Space: The Undefinable Space of Architecture

zgr ztrk DAKAM YAYINLARI
October 2016, stanbul.

www.dakam.org
Firuzaa Mah. Boazkesen Cad., No:76/8, 34425, Beyolu, stanbul
ARCHTHEO '16
X. INTERNATIONAL THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE CONFERENCE
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Prof. Dr. Aydan Balamir, Middle East Technical University
Prof. Dr. Ayl Fatma Antel, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University
Prof. Dr. Axel Sowa, RWTH Aachen University
Prof. Bart Lootsma, Leopold-Franzens University of Innsbruck
Prof. Dr. mr Barkul, Yldz Technical University
Prof. Dr. Sengl ymen Gr, Beykent University
Patrick Weber, UCL, Storp-Weber-Architecture
Associate Professor Fsun Seer Kariptas, Hali University
Associate Professor Gkeiek Savasr, Dokuz Eyll University
Associate Professor Leyla Alpagut, Abant Izzet Baysal University
Associate Professor Nese Gurallar, Gazi University
Associate Professor zen Eyce, Bahesehir University
Associate Professor Dr. Emine Grgl, Istanbul Technical University
Associate Professor Derya Elmal Sen, Karadeniz Technical University
Asst. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Sezgin, Mef University
Asst. Prof. Dr. Efe Duyan, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University
Asst. Prof. Dr. Elvan Gke Erkmen, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University
Asst. Prof. Dr. Ismet Osmanoglu, Trakya University
Asst Prof. Dr. Margarida Brito Alves, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Asst. Prof. Dr. Nilay nsal Glmez, Bahesehir University
Asst. Professor Dr. Paola Ardizzola, Antalya International University
Asst. Prof. Dr. Suna agaptay, Bahesehir University
Asst. Prof. Dr. Sebnem Uzunarslan, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University
Dr. Susana Abreu, Universidade do Porto, Faculty of Architecture
Dr. Eng. Manfredi Saeli, University of Palermo
Macarena de la Vega, Teaching Assistant at the University of Canberra
Designed by: Bar ztrk
Cover Design: D/GD (DAKAM Graphic Design)
Print: Metin Copy Plus, Mollafenari Mah., Trkoca Cad. 3/1, Mahmutpaa/Istanbul, Turkey
ISBN: 978-605-9207-51-5
A READING ON DIGITALLY-DRIVEN HOUSING STRUCTURES IN MOVEMENT

REM YILMAZ ............................................................................................................................................ 7
EVALUATION OF PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF SPACES IN SMALL HOUSING

MINE SUNGUR .......................................................................................................................................... 9
CULTURAL REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURAL SPACE: THE CASE OF SINGLE RESIDENTIAL UNIT

EMINA ZEJNILOVIC, ERNA HUSUKIC ....................................................................................................... 17
POWER AND ARCHITECTURE RELATION:

EXAMPLE OF TURKEY BETWEEN THE YEARS OF 1920-1950
AYSUN AYDIN KSZ .............................................................................................................................. 27
ANALYSIS OF THE ARCHITECTURAL TRENDS IN THE FRAME OF

ARCHITECTURAL FORM; 1900-1950 PERIOD
MENURE KBRA KAYMAZ .................................................................................................................... 33
ARCHITETTURA RURALE ITALIANA AND MILL MIMARI SEMINERI

COMPARING THE EXPERIENCE OF GIUSEPPE PAGANO AND
SEDAD HAKKI ELDEM TOWARD AN AWARE MODERNISM
SERENA ACCIAI ....................................................................................................................................... 41
ADOPTING THE CHANGING DISCOURSE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL BY INNOVATIVE BUILT

ENVIRONMENT DESIGN IN URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS
SAFA AL HUSBAN, AHMAD AL HUSBAN, YAMEN AL BETAWI................................................................. 42
GATED COMMUNITIES AND PUBLIC SPACES

AYE YILDIRIM ........................................................................................................................................ 51
TRANSCENDENTAL URBAN ARCHITECTURE: GLAZED OLYMPUS

KELSEY HARRISON .................................................................................................................................. 57
THE SEARCH FOR A NEW ORDER: PERRAULTS DISCURSIVE APPROACH ON ARCHITECTURE

RABA DEM AVDAR ......................................................................................................................... 60
ANALYTICAL STUDY; ARCHITECTURE AS A LANGUAGE: LETTER, WORD, SENTENCE

EXAMPLES: BUILDING AND PROJECTS FROM AMMAN, JORDAN
GHAIDA IRMEILI...................................................................................................................................... 67
25TH FRAME EFFECT OF ARCHITECTURE: TEXT AND RHETORIC

SERAP DURMU...................................................................................................................................... 74
A CRITICAL APPROACH TO ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE IN TURKIYE

BAHAR (KK) KARAKA, AYSUN AYDIN KSZ.................................................................................. 82
BECOMING A LAND OF "EXCHANGE:" ARCHITECTURAL DISCOURSE ON TOURISM IN TURKEY

BETWEEN 1960S AND 1970S
GKSUN AKYREK.................................................................................................................................. 93
FROM SEDAD ELDEM TO TURGUT CANSEVER, THE LEGACY OF A SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

ELIANA MARTINELLI ............................................................................................................................... 94
AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON BLURRED MARGINS BETWEEN ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE

BURN YILMAZ, T. NUR ALAR ......................................................................................................... 108
SURFACE RE-CONFIGURATION: PARASITIC ARCHITECTURE INTERVENTION

THEORY ON ABANDONED AND UNUSED STRUCTURES
M. DANIAL ISMAIL ................................................................................................................................ 115
THE EMBRYO OF AN URBAN BACKBONE: THE ISTANBUL-LONDON ROAD

ERDEM NGR..................................................................................................................................... 127
AN EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF

ARCHITECTURE THROUGH COMPLEMENTARY CONCEPT-PAIRS
ASLI EKZTEPE, T. NUR ALAR ............................................................................................................ 135
ANCHORING:RE-UNDERSTANDING THE ARCHITECTURAL PROCESS FROM VOID TO PLACE

BAAK YURTSEVEN, T. NUR ALAR .................................................................................................... 142
ARCHITECTURE AS A RISK MARKER

SARRA KASRI ......................................................................................................................................... 151
EPISTEMIC ANALYSIS OF ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISM

RFAT GKHAN KOYT ..................................................................................................................... 163
CASES OF INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISMS

DURNEV ATILGAN YAAN .................................................................................................................... 169
HERITAGE ARCHITECTURE AND CAPITALISM

CHRISTINE MCCARTHY ......................................................................................................................... 170
A MONUMENTAL DESIGN OF THE AUSTRIAN ARCHITECT,

CLEMENS HOLZMEISTER: MILITARY ACADEMY BUILDING
LEYLA ALPAGUT .................................................................................................................................... 177
PUBLIC SPACE OF NEIGHBORHOODS, A CASE STUDY OF MISURATA CITY, LIBYA

IBRAHIM ABAID .................................................................................................................................... 181
URBAN ARCHISCAPE AS A CONCEPT FROM THE EYE OF WORLD KNOWN ARCHITECTS

BELIZ ARPAK ......................................................................................................................................... 196
PERCEPTION AND MEANING OF CONTEMPORARY GEOMETRIC ORNAMENT

DL ER KARABABA ........................................................................................................................... 206
INDETERMINACY AS A CRITICAL DESIGN APPROACH: CEDRIC PRICE'S FUN PALACE

ZEYNEP DNDAR, GKEEK SAVAIR ............................................................................................. 213
REMODELLING CONCEPT OF REPETITION IN CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE

ESMA EROLU, ADNAN AKSU .............................................................................................................. 221
COLOUR AS JOIE DE VIVRE: BRUNO TAUT AND THE

ARTISTIC REASONS OF AN ARCHITECTURAL CHOICE
PAOLA ARDIZZOLA................................................................................................................................ 234
POPULATION EXCHANGES ARCHITECTURAL WITNESSES:

NGDE YESLBURC (TENEI) VILLAGE HISTORICAL BUILDINGS
LKNUR ACAR ATA, MEHMET EMN BAAR .......................................................................................... 241
CONSTRUCTIONS OF SHIRVANSHAH'S PALACE ENSEMBLE IN BAKU

RAYIHA AMENZADE .............................................................................................................................. 251
GOLDEN RATIO IN GREEK AND ROMAN ARCHITECTURE

ELF MERVE YILMAZ, MNE ULUSOY ..................................................................................................... 253
SPATIAL EXPRESSIONS OF SOCIAL LIFE AND CULTURE DURING EARLY

REPUBLICAN PERIOD IN TURKEY, THE CASE OF ALPULLU SUGAR FACTORY
AYSE KOPUZ .......................................................................................................................................... 263
SOME FORMS AND DIMENSIONS OF WALKING IN THE CITY

EMINE KOSEOGLU ................................................................................................................................ 264
STUDENTS OF ARCHITECTURE DEVELOP COUNTER-STRATEGIES FOR SPATIAL

TRANSFORMATION THROUGH WALKING AND MAPPING
STELLA SOFIA PAPANICOLAOU ............................................................................................................. 272
DANCE AND SPACE: A BODILY PRESENCE

HANI ZGHEIB ........................................................................................................................................ 283
EXPERIENCING THE PLACE, EXPERIMENTAL LEARNING AT ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 4

ZLEM DEMRKAN, AL AHN ............................................................................................................. 290
URBAN IDENTITY USING THE SIX DIMENSIONS OF URBANITY

MOHAMMED EZZAT, TAMER EL-KHORAZATY, HOSSAM SALAMA. ...................................................... 297
THE DOMESTICATION OF THE TELEVISION IN FLANDERS

ELS DE VOS ........................................................................................................................................... 309
THE UTILITY AND LIMITS OF SPATIAL PARADIGMS

JOSEPH GODLEWSKI ............................................................................................................................. 319
URBAN COLLECTIVES: A NEW PERCEPTION ON SPACE/PLACE

LUCIANA BOSCO E SILVA, TATIANE FERNANDES MATIAS PEREIRA, BIANCA MAYARA ........................ 327
ARCHITECTURE AND CAPITALISM IN SKOPJE

LILJANA DIMEVSKA, SHUKRAN QAZIMI ................................................................................................ 336
THE LIMINAL QUALITY OF SPACE IN LVARO SIZAS WORK A CASE

STUDY OF ALEMO RESIDENCE: PERCEIVING THE INTERACTION BETWEEN
THE FORMAL OPERATION AND PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCE
WENYING SONG, JINXIU WU ................................................................................................................ 351
URBAN HOUSING FOR THE MASSES IN EAST ASIA: STRUCTURING THE

CONTEMPORARY CITIES IN JAPAN, CHINA AND SOUTH KOREA
RAFFAELE PERNICE ............................................................................................................................... 361
AN EVALUATION TOWARDS THE POTENTIALS OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN CONFLICT

PREVENTION: THE CASE OF PALESTINE
AHMET GN ......................................................................................................................................... 370
THE QUESTION OF THE MODERN IN ARCHITECTURE A HISTORIC OPEN DEBATE

PATRIZIA MELLO ................................................................................................................................... 380
THE SICILIAN DEFENSIVE SYSTEM: THE COASTAL TOWERS.

THEORY AND TECHNIC MEET IN UNIQUE LANDMARKS
MANFREDI SAELI .................................................................................................................................. 393
A READING ON DIGITALLY-DRIVEN HOUSING

STRUCTURES IN MOVEMENT
REM YILMAZ
ABSTRACT
Diversifying lifestyles in line with the changing living conditions change the concept of fixed space with the help of
technology. Fictions of space that can change, transform and adapt to different living conditions become a current
issue. Accordingly, movement, becoming one of the building's design elements, causes evolution of relationship
between body and space. Particularly digitally-driven structures in movement create fields of hyperreality
strengthening the interaction between physical reality and virtual reality. In this environment, the body, as a whole
with its mental and physical elements, has the opportunity to interact with space and to produce space through
movement. And this situation changes our approaches of thinking and building space radically. In this sense, this
article is shaped to interpret this change and to open a field of discussion on the production of space through
movement. In this context, the object of the paper's discussion is defined as digitally-driven housing structures in
movement. Because housing structures provides many references to discuss the production of space through
movement by virtue of the fact that they constitute the basic human living space.
Discussing the cases of diversification/change/transformation/evolution of housing space through movement, it is
important to mention about the interaction of fields of physical and virtual reality with each other, with body and
with environmental conditions. Because the production of space through movement takes place in line with the
interaction networks built on different fields of reality. To inquire this interaction, Deleuzes conceptualization of
Baroque House is noteworthy. It discusses dynamism of housing space in the context of the relationship between
material components and non-material component forces. Thusly, it provides background for discussing the
interaction of mental and physical elements of body with different fields of reality within the space in movement.
The forces occurring in different fields of reality in space brings forward the tense relationship between the virtual
and the actual. Causing a continuous act of creation and destruction through movement, interaction between these
forces transforms housing space into a dynamic, mutant space woven with uncertainty. As is housing space becomes
a tool of creative activity framing and it is produced again and again in a process of continuous formation and
deformation. In this context, constituting a reading on digitally-driven housing structures in context of Deleuzes
conceptualization of Baroque House, this study opens a discussion on the production of housing space through
movement in context of the relationship of body, movement and space.
References
Ballantyne, A., 2007. Deleuze & Guattari for Architects (Thinkers for Architects), Routledge Publications, London.
Bier,H., Hight T., 2010. Digitally Driven Architecture, Footprint Magazine, Delft School Of Design Journal.
Deleuze, G:,1989. The Actual and The Virtual, Dialogues, ed. Gilles Deleuze, Claire Parnet, Colombia University
Press, New York, pp. 148-159.
Deleuze, G.,2004.Difference and Repetition, Continuum, New York
Eco,U., 1989., Open Work, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Fouad S. M. A., 2012. Design Methodology: Kinetic Architecture, B.Sc. of Architecture Thesis, Alexandria
University, s.9,10. , Alexandria.
Fox, M., Kemp, M., 2009.Interactive Architecture, Princeton Architectural Press, New York.
Frichot, H., 2005. Stealing into Gilles Deleuze's Baroque House, Deleuze and Space, ed. Buchanan,I., Lambert, G.,
Edinburg niversitesi Yaynlar, Edinburg.
Gandolfi, E., 2008. Think Different, Act Different - Architecture Beyond Building, Out There: Experimental
Architecture, ed. Betsky, A., 1.bask, Rizzoli Ulusararas Yaynlar, New York.
Grosz, E., 2008. Chaos, Territory, Art-Deleuze and The Framing of The Earth", COlombia University Press, New York.
Parkes, A., 2008. Phrases of the Kinetic: Dynamic Physicality as a Construct of Interaction Design, Thesis Proposal
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.
Robbins, M.,2003. Architecture Of Another Kind, Next Generation Architecture Contemporary Digital
Experimentation+The Radical Avant-Garde, Thames&Hudson,Londra.
Yiannoudes, S. , 2010. Kinetic Digitally-Driven Architectural Structures as Marginal Objects - a Conceptual
Framework, Digitally-Driven Architecture, Footprint Delft School Of Journal, Delft.
Yiannoudes, S., 2011. From Machines to Machinic Assemblages:, Rethinking the Human in Technology driven
Architecture, International ENHSA Chania Conference, Technical University of Crete, Crete.
Yiannoudes, S., 2012. Architecture in the Field of Ambient Intelligence: Towards a Digital Layer in
Buildings,Performing a Less Fragmented Architecture and Education, , International ENHSA Chania Conference,
Technical University of Crete, Crete.
EVALUATION OF PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL

ASPECTS OF SPACES
IN SMALL HOUSING
MINE SUNGUR
ABSRACT
Housing is the first and the most important building type which meets peoples housing needs, protects them from
external factors and allows them to continue their lives in safety. It gains meaning when considered not only with
the exterior structure but also with the interior structure and meets users. In other words, housing is a superset that
includes individual habitats rather than just being residential spaces. Thats why, housing includes aspects beyond
the obvious need for shelter. Small housing is dealt with separately from housing with its qualitative and quantitative
elements although its basic function is to meet housing needs like housing.
The purpose of the present study is to reveal physical (spatial, functional) and psychological (belonging, individualism,
privacy) aspects of spaces in small housing that differ from other types of housing. Within the scope of this study;
after touching on identifications and users of small housings, and the determinants that should give direction to their
designs, todays small housings in the world and Turkey will be addressed. Small housings and the importance of
living space in small housings will be especially highlighted in this study. In the meanwhile, to what extent spaces in
small housings enable us to meet physical and psychological needs of individuals and create living spaces for them
will be mentioned. In this way, prospective design criteria for spaces in small housings will be offered as a result of
the analyses.
Key Words: small housing, living space, flexibility, belonging
1.INTRODUCTION
Today, different housing types have emerged to meet the various needs of society. These different housing types can
be grouped according to the construction and design criteria. According to this grouping, villas, apartments and even
small housings can be included in single housings. Although it is not true to consider small housings as isolated single
ones, it is mainly addressed with its interior space setups in this study.
It is not correct to address small housing type with its spatial features as a small housing type with small centares.
Even though the history of small housing dates back to megaron, the first house built by man, small housing concept
has emerged with the arrangements to meet all needs of a nuclear family.
Industrial Revolution and industrial developments caused globalization. Developing and growing industry led to
employment growth which directly caused migration to the cities. The growing population reduced per capita
centares, which caused the economic size housing and other living areas to become smaller and narrower.
According to Pople, small housing concept became a part of our lives after the second world war and in the next 50
years by minimizing everything and turning it into a way of life. In addition, this concept showed itself with mini skirts
and mini cars; and became prominent in many technological developments and architecture, and consequently small
housing concept became more important (Pople, 2004).
The purpose of this study is to examine the interior design principles of small housings that are designed to meet
user needs and minimized quantitatively and qualitatively with some examples. As a result of this examination, a
study will be initiated to be able to predict the potential problems of small housings based on the new formation and
new standards of living in the world.
2. SMALL HOUSING CONCEPT AND ITS REFLECTION ON TODAY
The increasing number of individuals in cities with socio-economic and socio-cultural changes have caused per capita
centares to be minimized and the unit cost of centares to be increased. This is why, small housings with fewer
centares became prominent and new approaches and analyzes for this size have revealed new living spaces.
The emergence of small housings happened as a result of the socio-cultural and socio-economical effects mentioned
rather than the users need for limited and small space. Such new formations based on the needs and demands are
reconsidered with the outdoor, indoor and furniture by the designer to ensure maximum productivity for the user.
The answers for the questions like what is small housing, why is it preferred, what are the user features and how
should the furniture choices be, are given in details in the following title.
2.1. Definition of Small Housing
Various researchers have made various definitions for small housings because of the qualitative and quantitative
differences from other housing types.
According to Balamir, small housings show significant privatizations as a piece of architecture with their physical
features. The differences between small housing types may be more striking than the differences between normal
and small housings. Thats why, small housing concept should not be described just with the number of rooms.
Lifestyles and household characteristics of these housings should be determined in details (Balamir, 1986: 207).
It is quite hard to talk about a clear square meter while defining small housing. The reason for this is that 40 m 2 is an
ideal space for housing for some people while 60 m2 may not be enough for some family compositions. According to
Din, the bottom limit per capita is 14 m2. According to Public Housing standards determining social housing
standards in 1964, smaller housings than 63 m2 are counted as the smallest housings (Din, 1986 s: 3).
While sizes in centimeters are not important for the design of a normal housing, spatial optimization and accordingly
centimeters are quite important for small housing designs. On the other hand, a small housing can not be described
as small if it meets all needs of the user despite its small size according to Dickinson. Due to this reason, small housing
design gains importance in architecture day by day (Dickinson,1995).
Multipurpose use of space policy in traditional Turkish house will maintain its validity today and in the future.
According to Erzun, bedrooms are not used during the day when living rooms are used; as for the night, living rooms
are not used. In fact, all spaces in the house should be used during the day and night. In this way, people will have
the opportunity to live in bigger spaces in smaller housings (Eruzun, 1989,s:70).
Based on these definitions, it can be seen that small housings can not be limited with per capita centares or the
number of rooms. Small housings with small centares are evaluated separately in terms of households and living
space. Spatial arrangement of traditional housing architecture design will direct the design as an input.
2.2. Small Housing Preference and User Features
Due to changing family structure and problems with economical conditions in society, small housing preferences
increase day by day. Gradually reducing nuclear family clearly plays a major role in small housing preferences. Based
on various researches done, nuclear families and individuals living alone or sharing a housing are mainly among those
who prefer small housings (zsoy ve Esin, 1985).
When examining examples in the world, small housings in America are built completely on demand. Small housings
preferred by lower and middle class of society started to be preferred by all classes of society later. Japanese people
who have the busiest lives in the world generally live in small spaces and use compact, flexible and lightweight
reinforcement elements instead of massive and non-moving reinforcement elements (Glgedar, 2011).
Briefly; the reasons for small housing preference have diversified today although they were considered as living
spaces preferred by people having low income in the past. In addition to changes in lifestyles and habits, sometimes
even the fashion of the day just may be preferable.
2.3. Furniture Design in Small Housings
With changing living conditions and the emergence of small housings especially in cities, furniture designs are also
affected. This is because furniture that are massive, unfunctional and create dead spaces are not suitable and
functional for small housings. Living conditions leading societies to use these limited housings have caused the
concepts of kitchen, dining room, study room and even guest room to disappear. While sometimes such radical
changes have changed the furniture concept dimensionally and functionally; at other times, they have led to the
emergence of new cases and designs with new materials, technology and adaptations.
As a simple example, turning a bed covering so much space into a living unit or hiding it inside a piece of furniture
that may be a storage unit will provide a great place to gain and even will expand the space of everyday life.
Transforming furniture functionally will allow people to have flexible furniture and so flexible spaces (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Resource Furniture, Flexible Furniture example, worktable-bed (URL-1)

Flexibility can be defined as the use of items for different actions. Flexible furniture can be described as doing multiple
actions or having multiple functions at the same time. The aim here is to gain space by doing multiple actions at the
same place of action (Figure 2).
Figure 2: The Use of an Object for Multiple Actions (URL-2)

Another idea to be considered to gain space in small housings is the additivity characteristic of furniture. They can
be folded when not in use, collected in one unit or telescopically to gain space (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Gaining Space by adding Reinforcement Elements (URL-3)

In short, small housing space analyzes allow the use extraordinary furniture. The furniture designed should not be
described as dead and unfunctional. Design, size and weight of the furniture should not narrow the space, limit
transitions and the use of other furniture. To ensure optimum comfort and size in these spaces; multifunctional,
easily movable, and space saving furniture that does not limit other actions when not used should be preferred.
3. Evaluation of Quantitative and Qualitative Concepts in Small Housings
As mentioned above, qualitative and quantitative concepts in small housings differ from other housing types. In this
study, functionality and flexibility are examined as quantitative concepts, while belonging, individualism and privacy
are examined as qualitative concepts in small housings.
3.1. Quantitative Concepts
One of the most basic requirements of a housing is functionality. Its purpose is to ensure the optimal use for the user.
The role of the architect here is to reveal all the functional structure in space setup acutely and seriously (Von Meiss,
1989).
Flexibility without functionality is unthinkable in small housings where volumetric properties and use of the space
are quite important as well as its spatial properties. In other words, it is important to design and think about the
space with its volumetric properties. That is to say, it is necessary to examine, design and think about the space both
as m2 and m3. Therefore; floors, walls and ceilings should be examined together to avoid space loss in small housings
and functional flexible solutions to increase the performance of space should be offered.
Living room in the picture below can also be used as bedroom. The use of folding bed mechanism inside the pop-up
panels on the wall and the movable divider wall provides flexibility to the space and turns it into two different spaces
(Figure 4).
Figure 4: Bedroom-Living Room in Functional Flexibility Concept (URL-4)

Folding or concealable furniture are ideal solutions for small housings. These furniture used at certain times of the
day can be removed when not used. In addition, vertical use besides horizontal use should also be considered and
each m3 of the space should be evaluated (Figure 5).
Figure 5: Folding and Concealable Furniture Samples (URL-5)

3.2. Qualitative Concepts
One of the main discussions and issues about small housings is function and use of space. Another issue is about
psychosocial mechanisms that vary from culture to culture and from person to person as qualitative concepts such
as belonging, personalization and privacy that can not be easily measured. To what extent these mechanisms can be
provided in spaces in small housings and can not be obtained affect user satisfaction negatively.
The idea to be dominant in all the space in small housings is an important factor that strengthens the individual's
sense of belonging to a place. The sense of belonging depends on the sense of ownership, accommodation of the
users with the place and personalization. The sense of belonging is a result of users behaviours, experiences and
expectations in accordance with the interaction between physical appearance of the place, objects and the space
(Altman vd, 1980).
Tamga (1997) stated as a result of his work that users of a small housing want to feel the sense of ownership and
reflect their own traces. Users of small housings state that designers should make the necessary arrangements which
allow them to create their own personal space.
After the users gain their own personal space and personalize their housings, privacy emerges as another personal
approach. Especially in small housings, both owners and guests want to take a back seat in a corner and this privacy
gives them the sense of belonging (Seamon vd.,1985: 19).
Physical dividers are needed when it comes to visuality sourcing from privacy. These are solid, permeable or semipermeable dividers as full dividers and partial dividers. These dividers provide direction, fluidity, continuity and
dynamism for the space (Sava, 2011) (Figure 6).
Figure 6: Dividers allow privacy in the space (URL-6-7-8)

4. ANALYSIS OF SMALL HOUSING SAMPLES FROM TURKEY AND THE WORLD
Interior analyzes of small housings in Turkey and the world will be made in this part of the study. Solution suggestions
for getting maximum benefit from minimum space will be evaluated. During this evaluation, meeting the users both
physical and psychological needs will be considered about. 2 samples from the world and 1 sample from Turkey will
be examined.
The first sample is examined in an apartment in Italy with an area of 28 m2 offering little comfort of life. All the
furniture are hidden inside the surface of the plywood to leave a big space in the living area. Thanks to this space, a
great deal of flexibility is given to the living space and various functions are used together. Giving flexibility to the
furniture simplifies the space considerably. The large window opening to the terrace offers a very bright space. There
are no dividers in the space that is considered in a way that will appeal to the user's sense of belonging. Users do not
have privacy when they have guests as it is not possible to separate the sleeping area. Plywood wall surfaces with
wood texture and light colours are preferred to increase the spaciousness of the living space (Table 1).
Year of Construction
2015
Square Meter
28
Analysis
Photo
Plan Scheme
Table 1: Batipin Flat Space Analysis (adapted from URL-9)

