With the economic crisis that followed the collapse of the speculative property market in the US – a crisis that spread like wildfire around the world – a change took place in the public perception of star architecture.
Zaha Hadid’s Chanel pavilion in Central Park might be described as an advertising campaign in the guise of an art project. It drew harsh criticism from Nicolai Ouroussoff in the “New York Times”. Suddenly the mood changed, and this touring pavilion, which had previously stood without protest in Hong Kong and Tokyo, moved no further. People were occupied with the rapid increase in unemployment and poverty and had little time for what some critics referred to as “empty forms with no social, economic or ecological sustainability”.
The architectural biennale in Venice in 2010 took as its motto “People meet in architecture”. The central exhibition, curated by Kazuyo Sejima focused largely an aesthetic phenomena and contained no reference to growing global problems like migration, poverty and overpopulation. Nevertheless, the decision to award the Golden Lion for the best national contribution to the pavilion of Bahrain was an important signal. Three huts put together by fishermen from driftwood made reference to a small, but important social problem. Through property developments in Bahrain, the fishermen are being forced out of their settlements on the coast of the Persian Gulf, where they have always lived. The huts, which are a symbol of the fishermen’s modest needs, stand in stark contrast to the speculative objects that threaten their existence and, therefore, part of the cultural identity of that country (ill.1).
A number of architects have long been working to further social change with tangible projects in their own countries. Michael Maltzan, an architect in Los Angeles, has been concerned for many years with the problems of Skid Row, a district of that city where, since the 1930s, there has been one of the largest concentrations of homeless people in the US. Maltzan has designed projects for the Skid Row Housing Trust in the form of buildings where homeless people can use communal cooking facilities, and rooms and courtyard spaces where they can rest. These amenities provide them with an opportunity to find their way back step by step to community life.
The Carver Apartments, opened in 2010, were Maltzan’s second project of this kind. Here, 97 homeless people can be accommodated – mainly elderly and disabled persons (ills. 2, 3). Despite the low budget for the building, it has a high design quality The disadvantages of the location (for example, its proximity to a motorway) and the complexity of the social goals have been convincingly transformed into positive aspects.
The programme of the Rural Studio in Alabama also shows that for some time now attempts have been made in the US to establish a stronger link between architecture and society. Since 1993, architectural students of Auburn University have been involved in measures to improve conditions in the extremely poor neighbourhoods of western Alabama. Roughly 30 per cent of the population there live below the poverty line. The student teams design projects which they also build themselves and that have a positive effect on the surroundings. The buildings range from single-family houses and a community centre to sports facilities and fire stations. Some 120 projects have been implemented so far (ills. 12, 13), and in the meantime, many other architectural schools in the US are following the example of Rural Studio, like Design Build Bluff of the University of Utah. Similar models have been developed in Germany and Austria, too. They enjoy increasing popularity among students and result in a completely new understanding of the social dimension of their future profession.
The positive economic effects of the retention and intelligent reuse of existing building fabric are demonstrated by the High Line development in New York City (ill. 5). The area of a freight railway line that had not been used for many years and that extended over a distance of 2.3 km through the Chelsea gallery district was saved from demolition by a private initiative. With a joint concept drawn up by the architects Diller Scofido + Renfro, together with the landscape architects of Field Operations, the strip was transformed into a public park. Since its opening in 2008, the High Line has become a new attraction in the city, upgrading the surrounding area economically and socially. This project has also led to the creation of a series of new hotels and housing developments in the immediate vicinity. It is astonishing that a scheme of this kind should be implemented in New York of all places, a city in which existing building fabric is nothing sacred. In Berlin, in contrast, the Palace of the Republic was demolished, despite public efforts to retain and convert it. The development of the harbour city in Hamburg, on the other hand, shows what can be achieved through a change of use and the redefinition of a former industrial area, creating new perspectives on an urban scale.
For years now, Jean-Philippe Vassal and Anne Lacaton in Paris have been working to create a new social perspective for architecture. Their ideas of a restrained process of renewal and improvement of existing building fabric are nothing new, but seen in the context of the past decades, their approach seems quite radical. In their conversion of the Palais de Tokyo in 2001, the architects refurbished a 7,800 m2 area for just €3 million. What a difference to the Prada Shop by Rem Koolhaas! Together with Frédéric Druot, Lacaton Vassal have drawn up a study with the title “Plus” for a socially sustainable redesign of publicly assisted housing in France. With the conversion of the Tour Bois le Prêtre in Paris, their concepts are now being realized in a concrete form for the first time (ill. 4). Developed jointly with the occupants of the building, this project is a token of politics turning away from demolition – the creation of a clean slate from which to start anew – and its adoption of a strategy that is ecologically, economically and socially sustainable.
