-E Day and V-J Day in Toronto)

Victory in Europe Day, 8th May 1945.

I find these images very interesting looking at how the surrender of Germany was celebrated, these images say a lot for our public lives at how we celebrate moments of victory and come together in public spaces to celebrate great victories or losses. It reminds me of contrasting images of sorrow when King of Pop Michael Jackson died and how fans gathered in Leciester Square to celebrate his life by singing his songs and expressing their sorrow. 

I think we should appreciate how we use our public spaces at moments of great achievements and great losses, even though winning a war is probably a much more major celebration than the death of a musical celebrity.

Posted in victory in europe day public space public life celebration victory may 8th 1945 | 326 notes
Photoset Post

REMEMBER.

In cities across the world there are public spaces dedicated to remembrance, to create a space for the citizens to remember the history of the city whether it be a victory or a loss. A prolific example of this is Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia; this is a National Cemetery where former presidents and soliders are buried. Often these spaces can be representative of the moral underlying beliefs of a country, it is apparent in Arlington National Cemetry whereby there is the presentation of the isotropic grid of graves, showing no hierachy and presenting all those that are laid there as equals, which stems from the American beliefs, morals and values. Other values that are represented are the obvious state of patriotism, righteousness and the belief of being given by god, which can be said to be represented by the use of classicism architectural style, as it is a formal language of architecture. 

Another place of rememberance is Jallianwala Bagh, in Amritsar, Punjab, this public space is a memorial for those who lost their lives in the Amritsar Massacre of 1984. A space that was originally for a peaceful meeting and celebration of Vaisakhi (the Punjabi New Year), reflects that in the modern space there is an atmosphere of overarching somberness however also of peace and tranquility. It’s location and proximity to the Golden Temple also heightens its tranquility, once a visiting member of the public walks down the narrow passageway from the busy streets of Amritsar they are overcome with a quiet and sombre inner peace, I experienced this first hand when visiting it in 2006. The bullet marks that were left by General Reginal Dyer’s men remain ingrained in the walls that remain in ruins of this space, this reflects India’s values of celebrating its history whether it be a loss or a victory and indeed it has a very rich and contrasting history. The space is a landmark for India’s struggle for freedom, this is represented in this space entirely, in such a peaceful space up to 10,000 people were killed struggling to get away from England’s colonisation. 

It is strange how different countries and cities celebrate and remember their histories, but it is true that all cities should be proud of their distinctive histories. Its also interesting how public spaces can create the feeling of peace and remembrance and can represent so much about a cities/countries history in a single space.

REFERENCES:

  • VISITING DC (Year Unknown) Arlington National Cemetery [Online Image] Available from: http://www.visitingdc.com/virginia/arlington-national-cemetery-address.htm [Accessed: 07/05/2012]
  • ALLAN ATLEE (2012) Cultural Context 02 Lectures. Memory. [Lecture] 19/03/2012. University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury.
  • FILMAPEDIA (Year Unknown) Jallianwala Bagh [Online Image] Available from: http://www.filmapia.com/published/places/jallianwala-bagh [Accessed 07/05/2012]
Posted in public space history celebration india america arlington amritsar colonisation remembrance | 2 notes
Photoset Post

IMAGINE.

Britain in post-WWII was a sombre place to live, there was depression from the economy, major economic recovery was needed and from the obvious dramatic loss of lives. There was need for an event or a series of events to take place and lift the mood in Britain and showcase why there is a Great in Great Britain, so as part of a Clement Atlee Labour govt. initiative there was the decision to hold the ‘Festival of Britain’ in 1951; this would showcase British contribution to science, technology, industrial design, architecture and the arts.

The centre piece of The Festival of Britain was to be London’s South Bank, this was to be opened up as a new public space, much of which South Bank remains to be a public space at present. During The Festival Britain the Royal Festival Hall was built as a space for music, theatre, opera and events. Other projects during the Festival of Britain included the Festival Pleasure Gardens and The Science Museum, which was a space for imagination. The Festival of Britain allowed the world to see the imagination and creativity of Britain and some utopian visions of Britain in opposition to the devastation and depression of the war. 

Another vision created with utopian ideals was the Barbican Complex in London’s city centre. Built as a residential estate in the 1960s and 1970s. This soon expanded into the complex including the Barbican Arts Centre, Museum of London, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Barbican Public Library, City of London School for Girls & a YMCA. There is large lake and water feature within the complex which adds to the idyllic and utopian ideals/visions for this complex, the complex is used urban, social, work and cultural spaces. The Barbican Complex was almost built as an oasis within the city where there are no cars and the focus is on water and plants, which makes it a very eco-utopian vision. Could there be more spaces like the Barbican in our future utopias?

REFERENCES:

  • GETTY IMAGES (2011) Festival of Britain [Online Image] Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/8270351/Festival-of-Britain-1951-A-tonic-for-the-nation.html [Accessed 07/05/2012]
  • ADRIAN WELCH (Year Unknown) The Barbican Complex [Online Image] Available at: http://www.e-architect.co.uk/london/barbican_centre.htm [Accessed 07/05/2012]
Posted in utopia imagine barbican london festival of britain | 3 notes
Quote Post
And the thing about urban public space is we have a great amount of [it] but a lot of it is turned in to flowerbeds. We have a great place for the assemblage of tulips but not the assemblage of people.
— David Harvey, professor of anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

(Source: verytallben)

Posted in David Harvey Occupy Public Space People | 8 notes
Quote Post
The Utopian way of life provides not only the happiest basis for civilised community, but also one which, in all human probability, will last for ever.
— Thomas More, Utopia

(Source: serendipityas, via missamritseera)

Posted in thomas more utopia community | 4 notes
Photoset Post

artstalking:

TOMAS SARACENO

Tomas Saraceno’s suspended environments create networks of habitable platforms floating in the air.  These airborne utopias join like clouds, and bind together forming aerial cities in a constant state of evolution.

Through the creation of such spaces, Saraceno challenges notions of nationality and the built environment.  His installations both grow to encorporate the environment that surrounds them, and simultaneously strive to create a new, evolutionary means of inhabiting space.

How are artists effected by the idea of a utopia, how are they representing them? Tom Saraceno believes utopia will be in the sky amongst the clouds in this installation.

Posted in tom saraceno cloud bubbles art installation utopia city | 9 notes
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