Structure Name
Location
Batipin Flat
Milano, Italy
Functionality :
Quantitative
Flexibility :
Belonging
Qualitative
Personalization :
Privacy : X
Analysis
Photo
Plan Scheme
Analysis of this 41 m small flat in Manhattan is made for a user living alone. The space plans show that the use of
furniture allows indoor flexibility and four different functions in the space. A single reinforcement element gives
functional flexibility to the space. Designer of this unit aims to use the space most efficiently for sleeping, sitting,
having fun, eating and studying. The cover of the furniture is fitted with a wheel system which includes a hidden
folding bed mechanism when opened 90 degrees; and whats more, there is a bedside unit with a decorative lighting
element when opening the bed unit. The part with mirror on the cabinet door can turn into a work table when
opened. By opening the cabinet door 90 degrees, the space is divided into two and can be used for different purposes.
In this way; the sense of privacy, belonging and personalization can be provided in the space.
Table 2: Folding Flat Space Analysis (adapted from URL-10)
Structure Name
Location
Square Meter
Folding Flat
Newyork, ABD
2007
41
Functionality :
Quantitative
Flexibility :
Belonging
Qualitative
Personalization :
Privacy :
The small housing space in the center of stanbul is 43 m2. Individual needs like relaxation, watching TV, cookingeating, and bathing are provided with maximum comfort in minimum area. While sleeping and living area can be
used together during the day, it can be turned into a bedroom thanks to the insert bearing taken from the cabinet
during the night. This gives a spacious living area to the user in small spaces. In addition, privacy is allowed thanks to
the folding glass divider when there are guests at home. The massive and gross furniture create space loss, though.
Furniture choice should be reevaluated to allow more functional flexibility. Furniture design can be made in a way to
create rest and work area. The importance of m 3 should not be ignored in small spaces as well as the importance of
m2. Furniture in the kitchen are fixed and do not have functional flexibility (Table 3).
Table 3: Studio Esentepe Space Analysis (adapted from URL-11)
Structure Name
Location
Studio Esentepe
stanbul, Turkey
2014
Square Meter
43
Plan Scheme
Photo
Analysis
Functionality :
Quantitative
Flexibility : X
Belonging
Qualitative
Personalization :
Privacy :
5. CONCLUSION
Rapidly changing social, economical and technological developments affect our living areas and spaces directly today.
Housings gradually getting smaller necessitate to see indoors of small housings from different perspectives and
develop new points of view. The concept of small housing space offers maximum solutions in minimum areas based
on user needs and requirements. Thats why, quantitative and qualitative concepts are evaluated according to the
samples examined in the study.
The following results were obtained after the study.
First of all, the functions in small housings should be determined and the designer should use the space
productively with functional flexibility based on these functions.
While loading multiple functions to the spaces, personalization, belonging and privacy should also be
considered about. This is one of the most difficult problems of the analysis stage of small spaces.
Designing a small space in the best way is more problematic than a large space and requires more compact
solutions. Thats why, the designer should think about basic principles like colour, lightening, reinforcement,
proportion and scale.
There should not be any unnecessary or not used area in small housing spaces.
The most important element for small spaces is reinforcement elements. The use of reinforcement elements
productively and flexibly is too important to be ignored.
In conclusion, living in small housings never restricts our activities. Designers should meet all the needs of users and
arrange all the functions in a comfortable way. If this goal is achieved, living in a small space will become much more
advantageous and desirable than living in a large space for their owners.
6. REFERENCES
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Balamir, M., 1986. Konutlandrma Politikalar ve Hane Halklar zellikleri Asndan Kk Konut retimi, Dar
Gelirlilere Konut Sempozyumu, ODT Ankara, 207-224
Dickinson, D., 1995. Small Houses For The Next Century, Mcgraw-Hill, New York
Din, 1986 Konut Politikalar Asndan Dar Gelirliler ve Konut htiyac, Dargelirliler Konut Sempozyumu, ODT,
Ankara
Eruzun, C., 1989. Kltrel Sreklilik inde Trk Evi, Mimarlk Dergisi, Say 89/4, s:68-71
Pople, N., 2004. Small Houses : Contemporary Residential Architecture, Perspektif Yaynclk, Ankara
Glgedar, C., 2011, Kk Konut Mekanlar Kapsamsnda Kstl Mekan Tasarm lkelerinin ncelenmesi, Yksek
Lisans Tezi, Hacettepe niversitesi, Ankara
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Toplu Konut Uygulamalarnn Deerlendirilmesi Panel Bilgileri, .T.., stanbul
Tamga, S. (1997). Kk Konut ve Mahremiyet, Yksek Lisans Tezi, stanbul Teknik niversitesi, Fen Bilimleri
Enstits, stanbul.
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Seamon, D., Mugerauer, M., 1985. Dwelling, Place, And Environment : Towards A Phenomenology Of Person And
World, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
Von Meiss, P., 1989. Elements Of Architecture, Van Nostrand Reinhold, (International), Lausanne
URL-1 http://decomyplace.com/newspost.php?id=989&fb_comment_id=428060287286028_2860140#
URL-2 http://m2jlstudio.blogspot.com.tr/2010/05/coolest-ironing-board.html
URL-3 http://www.goodshomedesign.com/space-saving-multifunctional-furniture-orla-reynolds/smartURL-4 http://www.homedit.com/apartments-with-movable-walls/
URL-5 http://www.binbirdekor.com
URL-6 http://coldcoldlake.com
URL-7 http://jiwtv.com/room-divider-ideas-articulating-space.html/wooden-studio-room-divider-as-b
URL-8 http://coldcoldlake.com/stunning-half-wall-room-divider-for-contemporary-home
URL-9 http://www.idesignarch.com/300-square-foot-tiny-studio-apartment-with-flexible-living-space/
URL-10 https://www.hubush.com/minimalist-manhattan-apartment-in-unfolding-apartment-throughURL- 11 http://3dkonut.com/q-studio-esentepe/projesi
CULTURAL REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURAL

SPACE: THE CASE OF SINGLE RESIDENTIAL UNIT
EMINA ZEJNILOVIC, ERNA HUSUKIC
Emina Zejnilovic, Assist. Prof. Dr., International Burch University, Faculty of Engineering and Information
Technologies, Department of Architecture, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Erna Husukic, Assist. Prof. Dr.,
International Burch University, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies, Department of Architecture,
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Abstract
Visual quality in architecture, understood as perception, appreciation, and comprehension of space and form has
never been straightforward. Though historically it has been related to philosophical discourse, modern theories
rationalize positive visual perception of space and form, by establishing the connection between architectural
decisions and socio-cultural preferences.
Focus of this paper is the "environmental quality profile" as Rapoport defines the architectural response to the
mentioned particular system of cultural settings. It offers an insight into the correlation of cultural mechanisms that
influence creation of space and visual experience, through discussion of central space in housing architecture.
Examples of single residential units within different cultures of Islamic societies are analyzed, aiming to underpin the
correlation between the space and social modus operandi that deem that space necessary. Impact of religious and
cultural beliefs related to social dynamics of living on the physicality of architecture is explored as well as the
necessity of central spaces for positive visual and spatial experience. Central space as the focal point of the house is
interpreted from architectural, social and religious aspects. Additionally, being that the correlation between
architecture and culture is reciprocal, a reflection is made on how architectural space and decisions support,
influence, and change social dynamics.
Keywords: perception, anthropology, visual quality, space and culture, space configuration, central space, Islamic
architecture, housing architecture
Introduction
Evaluation of visual quality, is an ancient subject, but the objective truth about it still remains elusive. Contemporary
theories introduce culture as major factor influencing architectural form and space, as well as its perceptive
experience. Correlation between anthropology and art, in broadest terms, has been tackled and dealt with in
theology, philosophy, visual arts, and linguistics. However, put into framework of architecture, the intricacy and
complexity of concepts of perception, visual quality, and culture only gain in momentum, for aside from the artistic
component architecture is also a technical science, which answers to a particular set of functional needs.
Therefore, we can define it as query into the formation and evaluation of built environment understood as the result
of influence, knowledge and experiences of respective cultural contexts. In that sense, this research offers an insight
into the correlation of architectural space and form with culture, understanding strategies of creating and perceiving
visual quality in built environment, and exploring the ways in which they articulate with religious, moral, and social
values.
Focus is on the analysis of form and composition, or the assessment of visual order established through design
principles and geometry. These are to determine if there are design lawfulnesss that are common for respective
societies, which could potentially be rationalized through certain socio-cultural phenomenon. In other words, this
analysis involves investigation into what is common and what is diverse in living practice in general, and linking that
with what is common in architectural vocabulary. Such connections would confirm that diverse human practices are
major influences on architectural design and visual experience in general.
This particular study analyses is conducted using examples of single residential units within Islamic societies. Analysis
of form and composition of 29 houses from UAE, Turkey and Morocco was made, and the repetition of central space
identified as common denominator. This occurrence was used to interpret the correlation between architecture and
society, approaching it from architectural, anthropological and spiritual perspective.
The results aim to promote and emphasize the importance of socio cultural reciprocal influences on architecture and
its perception, at the same time expanding the concept of sustainability through cultural sensitive design, ultimately
resulting into greater architectural longevity.
A House Architectural Laboratory
Architecture of single residential units has numerous interpretations and explanations. Space that responds to the
fundamental human need for shelter and provides the essential base for each individual to thrive. "Shelter is of
supreme importance to man. It is the prime factor in his constant struggle for surviva"l. (Schoenauer & Seeman, 1962)
Understood in such context we can categorize a house as one of the most necessary building types, and its
architecture socially relatable and cultural sensitive. Analyzing close connection between cultural and house built
form, Rapoport questions why so many forms of the house have been developed within the limited number of
climatic zones, even within same micro-climatic types? He continues with discussions about houses susceptibility to
climatic and environmental changes claiming that, "..it would be impossible to deny the great importance of shelter
as an aspect of the house and as a human need". (Rapoport, 1969, p. 20)
In similar framework Christian Norberg - Schulz states that, "house remains the central stage of humane existence,
it is a place where child learns to understand its existence in the world, place from which man goes and always comes
back to". (Norberg-Schulz, 2002, p. 56)
Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space goes even further in explaining the meaning and importance of a house,
describing it as "one of the strongest integration forces in mans life".
Let us not forget that in the complex social network house is related to power and social status as well, since we tend
to categorize ourselves and others depending on the type and the location of house we live in. Hauge (2009) claims
that, "On an individual level, people may be depressed by the difference between their housing situation and how
they would like people to perceive them."
Additionally, house has great religious and spiritual connotations. It is mentioned numerous times both in the Bible
and the Quran. In Biblical meaning, house is mentioned in various connotations, from a place of wisdom and
intelligence, to a denotation of human mind where there are the knowledge of good and truth. "I create new heavens
and a new earth they shall build houses, and inhabit them and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them
they shall not build and another inhabit "(Isaiah 65:17, 21, 22);
Quranic house terminology, is deployed in four different contexts: verses concerned with Gods house, sacred history,
rules of behaviour, and the hereafter. According to the Quran, human dwellings, like Gods house, have been created
by God:
"Allah has made your homes the place for your rest, and animal skins for the true believers. Allah has made your
homes the place for your rest, and animal skins for tents as houses so that you may find them light when you travel
and easy to pitch when you stop; while from their wool, fur, and hair, He provides you household items and articles
of convenience for you prescribed term of lifeThus He completes his favour to you, so that you may become
Muslims." (16 Nahl) Ibrahim (2012)
We must highlight that in anthropological context a house refers to what we vocalize as home, since it is in that
connotation that a house is socially associated with. It is a concept that elaborates on the connection that people
have with physical structure of a house.
Hauge (2009, p. 28) mentions numerous definitions of the concept from Paadams "home is a powerful word
connected to symbolic meanings that may touch people deeply", to Benjamin, Stea, & Saile, "home is where people
are settled psychologically, socially, culturally and physical".
All the definitions however, implicate that analysis of anthropology of housing aesthetics would be to discover
physical representation of that which makes one house a home, understanding symbolism of visual elements and if
or how they relate to socio-cultural matrix.
Thus, a house is architectural form most susceptible to alterations and variations under any influence, be it cultural,
social, climatic, political, economic, etc. Consequently it is rightfully so being considered an architectural laboratory,
where each element should be interpreted as a reflection of living dynamics and particular cultural setting.
Architecture as Reflection of Culture
Culture which in Latin means tending or cultivation is probably one of the most exploited terms of the modern times.
We associate it to almost anything, from fashion to politics. One can often use it in the same context with art, food,
believes, cloths, moral and social rules, customs, the level of advancement in science, technology, politics, ethics,
music, dance, tradition, and any other occurrence that can be identified as a peculiarity of life attached to a group
of people. Yet as Williams claims culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.
(Abram, 2011)
Since it covers such a vast and complex area of human interaction, culture abounds in attempts to explain it under a
single definition. Since mid-20th century when Kroeber and Kluckhohn, in their book Culture: A Critical Review of
Concepts and Definitions, provided a great review of the development of the concept and definition of culture,
culture as a term has seen many explanations. Most of them are truthful, but still it is difficult to sum it under a single
general definition.
It is hard to believe, from contemporary perspective that it was not until 1871 that culture in its modern connotation
appeared in English language by British anthropologist Sir Edward B. Tylor.
He replaced the word civilization with a term Kultur borrowed from German language (Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952),
and defined it as, "That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, customs, and any other
capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society". (Rapoport, Using Culture in Housing Design, 1998)
It took another six decades for the word to be recognized in the scientific meaning, by Websters New International
dictionary, in 1929, in a rather abstract manner, as, "A particular state or stage of advancement in civilization; the
characteristic attainments of a people or social order: as, Greek culture". (Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952, p. 33)
Architecture holds a place of great significance in interpreting and valorizing particular culture. It is the most faithful
and authentic reflection of life through architectural form. Each life style has its architectural expression.
Architecture, therefore, serves as a three dimensional apparatus in personalization and expression of identity and
individuality of a certain group of people. It is precisely through this cultural identity that we can express and
understand our background and our future.
The relationship between culture and built environment in general is not straightforward, not only because of the
scope it covers but also due to the fact that this relationship varies on the level of a single group, and between
different groups, in reference to space and time. From a design perspective, we can therefore suggest that culture is
a set of ever changing needs translated into built environment.
Clearly, there is a need for associating culture to the built environment. Importance of studying the impact of culture
to environmental design, Rapport claims, (Altman, Rapoport, & Wohlwill, 1980, p. 21) (Rapoport, 1969, p. 47), is
based on the fact that cultures are resistant to change. It takes hundreds of years to create cultural setting just like
it takes hundreds of years for a change in the climate. However Rapoport claims that cultures are so resilient that it
is more likely that a nature takes a course towards a change than it is for a cultural norm. To examine the influence
of culture is to investigate the field of environment-behavioural study, which clearly implies the study of physical and
social environment. Absence of generally accepted framework, which defines which cultural features influence which
parts of architectural design, and in what way, makes this study quite a challenging one.
For purpose of relating culture to build environment Rapoport (1980, p. 9) suggests that there are three general
views of culture that complement each other:
"The way of life typical for a group
A system of symbols, meanings, and cognitive schemata transmitted through symbolic codes
A set of adaptive strategies for survival related to ecology and resources."
These cultural factors result in design choices that form visual patterns that communicate a certain message, one
that is carried on through generations. Rapoport (Altman, Rapoport, & Wohlwill, 1980, p. 11) further states that when
built environment is designed four elements are organized: space, meaning, communication and time. Let us examine
features of space and meaning, which are particularly intriguing from viewpoint of architectural aesthetics.
From a perspective of an author who studies the nature and magnitude that environment has on people, space is
defined as,
"the three-dimensional extension of the world around us, the intervals, distances, and relationships
between people and people, people and things, things and things. Space organization is, then, the way in
which these separations (and linkages) occur and is central in understanding, analyzing, and comparing built
environments". (Rapoport, 1982, p. 179) (Rapoport, 1969, p. 11)
In his study of environmental impact, Rapoport refers meaning to shape, materials and the visual quality.
Interestingly he claims that these properties are less fundamental (1969, p. 11) compared to organization of space.
Clearly there was no place in modern Western society for the traditional sentiment preoccupied with the
metaphysical truth, or the message hidden behind the meaning of the color, material, dcor. Visual value in the
scheme of communication is acknowledged, but in mid-20th century it is taking the back seat.
These features are singled out as important because Rapoports space and meaning are equivalent to form and
dcor. Since, all objects of built environment, independent of the culture they belong to, have certain form and
visual language, the question is why a specific form and dcor relate to respective culture? To be able to answer that
question, we will consider the position of space or form and dcor or meaning in architectural aesthetics.
"We read space, and anticipate a lifestyle" (1984, p. 26) write Hiller and Hanson in their book The Social Logic of
Space. And truly, the organization of space and with it the form it takes be it on urban scale or within one design unit,
is one of the most recognizable cultural features. The understanding of space and the functional use of the physical
realm is a reflection of the dynamics of life, and interpretation of function into physical realm. The content of spaces,
their size and correlation, the level of understanding and connection between the built and the natural environment,
private vs. public space organization, view of appropriate distance etc., directly influence architecture both in form
and type. To investigate the form, therefore, is to investigate the meaning of the function and the nature of its use,
or, determine what activities are done in what way, and why?
Therefore in attempting to analyze perception and evaluation of architectural space and form, in reference to culture,
meaning stands out as the crucial concept. In such a setting, meaning can be assigned not only to visual elements of
architecture, but also to the creation and development of space architectural form. Build environment with its
aesthetic quality, becomes device for communication of values, beliefs, ideals it becomes a physical reflection of
time. By attempting to discover differences of meaning in visual language we attempt to define characteristics of
culture specific architectural aesthetics.
Case studies - Materials and Methods
To establish the understanding between culture and perception of visual quality, analysis of form and composition
of 29 modern and contemporary (20th and 21st century) examples of housing architecture was done, with the
addition of several reference examples from the late 19th century. Houses were selected experimentally and they
include designs done on the territory of UAE, Turkey and Morocco. Location was decided based on the role of the
respective society in the development of architecture, and the fact that although they are all Islamic countries, the
cultural differences vary greatly.
The study is done in the following manner:
Analysis of Form and Composition / Formal Analysis. This approach provides insight into architectural visual
language, aiming to rationalize and measure architectural design criteria:
Proportion/ Geometric configuration
Symmetry
Repetition/Rhythm
A summary of all cases examined is provided in Tables 1, 2 and 3.
Table 1. Analysis of Form and Composition Morocco Case Study

HOUSE
Geometry & Geometric Configuration
Symmetry
Repetition
Space Configuration Pattern

AGADIR HOUSE
Basic Shape Geometry
Balance by Configuration
Regular
FOBE HOUSE
Linear
Axial Symmetry
Regular
CASA AL ALIA
Linear
Square Overlap
Axial Symmetry
Regular
Regular
Central Configuration
VILLA K

Binuclear Configuration
H+N HOUSE
RIYAD HOUSE
Axial Symmetry
Irregular Elevation
Regular
Axial Symmetry
Regular
Irregular Volume
Regular - Elevation
VILLA SUISSA
Basic shape Geometry

VILLA ZAVACO
Radial Geometrical Layout

VILLA E
Regular
Table 2. Analysis of Form and Composition UAE Case Study

HOUSE
Symmetry
Repetition

AL BASTAKIYAH HOUSE1
Basic Geometry
Regular
AL BASTAKIYAH HOUSE 2
Cluster Configuration Pattern

Basic Geometry
Regular

BURJ al MURABBAAH
QALAT al MUWAYJI
THE HOUSE OF SHEIKH
SAEED AL-MAKTOUM
JAHILI FORT
BAYT AL NABUDAH
Basic Geometry - Grid
Axial Symmetry
Regular
Basic Geometry
Vertical Balance
Regular
Basic Geometry
Regular
Regular
Central Configuration Pattern
Symmetry along diagonal

axes
Basic Geometry
Regular
Regular
Regular
Regular

Basic Geometry

DAR al - ZAROONI
Basic Geometry, Grid

Bi- nuclear Configuration Pattern
DAR AL GHURAIR
Basic Geometry
Pinwheel Configuration Pattern
HELAL RESIDENCE
Basic Geometry
Linear Configuration Pattern
Table 3. Analysis of Form and Composition Turkey Case Study

HOUSE
Symmetry
Repetition

Linear Configuration Pattern
Rectangle Overlapped by Circle
Binuclear Configuration Patter
Axial Symmetry
Regular
Axial Symmetry
Regular
Axial Symmetry
Regular
Square Overlap
Binuclear Configuration Pattern
2:1 and 1.4Proportion
Axial Symmetry
Regular
Regular
Regular
Square Overlap
Basic Shape Geometry (Subtractive
Formative Idea)
Axial Symmetry
Regular
Axial Symmetry
Regular
Axial Symmetry
Regular

Axial Symmetry
Regular

ERTEGUN HOUSE
NAIL CAKIRHAY HOUSE
B2 HOUSE
AGAOGLU HOUSE
SUNA KILIC HOUSE
KOMILI HOUSE
IKBAL SULTAN HOUSE
HOUSE IN KAVAKLIDERE
GUMUS SU VILA
RAHMI KOC VILA
CENTRAL SPACE Impact On Architectural Form

In this paper housing form is understood as patterns of spaces which are a reflection of a particular social principle.
Consistency in space disposition with a predominant central configuration arrangement, demonstrates that
throughout Eastern cultures of Islamic societies living dynamics within the residential unit is defined and consistent
through different cultures and time. Therefore a conclusion can be made that analysed cases/societies have generally
accepted conduct of behaviour and living between the inhabitants, as well as between the inhabitants and the public.
Houses in Marocco study show that in modern and contemporary design, central configuration pattern is the most
common relative disposition of spaces. In traditional houses, such as riyad, as well as in dars, centrally positioned,
carefully decorated open courtyard was the largest space in the house used by all inhabitants. With western
influences brought by the French, changing society also meant change in the dynamics of family living. Though it is
still quite common to be used in residential architecture, central courtyard in traditional sense and physical
representation is not an absolute must in contemporary housing. Its position is not necessarily central but is moved
towards the end or the sides of the house. However the interior common space still remains an important feature of
architectural design, with large living rooms, or central halls regulating communication within the house. Change in
relative disposition of spaces, and in functional change of the central space, is the most significant indicator of the
change of family dynamics and subsequently in the respective society.
The UAE case study also confirms common relative disposition of spaces within the house, which shows central
configuration model. In traditional houses central position is given to the open interior courtyard, with cluster space
configuration, while in contemporary houses architecture is less organic and central space is enclosed. But, in both
cases it is functionally assigned to the common living area used by the entire family.
Study shows that central configuration pattern is predominant spatial configuration within residential units in
analysed examples of Turkish houses as well. Central sofa space which determines central disposition of zones within
the house is in fact a large living area that was big enough to accommodate all family members. In cases where it is
moved towards one of the ends of the house, central space was used for circulation, but it is predominantly present
in all of the analysed cases. Retrieved from traditional space layout, its strong presence in modern and contemporary
housing reflects the continuation of culturally related family dynamics of Turkish society.
CENTRAL SPACE Social Aspects
It is mentioned that relative disposition of space, and therefore building form in housing architecture is greatly
influence by family dynamics, as a phenomenon of cultural anthropology. Concept of family greatly varies from
culture to culture, because of numerous social factors, such as complex relationship between family members, kin,
type of marriages, etc. But despite these great differences, the repetition of central space imposes a conclusion that
in in the Eastern cultures, Three Generations Family or extended family, which over a period of 20th century may have
also been polygamous, is the predominant type of family shaping housing architecture. Subsequently, they are larger
in size and number of rooms. In addition to that, it is typical within Eastern cultures that family members maintain
close relationship, which resulted in a need for common space that could accommodate all family members. Central
space is a direct architectural response to that need be it that it is in a form of central courtyard or larger living room.
Additionally central configuration space can also be associated with the social understanding of privacy. There is very
little separation within one family unit of Eastern cultures, and although they more or less have separate individual
private spaces, depending on their social status, common, central space is of paramount importance.
Having said that, we argue that architectural form and space and therefore visual perception and aesthetic judgment,
are influenced by how society prioritizes the individual self in contrast to the social group. Thus, collectivism is here
identified as socio-cultural occurrence which is affiliated with architectural decision making related to space and
form, as well as evaluation of visual quality.
Individualism and collectivism are socio-cultural terms defined as, "the constraints within which people in different
societies develop a psychology of relatedness" (Lu & Shu-Fang, 2002), or what Hui & Triandis (1986) explain as the
difference in definition of basic unit of survival. They argue that the basic unit of survival is the self and individual
wellbeing, while in collectivist cultures, such as here analysed Eastern cultures of Islamic societies, the basic unit is a
group, and its wellbeing is the highest social and moral standard. Similarly, this concept represents the degree to
which individuals are integrated into groups. On the individualist side we find societies in which the ties between
individuals are loose, valuing the freed and self-sufficient individual as the ideal of culture. On the collectivist side,
we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive groups, often extended
families, forming society that depend on group balance and harmony.
Since housing architecture is closely related to cultural matrix then this philosophy is reflected to form, space and
visual expression in housing architecture, which is treated as part of the same social conduct modus operandi.
CENTRAL SPACE Spiritual Aspects
Previously we have discussed how and in what way social activities and family dynamics impact the physicality of
housing architecture. However, within Islamic societies, social responsibility refers also to the spirituality of
architecture, or establishing harmony between worldly and the divine. For this reason it is essential to create
buildings inspired by the heavenly message of Islam and its perpetual and dynamic spirit. Spahic (2015)
Centrality, is a pivotal concept in Islamic teachings. Primarily we refer to the essential concept of centrality and
uniqueness of God to which all else is subservient, and ultimately defines the core of Islam. Architecture, therefore,
within Islamic societies is expected to mirror spiritual concepts into build environment. Centrality, is not only
reflected per se through actual physical presence of central space, but also through design consequences of central
space configuration. In particular the study showed that symmetry and repetition is another repetitive design
occurrence in analysed cases.
Symmetry, is one of the most fundamental design principles which reflects the "symbiosis of heavenly and terrestrial
dimensios" (Spahic) related to Islamic housing and architecture in general. Passionate dedication towards the
relentless use of symmetry, particularly throughout a range of artistic production, and complex geometrical principles
is, as suggested, deeply ingrained in Islamic culture and belief. Islamic scholars relate symmetry with the concept of
cosmic equilibrium, harmony of the Creation and most importantly with Mizan or the spiritual scale; a metaphor of
divine justice, one of the most important elements of Islamic religious belief. There are several versus in the Quran
related to these concepts;
"And We set a just scale for the Day of Resurrection so that no soul is wronged in aught. Though it be of
the weight of a grain of mustard seed, We bring it. And We suffice for reckoners. "(Quran , al-Anbiya,
21/47)
Repetition, from the aspect of centrality is here understood as cycle, progression and series. It is directed towards
creating a sense of no beginning and no end; an interpretation of endlessness of God, or centrality of God being the
beginning and the end.
In spiritual context, this can be related with series of repetitive actions within Islam, that are to remind the human
of his obligation towards God; from rituals of daily prayers to tireless repetitions of swirling dervishes. The very act
of repetition is seen as a sign of great devotion to faith and God, while repetition in design is a celebration of the
concept of Gods infinity. "And remember the name of your Lord and devote yourself to Him with (complete) devotion."
Quran 73:8\
CONCLUSION
Discussing the importance of cultural sensitivity in architectural design is of particular importance at present time,
mostly due to the ever growing tendency of global westernization of architecture in general. In comparison to
hundred or even fifty years ago, visual expression of housing architecture is cross culturally loosing authenticity,
making it harder to tell which geographical or cultural zone they belong to. However, demonstrated repetitions of
culturally related architectural features validate the presence of cultural code that defies the pressure of the
inevitable changes of time. Their presence in contemporary architecture prove the association of aesthetic judgment
with the familiar, confirming the influence of culturally influenced perception on architectural space and form.
Undoubtedly, research has confirmed that culture, and therefore architectural space and form and its perception,
are never fully unitary within itself or simply dualistic, even within single cultural framework. Nevertheless, we can
conclude that within Eastern, collectivistic cultures uniformity of architectural space and form can be observed, which
confirms the socio-cultural influence on architectural space and its perception.
Furthermore, repetitive pattern in space configuration and applied design principles, indicate that, collectivistic
Eastern cultures, associate architectural space and positive perception with elements which have certain cultural
meaning and value, be it religious, mythical, or social. In that context, we can also discuss the level of aesthetics
universality, arguing that approach to positive visual perception within collectivistic, traditional society, which is
predominantly influenced by widespread religious concepts, are more likely to be long-lasting.
At the same time, consistency in space disposition indicates that it is the architecture as well that promotes close
family relations, dictates the level of privacy and individuality within the family unit and therefore in the society in
general. Spaces control communication and enable the societies to maintain traditional concepts of family despite
the changes in contemporary dynamics of living.
Determined link between architecture and culture, confirm presence of phenomenon of culturally valued
architectural elements and space. By pinpointing and understanding culturally important visual elements we are able
to provide, criticize and analyse cultural sensitivity in architectural solutions, contributing to greater architectural
sustainability. At the same time, honouring culturally valued architectural elements we contribute to cultural
diversity, which is of particular importance in present digital era of communication, information and globalization.
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POWER AND ARCHITECTURE RELATION:

EXAMPLE OF TURKEY BETWEEN THE YEARS OF
1920-1950
AYSUN AYDIN KSZ
Asist. Prof. Dr., Karadeniz Technical University
mimaraysun@gmail.com
1.Introduction
Political and power change progress of Turkey which has started in the year 1920 with establishment of the
government of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA) has also created a start in terms of renewal and
reconstruction of the physical environment which is one of the visual elements of the past that is requested to be
changed. In this context, the works which are made on the early republic era power and architecture are generally
related to the question on how the power effects architecture or architecture actors. This text was created on the
question on how the architecture applications are assessed by the actors representing the power. For this purpose,
firstly a power was selected as representative. The dominant actor of the power representation in Turkey is the
TGNA. The most important channel in which the TGNA has been readable is Meclis Zabt Cerideleri (Assembly Record
Journals). The Record Journals are consistent of the records of all speeches and documents in the assembly sessions.
In this context, the power in terms of text was assessed through the Assembly Record Journals in the TGNA. The
history range of the text was determined as 1920, in which the TGNA was opened, and 1950, in which the power has
changed its face. In this context, this text was made based on the assessment of words such as construction construct, architect, architecture, zoning, public works, contractor, contractorship, engineer and engineering which
are related to the practical architecture in the Assembly Record Journals between the years 1920 and 1950. At this
point, the question on how this assessment shall be made comes to the mind. Assessment was made with
quantitative analysis method.
* This text was prepared by taking the doctoral thesis titled "TGNA as an actor in the architecture production in the
Republic Era (1923-1950)" written by Aysun AYDIN KSZ with help of Prof. Dr. Uur Tanyeli which was accepted by
the Institute of Science of Yildiz Technical University in 2011.
So, within the composition protocols which are made between the years 1920 and 1950, the keywords which are
defined above were scanned and the use rate of the aforementioned words within each composition was recorded.
100 units of the records were determined as sub and 106 units of compositions which has a data total of more than
100 were taken into the study.
The main question of the study has been how and with which purpose the keywords more than 100 units were used
as result of detailed reading of these compositions. In this context, use rates of the keywords and detailed readings
of the compositions in the study were made and the keywords were assessed in each composition. Thus, the question
on how the architectural practice was assessed, perceived or effected was asked for the early republic era. In general
works, new questions on the architectural environment of the related period were tried to be askes by starting from
the question on how the new government actors perceived/interpreted the practice of architecture after
establishment of TGNA in this text.
2. Relationship between Power and Architecture
The field in which the ideological structures creating the architectural environment of Turkey contact with the power
is the Turkish Grand National Assembly. TGNA is one of the numerous actors which are involved in the architecture
practice in Turkey. What makes it different is its shaper feature for the architecture environment with decisions and
laws it individually made with hegemonic structure (Aydn ksz, 2011).
In the architectural texts of the early Republican Period, it is said that the primary public works purpose of the new
management established with the republic is to create an orderly and humane life frame for a modern public and
the aforementioned purpose can be read from all kinds of architectural products or actions. However, when the
architecture of the early Republican Period is individually, through the management, considered rather than the
objects with the secrets hidden in the architectural products, it is understood that the relation of power with
architecture or architectural product does not have a solid/finalized/absolute structure. In other words, the time
period of the study, between the years 1920-1950, architecture or architects are not envisioned as the legitimacy
symbols of power. At first glance, this argument is seem to be opposing the idea of the early Republican Period
architecture which suggests that all ideological marks of the republic can be read on the architecture and the power
can be assessed with these marks. However, when it is considered that talking on a place means talking on a person,
the aforementioned opposition can be deemed as a different reference method for the period's architectural
practices and classifications.
This situation reveals the idea that the execution organs of the power is responsible of a singular narrative and the
period's narratives which are made through an anonymous actor must be made on the actor itself individually.
The Record Journals give ideas on how building-construction, architect, architectural, architecture, zoning, public
works, contractor, contracting, engineer and engineering words are considered by the power actors between 1920
and 1950 and different perceptions of the power actors on the examined keywords through 8 periods between 1920
and 1950 can also be seen in these records. The numerical data which provides performance of this observation and
obtaining method of the text are as follows.
Extraordina
Combinat
I.
II.
III.
IV.
TGNA
ry
ion
Legislativ Legislative Legislative
Legislative
Total
Periods
Legislative
Numbers
e Year
Year
Year
Year
Year
Total
combinat
I. Period
159
167
201
26
553
ion
number
23 APRIL
1920
Selected
16 APRIL
combinat
1
1
1
1
4
1923
ion
number
Total
combinat
II. Period
114
158
118
83
473
ion
number
11 AUGUST
1923
Selected
26 JUNE
combinat
3
11
2
5
21
1927
ion
number
Total
III. Period
combinat
82
76
84
39
281
ion
1
number
NOVEMBER
Selected
1927
combinat
26 MARCH
3
3
3
9
ion
1931
number
IV. Period
Total
combinat
35
81
76
81
21
294
4 MAY
ion
1931
number
23
DECEMBER
1934
V. Period
1 MARCH
1935
27
JANUARY
1939
VI. Period
3 APRIL
1939
15
JANUARY
1943
VII. Period
8 MARCH
1943
14 JUNE
1946
VIII. Period
5 AUGUST
1946
24 APRIL
1950
Selected
combinat
2
4
4
ion
number
Total
combinat
49
81
77
83
28
ion
number
Selected
combinat
3
1
5
ion
number
Total
combinat
45
77
81
81
29
ion
number
Selected
combinat
4
4
5
3
2
ion
number
Total
combinat
56
99
90
65
ion
number
Selected
combinat
4
5
3
2
ion
number
Total
combinat
18
85
86
106
72
ion
number
Selected
combinat
5
7
4
5
ion
number
Table.1 TGNA Record Journals Combination Numbers for 1920-1950
10
318
313
18
310
14
367
21
According to the above data, there have been 2909 combinations in TGNA within 8 periods between 1920 and 1950
and 106 of them were taken into the scope of study. The keywords of building-construction, architect, architectural,
architecture, zoning, public works, contractor, contracting, engineer and engineering examined in the study within
the aforementioned 106 combinations have the following purposes of use in 8 periods.
3.TGNA Periods Between 1920-1950
3.1 TGNA I. Period (23 April 1920 - 16 April 1923)
In the I. Period of TGNA, the main agenda of the power actors was the railway constructions due to the war conditions
of the period. In the combinations examined in the I. Period, the words architect, architecture and architectural were
not even used. This means that the power did not see architecture as a theoretical or practical tool between 19201923 in which the War of Independence was experienced. (TBMM ZC I D) (Aydn ksz, 2011)
3.2 TGNA II. Period (11 August 1923 26 June 1927)

In the II. Period of TGNA, the agenda subjects were discussed on provision of the central authority of the state which
was newly established. The main constriction activities in the country created the infrastructure services. The
infrastructure services were tried to be made on a centralism ideology. The railways which were planned were
thought to be made in Ankara and its environment. One of the problems of the power in the I. Period was the zoning
of damaged locations due to war and Exchange Zoning and Resettlement Agency was established and abolished in
the same year and the responsibilities of this short time agency were given to the Internal Agency. The individual
actors of the power started to make assessment on reason - result relation which was to be faced commonly 1930s
for the development of the country. For example, one deputy related the success of the development of the country
to construction works while another one related it to the number of engineers. Engineering started to become one
of the ideological devices of the government in the II. Period. This profession started to be referred to as the
profession to take the country to the contemporary civilizations level which was dreamed. This reference caused the
deputies to get interested in the profession and thus the profession of architecture as a branch of it and a law
proposal for taking architecture and engineering to a legal frame was made in the period (TBMM ZC II D) (Aydn
ksz, 2011).
3.3 TGNA III. Period (1 November 1927 26 March 1931)
Education stage of the engineering profession was on the forefront in the TGNA III. Period. The profession was not
only considered as a profession group by the power. Engineering had a top society priority with the school
educations. This privilege given to the profession is related to the fact that it has been ideological tool of the power.
The power dreamt to renew and reconstruct the country with engineering which was deemed as a top-society
technical power. Within the III. Period, the power added water works to the railway politics which was followed until
that day. Each new policy was regarded as the most important factor in development of the country. The nationalist
narrative in the III. Period has started to take part in the reference methods of the important deputies of Ankara
(TBMM ZC III D) (Aydn ksz, 2011).
3.4 TGNA IV. Period (4 May 1931 23 December 1934)
The IV. Period of the TGNA was passed under the effects of world economical crisis which started in the United States
of America and spread to the world. It is seen that the present policies did not work and the different actors made
different investments in the subject of public works in the IV. Period. This non-process was also created in Ankara.
Presence of Ankara Zoning Management which was established in Ankara became a discussion subject in IV. Period.
This policy shows that the ideological change has started in the country's politics after the tenth year of the republic.
Ankara, which was referred to as the only example for delegation of the state, has become discussible. In addition,
the Construction and Roads Law, which is one of the main laws for architectural practices, was accepted in the IV.
Period. However, it was seen that the construction works, which is one of the most important tools of the power in
Turkey, was not assessed within the aforementioned law. Separate laws were made for each construction work of
the state. The power has used the legislative force almost for all construction works. Thus, the laws which were
prepared for making the base of construction in Turkey were made flexible as much as the power requested. Because
the construction work is a political propaganda tool which is opened to political manipulation. At this point, use of
the construction work as a political tool by the power is based on the delusion on the architecture that may be
deemed as one of the same tools. However, construction work is defined as a technical work within the 8 examined
periods in Turkey and the architecture works are always related to the art. In fact, one of the words of Ataturk on
architecture shows us that the architecture is nor related to the technics: "Art is the expression of beauty. This
expression becomes poem in words, music in tunes, sculpture in pictures and architecture in buildings" (TBMM ZC IV
D) (Aydn ksz, 2011).
3.5 TGNA V. Period (1 March 1935 27 January 1939)
In the V. Period of the TGNA, architecture profession was tried to be added to the engineering. However, this addition
was assessed in an academic frame rather than the technical elements. Some deputies who took the subject serious
and mentioned it in the general assembly assessed the incorrectness of academic identifications such as doctor
architect, high architect on the profession through their own professions. The fact that architecture is assessed
through another profession group shows that the architecture does not have a stable match in the mental world of
the power in the early Republican Period. This inconsistent situation has caused reconstruction of the profession via
profession education and diploma. In the V. Period, the obligatory service duty which was designed for the engineers
for continuation of the corporate structure and the fear of solution of the power was brought to the agenda. This
situation actually shows us that the power had a discomfort on the engineering profession. The power has
constructed the engineering as a great information and power network so that the profession had become a
threatening factor for the power when it was used out of strict control of the power. The power wanted to suppress
and discipline this fantastic concern with the legislative force it had. This situation has brought this question to mind:
If the engineering profession which was referred to as used in holy duties as of the proclamation of the republic has
become a concern subject of the power, did the power made works for making another profession, such as
architecture, believed to have similar technical information, visual against the engineering? In the V. Period, state,
construction, single concepts were brought together within the Ministry of Public Works. This ministry which was a
discussion subject in the establishment years of the republic has become the only institution in which the state
construction are made (TBMM ZC V D) (Aydn ksz, 2011).
3.6 TGNA IV. Period (3 April 1939 15 January 1943)
TGNA VI. Period was lived under the effects of the II. World War which started in the Europe. Within this period, it is
seen that the deputies examined the agenda with a strict nationalist language. Even the language of the laws
discussed were made with nationalism (TBMM ZC VI D) (Aydn ksz, 2011).
3.7 TGNA VII. Period (8 March 1943 14 June 1946)
In the VII. Period, the members of the Power started to make individual references on the laws related to the
buildings made by the state. The point which takes attention before the individual references is the supervision
mechanism of the power on the construction works. Construction stage of the Istanbul University buildings is an
example of this situation. The university was not allowed to make its own building and determine its needs. When
the construction works belonged to the Public Works Ministry, the institution's construction service needs were
determined by the Ministry of Education. This situation reveals the idea that the power did not only make action
supervision but also made supervision on its own tools by using different supervision organs. The power used the
institutional tools as observation mechanisms for providing supervision on the actions. Meanwhile, it is understood
that the cultural geography which is the target of the contemporary civilization was changed to the United States of
America instead of the Europe, in the discussions of the VII. Period (TBMM ZC VII D) (Aydn ksz, 2011).
3.8 TGNA VIII. Period (5 August 1946 24 April 1950)
The VIII. Period of the TGNA is the period in which the single power present since the proclamation of the republic
faced the opposition. The agenda topics has begun to be shaped within the ideology production of the power and
the opposition rather than the discussions on the contents. The architecture profession has become discussible with
the law proposals on the buildings being made by the state. The discussion subject was on the limits of the profession
which has never been defined. Architecture profession was stuck between art and techniques like in the early years.
One of the most important problems of the power was whether the architect could control the related structures
(TBMM ZC VIII.D) (Aydn ksz, 2011).
4.Conclusion
In this study in which the relation of power with the definitions of construction, architect, architectural, architecture,
zoning, public works, contractor, contracting, engineer and engineering are established against the architecture
narratives which have been discussed by the architecture and power on the morphology of periodic structure stocks,
it was seen that the power given to the profession of architecture was defined as the legitimacy tool of the power,
which was wrong in terms of the actors of the power and there was not complete definition of the architecture in
the minds of the actors of the power in 1920-1950. Profession was stuck in an old dilemma between art and technique
and actually, ideas are not generated on it. The value of representation of the power given to the buildings is in the
technical of construction rather than the architectural elements and morphology of the buildings. The engineering
profession is accepted as the only profession which shall take the society to the contemporary civilizations level. The
practice of building which is the common practice of professions of architecture and engineering is the power's
propaganda tool. The power tells its accomplishments to the society by using the construction activities.
In this context, when the effort on identification of the relation of the power with definitions of construction,
architect, architectural, architecture, zoning, public works, contractor, contracting, engineer and engineering
between the years 1920-1950 is changed as the narrative of concepts rather than the narrative of power through the
concepts, it is understood that neither the power nor the institutions, professions, ideologies, periods and buildings
could have solid definitions and these are all marks and signs related to the progress in which they were created.
5.Sources
Aydn ksz, A., (2011), Cumhuriyet Dnemi Mimarlk retiminde Bir Aktr Olarak TBMM (1923-1950)
Yaynlanmam doktora tezi, YT Fen Bilimleri Enstits, stanbul
TBMM Zabt Ceridesi, I. Dnem, 8-9-21-28. Ciltler
TBMM Zabt Ceridesi, II. Dnem, 1-2-3-7-8-10-11-13-15-17-18-25-26-28-32-33. Ciltler.
TBMM Zabt Ceridesi, III. Dnem, 3.-4.-12.-17.-19. Ciltler.
TBMM Zabt Ceridesi, IV. Dnem, 3.-14.-15.-16.-22. Ciltler.
TBMM Zabt Ceridesi, V. Dnem, 3.-4.-18.-25.-26. Ciltler.
TBMM Zabt Ceridesi, VI. Dnem, 3.-4.-7.-11.-12.-15.-18.-20.-25.-27.-29. Ciltler.
TBMM Zabt Ceridesi, VII. Dnem, 2.-4.-5.-10.-11.-12.-13.-17.-18.-20.Ciltler.
TBMM Zabt Ceridesi, VIII. Dnem, 3.-4.-6.-8.-11.-12.-16.-19.-24.-25.Ciltler.
ANALYSIS OF THE ARCHITECTURAL TRENDS IN THE

FRAME OF ARCHITECTURAL FORM;
1900-1950 PERIOD
MENURE KBRA KAYMAZ
Selcuk University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Interior Architecture and Environmental Design Department, Konya, Turkey
kubrakaymaz@selcuk.edu.tr
Abstract
The new urban structure reasoned by the industrial developments since the beginning of the 19 th Century has
brought the social problems forth as well. Highly-populated cities have caused the unhealthy living conditions and
communal conflicts. The problems faced by the people have turned not to be those of only one class or a community
but affected all the society. As a result, all the critics and the proposals of solution have emphasized the political
polarizations and the opposite ideologies. Since then, the developments of the art and the architecture have not
naturally mannered out of this trend. The architects have directed towards the design, proved themselves in the
field, and have appeared the seasonal trends while the the chaotic atmosphere continued.
This scientific study has focused on the concept of form, analyzed it within the place, and made a research about the
influences of the architectural trends in 1900-1950 period upon the place. This research has depicted the developing
trends in 20 th Century, and made a comparison between each other in history and in form. Additionally, each trend
has been backed by an architectural sample to describe it best. The architectural samples have been presented both
with outer and inner photographs too. Consequently, it has been seen that the trends have got intersected
historically due to this comparison. In the meantime, the similar and the different characterictics of the trends have
been shown an account of the form properties. This scientific research has also mentioned that any construction of
the 20 th Century architecture can take place in more than one trend.
Key words: Place, Architectural, Trends, Form
1. Introduction
People and society have different lifestyles at different times in the physical and cultural environment which are in a
constant interaction and change. These differences in lifestyles reflect on architecture, the forms of architecture, and
accordingly space. The essentiality in this reflection, form, is an important item as an indicator of its environment
(Ching, 2007).
In architectural design, physical environment and historical period like social environment, geographic and climatic
conditions play a major role in shaping the form. Therefore, architectural form in design integrity is an indicator of
the period and movement in which it emerged.
Considering about the differences in historical periods, form concerns are again in the forefront. While designing
more majestic and imposing structures in past centuries, there was a constant architectural concern about imitating
previous periods. Design became different and was individualized in 20th century and after then. With differences in
user needs and reduction of family structure, a 50 or 60 m2 housing in which one person lives has a place in design.
While religious space architectures were in the forefront in 14th century and after then, societal needs became
different in 20th century and constructions for different purposes like shopping and hotel spaces, etc. were formed.
Technological developments were one of the most influential factors in design in historical periods. When viewed
the design from this aspect, it is seen that construction forms are in continuous differentiation.
In this context; form reflected different properties as a result of different interactions and changes, and caused the
architecture to be separated with different stylistic features and periods (entrer, 1993).
In this study, the concept of form will be defined, and the effects of architectural movements emerging between
1900 and 1950 on form will be mentioned about. By showing the multitude of movements emerging in the first half
of the 20th century, they will be compared with each other in terms of both historical and formal aspects.
2. Architectural Form
Architecture is a concise art which limits the space for us to be able to live in and creates an arrangement surrounding
our lives (Rasmusen, 1994). Being an essentiality in forming the layout, architectural form creates a visual impact.
Architectural form is the arrangement of mass, outer shape of the constructions as an architectural product.
Permanent basic factors affecting this arrangement scientifically are listed as follows (Onat, 1991):
Formal principles, attitudes shaping the general character of the form
Constituent parts of the form, bringing them together, their connections
Dimensions and sizes
Ratios
Location and orientation
Mobility
Architectural structures consist of different forms. Some forms give a feeling of stillness and inactivity and these
forms are called static forms. Egypt Pyramids can be given as the best example for static forms. Thanks to their broad
and solid base, pyramids redress the balance and eliminates the risk of tipping. Right-angled masses create stability
while inclines may create static forms. The important thing is to create a sense of immobility and stability. In contrast
to static forms, dynamic forms show energy and movement. Dynamic forms generally have curved shape and
contours (Kaptan, 1997).
Architectural forms are called as closed forms if they do not have principles like continuity, reproduction or repetition
to ensure unity and integrity. Here form does not continue and it is limited. As for open formed structures, form has
movement and rhythm, and creates a sense of continuity, appendability and reproducibility (Kaptan, 1997).
Developments in differentiation of architectural forms by dividing them into periods and stylization should be
associated with the search in the historical process. Functional analysis of the space plays a quite important role in
creating architectural form and many architects have created the whole three-dimensional forms with the help of
functional analysis.
As mentioned above, there are lots f architectural forms. Within the scope of this study, concrete/abstract forms
and organic/inorganic forms will be examined within the framework of architectural movements that were effective
between 1900 and 1950.
2.1. Concrete and Abstract Forms
Concrete means to be sensate, physically demonstrable and constantly valid. Concepts like day-night, short-tall, etc.
are real concreteness. Linguist Orhan Hanerliolu defined the meaning of concreteness as Perceived with senses,
found in nature (Hanerliolu, 2000).
Concrete art occurs with the imitation of any object that the designer sees around texturally, formally, chromatically,
etc.
Figure 1. Mies van der Rohe, Farnsworth House as an example for concrete form (URL-1)
Concrete art within the art terminology, Express an understanding of geometrical composition (Szen et al, 1996).
Concrete forms are the ones that directly exist in space and shaped by the style of the designer with the use of basic
geometrical forms. When viewing Mies var der Rohes design in Figure 1, it seen that it exactly meets the definition
of concrete art within the art terminology.
As not being physically present, abstract means not being clearly described and perceived by thought. It comes from
the values based on human senses. It refers to the subjective and indefinite values. Concepts like good-bad, beautifulugly, etc. are abstracts ones (Kuban, 1990).
The concept of abstraction emerged for the first time with painting and sculpture in Europe in 1910s. The architect
Doan Hasol says Abstract artists base their work on shape, colour, movement and texture relations by wandering
away from the subject (Hasol, 1975). Abstraction is generally generated by utilizing geometrical forms.
Figure 2. Matthew Majack, as an example for abstract form (URL-2)

Abstraction in design process occurs by using any kind of design elements extraordinarily and untraditionally. The
example given in Figure 2 is one of the best ones for abstract architecture. Formal structure used extraordinarily and
untraditionally draws the attention here.
2.2. Organic and Inorganic Forms
Forms that are created with inspiration by living organisms in nature are called organic forms. They are generally in
a mobile and dynamic integrity with curved and circular lines. In contrast with monotony, they are the forms that
represent the dynamism of life as in living beings (Jules, 1974). Unity and integrity principles in organic forms are
composed with the use of curved and circular forms in movement and motion.
Organic architecture, is a modern architectural style proposed by the famous American architect F.L. Wright. It
envisages a creation process including independent design and a structure design integrated with nature. The use of
natural materials shows itself by features like flexibility avoidance, horizontal development, etc. Wright used this
approach especially for family housings during a long carrier from the late 19th century to 1950s. (Szen et al., 1996).
Figure 3. Frank Lloyd Wright, an office named Commercial Buildings as an example for organic form. (URL-3)
Frank Lloyd Wrights interior design in Figure 3 is a good example for organic formed structures. Volumes perceived
as columns in office space designed were obtained by looking at the irregular forms of the organism.
Angled forms which lost their motional movement are called inorganic forms. These forms are defined with stability
in mineral structure order (Jules, 1974). Given that organic forms come from living organisms, inorganic forms can
be associated with the structure of the atom. When viewing Figure 4, it is seen that the designer and architect Zaha
Hadid created his work by using geometrical forms and the whole work is dominated by inorganic forms.
Figure 4. Zaha Hadid, an example for inorganic form (URL-4)

Even though organic forms are obtained from circular forms envisioning vitality and dynamism, generally angled,
geometric and static forms are used in inorganic formed architectural structures. Design whether obtained from
organic or inorganic forms needs to be integrated with the function of its environment and structure.
Organic formed architectural structures are generally designed by using circular forms envisioning vitality and
dynamism while inorganic forms are generally designed by using angled, geometric and static forms.
3. Analysis of Architectural Movements within the Scope of Architectural Form; Between 1900 and 1950
Styles were formed with association of the parts used in an ornate, simple and rich manner in the previous periods
of 20th century. In 20th century, this concept was considered in a broader sense and more comprehensively than
previous periods. Design includes not only architecture but also all branches of art as a concept. Styles of individual
artists emerged with the use of common aspects of art among 20th century movements. Since the end of the 19th
century, the unity of style seen in the past disappeared especially in 20th century; and styles in this period did not
fully cover their periods and did not last long. Architecture in the 20th century was completely in personal
development and architectural groupings occurred around these people.
In this part of the study, architectural movements emerging between 1900 and 1950 like Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Arts
and Crafts, Constructivism, Bauhaus and De Stijl will be examined formally with leading examples.
Art Deco Movement;
In Art Deco movement emerging in the early 1900s, effects of 19th century are seen. Therefore, there are
symmetrical manner monumental fictions in the facades of the structures. Besides, vivid and bright colours were
used.
Figure 5. Exterior and interior appearance of Cincinnati Union Terminal (URL-5)