Roughly 30 per cent of the world’s population live in slums today, most of them in the southern hemisphere – and their numbers are increasing. In Latin America in particular, addressing the problems of the shanty towns, or favelas, has become a central task with which many architects are concerned. Quick successes are not to be expected on this front. The problems are simply too great and historically ingrained. As early as 1993, the architect Jorge Mario Jauregui began working on the Favela Bairro programme in Rio de Janeiro. In a series of small steps, he has sought to improve living conditions in the slums of the city. With projects for the Complexo do Alemão and the Complexo do Manguinhos, Rio has recently began to integrate the estimated 600 favelas in the urban fabric on a large scale. In São Paolo, the Secretaria Municipal de Habitação (SEHAB) is also active in this respect with a comprehensive programme for which the central government is putting up large sums of money.
In Chile, the architect Alejandro Aravena and the company he founded have developed a concept in collaboration with the Universidad Católica de Santiago and the oil concern Copec to make publicly supported housing a positive investment in the municipal and national economy. As part of this programme, the favelas will be urbanized and legalized step by step.The initial project for 93 families in Iquique, where every house was built for $7,500, has proved a great success. In order to adhere to the low budget, each house was constructed as half a dwelling that the owners could later extend (ills. 8, 9). Clients can acquire their own property and are freed from the constant threat of expulsion and demolition. Roughly 1,000 further units have been implemented by Elemental in Chile based on a similar model.
To attain a new role and importance in society, architects should not wait for political change to occur. They should seize the initiative themselves. The Metro Cable project in Caracas provides a good example of this. Since 1998, the architects Alfredo Brillembourg und Hubert Klumpner, with their office Urban Think Tank (UTT), have addressed the question of how to bridge the great social gulf between the informal city of the illegal slums, or favelas, and the formally planned urban fabric. The issue is extremely urgent, for the high level of crime in the metropolises of Latin America is largely the outcome of the sense of frustration existing in the slums because of the lack of adequate local transport services, police protection, hospitals and sports facilities.
In Caracas roughly a fifth of the five million inhabitants live in favelas. The suggestion made by Urban Think Tank to build a cable-car line to link the favelas – situated on a steep hillside – with the public urban transport system was initially rejected by town planners, who wanted to connect the illegal settlements to the city by building roads. This would have resulted in the destruction of social networks, however. When UTT’s idea reached the ears of Hugo Chavez, the president of state, the project was made a matter of urgency and executed by the city itself (ill. 7).
A similar strategy of establishing peace was also implemented by the media in Medellin, Columbia. From 2004 onwards, the former mayor Sergio Fajardo has transformed some of the urban districts that were infamous for drug addiction and crime through the creation of schools, cultural facilities and links with local public transport. Measures for reurbanization on such a scale can obviously be successfuly executed only with political pressure and state financial aid. In the case in question, however, they were also realized with qualitative architectural design that creates the potential for a new identity for the citizens. Opened in 2005, the Bibliotheca España by Giancarlo Mazzanti has become a public venue and meeting point in an area that was formerly regarded as inaccessible (ill. 6).
Architecture can no longer find legitimation in modern society by performing ever more complex formal and material acrobatics. First and foremost it must consider people’s needs as well as setting a signal in terms of environmental sustainability and economic viability.
The Jellyfish Theatre in London, a temporary structure designed by the team of architects and artists under Martin Kaltwasser und Folke Köbberling (ill. 10), adopts a stance clearly contrasted with that of projects like Zaha Hadid’s Chanel pavilion. With the help of unemployed architects, joiners and others, and with virtually no budget, the theatre, which seats 120 people, was completed in just nine weeks in the summer of 2010. It was built entirely from recycled Euro pallets and other random materials. After six weeks, it was dismantled, and most of the parts were recycled again.
A marvellous example of how an old technology like tamped clay construction, or cobwork, can still be used effectively today may be seen in the house that Martin Rauch built for himself in Schlins, Austria. Completed in 2007, it is developed basically from the material on which it stands. In this case, though, the ecological and technological experiment is coupled with high-quality design (ill. 11). Similar aspects can be found in Francis Kéré’s school in Gando, Burkina Faso, and the school in clay construction developed by Anna Heringer in Bangladesh. Rauch was also involved in the latter scheme as an adviser.
Important new developments in architecture today can be found where architects tackle social problems and concern themselves with local conditions. Success can be achieved only slowly, with great personal application and through the involvement of the later users. Global experience is always of great importance in this respect. Numerous internet-based initiatives, like Urbaninform, founded by the architects Rainer Hehl and Jörg Stollmann, have come to specialize in coordinating local efforts and applying these in other locations and to other institutions.
“The 1 %” programme has also implemented 160 projects to date. It is based on a concept of linking up larger architectural practices, whereby each practice contributes one per cent of its working input free of charge to the design of social projects.
The fact that these architects work not just theoretically, but seek pragmatic solutions to global problems is of great importance. The projects demonstrate that outstanding design can also be achieved with simple materials and with a low budget. In this way, the social dimension of architecture can gain a new plausibility, and the public perception of the profession can be changed for the better. No longer just designers of iconic products, architects participate in complex social processes and thus bear a great responsibility.