In Hamilton in the USA, Cincinnati Train Station was designed in 1993 by architects P.P. Cret and R.A. Wank under
the name of Fellheimer and Wagner Company (Figure 5). In the overall arrangement of this structure having Art Deco
features, classical symmetrical manner monumental fictions come into prominence. After two masses rising
gradually, the composition consisting of half circular belt in a horizontal circular way with two arms on the two sides
backing away in mass composition is the first view that spectators perceive facing to the structure (Polatkan et. al,
2006). Besides, it presents a theatrical structure with effects of Baroque art. Generally concrete and inorganic forms
are used in structures of this period.
Art Nouveau Movement;
Art Nouveau (Jugendstil) is one of the movements that emerged in early 19th century and culminated in the 20th
century. It is a movement presented by architects and artists with industrialization emerging previously. Architects
satisfied their desire for decoration in this movement with motifs made of organized forms like plants. Modern
architecture was born from this productive environment (Sanrinen, 1967).
Catalonian Antoni Gaudi is the most extraordinary architect of Art Nouveau period. Curvilinear structural walls
improved the architecture with thin masonry vaults.
Figure 6. Exterior and Interior Appearance of Antoni Gaudi, Casa Mila, Barcelona, 19051910 (URL-6)
When looking at the famous architect Gaudis works, the strength of formal approach is seen clearly. His designs
were generally affected by organic and biological forms. He used some forms belonging to plant and animal world
looking like bones, wings, flowers, snails and caves. Gaudis one of the most interesting buildings is Casa Mila built in
Barcelona in 1910 (Figure 6). People in Barcelona called this building as La Pedrera because of its organic structure
and its facade shaped with geological formation. The building got its name from its exterior appearance. Thanks to
its organic formal structure, it is perceived as a part of the surrounding environment.
Arts and Crafts Movement;
Some architects with firm self-confidence and unique point of view developed their own styles against Art Nouveau
movement. One of these architects is American Frank Lloyd Wright (18691959) who developed a unique design
philosophy. He is known as the American leader of Wright Arts and Crafts movement (Kuban, 1990).
Wright built a series of country houses in 1909 following Art Nouveau period. One of the most important one is
Robie House (Figure 7). Wrights architectural style free from decorations in parapets of the structure where mass
plays are available, in weather strips and eaves horizontal lined forms are seen to be used.
Figure 7. Exterior and Interior Appearance of Frank Lloyd Wright, Robie House (URL-7)
Thanks to large windows used indoors (Figure 7), the building is in touch with nature and thus it has interior and
exterior integrity. Linear shaped strips used in ceiling and presentation of lighting catches the attention. These strips
create a unity with horizontal bands used in building facades and thus repetition of the form used outdoors is seen.
Constructivism Movement;
Lots of experimental movements emerged in early 1920s. One of these movements is Constructivism movement that
emerged in Russia in years after 1917 October revolution when Socialist reality was effective and continued to be
effective in the long run in the Soviet Union in late 1920s. In Constructivism movement, strong forms that remind
engineering products without a concrete source were used (Kuban, 1990).
This movement was developed by Russian sculpturer Naum Gabo and French painter sculpturer Antoine Pewsner
and its principles were explained under the name of Realist Manifest published in 1920. According to Gabo,
sculpture can be made by sculpting a mass or by binding together various elements constructively (Kuban, 1990).
Mechanical aesthetic is at the forefront in Constructivism. Painter, sculpturer and architect Vladimir Tatlin and
painter, architect Lissitzky are the leading artists of this movement.
Figure 8. Tatlin Tower (The Third International Monument), Vladimir Tatlin, 1920. (URL-8)
Tatlin Tower built by Vladimir Tatlin in 1920 remained as a project demonstrating constructivism and could not get
to the stage of application. The form of this structure with a socialist expression is formed by a logarithmic series and
refers to the Eiffel Tower on the other side (Ching, 2007). Abstract formal language of engineering was used in this
structure demonstrating structural dynamism. It became a complete example of exceptionality with its form and
colour in a period when we got used to seeing closed structures. Besides its form, it revealed its assertion and
discrepancy with its red colour (Figure 8).
Bauhaus Movement;
Architecture coming to a full stop because of the World War 1 revived with the Bauhaus school founded in Dessau
by Geramn Architect Walter Gropius in 19251926. Bauhaus school is the most comprehensive breakthrough aiming
to apply modern style in all interdisciplinary branches (Kuban, 1990). With this movement, serial production concept
was added to modern forms and it started the creation process. In this way, industrial product design which was an
unknown concept until Bauhaus became a part of architecture.
Figure 9. Walter Gropius-Adolf Meyer, Bauhaus, Dessau, Germany, 19251926. (URL-9)

Bauhaus School Building having all characteristics of the movement was designed by Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer
(Figure 9). The building with a cubic form has margins with the same form. The most important characteristic of the
building is transparency and colourlessness. Bauhaus School Building could not be built at the level required because
of economical problems after World War 1.
De Stijl Movement;
Some artists like Piet Mondrian who was the most important painter of 20th century and Dutch painter, architect
Theo Van Doesburg played an active role in the movement named De Stijl in Holland. Colour theories used by artists
of the period gained acceptance in this movement. The painter Piet Mondrian had an influence on the composition
of architectural facades and the use of colour by creating grids with vertical and horizontal black lines on a white
background and by using base colours like yellow, red and blue on the gaps appearing (Figure 10). Dutch Gerrit
Rietveld created the 3 dimensional picture of Mondrian formally in Schder House.
Figure 10. Exterior and Interior Appearance of Schrder House, Rietveld, 19241919 (URL-10)
No matter how much De Stijl defenders support functional architecture, structures of this movement generally gave
artistic and aesthetic results, but disputes emerged in theory and application. De Stijl movement has two main
elements. These are absolute space and 90 degrees. The right angle here does not have a formal meaning.
Asymmetrical composition of simple rectangular shapes and base colours became the distinctive characteristic of
De Stijl architecture and art school.
4. Conclusion
Form is a plastic and scientific concept handled in the light of visual perception. As seen in space examples examined,
the concept of form was used in 20th century architecture by designers consciously. The fact that form was handled
differently by each architect caused different movements to emerge in 20th century. Architects set technical
problems aside and started to focus on the design itself with technological and industrial developments. Thus, almost
each architect developed their own style.
Effects of 19th century are seen in Art Deco that emerged in early 1900s. Thats why, there are symmetrical manner
monumental fictions on facades of the structures.
Materials offered by industry started to be used in Art Nouveau movement emerging in late 19th century and proving
itself in 20th century. Organic forms were formally used in this movement. In this period, stained glasses, reliefs and
murals were commonly used and decorated spaces were obtained.
Facilities of art and industry were integrated in Arts and Craft movement. Supremacy of architectural form to the
nature is seen with architectural style free from decorations in this movement. Therefore, cubic forms with mass
plays came into prominence in this movement.
One of the experimental movements emerging in early 1920s is Constructivism. Mechanical aesthetic is in the
foreground in Constructivism. Formally, structural dynamism is in the foreground.
Bauhaus school was founded by Dutch architect Walter Gropius in 1925-1926. Its purpose is to handle with designs
of art, architecture, craft and industrial products. Glass stood out as a material in the architectural period when cubic
forms were more commonly used, so transparency was achieved in spaces.
One of the movements emerging in developing architecture and fine arts is De Stijl. Simple angular forms and
asymmetrical compositions were made in this movement. Base colours were used in details of spaces where shades
of grey dominated.
In conclusion, it was seen that movements intersected with each other historically thanks to this comparison. Their
similar and different characteristics were presented in terms of their form features as well. Within the scope of this
study, it was stated that any structures of 20th century architecture may be included in more than one movement.
5. References
Adam, D.J., 1984. Stakeholder analysis. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ching, D.K. F., 2007. Mimarlk Biim, Mekn ve Dzen, YEM Yayn, stanbul.
Jules, F., 1974. Form, Space and Language of Architecture, Publications in Architecture and Urban Planning, University
of Wisconsin Milwaukee, USA.
Hanerliolu, O., 2000. Trk Dili Szl, Remzi Kitabevi, stanbul.
Hasol, D., 1975. Ansiklopedik Mimarlk Szl, Y.E.M. stanbul.
Kaptan, B. B., 1997. Mimaride Form-Mekn likisi, Yksek Lisans Tezi, Anadolu niversitesi Sosyal Bilimler
Enstits, Eskiehir.
Kuban, D., 1990. Mimarlk Kavramlar, 3. Bask, stanbul.
Onat, E., 1991. Mimarlk, Form ve Geometri, Yap Endstri Merkezi Yaynlar, Ankara.
Polatkan A. H., zer F., 2006. Art Deco Mimarlnn Kavramsal erii, itdergisi/a mimarlk, planlama, tasarm Cilt:5,
Say:1, 8998, stanbul.
Rasmusen, S., F., 1994. Yaanan Mimari, Remzi Kitapevi, Evrim Matbaaclk, stanbul.
Saarinen, E., 1967. Form Aramas Sanat zerine Bir Deneme, T Mimarlk Fakltesi Yaynlar, stanbul.
Szen M., Tanyeli U., 1996. Sanat Kavramlar ve Terimleri Szl, stanbul.
entrer, A., 1993. Mimaride Estetik Olgusu zerine Kavramsal, Kurunsal, Deneysel Bir nceleme, Yap Dergisi, Say
139, s.36-40, stanbul.
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ARCHITETTURA RURALE ITALIANA AND MILL

MIMARI SEMINERI COMPARING THE EXPERIENCE
OF GIUSEPPE PAGANO AND SEDAD HAKKI ELDEM
TOWARD AN AWARE MODERNISM
SERENA ACCIAI
ABSTRACT
The subject of this paper focuses on the duo national modernism and vernacular architecture, in Turkey and Italy as
starting point of a different concept of modern architecture.
Adopting vernacular architecture as a sign of a new nation or a nation in search of its own symbolic representation
was a common phenomenon.
It is interesting to notice the similarities that emerge during the thirties between Turkey and Italy due to the political
and consequently architectural parallelisms.
In Italy, for instance, we should consider the experience of Giuseppe Pagano (1896-1945) at the Triennale of Milan
(1936), with the exhibition Architettura Rurale Italiana meanwhile in Turkey Sedad Hakki Eldem (1908-1988)
established in (1932) the Mill Mimari Semineri to study and learn about the traditional Turkish houses and form a
generation of architects that was aware of the architectural value of this building type; the essential characters of
the Turkish house and its possible variations depending on the site was the main trait of his work and also his main
legacy.
In Italy after the dead of Pagano during the Second World War, his experience was carried out by E.N. Rogers (19091969) who was the creator of a generation of italian architects such A. Rossi (1931-1997) and G. Grassi for which,
in architecture, the relationship with the preexistences was the core of any kind of design. The Italian architectural
contribution in that time was an intense criticism of functionalist myth of the modern movement, which had
removed the closeness of houses and towns from life and needs of people.
We do not know whether and how some echoes of this debate could have arrived in the Turkey of the fifties, but
Eldem comes to comparable evaluations through his own building experience in the historical peninsula of Istanbul
and along the shores of the Bosporus.
Whichever Eldem's works are aimed toward the overcoming of the mere functionalism and aware of the wealth that
the modern movement may lose adopting the tabula rasa concept.
By analyzing these two similar cases, we can understand how to assess the contribution of Sedad Hakki Eldem to the
awareness of the meaning of the Turkish house and to consider the value of his planning method as essential tool in
the definition of his architecture. Furthermore, analyzing the Eldem's work is possible to point out that, usually, his
surveys and drawings were not a mere documentation but a way to learn from ancient buildings and settlements
and to measure yet again, figure and integration in the context of his architectures. This is particularly evident, for
instance, in the design of the new Touristic center in Kurueme (1984) that is indissolubly weaved with the Eldem's
research on the Yal of the Bosporus; the new design would have been unthinkable without the meticulous work of
survey, study and reconstruction of that part of the European shore of the Bosporus that gave to Eldem the
instruments to redrawing a contemporary skyline of that shore by means of sequence, cadence, and rhythm between
empty and full spaces deriving from the ancient settlements.
ADOPTING THE CHANGING DISCOURSE OF SOCIAL

CAPITAL BY INNOVATIVE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
DESIGN IN URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS
SAFA AL HUSBAN, AHMAD AL HUSBAN, YAMEN AL BETAWI
Safa Al Husban, Assistant Professor of Architecture, Department of Architectural Engineering, Engineering Faculty,
Al-al Bayt University, Jordan,
Ahmad Al Husban, Assistant Professor of Architecture, Department of Architectural Engineering, Engineering
Faculty, the Hashemite University, Jordan,
Yamen Al Betawi, Assistant Professor of Architecture, Department of Architectural Engineering, Engineering Faculty,
the Hashemite University, Jordan
Abstract
Social capital is the glue that holds society together; it has a significant impact on individuals health and well-being.
Currently, there is a changing discourse in social capital in urban communities correlated with the new way of life
(more individuality); new forms of social interaction and communication tools and the increasingly urbanized
population. In the current information age, the wired neighborhood suffers from a decline in social public health
associated with the changing discourse in social capital. Researchers in health, social, and built environment
disciplines insured that the traditional design of neighborhoods does not fulfill the new needs of the information age
societies. Specifically, the specific processes and mechanisms of neighborhoods` design that can adopt new
discourses of social capital are poorly understood.
This research aims at defining an innovative concept for built environment design in urban neighborhoods that can
adopt the changing discourse of social capital by defining and merging the required design features with the new
concepts of neighborhood design. This research followed a theoretical analytical descriptive approach driven case
study method; twenty five articles were analyzed to conclude the required design features; and two new design
concepts of urban neighborhoods with optimum conditions were studied and analyzed then synthesized to suggest
new concept. Data collected by a historical theoretical approach from archival records, historical accounts,
theoretical research, images empirical research, graphs and statistical information. Data analyzed in tabular displays
by content analysis to be triangulated to construct sufficiently thick description of the neighborhoods` design.
This research found that the required features for neighborhood design that can adopt the changing discourse of
social capital are: flexibility, mix use, diverse affordances and materials, diverse colors, networks, meeting places,
aesthetics, pedestrian friendly design, common house, and hybrid spaces. Additionally, this research found that those
features are applied in two design concepts in different ways: the cohousing concept and the hybridization
(diversification) concept. Based on synthesizing those findings; this research defined an innovative concept for built
environment design in urban neighborhoods that can adopt the changing discourse of social capital, which is the
heterotopic concept. The heterotopia concept which is based on the interdisciplinary design approach is the most
suitable approach that fit with the current information age, it concerns designing a single real place made up of
several spaces that are themselves heterogenic. When there is change of social fabric and roles, the heterotopic
spaces will change their function and form. This research recommends focusing on the interdisciplinary design
approach and the heterotopic spaces in new neighborhoods design to adopt the changing discourse of social capital
and to protect our communities from the decline in social health and well-being.
Keywords: Cohousing, Hybridity, Heterotopic spaces, Neighborhood design, Social capital
Introduction
Just we interred the information age; new forms of social networks appeared eroded the traditional bonds of spatial
proximity and kinship, this reflects a social change (Forrest and Kearns, 2001). Therefore, at the latest fifteen years,
new forms and discourses of social relationships and social interaction appeared as a consequence of the
technological boom and wireless neighborhoods which changed the form and discourse of social capital. Researchers
in health and social disciplines insured that there is a crisis in social connectivity, cohesion, and solidarity correlated
with the changing discourse of social capital which may contribute to a decline in public health (Mesch and Talmud,
2010).
New discourse of social capital needs new built environment designs in urban neighborhoods that insure the
community solidarity and cohesion which in turn promote public health because traditional design does not fit with
the information age requirements (McCamant and Durret, 2011). However, there is a gap in knowledge regarding
the design features of urban neighborhoods that should be followed on the light of globalization and information
age.
Neighborhood-based research encouraged new and innovative concepts in designing every single place in the
residential neighborhood in a way that can adopt the new forms of social interaction. This research scanned the upto-date concepts and research of neighborhood design that concerned successfully the changing forms of social
relationships in order to conclude some design features for neighborhood design that can insure promoting social
public health and well-being.
Research Problem
The traditional design of neighborhoods does not fulfill the new needs of the information age societies (McCamant
and Durret, 2011). Moreover, the specific processes and mechanisms of neighborhood design that can adopt new
discourses of social interaction and social capital are poorly understood (Anthony and Nicotera 2008).
Research Objective
This research aims at defining an innovative concept for built environment design in urban neighborhoods that can
adopt the changing discourse of social capital. This research tends to define the innovative concept by merging the
required design features that will be concluded from literature content analysis with the new concepts of
neighborhood design that will be analyzed in this research.
Literature Review
The following text reviews and sumarizes the letrature regarding social capital crisis and its relation to neighborhood
design as following.
Social capital crisis
Social capital is the norms of trust and reciprocity and the concern for the well being of ones community (Caughy,
Campo and Muntaner, 2003). Social capital can be measured by sense of community, community competence,
community empowerment, local organizations, voting behavior, attendance at public meetings, doing volunteer
work, visiting friends, and knowing neighbors (Edmonson, 2003). Societies face a new crisis of social capital; because
in this period the traditional ties of community which are shared space, close kinship links, shared religious and moral
values were being replaced by anonymity, individualism and competition (Forrest and Kearns, 2001). Forrest and
Kearns (2001) found that the lack of social cohesion caused by the new way of life, increasingly urbanized population
and the lack of physical elements which produce and sustain social cohesion.
Social capital is strongly correlated to and can enhance public health. Many scholars have suggested that social capital
is a promising strategy for public health promotion, including Mesch and Talmud (2010) and Lasker et al. (2011).
Neighborhood-level research has focused on defining the health outcomes that can be produced by increasing social
capital. For example, some literature linked social capital to diverse health outcomes such as self-rated health,
mortality, depression, anxiety, obesity, and cardiovascular disease (Kim et al., 2006; Nogueira, 2009). Others found
a clear causal pathway to public health; for example, Folland (2007) argued that social capital can be useful in
reducing stress, heightening coaching or fitness training, providing information, and increasing responsibility for the
well-being of others.
Neighborhood Design
Chaskin (1995) as cited in Spielman and Yoo (2009) identifies three ways of viewing neighborhoods: neighborhoods
as social units, neighborhoods as spatial units, and neighborhoods as a network of associations. Currently,
neighborhoods are viewed as the combination of these three meanings; neighborhood as a socio-spatial unit with
networks of associations. It is the effective neighborhood where the design strength the relationship between the
environment and the human behavior (Walker and Hiller, 2007).
Social capital and neighborhood design
Neighbourhood environment is a potential source of stress and disease, or well-being and health. Promoting
neighbourhood social capital can be a strategy for increasing total health (Nogueira, 2009). Neighbourhoods are
context in which social capital can be fostered, accessed or destroyed, so peoples involvement, trust and
relationships with others and their community are influenced by neighbourhood design and aesthetics (Wood and
Giles-Corti, 2008). On the neighborhood- level research, there is an emerging evidence from interdisciplinary
research that the neighborhood built environment design affects directly the social interaction frequency, form,
and quality (Spielman and Yoo, 2009). However, the neighborhood influences on people's experience still complex
and not well-defined in research (Anthony and Nicotera, 2008).
Based on the notion of socio spatial schema (the neighborhood as a synthesis of multiple social and physical
interactions) Dominguuuez & Aguilar (2002) stated that neighborhood design should have a social meaning and
symbolic function. They concluded that social meanings can be insured through sharing common values and
attitudes. Those common values and attitudes can be enhanced through the neighborhood built environment. In
this context, Michaela, Greenb, & Farquharb, (2006) found that neighborhood context plays a major role in
socializing, supporting, and in promoting active aging.
Wood, L., and Giles-Corti, B. (2008) through their research Is there a place for social capital in the psychology of
health and place? insured that social capital influences and is influenced by the context and characteristics of
neighborhood environments. Even if the form of social relationships changed; there is intangible assets that should
be constant to protect social capital such as good will, fellowship, sympathy, trust, mutual understanding, shared
values and behaviors that bind the members of human networks and communities and make cooperative action
possible (Cohen and Prusak, 2001).
Conclusion of Literature Review
As neighborhoods became a socio-spatial unit with non-kin networks such as friends, neighbors, and co-workers
(Phan, Blumer & Demaiter 2009), there became a need for community designers to create more satisfying living
arrangements (Rogersa and Sukolratanameteeb, 2009). Additionally, there is a need to create new bonds and new
social places in our communities, for example, Butnam in his book better together suggested rebuilding the sense of
community by creating a common goal in a common place in the community (Putnam and Feldstein, 2004).
There is strong linkages between the subjective image of the neighborhood and the sense of belonging to the
neighborhood and the social bonds, connectivity, and capital (Mannarinia et al, 2006). After reviewing the related
literature of the flexible designs of neighborhoods that can accommodate any new conditions; this research found
that there are specific features within the physical environments of neighbourhoods that can influence peoples`
dynamics, interactions and sentiments. Those features are: restorative access to nature, housing design, safety
measures, incivilities, local services, area history, affordances, aesthetics, buildings` envelops, and opportunities for
meeting (Wood and Giles-Corti, 2008). Additionally, Zieersch et al (2005) defined the neighbourhood-based social
capital, which is the neighborhood that accommodates any new types of people, behaviors, relationships, and
attitudes. It is the flexible design neighborhood as features of social organization such as networks, norms and social
trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.
Research Methodology
This research followed a theoretical analytical descriptive approach driven case study method; twenty five articles
were analyzed to conclude the required design features; and two new design concepts of urban neighborhoods with
optimum conditions that adopted new forms of social interaction were studied and analyzed then synthesized to
suggest new concept. Data collected by a historical theoretical approach from archival records, historical accounts,
theoretical research, images empirical research, graphs and statistical information. Data analyzed in tabular displays
by content analysis to be triangulated to construct sufficiently thick description of the neighborhoods` design.
Cases` Analysis: The Concepts of Neighborhood Design that Adopts the Social Transformation
This research studied and analyzed two neighborhoods` concepts that succeed in accommodating the
transformation occurred in the social interaction forms. The two concepts are: cohousing concept and hybridization
(diversification) concept.
The social capital level in the studied neighborhoods is high, it was measured in by previous research by assessing
specific indicators defined by Geoffrey et al., (2006). The indicators are:
social Interaction (people's relationship, shared values, common values)
social cohesion (place attachment, social problems, defensible space, social support)
neighborhood stability (satisfaction, privacy)
community sense (quality green open space, value of public spaces, territoriality)
architectural interest (space enclosure, defensible space, identity, accessibility)
Those indicators were measured by a structured questionnaire and face-to-face interviews with sample of the
residents selected randomly. Onyx and Bullen (2000) developed a 36-item scale to measure social capital, it is the
Social Capital Questionnaire (SCQ). The collected data were analyzed by a latent variable path analysis using Partial
least- squares (PLS) regression procedures with the computer software PLSPATH. The conclusion of previous research
found that the studied neighborhoods that have been design based on the cohousing and hybridization concepts
have a high level of social capital even with the changing discourse of its role and meaning.
The two concepts were studied and analyzed in the following text to conclude the design features of neighborhood
that can adopt the changing discourse of social capital and to be merged with the design features concluded from
the literature.
Cohousing concept
Cohousing concept provides optimal conditions for social interaction in neighbourhoods, it uses design and formal
social structures to encourage social interaction in neighbourhoods (Williams, 2005). Co housing concept is a
community where homes clustered around common shared place and with extra facilities and affordances that
encourage communication among residents as shown in Figure 1 ( Cohousing Association, 2015).
Figure 1. Common shared place at Southside Park Cohousing neighborhood Sacramento, CA

As traditional forms of neighborhoods do not address the new needs of the American community; cohousing concept
appeared in many states in USA where the national policy requires creating livable communities (McCamant and
Durret, 2011). Cohousing concept is guaranteed to encourage social interaction in neighbourhoods and to help
rebuilding the local social capital. Currently there are about 100 cohousing neighborhood at the US (Cohousing
Association, 2015). This in turn helps to build trust between residents, allows for exchanges to take place and creates
social networks (connectedness) and common rules/norms which can be considered as sense of community
(Williams, 2005).
There are common characteristics for cohousing neighborhood that offer many opportunities for residents to interact
with each other. On the level of relationships; neighbors are part of the community for everyone`s benefit, there is
a culture of sharing and caring, and design features promote frequent interaction and close relationships. On the
level of balancing privacy, cohousing neighborhoods are designed for privacy and engagement in which cohousing
model recognizes that privacy inside the houses can help support community life. On the level of participation,
decision making is participatory. On the level of design; it is pedestrian friendly managed and maintained by residents
as shown in Figure 2. In addition, cohousing neighborhoods includes common house for community activities and
shared meals as shown in Figure 3 (Cohousing Association, 2015).
The design approach used in cohousing adopts most of the architectural and urban design principles as being crucial
to high levels of social interaction in neighbourhoods, for example higher densities, good visibility, clustering,
inclusion of defensible space and car parking on the periphery of communities (Williams, 2005). The principles of
designing neighbourhoods that increase the potential for social interaction. These principles are proximity,
walkability, use of buffer zones (semi-private spaces), shared bathways to activity sites, size of community and
communal spaces. Observation of the communities in cohousing neighborhoods showed that in both cases most
social interactions tended to occur in communal or semi-private spaces. These interactions were classified as being:
formal or informal; frequent or infrequent; and sustained or brief.
Figure 2. Pedestrian friendly design in Drivhuset Denmark in which the community covers the street
Figure 3. Common home in Jamaica Plain Cohousing neighborhood in Poston MA
Hybridiization concept
As there is shift in social interaction forms; there became a shift in the architectural language in urban neighborhoods.
In this area of research, Carnegie and Abell (2009) found that at the information age, there is a change in the
architecture role and discourse which caused a shift in its design, space, form and function. The problem is that the
traditional design for neighborhoods doesnt meet the information age requirements, and there is a need for new
designs.
In this context, the neighborhood can become a hybrid space that redefines its identity and navigate the information
age. Currently, the new modes of social organizations change the perception of time and space, hybrid design insure
the surviving of that perception (Fiss, 2009).
Globalization produced cultural hybridity even in our communities; this requires hybrid design and spaces to
accommodate the stage. Therefore, Cultural homogenization and cultural authentication became traditional
concepts that dont fit with the global trends; instead hybridization is the suitable concept.
Hybridizing the material, colors, context, thoughts, activities, spaces, design, and landscape facilitate the
environmental communication between the community and individuals (Quayle and Driessen, 1997) as shown in
Figure 4 and Figure 5. Hybrid neighborhood design can be a culture for the community and a base of sense of
community (Fiss, 2009). Hybrid design reflects the ingenuity of individuals and the togetherness of the group. The
community can find itself in the hybrid principles and elements, in its diversity and in its good attributes as shown in
Figure 10 (Quayle and Driessen, 1997).
Figure 4. Hybridizing the colors and materials at Chapel Street District, New Haven, USA
The most related concept to hybridization is the diversification concept where diverse and mixed communities and
environments can offer a lot of opportunities for meeting and socializing as shown in Figure 6.
UK housing policy focused on the importance of mixed communities as a key element for social health. In this area,
Camina and Wood (2009) found that diversification is expected to improve stability, sustainability, and well-being.
Wood (2003) has highlighted seven principal objectives of tenure diversification: promoting social interaction and
social cohesion; encouraging the spread of mainstream norms and values; creating social capital; opening up job
opportunities through wider social contacts; overcoming place-based stigma; attracting additional services to the
neighbourhood; and producing sustainable regeneration.
At the diverse and mixed communities, the pattern of day-to-day activity is positive and healthy, and the nature and
extent of social interaction is promoted (Camina and Wood, 2009) as shown in Figure 7. Additionally, in diversification
based neighborhoods, residents` satisfaction is higher regarding the quality of life because there are higher chances
for casual contacts between neighbours and acquaintances (Talen, 2009).
Figure 5. Hybridizing the colors and materials at Chapel Street District , New Haven, USA
Figure 6. Opportunities for meeting and socializing at Occidental Square neighborhood, Seattle WA
Figure 7. Patterns of day-to-day activities in most residential neighborhoods at the USA

The phenomenon of hybrid identities, designs, and spaces is a direct result of the restructuring of the architecture of
neighborhoods (Vokic, 2009). Hybridization ( diversification) is related to change and newness, continuity and
sameness, re-locating, re-appropriating and resignifying in a new context. In cultural patterns hybridity was applied
to create new shape of urban environments such as neighborhoods (Wade, 2005).
The Results
The content of twenty five articles related to urban neighborhood design and concepts was studied and analyzed in
tabular displays. The results show that there is a need for non-traditional designs for neighborhoods on the light of
globalization, information age, and technological boom. Some articles suggest new concepts and others suggest new
strategies for the neighborhood design. Many articles described the association between neighborhood design,
health and well-being and the features that may contribute in promoting social capital.
The results of the content analysis show that to adopt new forms of social interaction and to accommodate the
existing diversity of population, thoughts, ages, beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and intentions in urban neighborhoods
there are specific design features should be applied. This research defined the required design features which are:
flexibility in design, mix use, diverse affordances and materials, diverse colors, networks, meeting places, and hybrid
spaces. Those features will encourage the shared sense of morality, common purpose, and sense of belonging to
place. After studying and analyzing the required design features and many neighborho0ods` design worldwide; this
research found two concepts for neighborhood design that applied efficiently the required design features; they are
the cohousing concept, and the hybridization concept. The two design concepts were studied and analyzed to define
and suggest an innovative design concept for built environment design in urban neighborhoods that can be efficient
in adopting the new discourse of social capital; it is the heterotopia concept.
Conclusion and Recommendations
This research found that the design features for neighborhoods that can adopt the changing discourse of social capital
(flexibility in design, mix use, diverse affordances and materials, diverse colors, networks, meeting places, and hybrid
spaces) are available in two concepts; the cohousing and the hybridization (diversification) concept. This research
defined and suggested an innovative concept for built environment design in urban neighborhoods can adopt any
changing discourse in social capital by merging the design features and the two concepts which is the heterotopic
design concept.
Heterotopic design concept offers good visibility, clustering, inclusion of defensible space, proximity, walkability, use
of buffer zones (semi-private spaces), shared bathways to activity sites, communal spaces, hybrid design, and
diversification. The heterotopia concept which is based on the interdisciplinary design approach is the most suitable
approach that fit with the current information age in which the wired neighborhood should have ever-expanding
possibilities for indirect socializing. Interdisciplinary design approach integrates social, physical, visual, technical,
spiritual, and perceptual factors to introduce innovative affordances that adopt the changing discourse of social
capital. Those affordances are based on providing aesthetical and performance driven designs of the buildings
envelope, public spaces, parks, plazas, arenas, and pedestrians. Heterotopic approach concerns designing a single
real place made up of several spaces that are themselves heterogenic (Wade, 2005). Heterotopias spaces are real
built spaces that have been constructed for one purpose but function in different ways (Vukic, 2009). When there is
change of social fabric and roles, the heterotopic spaces will change their function and form. Heterotopia is an ideal
instrument for actors seeking a sense of freedom, because it is multicellular structure, flexible, and able to combine
diverse elements and desires. Heterotopia is a ric concept in urban design ( Dehaene and De Cauter, 2008 ) and can
be applied on the level of urban neighborhood as a solution for the current social capital problem.
This research recommends following the interdisciplinary design approach and the heterotopic spaces in new
neighborhoods design to adopt the changing discourse of social capital and to protect our communities from the
decline of social connectivity, health and well-being. Additionally, this research recommends conducting further
research regarding new problems appeared and associated with new information age, and how can architecture and
design be used to explore and solve those problems.
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GATED COMMUNITIES AND PUBLIC SPACES

AYE YILDIRIM
Research Assistant, Akdeniz University
Abstract
Since a large portion of the world population began to live in cities, intensive migrations from rural areas to populated
urban centers have begun. The search for different housing for affluent segments who are troubled with complex,
dense and heterogeneous structures of cities has triggered "gated communities" in cities. Gated communities cause
socio-spatial segregation, the fragmentation of urban land and particular income groups benefit from this
fragmentation whereas others are not allowed to use those areas. Gated communities have been an object of
consumption promoted as "ideal home" and "ideal life" which presented a combination of fiction and prestige.
Beneath this created environment the main goal is set to finctionalized the case of identity with isolating same groups
around a closed area. In that way the sense of belonging is created by goal. Belongings of determined zone of cities
within held of common groups and using this zones like divided into plots, causing a perish for common areas and
common life based on the city. In that case using isolatedly different places by different (other) groups into city,
causing to fade out richness in plenty of spaces. In conclusion of discriminating spaces make this issue harder which
gathering the pieces of discriminated community again and again eventually rebuilding the communication socially.
This discrimination and differentiation hurt the communications among different stages that build up the society.
Eventually this phenomenon affects usage of common space in a negative way and collapse the union of society so
finally causes the tension among differed and departed social groups in society. Thus they became tools of marketing,
status and consumption has become a way of life as the object that defines excellence. These settlements which are
build on the limited relationship with the city are seen worth investigating with their rapidly increasing numbers in
the city, the space they occupy and their population. It is important to investigate the evolution of gated
communities, the reasons and mechanenisms how and why they are spreading in the world and in Turkey.
Introduction
Accommodation need, is an essential vital need since existence of human being. Accommodation need is identical
with dwelling structure that human being transposes his/her identity into the space. Nowadays, dwelling structures
have some different properties with the globalization. Today, there is a different view the dwellings which are
different from its phenomenological meaning that is now seen as investment, statue and prestige. A rapid change
which has started from 1980s to today, has affected all of the life in all of the life area. Borders looks like disappeared
with globalization but new invisible borders showed up. This borders which are between different social classes has
been physically materialized in enclosure places which are private security areas. One of the important
representations of this physical disintegration of the social classes is called Gated Communities which is enclosure
with walls and has a security in its door and accesses to these areas are controlled.
With Neoliberalism, the income difference between social classes has increased. This difference is caused a lack of
confidence between upper and lower classes, thus upper and middle classes need to disintegrate from the lower
classes and because of this situation there are some borders between upper and lower classes. Gated communities
have been become a consumption object which is described the life style of the owner like prestige, statue and
exclusiveness. These dwellings have been converted to an identity object which is described the owners subject and
statue. Gated communities which are shown up by the factors which are mentioned before are the absolute result
of the social and space disintegration. According to the Berman (2012) Modern Human, on the one hand, try to
figure out the changes which has been become in the world, but on the other hand he tries to find a home which is
a place that he belongs to it in the word and in gated communities routine life which is different from urban
neighborhood communities life by the equipment and social spaces which are had by the gated communities should
be considered within context of this words. But this is important that how should be the search of the home by the
humans.
According to the Blakely and Snyder (1997), gated communities are a dwelling site which public space has been
privatized and the access has been limited. It is surrounded by walls and fences, for controlling the access it has an
entry with security which blocks unauthorized accesses. Gated communities are stronger with doors and walls and
located in city core or sphere. According to Blakely and Snyder (1997) the walls around the communities site has
different meanings from simple physical fences and has many of confusion. These confusions are feeling of fear and
exclusion, protection of urban priority and responsibility, privatization of public services, public and person
environmental control for creating an ideal community and danger of exclusion of citizens.
Gated communities cause a socio-economic fragmentation in cities. Differentiation between this city fragments is
caused a polarization between social classes and build walls between upper and lower income groups. In history
there was several type of structures like gated communities. But the walls and fences which are surrounded the gated
communities that are not new suggestions are differentiated from previous examples by their development,
structure and organization. Space fragmentation which is occurred by existence of these communities that is for
middle and upper classes has reflected to the society and has started to determine cities specifications. Concepts;
like alienation to the society, individualism, social differentiation, urban discrimination has become keywords to
define of city. Dwelling which is become a consumption material with increased communication opportunities that
is increased with globalization is other important reason that the discrimination of the upper and middle income
classes dwelling sites. Urban space differentiation and disintegration caused to the social and space isolation.
Gated Communities
New life styles which have started with globalization need a new dwelling concept and that concept is gated
communities. Descriptions of the gated communities are different from region to region. After all, general description
of the Gated communities is that a dwelling community which is surrounded by walls, fences or barriers and has
common use areas like paths, green spaces that is not open to the public, is protected with security and special
safeguard systems, has a secured access, social spaces that is belong to the site and managed with special
administration.
In todays context, Gated communities are firstly seen on the first half of the 19. Century in United States. Upper
income classes gated communities like Tuxedo Park and St. Louis was built by rich people who want to isolate their
self from industrial city core on the end of the 1800s. There was built gated communities that are symbol of the
prestige, protection and private life in west cost by Hollywood aristocrats (Blakely and Snyder, 1997). Gated
Communities was build limited edition until to build of retired dwellings on 1960s and 1970s. Retired Dwellings are
the first gated communities which are preferred by middle income groups in America. This idea spread into the
middle income classes suburb than spread to the world from 1980s. In addition to this, these years are the time
that crime rate has increased and middle classes need secure places (Blakely and Synder, 1997). According to the
researchers, gated communities have been developed firstly in suburb areas.
Figure 1: Tuxedo Gated Community, www.tuxedoparkestates.com , Access 2015

Suburbs are places for English merchants and American industrialist middle income classes who want to escape from
city and live near the nature. Development of Industries has increased urbanization and suburbs become part of the
city. Gated communities are places for upper and middle income classes from 1970s to 1990s. Nowadays, many of
the American lives in suburbs and this places are expected to meet a lot of needs. These needs are to be close to the
nature, upkeep and tidy environment, to be secure, to be close to the schools that its education is good. Suburbs are
symbol of secure, beauty and ideal and these specifications are looked for in Gated Communities (Blakely and Snyder,
1997). Gated communities which are seen firstly in america has spread all over the world.
This dwelling type was frequently seen in metropolitan area on 1980s but on 1990s, it has reached a remarkable
number. Previous statue symbol like sea viewing house and a neighborhood life which one can choose his friends
and neighbors has been changed and people try to live in an enclosed place with non-familiar neighbors (nc,
Weyland, 2013).
Gated communities which is become an urban phenomenon has distinctive properties like walls which is become a
physical barrier caused a fragmentation in Urban context. Walls and secured walls privatize the public space and
block the access and connectivity. In Addition to this, gated communities abolish the relation with outsider.
Protection of small group which has been made homogeneous and fragmented from society are related with
alienation and social class concepts. Fear which has been created in public is used in marketing of gated communities.
In Gated communities which are look like secure shelter, paths, parks, public spaces and equipment are privatized.
Effects of Gated Communities on Public Spaces
There is a distinction in urban areas between public and private space. Spaces that are used commonly, common
place and Places that are used for common aims can be called Public Space. Spaces that belongs to the individuals
and which is used for special needs can be called Private Spaces. Private Spaces are spaces that are belong to an
individual like dwelling, business center, lands. Semi private and semipublic spaces are corridors that are used access
from public space to private space or from private space to public spaces. Entry spaces, gardens, yards, steps,
corridors are semipublic/semi private spaces.
Distinction between private and public spaces is become harder than old times, because needs of modern society
and the necessities of time are always changed. Understanding of the change of public space depends on
understanding of the change of the relationship between public and private space. In cities, there is a need of spaces
in which one can made cultural, social, politic activities. This places are public spaces. Public space is a platform which
people from different culture, from different ideas can come together and be socialized and communicate. Thus,
everyday life, cultural and social structure can be built. Public spaces are places that are a part of a city or a
community and have directly or indirectly environmental, social, economic benefits to the society. One of the
important concepts of the public space is accessibility. Accessibility which is an important indicator of Public space
as to be open to everyone should be proper to use by every groups of society in both indoor and outdoor spaces.
Lefebvre (2007), in his book which is called everyday life in the modern world, said that public space is a gathering
ground where different social groups, different ideas, different cultures come together and communicate and engage
and transform with each other. Again Lefebvre (2007), defined the public space as open to everyone, to be accessible
by everyone and place of share and action which are bounded by different ideas.
According to Habermas (2012), public space is process, tool and place of public opinion which is operated by private
individuals on common problem. In addition to this, Habermas has said that basic function of public space is to
produce public opinion. Because according to Habermas, public space as an existence and participation place is
created a political participation and a place which is critized the government. And public space should be neutral,
common and open to everyone.
According to Sennett (2002) public space is a material area. It includes a physical area like square, street or boulevard.
These areas are a tool for transformation and reshaping of city. These areas which are a transporter of democracy,
heart of the city, full of memory and deep feelings of citizenship, has lost its meaning since it has transformed into a
motion function . According to Sennett, this situation caused by the urbanization which are caused a cosmopolitan
city by modern architecture but this crisis is a result. According to Sennett (2002) Public spaces has transformed into
formal liability and public space has become individualized. Public Space is emptied and abandoned. The loss of
publicity can be seen in designing of the public space and therefore public space becomes a corridor which is used to
access between areas. In this situation, Public Space becomes a function of motion and it lost its free experience
quality.
In changed new urban areas, individuals become lonely in their private spaces and there no sharing common values
in society, because of previously said that public space lost its quality which Sennet has said public space become a
corridor for access. Now city is not a place which is a public space shared by citizen and become a total of sum of
private spaces.
Sennett has said that distinction between private and public space caused a problem that individual use only public
space and be separated from public space. Individual are in a progress that made a bell glass and live more in private
space than public space. How much individual lives in private space as much separated from public space. This
situation caused a problem that the idea of us has decreased and alienation will have increased and a separated
social comes to being. In chancing new urban areas, public space has lost its quality and like Sennett words become
a corridor, and because of this separation in place and society can be occurred and society would live in small private
spaces like islands. This situation causes a loneliness of citizens. Therefore, city become a sum of this small islands
thus there would not be a social interaction between individuals.
Calderia (1999), in his article which is called Building up Walls, like Sennetts alienation discourse, said that
nowadays many of the cities in the world has been created many public spaces which have no connection with the
ideal of common and general usage which is defined in modern ideals. The ideal which this new public space creating
system depend, are be separate. According to this ideal, different social groups should live in different small
homogenous islands, should be separate from different social groups and should have minimum interaction with
different groups. Consequently, this new space separation structure is basement of new public space type.
According to the Habermas (2012) public space should be open to everyone, common and in neutral quality. Sennet
(2002) defined public space as a space which humans can build intense social interactions with each other. These
social interactions are opportune which humans can connect with different people and can made self-development.
But nowadays public space has an organization which humans come tighter and put roles, like Sennets called it as
privacy ideology, that is defined as all off social evils resources are others, cause a new society which is sum of
different communities. Thus public space which is a place that people from different classes can be in motion in unity
has been destroyed. Both Sennet and Lefebvre emphasize that transformation potential of public space. Societies
that are a structure which is sum of equal units and exclude other can be seen in gated communities. In addition to
this alienation is in gated communities more rapid than other spaces. Sennett (2002) has defined modern era as
change of balance between public and private life. According to him, transformation of the publicity, a change from
out of individual to privacy. The basic factor which transformed the public space is a quake which is caused by
capitalism and humans try to protect their self from this quake create a privacy space and lost their chance to interact
with non-community people. Gated communities destroy all the change to interact with non-community person.
From this point, gated communities caused socio-economic fragmentations in city. Differences between city parts
have been increased and polarization between human has been increased. There is build walls which separate
different social classes. A gated community which is a space differentiation and fragmentation is caused a social and
spatial isolation. Isolation occurs in two type. One is volunteer and the other is unwilling. The persons which creates
volunteer isolation lives under tide security system. Basic reason of the to be volunteer and unwilling is income
difference. Gated communities are a problem which materialized the income difference in spatial organization.
Figure 2: Privatization of public space, an example of Antalya, Original, 2015

Harvey (2002) has said that space distinction is something like what the capitalism wants for sustaining capitalist
connections by aliened society interactions. This means that disintegration is an important factor for reproduction of
Gated communities. All of the disintegrations caused new disintegrations.
Previously stated that because of the some of the urban parts is privatized by certain social groups caused a damage
on the concept of the public space and common life of the city. In this situation city can lost its urban space
richness/diversity because of to use of different spaces by certain groups.
Because of the space disintegration, disintegrated social part can not be union with each other and can not
communicate with each other. As a result of this this situation public space has damaged and the union which is
integrate the society has lost and disintegrated groups in society has some conflicts.
Conclusions
Nowadays distributions of economic imbalances in income and its social reflections, differences of ethnic and
religious structures have revealed society of communities. This situation causes an othering situation between gated
communities and non-gated communities. In this situation heterogeneous structure which is necessity of publicity
has been vanished.
According to the Sennett (2002) city is a place which humans come together, increased the intensity of social life
complexity and is showed humans each other as stranger and in addition to this most important think in cities is
concept of foreignness and cities bring individuals together. Sennett emphasized that cities should have a
heterogeneous demographic structure and humans need to be in relation between them. Nowadays gated
communities which their build has been increased blocked this relationship. Gate communities are an distinction
mechanism that has damage to the heterogeneous social life in which different social groups live in harmony. In
addition to these, gated communities have blocked cultural pluralism.
Gated Communities which have visual barriers like walls fences and controlled doors and controlled the space and
draw social and economic borders, are cut the access of unwanted persons and located in city with special security
systems. Gated communities have been criticized by architects because they are symbol of disintegration from city.
They made an isolated area around the dwelling and put services of marketing. In this created space, identity concept
is draw with isolation and enclosure. Aalbers (2003) emphasized that individuals can protect their social space like
dwelling, swimming pool or golf court but problem is alienation of others and privatization of public space and public
life.
These communities in city, because of their isolation from their surrounding area, there is a fragmented image in
city. This situation is not a positive situation because of its damage to social unity and urban togetherness. Far from
social context, places that are occurred physical distinction and draw borders by surrounded walls will disintegrate
social classes and separated as advantageous and disadvantageous has caused a tension between these groups.
As a consequence of this situation, unity of the society has been decreased and the idea of us has been fade out
and caused alienation in the society and society become apart. Areas like gated communities create a social
disintegration and new cream of the society has aliened the others. These areas are stand and located far away from
city and this situation can be described as escape from other. Alienation is related with marketing strategies which
build on social class difference. Dwelling transform into a consumption material and commercialized as an attractive
life.
As a result, this practice which is made for economic income has negative effects on city and social life. City
administration should be equal to all citizens from different classes and they should shape the city as an equal place
for all of the citizens. Surplus value which is produced in city should be shared equally by all of the citizens. But gated
communities can be caused some discrepancies and conflicts in city, surplus returns to cream of the society. For
achieving to this aim, instead of the places organization which caused social isolation and close to the other, there
should need a new dwelling planning program which is be equal to all of the social classes and its aim should be put
a balance in spaces which all of the social classes can interact with each other. There is a need that gated communities
should be reinterpreting by the aspects of security, privacy and these aspects should be referred as design criteria.
This type of dwellings can be caused social problems and this dwelling type is not for relaxing and security, they have
been built for profit.
References
Anonymous (2015). www.tuxedoparkestates.com, Access date: 02 September 2015.
Aalbers, M., (2003). The Double Function Of The Gate: Social Inclusion And Exclusion In Gated Communities And
Security Zones, Paper presented at the Conference Gated Communities: Building Social Division or Safer
Communities?, University of Glasgow, 18-19 September 2003.
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Blakely, E.J. ve Snyder, M.G., (1997). Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States, Brookings Institution
Press Washington, D.C.
Calderia, T., (1999). Sao Pauloda Yeni Meknsal Ayrmlama: Duvarlar na Etmek, Birikim, 123, Temmuz, 87-96,
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Habermas, J. (2012). Kamusalln Yapsal Dnm, letiim Yaynlar, stanbul
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TRANSCENDENTAL URBAN ARCHITECTURE: GLAZED

OLYMPUS
KELSEY HARRISON
Architecture is the will of the epoch translated into space
-Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
While post-modernism has made the emphatic point that there are a multiplicity of wills in any epoch and many
perceptions of what defines the epoch as such, this multiplicity does not receive massive funding for architectural
feats. Architecture is the will of the rich patron translated into space. Today, the patrons of iconic and astronomically
expensive architecture are the state and the international cultural elite. It is the state invoking cultural eliteness and
the cultural elite invoking transcendence of state into an international sphere of taste and power.
Hallmarks of iconic architecture from one period of design and building technology included weightiness, sturdiness,
and robust, and stern presence. In another epoch, grace and ornament that disguised great structural load-bearing
elements. And in another, sparseness and transparency of structural components. All of these particulars express the
will of the patron combined with the possibilities of the technological moment. In each epoch, these manifestations
of taste, capital, and engineering translated subjectivity into space and by standing and demonstrating the
subjectivity with which they are imbued, advocate it. Architecture is the subjectivity, not the will, of an epoch
translated into space, or in our case today, into a spatial image, as site has been rendered visual.
The function of avant-garde architecture is to draw attention to itself. It becomes an icon by being hyper visible in
the skyline. And yet there is a tendency of the starchitects who win major bids with eye-catching signature design
to make small, perfunctory gestures to locate their project in rhetoric of site-specificity. These gestures are entirely
formal, material, and aestheticwhich is to say superficial. Renzo Piano described the glass and metal faces of his
Art Institute extension as reminiscent of the Chicago skyline in their materials, despite the very evident fact that he
uses the same materials in similar configurations in projects in London, Boston, and New York. The formal similarity
between his projects is evident mostly because his projects are produced in and discussed in the realm of
International Important Architecture and we see the works in conversation with not their earthly context but their
discursive one. We see this discursive plane extrapolated through the circulation of images and the subsequent
circulation of moneyed connoisseurs of culture to those image-like sites. Paul Goldberger, architectural critic for the
New York Times from 1997 until 2011, attributes the phenomena of nationlessness or sitelessness of the
architecture to the desire of clients to live in and around architecture that speaks of another place. International
becomes instead universal, negating nuance. Adorno speaks of the universal laying deterministically over the specific
and individual as a mechanism that belongs to a totalizing culture. In this instance, international-ness becomes a
universal style that stands generally for power and wealth. The same forms by the same architects are repeated in
cities all over the world in a desire to prove the commissioning citys participation in the global economy. Architecture
is the will of a major patron translated through the design of a major internationally recognizable architects use of
the newest engineering capacities into spacebut also into image, conversation, coffee table books, and renderings.
What do these image-buildings teach us about our subjectivity?
The way that the developers and designers think about the concept of site tells us that site is an aesthetic location
more than a material one. A project like Frank Gehrys 8 Spruce Street in New York tells us that his conception of site
is not only superficially aesthetic (as opposed to historical, defined by use or memory) but it is visual. He makes this
presupposition abundantly clear in the way that his tower rises dazzlingly, deeply imbued with a sense of Gehryness (as opposed to Lower Manhattan-ness, or New York-ness, or even American-ness) over the Lower Manhattan
skyline for all who are at least fifteen blocks away to see properly, but for the pedestrians walking directly past the
site, he designed a featureless brick plinth. He didnt spare an ounce of Gehry-ness for the sited body passing in
direct physical proximity to the tower. He saves it all for the sighted body. He saves it for the skyline. Buildings are,
or have been, primarily sites of circulation, so it would follow that design criticism would engage architecture at the
level of user interaction. However, since projects like Gehrys Spruce Street tower ask to be engaged visually and
from a particular (anywhere but near the building) vantage, we must evaluate it on the level of spectator or viewer
reception. That the architecture forces this mode of engagement begs the question, who is the audience? Who has
visual access to the skyline?
If one looks at the renderings of the coming skyline, the best vantage is from the sales websites of other high-rise
residential towers. Since most of us do not have access to these private sky-scraping mixed-use utopias, our access
to these works are through the iconic image, circulated in conversation not with site but with other images of iconic
architecture from around the world. This mode of distribution has perpetuated the phenomenon of designing for the
eye, and more specifically, designing for the disembodied, siteless eye attuned to a conversation that takes place on
a discursive plane and not a material one. You dont make memories of living dynamically in public space in a Renzo
Piano museum or a Violy museum. You are either distanced in order to take in the object-image from afar, or you
are confronted with the symbolic order of a new gilded age (depending on the neighborhood) to which we are not
invited in body, but through our vision.
The new mixed use residential luxury condominium towers are mostly named for their street address. We see this in
the trends of a handful of luxury high rises whose construction is slated to finish in 2016 in New York: 45 East 22nd St,
626 First Avenue, Pier 17, 30 Park Place, 111 West 57th Street, and 220 Central Park South. (As an aside, these six
gigantic and skyline-altering projects are divided between only three different starchitect firms.) This strange and
superficial gesture toward site is in keeping with gestures like Renzo Pianos superficial formal resemblances framed
as site specificity. Snhetta, an international design firm with offices in Norway and New York, describes their design
of faade of their addition to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, undulating fiberglass-reinforced polymer, as
reminiscent of the waters of the nearby San Francisco Bay. Flagrantly overlooking the fact that the museum does not
abut water, the concept of site is loosely interpreted to serve other, more sincere, aesthetic interestsnamely
techno-futurism. Even in the material description of the undulating faade we can read a technofetishistic libido that
is motivating the design of the SFMOMA addition. The motor behind the design decisions in these new global iconic
structures is forward, and not backward (historical) or lateral (contextual) locating. The improbably tall glass
residential high rises arriving by the dozens annually in New York and around the world herald in a future subject
who experiences the world visually and navigates the world in a network of information rather than a network of
space, and who anticipates changes in technology that will alter the landscape as well as the body. It was not always
the case that architecture served as a monument to futurity. Architecture has, in other epochs, served to entrench
and reinforce the ways of living and social order of its moment. Of course, the starchitecture of today, while it is a
monument to technological futurity, does its part in entrenching social orders of its moment. The architecture in
question naturalizes a future in which power and capital is intensely concentrated and the future is promised to a
very select population. This eliteness expresses itself in the price of participation in the futurity this architecture
promises. At the same moment that it excludes ninety-nine percent of the population from the future, it naturalizes
itself as the inevitable trajectory of the history of design by positioning itself in a lineage of genius.
One of the only spatial contextual details a starchitect is reverently attentive to is the work of a prior epochs
starchitect. This rhetoric is most evident in the descriptions of Pianos, Violys, and Skhettas expansions of major
museums like the LACMA, The Broad, The Cleveland Museum of Art and the SFMOMA. The genuflection to genius of
the past is not so much reverence to the way the building operates spatially as a designed environment for the body,
but another location in a map of data that makes up architectural greatness through time. By weaving a glass
arcade through and around a Greek revival pavilion by Hubbell and Benes (in the case of Violys Cleveland Museum
of Art addition in 2012), or erecting an elevated glazed protuberance over a Georgian revival by Coolidge, Shepley,
Bulfinch and Abbot (as in the case of Pianos Harvard Art Museum renovation in 2014), todays starchitects link
themselves to the historical cannon at the same time that they project themselves into the future cannon with their
forwardly-contextual placement laid out above.
The technology that is available to build higher, lighter, more narrowly, and more dizzyingly allows architects to
express and elaborate an ease of improbable movement like never before. These technological innovations and
trends in avant-garde architecture more broadly reach their most extreme expression in the increasingly present
phenomenon of the luxury high-rise condominium. Since the advent of the early skyscraper, facades no longer bear
weight, allowing them to be constructed with more and more glass. This is evident in the shiny, glazed needles
commanding more than six thousand dollars per square foot in Manhattan today. By virtue of the new building
capacities to include so much glass, the most modern skylines are overwhelmingly reflective, taking on the properties
of the day and sky the buildings are located within. This, the sky, is the true context of these contemporary
monuments to groundlessness. The towers reflect the sky in their surfaces, and instead of receding into the field
whose qualities they begin to take on, they instead capture and reproduce in more concentrated luster the sky that
they reflect. They reflect the sky, capture it, and make it spectacular in their surfaces. This expresses visually what
the developers express verbally in their sales sites. For example, the sales site for Robert A. M. Sterns 30 Park Place
opens to an image of a cloudless sky which fills the whole webpage and a text over lay reading, Where views kiss
the sky. If one scrolls down the overly interactive web page, the first heading reads, Stature in the sky. The
language on this site is repeated with variation on the sales sites of many of the high-rise luxury rental towers now
under construction in New York. They all offer 360-degree views by virtue of their glass facades. They offer, tacitly,
ownership of the sky. This, I believe, is why so little attention is paid to the relationship of the pedestrian to the
building. This experience is not for a walking body. This building is for a community of elevated bodies, a transcendent
body. And here, techno-futurism creeps into the promised subjectivity for which these buildings stand. They conjure
not an elevated body per se, but a subject elevated from the body itself. The enhanced transhuman body is capable
of seeing in all directions, does not live on the earthly plane, and engages the world through vision and information
alone.
This transhuman body is produced at great monetary expense, since the body being simulated in these environments
both is and is not extant. This present and conjured body, therefore, requires great fanfare to be invoked in the
appearance of completeness. The body can presently be surgically altered and technically enhanced, also at great
monetary expense. The body can be moved at inhuman speeds and heights with technology that exists today, the
higher the expense the more accurately the experience of freedom is simulated. And still, the mundane experience
of walking from one room to the next or down a city block in the great cold shadows of mega-tall buildings has not
been overcome. Attempts have been made to travel down city blocks in truly transhuman fashion through
technologies like hover boards and the Segway before it. By using the same mechanism as the culture industry
identified in Adornos analyses, namely that mechanism of superimposing a reified simulation of freedom that
appears to respond to a desire for freedom that arises organically in the masses, the architecture in question offers
a simulated experience of transhuman life. The quality of superimposition of fulfillment of organically arising desire
for freedom is potent in the current example since the experience of the fulfillment is through the mechanism of
exclusion and therefore projected experience. The majority of people who encounter this architecture will never go
inside, let alone live with views that kiss the sky in every direction. For the majority of people encountering this
architecture, the earth is still the plane on which they dwell. But through the visual encounter, the excluded masses
understand their earthbound-ness in direct proportion to the experience of transcendence they project for the
owners of the penthouses at 111 West 57th Street. Like an urban, multi-national Olympus, we pre-transhumans
mythologize the lives and powers of the gods who live on high among us. We are like Krakauers shop girl at the
movies whose happiness is recognizing that she will never be the movie star on the screen before her.
Architecture, in the form of the towering, glittering, transcending, 360-degree panopticon of the still-embodied
masses, is a reproduction of the relations of production that exist in our new gilded age. These towers stratify space
in a direct reflection of the socio-economic stratification they embody. They are temples to the living gods and
memento vivere, or a reminder that one must live on the earth while those with power live in the sky in a network of
such seats of vision. They point beyond themselves to an as yet impossible experience of transcending human life as
we know it. The occupants of these contemporary Olympuss are global citizens. The concept of the nation does not
apply to these supremely mobile transhuman citizens of everywhere. Many of the condominiums in these high rises
are purchased as investments by wealthy foreigners and either rarely occupied or entirely unoccupied. This fact
stands in stark contrast to the utopian strain of Modern architectures experiments in affordable urban dwelling. The
contemporary crop is not engaged in such utopianism. The utopia of the present moment is an exclusive one.
The predecessor to these residential towers were the deconstructivist or wildly post-modern museums dropped into
the landscape like UFOs. The often-referenced example of this phenomenon was Gehrys Bilbao Guggenheim
commission. The very real effect of this alien architecture was a new pattern of tourism and urban renewal that
followed its completion in 1997. This economic effect of starchitecture is sometimes referred to as the Bilbao effect
for this reason. Soon after Gehrys Bilbao museum, directors of museums worldwide hired big name architects to
design their expansions and extensions. The museums describe themselves as public amenities but function as the
cultural equivalent of a trickle-down cultural experience. One has the feeling inside of a starchitect designed building
that there are entire halls and wings that are reserved for the patrons of the project. One is never unaware that the
museum extension or museum was funded by private donors, and that your experience of this spatialized futurity is
sponsored by the demi-gods for whom such space is common. The Bilbao effect is tourism of our own promised
future, translated into space.
THE SEARCH FOR A NEW ORDER: PERRAULTS

DISCURSIVE APPROACH ON ARCHITECTURE
RABA DEM AVDAR
ANKAYA UNIVERSITY
Cogito ergo sum. I think therefore I am. All path-breaking situations realized after human discovered his mind was
separate from his body. All orders destroyed in order to reshape. In Precisions, Corbusier (1930) stated, To create
architecture is to put in order. Put what in order? Functions and objects. This statement was a reflection of 20 th
century understanding of order in architecture. However, the process in the changing meaning of order needs
more deliberately examination. Adrian Forty (2000) suggested four definitions of order to understand the changing
meaning of the word until 1970s;
1. The attainment of beauty, through a relationship of parts to the whole; 2. The representation of the ranks (orders)
of society; 3. The avoidance of chaos through architectures use as model, or instrument of social and civil order; 4.
In an urbanistic sense, to resist the inherent tendency of cities to disorder.
This multiplicity of definition showed that order changed during the history; here it will be tried to focus on where
crisis begin in the definition of Vitruvian form of order both in Taxis of cosmological understanding and in
symmetria of epistemic definitions.
Crisis and Scientific Revolution
By proliferating versions of the paradigm, crisis loosens the rules of normal puzzle-solving in ways that ultimately
permit a new paradigm to emerge. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution
In Kuhnian perspective not only discrepancies but also anomalies could be defined as counter instances where crisis
turns into a Popperian permanent issue. The statement of perpetual crisis could also predicate to the Baconian
thought where knowledge accumulated. Every new discovery or invention either solve puzzle or loop the paradigm
as being an anomaly. Thus, crisis turns itself a never-ending process from 17th century where the rupture situated
itself as differentiation of formal and transcendental dimension of a system. Alberto Perez Gomez (1983), with
reference to Husserl, depicted the beginning of the crisis that was the end of classical geometry and the appearance
of non-Euclidian geometries which occurred around the end of 17th century to the mid of 18th centuries.
The geometry of Lebenswelt (the world as lived) began to loosen its rules by the effects of the Scientific Revolution.
Here the Scientific Revolution (Henry, 1997) not only refer to Kuhnian term as paradigmatic shift but also refers to
a period of European history when conceptual, methodological and institutional foundations of modern science were
first established around 17th century, it is the time that knowledge of the natural world totally changed. The changes
which began around mid of 16th century to mid of 18th century, could not be classified under the term science when
it occurred, they could be defined under term natural philosophy (Henry, 1997) which aim to describe and explain
the entire system of the world. John Henry (1997) claims that with the recognition of the pragmatic values of
mathematic in the Renaissance period, mathematicians began to defined as elite natural philosophers in social
status; through the 17th century,
the upshot was that natural philosophy itself, once entirely contemplative and qualitative, became increasingly
pragmatic and quantitative as mathematicians showed the relevance of their work to an understanding of nature.
Natural philosophy completely transformed; this transformation was a change of practice. It was a kind of change;
how the techne determined the way of doing something.
The culmination point of the transformation process could be seen on the Isaac Newtons Mathematical Principles
of Natural Philosophy where natural philosophy was based on mathematical principles. Henry (1997) reveals three
aspects of Scientific Revolution which are the increased use of mathematics to understand the workings of the
natural world, the new emphasis upon observation and experience for discovering the truth, and the newly extended
assumption (previously confined to comparatively humble mathematical and magical practitioners) that natural
knowledge should be useful.
Transformation in understanding of natural philosophy was a kind of mathematization, theorization and

instrumentation of natural philosophy (may be of nature itself). Thus, it is possible to pose that the dichotomy of
theory and practice could be originated to the period of Scientific Revolution.
Mathematical demands became revolutionary where some of the natural philosophers regarded new proposals as
being on illegitimate grounds; such as Copernicus new system of astronomy, which only offered by abstract
mathematical arguments. Copernicus proposed his new system of astronomy, in which the sun replaced the earth as
the central body, while he was trying to solve the problems of Ptolemaic astronomy. In Ptolemaic astronomy, earth
was at the central of all Holy system, but this definition cause some problems and could not answer some practical
daily situations. Copernicus revolution making text, defined by Kuhn, unveils the physical truth; as Henry (1997)
stated, no matter how contrary to natural philosophy the motion of the earth may seem, Copernicus insisted, it
must be true because the mathematics demands it. Copernicus advocated that mathematics could explain a physical
situation. This is also a revolution in thought; mathematics began to use not only to describe but also to explain the
new proposals. Mathematically proven of claim was a kind of adequacy, which raised the claim to the legitimate
ground.
Jesuits education system in which Rene Descartes was educated, could be seen another important contribution to
the mathematization of natural philosophy. According to Henry (1997), mathematics had a significant role in their
ratio studiorium- Order of studies-besides physics and metaphysics. Descartes depicted mathematics role in the
sciences learned in Jesuits pedagogical system in his book Discourse on the Method,
I was especially delighted with the mathematics, on account of the certitude and evidence of their reasonings; but
I had not as yet a precise knowledge of their true use; and thinking that they but contributed to the advancement of
the mechanical arts, I was astonished that foundations, so strong and solid, should have had no loftier superstructure
reared on them.
The peak point of mathematization was the Isaac Newtons Principia Mathematica Philosophiae NaturalisMathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy that dated to 1687. As Henry (1997) emphasized, It demonstrated
mathematically the truth of Keplers laws of planetary motion and initiated modern lunar and cometary theory. It
showed the usefulness of mathematics to an understanding of both the celestial and terrestrial realms, and finally
refuted the Aristotelian distinction between sublunary and superlunary physics.
One important aspect of the mathematization is that measurement and quantification got a significant role in
changing natural philosophy. Aristotelian natural philosophy based on qualities, instead new natural philosophy after
mid of 16th century defined itself with quantity. In the end of the 16th century, with Copernicus new system of
astronomy, heliocentric cosmos replaced Ptolemaic cosmos where earth was at the center. A shift occurred in
Aristotelian cosmology with quantifying the world. Number emancipated from its cosmological ground and turn
into something more abstract and instrumental.
Measurement involved precise observation with some instruments. In 16 th and 17th century, diverse range of
instruments came into use both in mathematics and in physics, such as telescope, microscope, barometer and
thermometer. The observation and both inventing and using some instruments increased practical knowledge and
cause the development of experimental method. Mathematization could be seen as the source of experimental
method.
The rise of mathematics means the rise of mathematicians. Mathematicians began to get an authoritative role as
intellectual elites in society after the end of 16th century. Collaborative groups, stimulated by experimental method
and mathematization of theory, took place as a power in the transformation of natural philosophy. Academies began
to establish by governments especially in France and England, as the representation of these collaborative powers.
Bacons Solomon House which was a kind of temple of science formed as a proto-academia, which insisted on
scientific based society, in Bacons utopian novel titled New Atlantis. It showed that new natural philosophy rose on
mathematical grounds. In academies, not only rhetoric and metaphysics taught, but also geometry, arithmetic and
astronomy began to teach for the education of young architects.
Number, Mathesis, Theoria, Microcosmos and Macrocosmos
Alberto Perez Gomez (1983) claims that to illustrate the development of the mathematization of the theory in
architectural intentionality involves to analysis of the changing meaning of geometry and number in 17 th and 18th
century. What changed in the understanding of geometry and number, which caused the radical change in the
understanding of microcosms and macrocosms? Mathesis, which refer to what could taught and learned, was
something invariable, familiar and accessible in Greek culture and its exemplar was number. Where Mathesis was
accessible knowledge, theoria, apprehension of reality at a distance was not far from mathesis. The knowledge of
Mathesis had direct relations with magicians and mythos; mathematics was belongs to a magical world and magicians
were the people who engage with number. Numbers perceived as transcendental symbols until 17 th century.
Theoria contained mythos in itself explicitly until the end of Renaissance, implicitly until the end of 17 th century.
As Gomez (1983) stated Architecture was not concerned exclusively with the cathedral or temple, but the physical
configuration of the new human world had to conform to mathesis that linked microcosm and macrocosm. This
physical configuration of new human world constituted the logos of architecture where sources came from mathesis,
which means numbers. Tzonis and Lefaivre (1986) described this world-making activity as temenos; Every classical
work is in a sense, a temenos, cut out from the rest of the universe by virtue of its special order. To fashion this work
is to make a world with a world. Thus making a world within a world suggested a microcosm (which could also refer
to human) constructed by transcendental numbers in a macrocosm (which could also refer to nature) in Classical
Architecture. Mathesis which conducted both theoria and making (practice) was not a separated phenomena; in
Aristotelian world theoria is just an elucidation of the practice where both of them covered by mathesis.
Until the 17th century in which Aristotelian world became an ex-paradigm with the scientific revolutions, numbers
maintained its character as being transcendental figures, which links human and divine, and amalgamation between
microcosm and macrocosm. Geometry and numbers descended from heavenly bodies shifted into formal and
analytical expressions with the speculations of Galileo and Cartesian geometry. This means that numbers lost its
magical character and became instrumental where theory became a separate formation. What happened in 17 th
century was that the number, as link between human and divine became questionable, numbers lost their
cosmological ground and turned into tools, which aid architecture to solve technical problems. With the Newtons
Laws, geometry and number were totally described as formal disciplines and in that kind of framework; architecture
was not an art of imitation anymore; the order which was a mimesis of nature (such a description world in a world)
begun to be order of geometrical formations after 17th century. This shift has seen as a search for new order that
long through the 20th century where the roots originated to the 17th century.
It is possible to claim that theory and practice of architecture were not parallel developments; theoretical
accumulation and discussions was more progressive than practice; while practice was deal with technological process
or decoration, theory was interested in searching a new order where architecture deprived of its content. In classical
architecture; invisible mathesis (magical character of number sourced by human body) guaranteed the value of the
architectural work, but after number got out of divinely character; what would be guarantee the value? This was the
question until to 21st century; new order suggested by new mathematic just tried to solve the lost content.
Mathematization of Architectural Theory
In 17th and 18th century, architectural theory grounded a sceptical epistemological framework where sciences and
humanities were not having clear demarcations. Science as a power became an instrument on the hands of newly
flourished nation state thoughts and it was possible to see undeniable consequences of scientific development on
society.
New epistemology caused a quarrel between Moderns and ancients (Rizzuto, 2010); Scientists and intellectuals
throughout Europe began to debate not only the authority of ancient texts and art, but also their role as canonical
works to be imitated. The debate was mostly effected the France not only in sciences but also in art and letter. The
reason of the Querrelle was that to show new modern achievements equal or superior to ancient Roman or Greek
Culture, especially in French where Louis XIV, latterly called the Sun King, came to the throne in the 17th century.
The key figures of the Querrelle were Jean Baptiste Colbert, consultant and supervisor of Louis XIV and his colleagues
like Perrault Brothers, Charles, Claude and Nicholas. To show the superiority of the golden age of French monarchy
two separate ways used; first one is to examine the Greek and Roman culture for building better and second one is
to be open to new scientific developments especially to the Cartesian thought.
For examining Greek and Roman culture, Antoine Desgodetz assigned to make a research and to unveil the classical
system of Greeks and Romans in 1674. The measurements showed that there was no such a clear system and that
there were some problems in Serlio and Palladios published measurements. The findings (Mallgrave, 2006) echoed
in scientifically thinking theoreticians, such as Claude Perrault.
New scientific developments had rigorous effects on architectural theory. Divided epistemology caused divided
representations on architecture. Dalibor Vesely (2004) exposed three different groups of architects who determine
their own path with regard to new science,
The influence of the new science on architectural thinking can be illustrated by three groups of architects, who
responded to it in different ways. The first tended to follow, rather dogmatically, the inherited tradition, ignoring the
fact that the framework that had once made it possible to speak about architecture as reflecting and representing
cosmic order was already seriously undermined and to a great extent sterile. This tendency was exhibited most clearly
by Franois Blondel, Ren Ouvrard, and Charles tienne Briseux. The second embraced the possibilities of the new
science, and in their number were Claude Perrault, Michel de Fremin, Jean-Louis de Cordemoy, and Carlo Lodoli. The
third and most interesting were the architects aware of the new intellectual force of science who were able to
reconcile it with a critical and inventive interpretation of tradition. To this group belonged Francesco Borromini,
Guarino Guarini, and Bernardo Vittone; more tentatively, we might add Giovanni Santini, Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer,
and Balthasar Neumann.
Here the second group who embraced the possibilities of new science, focally Claude Perrault, had a significant role
in mathematization of architectural theory. Claude Perrault as a scientist and building-maker was not far from new
scientific developments, he was the defender of new Cartesian thought by using it in physics. Cartesian thought,
named according to Ren Descartes complete works, had radical influences on transformation of accustomed
thoughts and transformation of Aristotelian world. Descartes wrote in French and his writings had profound
influences on French academic society in age of Louis XIV. Influence was sudden and radical with the help of language,
French.
Descartes duality by the division of nature to cogito and extensa created a shift on the understanding of cosmology
and the definition of reality. As Rizzuto(2010) exposed,
Descartes Cogito led to a dualism that established a separation between an intelligent nature and physical nature.
For Descartes the world is divided between two forms of substance: the res extensa, and the res cogitans, or mind,
each with a specific discipline that studies it. Res extensa is studied and analyzed by the science of physics, res
cogitans by philosophy and theology. Each of the two substances has properties that are unique to it and that define
it. The res extensa is spatially extended, measurable by geometry, infinitely divisible, its mechanical motion is
determined by the impact of other bodies, and it is without free will or any moral qualities. It exists without the
capacity for reasoning. The res cogitans occupies no space, is not in motion and has the capacity for reasoning,
remembering, denying, free will, and is morally responsible for its actions. Its principle property is the attribute of
consciousness.
Cartesian duality, the split of body and mind, mainly caused that the theory not only perceived but also conceived by
mathematical clarity with reason. Number separated from transcendental values. Although during the 17 th century
it was accepted that the benevolent God had created the universe based on geometrical laws, the final causes of
nature became questionable. Vesely (2004) stated that,
In the new epoch, architecture was treated as a discipline emancipated from the cosmology and metaphysics of the
European tradition. It became an introverted domain, with buildings designed either according to criteria of personal
judgment and taste or as anonymous constructions fulfilling only the most elementary requirements or strict
technical specifications. No longer connected to the cosmic and metaphysical structure of the world, architecture
participated in a transformation in which the cosmic paradigm of order was gradually replaced by a historical one.
As a result, the vertical articulation of the world was subordinated to a horizontal articulation. The question of origins,
speculation about the role of primitive precedents, historical styles, and the realization of utopia began to dominate
architectural thinking.
Cartesian thought brings the horizontal articulation. Thus, horizontal articulation, which is substituted hierarchical
world image of Aristotle, explains the sequent improvements in the history of architectural theory; such as searching
the origins in primitive hut as in the theory of Laugier, and searching ancient civilizations like Egypt as in the form of
De Quincys theory of architecture.
The dichotomy between mind and body made a radical change in the understanding of proportion which was based
on human body since the Greek Culture. Proportion began to determine by more abstract and reasonable figureinstrumentalized mathematic, instead to determine by ephemeral human body. Perrault (1683) described ancients
proportion as The ancients rightly believed that the proportional rules that give buildings their beauty were based
on the proportions of the human body and that just as nature has suited a massive build to bodies made for physical
labor while giving a slighter one to those requiring adroitness and agility, so in the art of building, different rules are
determined by different intentions to make a building more massive or more delicate. Now these different
proportions together with their appropriate ornaments are what give rise to different architectural orders, whose
characters, defined by variations in ornament, are what distinguish them most visibly but whose most essential
differences consist in the relative size of their constituent parts.
Symmetry, Proportion, Order
To claim the relative size in constituent parts of an architectural work created a question where this relativity came
from in canonical works in which it was believed that everything was based on strict rules. To conceive what Perrault
meant by saying proportion, it must be examined the changing meaning of the word symmetria. Tzonis and
Lefaivre (1986) explained Symmetry in terms of all kinds of relations between architectural elements in Classical
architecture. This definition covered the Vitruvian(15BC) definition of Symmetry which was Symmetry is a proper
agreement between the members of the work itself, and relation between the different parts and the whole general
scheme, in accordance with a certain part selected as standard. Thus in the human body there is a kind of symmetrical
harmony between forearm, foot, palm, finger, and other small parts; and so it is with perfect buildings.
This correspondence between elements is not the same as bilateral symmetry, which refer to the same relations
according to one axis or plane. It is claimed (Tzonis & Lefaivre, 1986) that, Here, Symmetry is used to cover
universally all constraints of architectural composition that refer to how elements are chosen and placed in relation
both to one another and to the overall structure and taxis. Tzonis and Lefaivre suggested two schemata, which were
followed for constituting symmetry; first one is rhythm and the second one is architectural figures. Mentioning
rhythm in ancients directly correlates the musical harmony when architectural figures resemble typified units,
which constitute order in human bodily ratios. Here emphasizing the changed meaning of symmetry in 17 th century
is important. As Hon and Goldstein (2005) quoted from Vitruvius,
Vitruvius tells us that symmetry is the appropriate agreement of the elements of the work itself, a correspondence
[responsus], in any given part, of the separate parts to the entire figure as a whole. Just as in the human body, there
is a symmetric quality of eurhythmies [symmetros est eurythmiae qualitas] expressed in terms of the cubit, foot,
palm, digit, and other small units, so it is in perfect works [of architecture]. It is significant that correspondence
[responsus] here refers to a relationship of the parts of the structure to the whole, and not between parts on the
right and similar parts on the left with respect to some axis, as the modern notion would suggest. Vitruvius defines
symmetry as a special kind of relation between the parts and the whole that is designed to attain some value,
aesthetic or practical: appropriate agreement [conveniens consensus] is Vitruviuss formulation of his value.
Hon and Goldstein (2005) exposed that Perrault thus translates Vitruviuss symmetria in Latin by proportion in
French in order to avoid the ambiguity in the meaning of symmetria at his time. By making this clear-cut distinction
he called attention to the fact that Vitruvius does not use symmetria to mean correspondence of right and left.
What Hon and Goldstein claimed is that Perrault used the term proportion instead of Symmetria, for preventing
the misunderstandings of French usage at time. But something more behind the usage of the term proportion by
Perrault; what Perrault did by using proportion, he emancipated both architectural elements from human bodily
ground and rhythm from musical effects, he suggested a quantified proportion which means mathematically defined
proportions.
Rizzuto (2010) quoted from Claude Perrault that, how ill-founded is the opinion of people who believe that the
proportions supposed to be preserved in architecture are as certain and invariable as the proportions that give
musical harmony its beauty and appeal, proportions that do not depend on us but that nature has established with
absolutely immutable precision and that cannot be changed without immediately offending even the least sensitive
ear.
Perrault stated (Rizzuto, 2010) that five classical orders represented the existant rule and proportion was used in
architectural works in two ways, first one was imimating the established model and the second one was using of an
established set of proportions such as Palladio and Vignola did. Perrault preference (Perez Gomez, 1983) was
constituting a new order with a mathematical proportionality. He used a third of the diameter of a column instead
of the traditional semidiameter to regulate all architectural elements and to reach the whole numbers at the end.
What Perraults module applied to the proportion was that of quantification of Vitruvian proportions. Perrault
proposed mathematical representation of proportion conceived by reason; this was the definition of what Perrault
called positive beauty- actually could be defined as symmetria of whole numbers. He rationalized the
proportional rules; architectural proportion lost its character being a link between microcosms and macrocosms,
because new science brought new epistemology where numbers were not Holy elements.
In Perrault theory, positive beauty came with its opposite, arbitrary beauty; Perrault claimed that arbitrariness
depends on authority and habit. With the emancipation of proportion from its human-bodily ground, the reasonable
choice criteria of architectural figures could be arbitrary which means depends on custom. Thus, it was the first
time in architectural theory to link the choice of architects with authority in Perraults proposal of double-sided
beauty. Perrault theory was a path-breaking statement; his Cartesian approach on architecture opened a new path
on understanding of architecture. Claude Perrault shifted architecture from cosmological ground and connected it
with institutions of civil society; according to him, architecture was something changed by time and had direct
relations with human conventions. Perez Gomez (2005) explained that there is nexus between architecture and
custom rather than nature; in Perraults theory, architecture was a language rather than analogon of cosmos.
Here Perrault choice to use custom is significant, because Kants conceptualization of culture had not been yet
on the stage of history; Perraults approach is a proto-Kantian argument of nature/culture dichotomy. Perrault (1683)
found a nexus between the beauty and the form;
...the beauty of a building, like that of human body, lies less in the exactitude of unvarying proportion and relative
size of constituents parts than in the grace of its form, where in nothing other than pleasing can sometimes give rise
to a perfect and matchless beauty without strict adherence to any proportional rule.
He opposed to be strictly depending on proportional (symmetrical in Latin) rules, which defined as five classical
orders. Being inventory on form synthesis was a third way of creating an order suggested by Perrault. This feature,
being inventory corresponded to his interest on hypothetical systems. Louvre Colonnade could be an example of his
theoretical approaches. Louvre Colonnade was an unorthodox example in architectural history; Tzonis and Lefaivre
(1986) directly stated a correspondence with Villalpandos drawing of Solomons Temple. Stressed and unstressed
elements which was figured out as ABCBA in Louvre Colonnade was the same as Solomons Temple; but the
difference was on the chosen of elements and doubling the columns with an unorthodox intercolumniation. His
architectural intentionality was a challenge to both ancients and Renaissance theory.
Left: Juan B. Villalpando (1552-1608), Drawing of Temple of Solomon

Right: Claude Perrault, Drawing of Louvre Colonnade
With the doubling of columns, stressed element passed through the space between the columns, thus the
architectural figures constructed the rhythm turned into spaces in-between. Therefore he proved that rhythm
depicted as musical harmony at Renaissance theory was not on the figure but on the space itself. Louvre Colonnade
was a hypothesis to show how the arbitrary beauty could be created and it was related with the authority. He applied
modern genera, architectural figures of proportion, to a classical taxis, Solomons Temple. Perez Gomez (1983)
defined Louvre Colonnade as sixth order with referring to precedent neoclassical intentions.
Ornament had a constructive role on architectural figures, which determines to classify in an order. Perez Gomez
(1983) posits the Charles Perrault position as an extreme where Charles Perrault recognized historical relativism of
forms in his Parallele. Perez Gomez (1983) stated, he believed that architectural ornament had the same character
as rhetoric figure in language, which is why all architecture must use it. Charles Perrault description resembles the
Foucauldian discourse; if architecture is a language as Gomez stated, these six orders could be define as
discourses, which means that six could be multiplied according to personal choices after crisis of scientific revolutions.
After 17th century, it was clear that architecture could not compressed into five orders while all the epistemological
ground reformed.
References
Descartes, R. (1637)Discourse on the Method [e-book], Project Gutenberg Association, Illinois Benedictine College,
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59 [accessed 17.09.2016], p:7.
Forty, A. (2000), Words and Buildings- A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture, New York: Thames & Hudson, 2012, p:
240.
Henry J.(1997), The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p:1,
5, 10,17,21,29,31.
Hon, G. and B. R. Goldstein (2005), From proportion to balance: the background to symmetry in science, Studies in
History and Philosophy of Science, Volume 36, 121, p:4-5,8.
Kuhn, T. (1962), The Structure of Scientific Revolution, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996, p: 80.
Le Corbusier (1930), Precisions, English Edition, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1991, p:68.
Mallgrave, Harry F. (2006), Architectural Theory- An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870, USA: Blackwell Publishing, p: 78.
Perez Gomez, A. (1983), Architecture and The Crisis of Modern Science, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1996,p: 5, 89,10,31,34.
Perez Gomez, A. (2005), From Treatise to Story: The Changing Nature of Architectural Discourse from the Renaissance
to Eighteenth Century, The Space of English, edited by David Spurr and Cornelia Tschichold, Tbingen-Germany: Gunter Narr
Verlag, p:40-46.
Perrault C.,(1683) Ordonnance for the Five Kinds of Columns after the Method of the Ancients[pdf], trans. Indra Kagin
McEven, Getty Publications Program, 1993, http://d2aohiyo3d3idm.cloudfront.net/publications/virtuallibrary/0892362332.pdf
[accessed 17.09.2016], p:47-48.
Rizzuto, A.P.(2010), Tectonic Memoirs:The Epistemological Parameters Of Tectonic Theories of Architecture, Phd
Thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology, p:154,170, 178, 180.
Tzonis, A., and L. Lefaivre (1986), Classical Architecture-the Poetics of Order, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1987, p: 5, 124,
127,151.
Vesely D. (2004), Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation, Massachusetts: MIT Press, p: 215, 236.
Vitruvius, M. (15BC), The Ten Books On Architecture, translated By Morris Hicky Morgan, Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1914, chapter II-4, p:28.
ANALYTICAL STUDY; ARCHITECTURE AS A

LANGUAGE: LETTER, WORD, SENTENCE
EXAMPLES: BUILDING AND PROJECTS FROM
AMMAN, JORDAN
GHAIDA IRMEILI
Architect
Abstract
Architecture is not only field of arts or Science, its the way how the people express about them self throw old ages,
it is a language told to us how to read the Achievements and the life style of people during all the times and years.
This research presents why the architecture is a language, a definition and structure of these two words, the surface
meaning and deep meaning of this give us many point and theories to discuss ..
Many idea will show up, about language and morphology, systematize of language also about architecture
morphology and systematize of architecture
Also the research show that the 'language' is more than an expression of the architect and it is expressed in terms of
its alphabets (the elements) and its grammar(principles).
Basically this research returned many examples to prove that the architecture is have many elements and principles
as the language and we can read , interaction and connected with it .
Some example as buildings and projects is mentioned from local architecture in Amman , Jordan to show the
language of architecture on there elevations and elements .
Key words
Architecture , language , symbol , spirit .
Literature review
Architecture is a very wide field , full of symbols and theories . it's expresses the identity of place as a language for
this place or the people who Lives or passes from here .
Many studies agree that the architecture is express about the humans as the language , According to voillet le Due
" let us now return to design , the first step in design is to know what we wish to do. To know what we wish to do is
to have an idea ; to express that idea ; we require principles of form , that is to say , rules and a language " .
Some studies put some proposal to interpretation of the architecture : as ; it is possible to create a semantics of
architecture, using the conceptual apparatus that has been used in various philosophical models of language .
Architecture and language
Architecture is not Literally a language , in the definitions and deep meaning it is . architecture express about the
people , their lives , Habits , environments and their feelings as the language
Language
Architecture
any system of formalized symbols, signs, sounds, Architecture is that great living creative spirit
gestures, or the like used or conceived as a mea which from generation to generation, from age to
ns of communicating thought, emotion, etc
age, proceeds, persists, creates, according to the
nature of man, and his circumstances as they
(1) dictionary.reference.com
change. That is really architecture .
(2)Frank Lloyd Wright, from In the Realm of Ideas
Table (1) definitions of architecture and language
Architecture is a language
According to the surface meaning :
the architecture arrange the element in space to make it functional space which able the users use it and live on it
and feel in all details, like structure , material , texture color , circulation etc
the language arrange the letters in a word to make a meaningful sentence which able to understand and
communicate with the other
figure ( 1 ) shows how is the 3D volume formed in architecture / source: form ,space ,&order francis D.K.ching
so , as francis D.K.ching draw , we can consider that the 3D volume in architecture is shaped by simple element (point)
, until it to become a 3D volume , as the language , the sentence in language start with the simple letter until it to
become to meaningful sentence , everything or element start with simple rules and simple steps , architecture have
the same process and steps with the language to have the real meaning or information , architecture (visually ) but
the language (auditory).
figure ( 2 ) shows the structure of sentence and how the meaningful sentence formed in the language /source : the
researcher
According to the deep meaning :
Architecture has to do with planning, designing and constructing form, space and ambience to reflect functional,
technical, social, environmental and aesthetic considerations. And gives the identity of the cites and places , there
cultural , identity of people at all the ages .
The language is not only arranged words to make a sentence its also full of meanings , rules and grammars ,
morphology and symbols which also gives us ideas about the identity of the people and there cultural and feelings
So there is a clear similarity between the architecture and the language at the surface and deep meanings from
many ways :
In architecture , a group of elements arranged in specific space make a composition or specific function
that used by humans .
In language , a group of letter that arranged in specific sentence that used to communicate with the
people .
in architecture, there is an agreement as to what the units of a building are and what constitutes a
building .
In Language , there is an agreement as to what the units of a sentence are and what constitutes a
sentence .
In architecture , the environment of place Identifies some elements and styles , so from the architecture
style and some specific elements we can know and have many information's how the environment of
this place without needs to read or write or speak about it , so the architecture give us the same
expressions of language.
In language , some of Vocabulary belong to specific locations or environments , so we can define the
language from there locations and environments .
So , from architecture we can communicate and read many useful things that maybe the language will give it to us
to , the architecture for the city will tell us the story of place , the people who lived there , the identity , material,
expressions and the history , without using any word .
The architecture in general ways do what the language should do , we can't say that architecture is only art or science
, it is language too .
If we summarizing and comparing between architecture and language , we can find many common things , as the
next table show it :
Architecture
Language
Morphology
morphology in architecture : which is morphology of language to
based on theories of two-dimensional understand the structure of
and three-dimensional symmetries, language :
and then uses these geometries for

planning buildings and structures. And
in urban design study of the form,
structure,
formation
and
transformation of human settlements .
(6)
wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphology_(lingui
stics)
Grammar
How to design and think about what we

design ( the concept )
Elements
Drawings or shapes in two-dimensional

and three-dimensional which make a
composition for building or projects ,
be gather to have a unity functional
volume in specific space
Architecture is a reflection for the
social situations , by architecture of
that place we can have a main and
general ideas about the social and
people profiles .
Architecture include very steps as
design and structure , the structure is
very important to make the design real
and to make the architectural
composition Connected , to make the
elements stabile .
The technology and architecture
always be together , with the new
technology a new design and building
systems will shows up , also we can
know about the city or place is care
about the science and technology from
there design and structure systems
Social
Structure
Technology
In linguistics, morphology is the

identification,
analysis,
and
description of the structure of a
given language's morphemes and
other linguistic units, such as root
words, affixes, parts of speech,
intonations and stresses, or implied
context. In contrast, morphological
typology is the classification of
languages according to their use of
morphemes, while lexicology is the
study of those words forming a
language's word stock
The rules which told us How to say
or write in correct way to have good
sentence
Letter ruled by some grammar, this
letter get together to have a unity
word to give us specific meaning
The social issues effected on the

language , by some certain sounds
and vocabulary
There is no sentence in any language

without structure as the words or
letters which Consists of it , the
sounds and the grammar also gives a
structure for the language .
With the new technology a new
vocabulary will show up , maybe
sounds , reading or writing ways
Table (2) comparing between language and architecture / source : researcher

The language of Amman
It is not Arabic or any alphabets , this section will talk about the language of architecture in Amman , Jordan .
Amman is the capital and most populous city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political and cultural center,
Situated in north-central Jordan, it is the administrative center of the Amman Governorate.
Amman have a various styles of architecture and different Historical periods , Residential buildings are covered with
thick white limestone or sandstone. The buildings usually have balconies on each floor, with the exception of the
ground floor, which has a front and back yard. Some buildings make use of Mangalore tiles on the roofs or on the
roof of covered porches. Hotels, towers and commercial buildings are either covered by stone, plastic or glass.
Also in Amman we can find different styles ; the ancient local style and the international modern style , so every
style have his own language and tell us the story of place and the story of the people .
Some examples from language of architecture in Amman

Now we should read and listen to what the buildings of Amman says , if we can truly translate this architectural
buildings and projects to words and sentence that can we read .
1- The local ancient architecture of Amman :
figure ( 2 ) residential and commercial building in Amman (down town )/ source : cyberspaceandtime.com
The language here tell us its the old town , not only for the history of place but also for the style of architecture and
the language of elements , we can read many information from this buildings and know about the human behavior
at this area and the spirit of place .
This buildings gives many ideas as :
The language of material , Amman is a Mountainous area covered by stone , who lived there used this
material to build and design their homes and roads . the language of place was very suitable with local
environment , so the architecture was reflection and language for the local environment .
The language of the design , this building simple and pure its just elevations with balconies and some
decoration elements , the language of that elevation told us how is the buildings technique is back to
some years ago , it is definitely the old city center or historical place .
The language of urban planning , the spirit of the place and the spaces between the buildings , pathways
, Sidewalks , stairs and the neighborhoods , all this elements together talk the same language and give
the place a spirit of old town . as it showed in the next image .
figure ( 3 ) showed the stairs and pathways , general image for buildings at down town , Amman / source : the
researcher
2- The local modern architecture of Amman( alabdali region )
Image ( 4 ) show the new buildings and projects of Amman (alabdali) source : www.skyscrapercity.com
Then , The language here tell us its the new style of designs and architecture in Amman , not only for the modernity
of place but also for the style of architecture and the language of elements , we can read many information from this
buildings and know about the human behavior at this area and the new spirit of place .
The Skyscrapers and the new material , glass , steel and wide streets , all this elements as a words , when we read it
together we will have a perfect sentence .
The first look on this place , there is so many language to speak and to read , it is talk about new vision for Amman ,
it is definitely shows allot of Advances in technology and the economy , and Aspirations to make Amman a
international city .
Here , many languages will show up , as :
The language of high rise buildings ,which shows that there is a developments and evolved at building
technology in multi floors field , and this area have economic revolution because this style have a High
cost and big abilities .
-
The language of material , the steel and glass are the main material uses in the Skyscrapers or high rise
buildings , this material talk about our time its sign to modernity and sign its a new city show up here
from a few years . thats truth regard to Amman , because alabdali " the region where the high rise
buildings" was a new planned and designed area since a few years , and its new and uncommon
architecture style in it . this style was reflection of Economic recovery and civilization evolution , that
the language of that area .
The language of urban planning , in this region the people can sense the spirit of modernity or the
language of the modern style and the spirit of the new city , the wide street , a lot of concrete and steel
all this elements write a meaningful words for the architecture spirit .
figure ( 5 ) shows the urban planning for alabdali region / source : www.skyscrapercity.com
Finally , all region or city have Unique style tell us the story of place by special language like A,B, C of architecture ,
sometimes this language gives us more information and idea than the language we spoke by translating the
architecture elements and the outline planning .
figure ( 6 ) shows the skyline language for alabdali region , Amman / source : www.ammancity.gov.jo
Conclusions
As the language have A,B,C letters , the architecture have a elements can translating into a words
We can make an international special language for architecture too .
The architecture not only art or science it is Linguistics too .
The architecture have surface meaning and deep meaning and structure as the language .
Its possible that the city has many deferent language according to the architecture style of that city .
The architecture language is so meaningful , its tell the story of place by simple architectural elements and
the way of building .
The architecture language is deferent language because its visual (what to see) not audio ( what to listen or
read ) , so it have many elements to express .
Reference
Ching,F.D.K.,1943. Architecture form space and order .3ed ed.2007. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.USA.
-
Donougho, M., 1987. The Language of Architecture . Journal of Aesthetic Education : Vol. 21 .
Salingaros , N.,2014. A Theory of Architecture Part 1: Pattern Language vs. Form Language / Articles .
archdaily .
Taurens , J.,1992 . Meaning and Context in the Language of Architecture . article.
Wright,F.L., 1988 . In the Realm of Ideas. Southern Illinois University Press.
Web sites
http://www.archdaily.com
http://dictionary.reference.com
http://en.wikipedia.org
25TH FRAME EFFECT OF ARCHITECTURE: TEXT AND

RHETORIC
SERAP DURMU
Abstract
The aim of this study is to contribute to the architectural criticism through the relationship between the text and
rhetoric. In this context, the study pursues the messages rhetoric as an effective means of persuasion instills in the
subconscious, at the textual level, and is based on providing the reader with guidance and means for interpretation
in a certain vein of thought.
In architecture, the message can be conveyed not only through buildings, but also through texts. The mechanism is
analogous with those of advertisements, TV series, or posters seeking ways to probe into and affect our perception
systems. The architectures attempt at persuasion, on the other hand, can be read through discourse/textual
products, as well as in the form of buildings. The persuasion, which introduce various archetypes to the vicinity of
our consciousness, has a virtual reference to memory as something akin to the 25th frame of a film strip, through
the visual and linguistic/textual messages extended either directly or in between the lines. In this context, the 25th
frame effect, which provides substantial capabilities of persuasion, can become an object of architectural criticism,
as one of the most effective methods of influencing the subconscious.
In a nutshell, the relationship between the text and the rhetoric involves critical cases and meanings, which present
the potential of becoming the 25th frame effect of architecture. Therefore, the study discusses the messages
installed/positioned on the subconscious of the reader in the textual world of architecture, through the critical
approach it adopts.
Keywords: Rhetoric, Text, Architecture, Criticism, 25th Frame Effect.
Introduction
Re-reading and re-interpretation efforts, thanks to their interdisciplinary stance, allow production of new knowledge
and remembering/reminding existing knowledge. As a rich media of narrative offering a number of distinct
perspectives, architecture texts play a huge role in theoretical works, regardless of the attitude dominating the work
(descriptive, representational, prohibitive, critical etc.). One can argue that every theoretical work, regardless of the
attitude, involves some kind of persuasion.
The relationship established between the theory and the criticism, various tools employed, and the selection of
methodology/techniques applied provide a domain of investigation of a significant depth and potential. At this
junction, writing requires a level of sobriety and responsibility beyond those required for simple speech (Akn, 2007).
Therefore, working with written material requires not only a distinct emphasis for such sobriety and responsibility,
but also an effective state of persuasion to match that of the word/discourse. Having been based on the art of
discourse, rhetoric, on the other hand, can serve as a means of deciphering a text and interpreting the language of
representation employed, as a major prerequisite of persuasion. As an advertisement of the narrative and discourse,
textual representation can lead to intellectual products which can serve both the theoretical and the practical side
of architecture.
Yet, what do we expect the target audience to grasp when we think of persuasion? Or, what do we want to instill in
our audience? We either refuse or accept what we see or hear, through a conscious choice. Just as in the case with
the relationship between the text and architecture. The message offered for the reader/target audience begins with
the authors assumption or rejection of something. The pen flows on that basis. Then, the aim is to convince the
audience on that point, making use of robust arguments. In this context, contrary to general belief, the relationship
between the text and architecture is not only a theoretical connection, but also one that serves the development of
the architectural thought which grows through accumulation. Indeed, that is the exact reason why the relationship
between text and rhetoric can be considered as a subconscious message technique. For the persuasive power of
texts constructs a subconscious in the written representation of architecture and the development of architectural
thought. The construct in question can operate, at times, explicitly, and at others, implicitly. In this study, Heinrich
Hbschs (1992) In What Style Should We Build? dated 1828, presenting a different route of thought, is brought under
the limelight as, arguably, the 25th frame of architecture, thanks to the disruption it produced.
Rhetoric and Persuasion
Rhetoric is the art of influence and persuasion. According to Plato rhetoric is defined as an art to
persuade/convince/and of eloquence (Morrow, 1953). Persuasion, as the object of rhetoric, on the other hand, is
defined by Brembeck and Howell (1955) as the attempt to alter thoughts and actions through conscious
manipulation of human motives, with a view to achieving pre-determined results (Darc, 2013).
Rhetoric is a theory, and is the most important tool of persuasion in Western thought (McQuarrie and Mick, 1996).
As a technique of speech, rhetoric is employed as a tool to convince the audience to consider the issue from the
speakers perspective. If the rhetorical device is employed for a textual material, it attempts to achieve persuasion
by revealing the authors will to make the reader think, through messages/coding/concepts. Presented through
messages/coding/concepts, rhetorical device can have both logical and emotional appeal. At this junction,
subconscious thoughts and memory as a form of messaging comes to the forefront.
The primary province of the discipline of rhetoric, which is all about the word, the content, and the form, is how to
convey expression most effectively (Bat, 2010: 73). Representing a form of coding to cover the field of persuasion as
well, given its actual use, rhetoric can also be defined as an activity to convey knowledge. Another definition of
rhetoric is about the art of using language for convincing others, for reasoning, and for persuasion (Ula, 2002).
It is possible to argue that the first theoretical works on persuasion appears with Aristos Rhetoric. The rhetoric
activities which took place in the agoras of the antiquity can perhaps be considered as a staging of all means towards
persuasion. The behavioral sciences function of the rhetorical construct, persuasion, is a matter of rhetoric thanks to
its traits of memorability, ease of learning, and discernibility, giving it the substantial persuasive power in terms of
conveying the message from the source to the audience. (zerkan, 2001: 108; Bat, 2010: 74). The primary purpose
of persuasion is to affect the desired impact on the target audience. The persuasion has nothing to do with coercion.
Moreover, the existence of mutual will and equal terms on a theoretical basis is what makes persuasion stand apart
from subliminal message (Darc, 2013).
One of the options to help with achieving the objective of persuasion is to focus the message on a specific idea with
a view to conveying it to the recipient in the classical process of persuasion. The stronger the message, the higher
the chance of persuasion. Jammiesson (1996), on the other hand, argues that persuasion has two sides: an explicit
and an implicit one. While it is possible to see its explicit side in advertisements which opt for a clear expression, the
implicit side is apparent only in the messages concealing intentions. Subconscious messages constitute the sneakiest
aspect of the implicit side. That is why one should note that the primary purpose of subconscious messages is to
persuade.
A glance at the relationship between the duo of rhetoric and persuasion leads to the assumption that the relationship
between the text and rhetoric also entails some persuasion. For, persuasion exists as long as communication does,
regardless of its actual form (textual, verbal, visual etc.). As the visual and linguistic/textual expression of the
message, rhetoric is capable of extending various messages to its readers, through the texts. Issues such as the
sentence structures employed in the text, the usage rates of such sentences, concepts, and associations provide the
reader with opportunities to interpret how messages are structured. Therefore, all processes, attitudes and
approaches taking one from a starting point to the destination can be considered persuasion (Darc, 2013).
The archetypes hidden in the textual expression/construction of architectural thought are effectively the 25th frame
of architecture, each acting as a message for the subconscious. The hidden common denominators of textual
expression in the relationship between the subconscious message and persuasion include the archetypes of style,
retrogression, corruption, loss etc. The present study, in turn, provides examples of the traces of such archetypes
with reference to a text. At this junction, one should have a few words about the subconscious message techniques
and archetypes as the 25th frame effect of architecture.
Subconscious Message and the 25th Frame Effect
Every second we are subjected to subconscious messages. The concept of consciousness has its roots in the Latin
words con (with) and scire (to know), while the concept of subconscious reflects a black box residing hidden in
consciousness (Gennaro, 2007). Murphy (1963: 45) on the other hand, in his seminal work The Power of Your
Subconscious Mind, introduced the view that subconscious mind removes images and events from memory, and is
even inspiring.
However, it is crucial for consciousness and subconscious to be directed towards perception and persuasion. The
more critical and logical perspective of human mind towards stimuli leads to differences in terms of the scale and
reflection of reactions among people. Subconscious messages are designed towards the senses which act as
intermediaries for the perception of the external world. In other words, the strength, form, and repetition of the
stimulus in the message vary by the sense it is directed towards. For instance, while the techniques directed towards
sight focuses on the nature of the eye and the impact of the image on the brain, the examples employing hearing
may take emphasis, toning and dosage to the forefront.
Message techniques dating back to as early as 1900s had always been about seeking answers to the question how
can we influence the audience? (Taylor, 2012). Since late 19th century, on the other hand, various forms of the
stimulant of the subconscious, and their impact on the individuals had been analyzed (Kkbezirci, 2013). The
subconscious messages initially considered as the means to achieve commercial objectives and a tool of marketing,
had later on spilled over to a multitude of fields such as advertisements, cinema, debates, computer games,
television, packaging, posters, videos etc. In short, the subconscious messages and persuasion emphasize the
transformation of thoughts, and allow the production and dissemination of new information.
The areas and forms of use of subconscious message techniques include the use of still images, video files, audio
files, emotional sense method, smelling, and tasting (Darc (2012; 2013: 165-166).
Still images: Through figures, texts, symbols and numbers hidden in posters, logos, product packaging,
billboards, curtain walls, magazines, books etc.
Video files: Through the use of yazlm, manipulated images and effects on TV, movies, computer games,
videos etc.
Audio files: Through the use of audio files and other tools, below the perceptual hearing threshold or
targeting brainwaves.
Emotional sense method: This is a relatively newer method. The use of chemicals to penetrate human skin
and enabling the secretion of happiness hormones, in extremely expensive products. Moreover the tactile
feedback received upon touching the materials used in the packaging of the products.
Smelling: Smell cards, packaging and product smells, smells used in specific spaces.
Tasting: Through the use of chemicals including artificial happiness hormones, in food products.
Another matter that can be employed as a technique to send messages to the subconscious is the perceptual
organization. According to the psychologists who embraced the Gestalt Theory, which was developed in the first half
of the 20th century, a large number of distinct perceptual phenomenon can be expressed with reference to the form
of the relationship between one part of the stimulus and another. The desired messages can be sent to the
subconscious through the application of Gestalt principles (figure and ground, closure, continuity, proximity
principles). From the second half of the 20th century on, on the other hand, American psychologists James Lefkowitz
and Dylan Verrechias 25th frame effect idea had been developed in the field of advertising, and came to influence
the debate on perception and subconscious messages.
25th Frame Effect Technique
As a technique to send messages to the subconscious, the 25th frame effect is developed as an analogy to movies.
Movies as shown in movie theaters are presented in reels comprising 24 frames per second. That number is also
what the eye can perceive in a given second. One cannot perceive the image shown in the 25th frame, however, even
though the subconscious stores that piece of knowledge. This would enable the conveyance of the required message
to the target individual/audience. In the literature, the system based on the frame interjection technique on top of
the image frames perceptible to the eye is often called the 25th frame effect technique.
The 25th frame effect technique is applied by removing the control intervals between every 24 frame covering a
second. Once these control intervals are removed, a gap enabling the placement of a further frame would arise,
which allows the placement of a momentary image, which would not otherwise be part of that second of the movie
(Figure 1). The figure below represents the message placement state by carving a space for one frame which would,
for all practical purposes be imperceptible to the eye, given the second and shooting plans.
Figure 1. Drawing depicting the 25th frame effect technique

The momentary image thus observed is comprised of 24 small frames. The 25th and last frame appears only
momentarily, and is duly removed. It is rarely observed, but is often kept as an impression on the subconscious. In
other words, the prevailing use of the 25th frame is to send messages to the subconscious.
The momentary message which we would not be aware of cannot be glossed over by the consciousness. Such a
conveyance of the message happens often with promotional and marketing related arrangements or commercial
channels such as advertising panels, posters, logos etc. Having a substantial persuasive power, the 25th frame effect
technique is one of the most effective methods in terms of influencing the subconscious. Today the advent of digital
technologies rendered the technique virtually obsolete. Nonetheless, the theoretical essence of the 25th frame
technique merits further investigation under the present study. The 25th frame can arise through a re-reading of a
text, and provides, in effect, an example of the instilling of the texts potential meanings in the subconscious (through
secondary concepts). Indeed, that is what makes it a practical means of reading applicable to the relationship
between the text and the rhetoric in the context of architecture.
The 25th Frame Message in Architecture Text: In What Style Should We Build?
The 25th frame effect technique claims to offer the potential or possibility of thought over texts against the
background of architecture. In this context, this study provides an analysis of the codes shaping the architectural text
and criticism, as instilled by the text on the subconscious. The 25th frame is a practically invisible frame, which
nonetheless conveys a subliminal message. In architecture, on the other hand, the 25th frame effect represents the
messages between and/or behind the lines, the author wishes to extend.
The rereading in the present study is that of Heinrich Hbschs theoretical text In What Style Should We Build? (1828),
published in the collection titled In What Style Should We Build? The German Debate on Architectural Style. The book
is a compilation of texts by Hbsch (1828), Wiegmann (1829), Rosenthal (1844), Wolff (1845), Btticher (1846) and
Hbsch (1847), and was published in 1992, with the translation and an introduction by Wolfgang Herrmann. As a text
deserving investigation regarding the stylistic coherence debates, which still rage on, In What Style Should We Build?
(1828) was chosen as it provides an example of the subconscious message provided by the architectural text, and
constitutes a major breaking point.
The text relays the message to instill the view that all value judgments conceptualizing the architecture of the 19th
and 20th century architecture had indeed been observed in modern architecture as well. Hbschs text provides a
coherent picture with its formulation and narrative, and arguably provides an emphasis on the relationship between
romanticism and nationalism. For the existence of a negotiated mental attitude regarding the materialist principles
(climate, technique, materials etc.) makes itself felt. The text is consistent with respect to the integrity of style and
the perfection of the Greek architecture of the antiquity, and concurs on this matter with Wiegmann and Rosenthal,
the other authors the texts of which are included in the compilation. The text points at qualitative proliferation and
diversification, paving the way for Hbsch to discuss the need to avoid subjectivity and an artistic perspective.
The text authored on the basis of the unsatisfactory state of architecture, laid the initial seeds to impose a conscious
perspective towards architecture, which came to dominate the debates from the first half of the 19th century on.
The text follows an intellectual succession of arguments and counter-arguments: Traditional values are supported
against radical proposals, while the materialistic approach is set against the idealistic perspective (Herrmann, 1992).
The crux of the debate presented in the text, on the other hand, is about the style problematic reminding the Zeitgeist
code. That very problematic would thereafter be revealed through quotations and interpretations under the label
Code 1: Zeitgeist.
Code 1: Zeitgeist
The term Zeitgeist can be interpreted as a case befitting and representing the times. The term Zeitgeist, used
frequently by Heinrich Hbsch and his contemporaries in their texts, roughly means the spirit of age. Modernists
envisaged a theory or a language based on the 19th centurys notion of the spirit of the age, called Zeitgeist by the
Germans in reference to the belief that the spirit of the age could only have been expressed via art and architecture
(Durmu, 2012: 30).
The strongest inference that we can take from Hbschs text today is that the discussion of manner and the
visualization of being in a period of crisis are valid for the practice of architecture, too (Tanju, 2010). That is why the
concept of Zeitgeist, which entails an interest in developing a coherent whole as well as a reference to the style
problem, provides a code that can serve in the context of the 25th frame effect of architecture. The words and/or
25th frames reminding the concept of Zeitgeist, on the other hand, can be pondered with reference to words such
as essence, major, base, soul, truth, and origin (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Conceptual coding of the 25th frame message in Hbschs text

In What Style Should We Build? (1828) presents the debates revolving around the major theme of the question of
style. The other problems which are deemed closely related to the question of style, on the other hand, are
construction, material, customs or religion and aesthetic values. Hbsch refers to material, technical experience,
climate, and present needs as the major defining factors of style. In the mindset aiming for a new style, Hbsch was
content with focusing on these four factors hitherto delineated through major styles only. The first thing Hbsch did
was to list the major elements of a building: walls, ceiling, roof, supports, windows, and doors. These are the elements
of style and their shapes present a variety affected by the use of materials (Herrmann, 1992: 4). Hbsch (1992: 68)
reached to the conclusion that there are just two original styles: one with straight, horizontal stone architraves; the
other with curved vaults and arches. According to Hbsch, all these are details required for the development of the
new style:
The principal formative factors, as can be deduced a priori as well asconfirmed historically, are climate
and building material. In the first place the climate, as already mentioned, gives a uniform character to
the needs of one country as compared with another. Thus, a mild southern climate makes less exacting
demands than the rough climate of the north; all eastern buildings appear to be somewhat open in
contrast to the anxiously closed-in buildings of the north (Hbsch, 1828 [1992]: 67).
The materials that chiefly affect the form of the architectural elements are wood and stone. Even in
countries where stone is scarce, the more important buildings use stone not only for walls and piers
but also for the members that connect the piers or span the openings, wherever these are exposed to
weathering. Often, even large interior ceilings are made of stone so as to last (Hbsch, 1828 [1992]:
67).
In countries where the available varieties of stone are brittle and not found in great lengths, attempts
were soon made to span the opening with more than one piece of stone. The crowning result of these
attempts was the vault Thus almost every architectural element changedin other words the whole
styleso that it may be said that essentially there are only two original styles: one with straight,
horizontal stone architraves; the other with curved vaults and arches. (Hbsch, 1828 [1992]: 68).
Upon returning to Rome from a visit to Greece, Hbsch noted that her ideas had been completely revolutionized.
The plain style of and lack of degeneration in Greek architecture had impressed him immensely. Noting that we need
Greek architecture and monuments to cover our extensive needs, he seems convinced of the need to establish a new
style:
Now, since the size and arrangement of every building is conditioned by its purpose, which is the
main reason for its existence, and since its continued existence depends on the physical properties of
the material and on the resulting arrangement and formation of the individual parts, it is obvious that
two criteria of functionality, fitness for purpose (commodity) and lasting existence (solidity)
determine the size and basic form of the essential parts of every building (Hbsch, 1828 [1992]: 64).
If we take a more practical view, our courage revives. Though it is true that this uncertainty and
arbitrariness make art into a plant that easily runs to seed, there are limits; and the danger is really not
so great as may appear at first glance. The beauty of a building, like the beauty of a landscape or a
symphony, is composed of many elements, all of which are not of equal importance in relation to the
whole (Hbsch, 1828 [1992]: 65).
According to Hbsch, style essentially means belonging to a nation; the required integrity of style should be
constructed in one way or another. The starting point of the text discusses degeneration and ruin of architecture,
whereupon it proceeds to present the reactions to imagine contemporary architecture from the vantage point of
architecture of the antiquity. For Ancient Greek architecture is an unsurmountable summit. The roots of the style
problem which dominates the Western architectural thought, stem from the waning dominance of the classical
architecture (Civelek, 2003). The rational thought, or in other words the continuity of the understanding extending
from Ancient Greek to date in the Western architectural tradition, affects Hbschs view of architecture, and presents
itself as the zeitgeist of 1830s what had collapsed or left incomplete due to external factors:
Like false prophets, they claim the privilege of an inspirationthat of beautyfor which they claim
to need no justification. Other architects, it is true, admit that it must first be proven that the
architecture of the ancients, as universal architecture, can be as appropriate and beautiful to us as it
once was to the Greeks (Hbsch, 1828 [1992]: 64).
Finally, it is evident that specific needs also affect the style in that those of one nation, despite local
variations, display a common character when compared to the total needs of another country
(Hbsch, 1828 [1992]: 66-67).
If we wish, therefore, to attain a style that has the same qualities as the buildings of other nations
that are accepted as beautiful and are much praised by us, then this cannot arise from the past but
only from the present state of natural formative factorsthat is: first, from our usual building material;
second, from the present level of technostatic experience; third, from the kind of protection that
buildings need in our climate in order to last; and fourth, from the more general nature of our needs
based on climate and perhaps in part on culture (Hbsch, 1828 [1992]: 71).
Hbsch noted the need for the smart man to place emphasis on the material while discussing the material and
constructional characteristics of architecture. In this context, Ancient Greek is not related with a form of rationalism,
for the temples had been defined by cults and myths. In other words, it is not the style Hbsch described, or one
comparable to it. This enables a renewed probe into the universal reason. What depends on elements such as
material, climate etc. is the style of architecture. Anything else is art. Personal mannerisms do not define the style,
but rather act as its flavoring:
Painting and sculpture have long since abandoned the lifeless imitation of Antiquity. Architecture
alone has yet to come of age and continues to imitate the antique style. Although nearly everybody
recognizes the inadequacy of that style in meeting todays needs and is dissatisfied with the buildings
recently erected in it, almost all architects still adhere to it. Most of them really believe that the beauty
of architectural forms is something absolute, which can remain unchanged for all times and under all
circumstances, and that the antique style alone presents these forms in ideal perfection (Hbsch,
1828 [1992]: 63).
The decoration of buildings will depend on the imagination of the individual artists and will therefore
be manifold. However, this will not endanger the new style, as was pointed out in the first section.
Even in countries where a uniform and consistent taste has prevailed, there is a great variety in
decoration. This will be even more so with us, who know all things past and present and are so fond of
novelty and diversity... (Hbsch, 1828 [1992]: 99).
The relationship the Renaissance established with Ancient Greek is rejected. According to Hbsch, establishment on
the basis of the logic attributed to Ancient Greek does not make any sense. Hbsch argues that we lack the marbles
and stones Ancient Greek had access to. Whenever a hybrid system arises, a really gross architecture arises.
According to Hbsch, Roman architecture is exactly that. That is how the shortcomings of Roman style presents itself
in the text:
However, the genius of Greek beauty was not to give way so easily. We can still enjoy the unity of
even very late Greek monumentswhere at least the horizontal covering was maintainedand also
their tasteful, though too profuse, decoration, especially when we compare them to the distortion that
Greek architecture endured at the hands of the Romans. Even before the conquest of Greece, the
Romans had employed the arches that proved so advantageous to the construction of their extensive
aqueducts and roads Although the Greeks were slavishly imitated in everything, including their
architecture, the horizontal covering was bound to be unsatisfactory, especially because, for the
multitude of Roman needs, the types of stone available were unsuited to this form of construction (at
that time the Romans did not yet use marble for building)... (Hbsch, 1828 [1992]: 78-79).
Among the churches known to me that were built in the basilican style, the church of Santa Balbina
on the Aventine in Rome is the only one where no antique fragments were used and where the vaulting
style appears in its purest and simplest form.This moderately sized church originally had a nave and
two side aisles. The piers as well as the arches and walls are built of brick. They are square and rather
thick and are set wider apart than are the ancient columns in the other churches. The walls that rise
above the piers, wherever an intermediate tie or principal rafter rests on them, are strengthened by
piers or pilasters projecting from the outside face of the wall. The windows are almost as wide as the
span of the arches. The cornice of the nave is embellished by a course of small corbels; that of the choir
is formed, as is usual in this style, with several courses of brick laid in different directions. (Hbsch,
1828 [1992]: 86).
Epilogue
The texts as elements bearing a code to relay a message, as the proverbial 25th frame effect of architecture, are in
effect rhetorical representations thanks to its persuasive capability. The relationship between the text and rhetoric,
investigated through the work titled In What Style Should We Build? entails messages to recall the concept of zeitgeist
as a code encrypted in the 25th frame effect of architecture.
The text develops quasi-objective criteria regarding the selection of style, and supports the plurality of historicism
(URL-1). The historicist perspective attaches import to two issues: developments are linked organically, and local
conditions and differences have an impact on results. Even 188 years after the publication of the text in 1828, one
can forcefully argue that we have yet to wander away from the contents of the production of discourse in
architectural text.
The style problem, which had hitherto dominated Western architectural thought is based on the loss of the authority
of the classical architectural doctrine. The continuity of the perspective which had dominated the Western
architecture from Ancient Greek to date had begun to lose the foundations it had been built on, with the advent of
the 19th century and the developments it brought along (Civelek, 2003). Hbschs textual attempt regarding this
issue culminates in a text exhibiting the earliest examples of an intellectual infrastructure where a link between ethnic
and cultural characteristics and geographical conditions is established. The style issue in question, in turn, finds itself
embedded in the memories, as a code serving zeitgeist.
In conclusion, In What Style Should We Build?, claiming that architecture itself changes as the system of construction
and materials change, and hence the style problem always retains its place in the agenda, is a crucial piece shaping
architectural narrative thanks to its search for a totalitarian lingua franca. This paper, which interprets the
relationship between the text and rhetoric as a technique of persuasion as the 25th frame effect, in turn, strives
to remind that meaning in the performance achieved by the author and the reader is not monolithic. Indeed, this
provides a renewed emphasis on how texts diversify as they proliferate and are reread with different means.
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A CRITICAL APPROACH TO ARCHITECTURAL

PRACTICE IN TURKIYE
BAHAR (KK) KARAKA, AYSUN AYDIN KSZ
Bahar Karaka, Res. Asst., Karadeniz Technical University,
Aysun Aydn ksz, Asst. Prof., Karadeniz Technical University.
* This paper is made from the Master Thesis of Bahar (Kk) Karaka, named The Actors of The Architecture:
Trabzon (1970-2014), practised at Karadeniz Technical University.
Abstract
The discourses on the architecture and architectural practice in Turkiye start with the Westernisation Movements on
Ottoman (Late Ottoman Era) and continue with Republican Period in Turkiye. The relevant period presents important
clues to pursuing the appearing of the architect as an actor, practicing architecture in modern ways and the
perspective of architecture in Turkiye.
The architectural practice in Turkiye has connected with many factors such as political, sociological and economic.
Thus, substantial points that mentioned as political, sociological and economic have given a place in the study and
they have evaluated with the critical perspective. Especially, which ways the political changes follow and how these
circumstances affect on architecture and architectural practice have explained and discussed.
On the scope of the study, the position of architecture, the role of the architect and the architectural practice in
Turkiye have examined from Late Ottoman Empire to now. In the study, provides a chronological model of
architectural practice, the way of architecture and architectural practice has revealed within the context of nearly a
hundred years period. The period that mentioned not only has studied by classifying ten years periods of time but
also has examined on the specific samples from Late Ottoman Empire to nowadays. Totally, ten sample buildings
have compared by scrutinizing the evolvement of Turkish architectural practice within the remarkable examples that
made once every ten years. In such a circumstance, the points, have referred in the text, has a significant role in
observing the past and the future of Turkish architectural practice by the critical way of evaluating.
Keywords: Architecture, Architect, Architectural Practice, Late Ottoman, Republican Turkiye.
Introduction
Architectural practice arises as the results of the relations between architect and architecture that contains a lot of
contexts. In other words, architectural practice is connected to factors like architectural ethos, education, and
organisation. While investigating Turkish architectural practice, it is important to explain Turkish social, political and
economic history for clarifying the evolution of Turkish Architectural Practice. In these circumstances, architecture
cannot be evaluated excepted from social life, economic problems and political fluctuations. Thus, in this study, for
determining the evolution of architecture and architectural practice in Turkiye almost 100 years period divided into
10 periods that consist of 10 years periods.
The Architectural Practice in Late Ottoman Era
In 1831, Hassa Mimarlar Oca (The Organisation of Architects) is decided to close and the statue of ba mimar
(the leader of the architects) started to change. Free enterprise in architectural ethos has started to be more
effective and then the actors of architecture except the ba mimar have had a voice on architectural practice
(enyurt, 2009). With the Tanzimat Ferman (Rescription of Glhane), not only the architectural practice is directed
from the center of the Ottoman, but also attached importance to tendering for pluralist participation in architectural
practice. Because of the conflicting situations, the activity of architecture has decreased and the term of
mteahhitlik (The construction business) has revealed and strewed all over the country. The date of closing Hassa
Mimarlar Oca is the date of establishment of Directorate of Construction (Yap leri Mdrl) that connected
to Ministry of Public Works (Nafia Nezareti). The members of Ministry of Public Works are almost consisted of
foreman. In those days, foremans are the levantines that do construction business and initiate the proliferation in
Ottoman Empire (enyurt, 2006).
In these circumstances, the terms as architecture, the construction business and foreman cannot be expressed
exactly. Because, all the work relations in these profession areas are complicated and intricated (enyurt, 2011).
Tanyeli (2007) emphasizes that, the seeing the signature of architect on the architectural product starts with 19.
Century in Turkiye. At those times, the leader of the actors in architectural practice hails from Grek or Armenian. In
other respects, writing their names on an architectural product for Turkish architects is being observed in 20. Century.
But this period is the critical point to gainig prestige for Turkish architecture. The first actor of the architecture in
Turkiye, Vedat TEK, opens a door to new period for Architectural Practice in Turkiye (Tanyeli, 2007). The First TBMM
(Grand National Assembly Of Turkey) Building, which is designed by Hafi Bey, (1917-1920), is the significant sample
of the period (Anonymous, 2003).
Figure 7. The First TBMM Building (URL-1, 2015)

The Architectural Practice in Turkiye from 1920 to 1930
The approaches of architecture in Late Ottoman can be seen also in the period of 1920-1930. Jntrk movement
that reveals at 1908 and then the nationalist and liberal attitudes effects on architecture as being on all branches of
art (Karata, 2009). Selecting Ankara as a capital city in 13th October 1923 and declaring Republic System of
Government in 29th October 1923 are the milestones of the Turkish architectural practice. In these times, Ankara
gains a significant role as being the role model and center of the architectural practice for the other cities in Turkiye.
These renewal approaches affect on buildings programmes more than the cognizance of architecture. In 1926-1927,
the government decides to move away from synthesis-westernisation that led by Ziya Gkalp, and goes towards
to completely westernised approaches. These modernist tendencies impress architecture, education and practice.
It demonstrates that it is time to coming to the end of First National Architecture Period which is identified as
Birinci Ulusal Mimarlk Dnemi (Tekeli, 1994).
Tanyeli (1998) finds the term of 1920-1930 as a turning point for Turkish Architectural Practice. The modern
architect definition starts to use in literature at the first time. Turkish architects have the rights to comment on
architecture more than the Levantine (Tanyeli, 1998). On the other hand, architects cannot integrate with design
sufficiently and abandon from the term that the construction business (Tanyeli, 2007).
The Second TBMM Building, designed by Vedat Bey (TEK) in 1924, is the specific example of First National
Architecture Period (Anonymous, 2003).
Figure 8. Second TBMM Building with the past and current photos (URL-2, 2015; URL-3, 2015)

In 1930s, the first modernisation movements are observed in the Turkish Architectural History by the westernised
approaches and architectural practices. Eldem (1973) describes the tendency of the period from 1930 to 1940 as
Ankara-Vienna Cubic Architecture. This new architecture breaks away from construction technics of Ottoman and
makes modest and simple designs. Tiles and eaves are not used on the roof and the roofs are starts to being
flattening. Plastered facades, corner windows, integrated cubes are going to be symbols of the new architecture
(Eldem, 1973).
The duty of the architecture is, producing practical and economic solutions and considering rational as a technical
personnel. The architect undertakes the leader mission on the Kemalist Revolutions architectural practice.
Professional competency plays a significant role in architecture. On professional life, new publishing enterprises and
first organisation thoughts start to distinguish (Bozdoan, 2008).
Although a lot of resources claim that 1930s architectural practice focuses on modernism and qualified designs, in
the article that published on Mimarlk Journalin 1931, the writer mentions that the architects cannot avoid from
the construction business (mteahhitlik) because of the economic reasons. In other words, the architect offices
should be focused on designing and planning. But the architects need to gain money and the qualified building
designs are ignored (Anonymous, 1931). In 1930s, construction by the government raise up to 60% and most of the
buildings are built by Levantine architects. In private sector, the non-architect actors like foreman, constructor and
engineer make constructions. Therefore, the architect prefers to work in government sector instead of working in
their offices (Ergut, 2001).
Figure 9. Smerbank Merinos Woolly Industrial Establishment, Bursa 1935-1938 (Aslanolu, 2010).
This period, coinciding with shortly after II. World War and the death of Atatrk is a period that economic
difficulties are experienced throughout the world, and that the impacts of nationalism approach being sprouted
in Germany and Italy to the social life have seen extremely. The mentioned subject that national architecture trend
(II. National Architecture) finds the structures, that European architects have created, as unqualified, and claims
that unique, site-specific architecture activity should be done. Fine Arts Academy (MSGSU), which has taken the
task of the most important educational institution in the world, has transferred the education plans of the teachers
like Arif Hikmet Koyunolu and Sedad Hakk Eldem, under the leadership of Bruno Taut, and the idea that national
character structure should be created in the Turkish architecture education, to students and architect actors doing
business. They have found the sample structures of modern architecture having been planned in Ankara, stanbul
and other cities of Anatolia un-identified, and believe that an architect can create his/her own identification
within the context of his/her cultural infrastructure and, as a result, New Turkish Architecture will be born by this
way (Alsa, 1973; Tanyeli, 1998b; Sayar, 1943).
One of the important samples revealing the understanding of national architecture being a typical structure
creating the shape of the period is Istanbul University Science and Literature Faculty made by Emin Onat and Sedat
Hakk Eldem.
Figure 10. Faculty of Science and Literature of Istanbul University (URL-4, 2015; URL-5, 2015)
The year of 1950 is important in terms of being the year that one-party management system as of the foundation of
the Republic changed, and polyphony policy atmosphere is the first having been observed in the Turkish Republic.
The new government follows an ideology having optimal level nationalism, conservatism and democracy, avoiding
from extremism and trying to create a solution for everybody and enables free enterprises (avuolu, 2009).
Especially, other economic trends being American origin has become the top player of the mobility in the free market,
the architectural approaches in the Europe have become prominent as another actor affecting the Turkish
architecture of the period. The architectural approaches and the products of the period vary extremely and, as a
result, the concepts like international architecture, rational architecture, organic architecture and eclectic
architecture have found a place in the literature of Turkish architecture. It has been observed that the productions
of constructions have been diversified extremely with the reinforced concrete constructions forming the general
architecture character of the Period, aluminium and large glass facade applications, and, the buildings that the
European architects have taken as references (Ural, 1974). Even though architects try to produce rational and
prismatic architecture designs, all these products have been had to be limited under the conditions of Turkey. New
material, structure systems and contemporary techniques have been being used and as a result of this, architectural
design and the search for new expressions in practice are seen (Alsa, 1976).
The most important feature of the 1950 period that Tanyeli (1998c) defines as the birth of self-employed
architecture in Turkey is the change of design request and the way of transfer of the request to the architect. The
most of the architects have worked as public employee till 1950. However, after 1950 when the first free architecture
offices have been seen, the public has been included as a different actor to the architectural production process
(Tanyeli, 1998c).
Figure 11. The Hilton Otel in Istanbul (Architects: Skidmore, Owings, Merill and Local Consultant: Sedat Hakk
Eldem) (URL-6, 2015; URL-7, 2015)
The interval of 1960-1970 represents a period that the term of Democratic Party is removed, a new management is
created by a military coup, 1961 Constitutional Law goes into operation, state planning organization is created and a
hierarchical system is tried to be constituted in the context of architectural and urban planning via the institution
being talked about, nationalism and social anxiety come into prominence, and an active period is experienced in
economic and social science (Tekeli, 2007; Ycel, 2007).
Kortan (1973) separates the period of 1960-1970 from the period of 1950-1960 with the reasons such as the
restriction of the designer by rational architects, emerging the similar products and the structures of unidentified.
Kortan defines that this process that constitutes in human scale rather than high constructions are observed created
cube architecture with the breakdown of large surface. The design understanding in the question creates more
surprised compared with rational architecture understanding, fragmented places and give more opportunities to the
designer (Kortan, 1973).
The 1960s are the period that awakening was observed in the meaning of a social and architecture. In the period
aforementioned, the preservation of nature and culture becomes widespread, rationalist and functionalist
approaches are adopted. Emphasis has given to work on the most healthy and functional architectural practice to
realise their academic studies and architectural applications. The transnational architectural style of the 1950s is put
into the background with the socialist and nationalist viewpoint sprouted in 1960s. Identified and individualistic
structures have been studied in order to establish production. As three factors having a role in the formation of all
this mentalist infrastructure, in 1954, the establishment of TMMOB (Union of Chamber of Turkish Engineers and
Architects), the establishment of State Planning Organisation and the creation of a Five-Year Development Plan are
seen as important (Kk, 2015).
On the scope of the 1960s enlightened perspective, establishing a university, which refers to American architectural
education, in Ankara (The capital city of Turkiye), is remarkable (see Figure 6).
Figure 12. The Faculty of Architecture of ODTU (1962-1963) (Architects: Altu inici and Behruz inici) (URL-8, 2015)
The 1970s confronts with us as a period that a difficult process are experienced in Turkey, and that many negatives
such as ideological polarisations, terror, economic problems have tried to cope with and that economic scarcity
emerged throughout the country and the architecture structures have affected at the same scale. According to
Balamir (2003), in the period aforementioned, the architectural activity moved away from the artistical basis in the
direction of scientific efforts. She emphasises that architecture has stayed between the field of engineering and
planning (Balamir, 2003). Eldem (1973) approaches critically to the idea that the understanding of modernity of the
architects of the period is to focus on design. Eldem specifies that the constructions being made by the opinions in
the question are far away from decorative and constructiveness. In the society becoming conscious together with
the 1960s, he finds emerging of the environmental and social anxiety, being found new structure techniques and
increasing the opportunities for architects in the field of construction/application as positive (Eldem, 1973). The
increase, the exchange of information between the community and the growth of mass media has accelerated the
situation of integration of Turkey to the culture of West. In this situation, the architecture understandings like the
lifestyle of Europe have started to be taken place in the architecture practice (Ycel, 2007).
Figure 13. Building of Tercman Journal (Ycel, 1985)

The architectural idea focusing on the subjects such as the urbanisation, planning, using of beaches, squatting that
started in the 1960s has found an opportunity to think their own problems except the problems of the society with
the politic environment constituting in 1980s (1980 Coup) by the change in the state administrative. Discussions have
been made on form and meaning in Architecture, what is modern is started to be criticise (Ergut and zkaya, 2007).
The situation in the question prepared a ground for the formation of architecture approaches and new trends. It
has started to be thought that the buildings own personalities could be revealed by post-modernism rather than
modernism. The design style of the period generally consists of the shaped cavities created in the mass, single/dual
column with an emphasis on space, stalactite transitions, skylights and wall alternating triangles. The postmodernist
approach in architecture has been reflected to vernacular architecture and has found unlimited growth opportunities
(Balamir, 2003).
Kazmaolu and Tanyeli (1986), looking at the situation in a different perspective, mention about that it will not be
possible to complete post-modernist approach within a specific standard framework. It is not possible to categorise
it since the postmodernism architects havent got a common purpose and a postmodern production should be
evaluated as a kind of thinking rather than a style. The postmodern design approaches have been being produced
over three characters including orientation to historical form rightly, historical comment tries and free format trials.
(Kazmaolu and Tanyeli, 1986). Since the state paved the way for participation of self-employed architects in the
project competitions, important investments were made in industry and tourism sector and important changes were
observed in the practice of architecture. The individual effort and talent came into prominence in the Turkish
architecture and therefore, becomes known by the name of architect actor (nceolu and nceolu, 2004).
The globalisation phenomenon being dominant all over the world in the 1980s, being a non-proportional increase in
the consumption of globalisation, and giving value to quantity rather than quality became the most important reason
of the creating unqualified structure in architecture. Architect can design a very limited part of a constructed
environment in this process and the architecture design stays limited by decorative, a pleasing facade design.
Entertainment and recreation areas, shopping centres, luxury shops, showrooms, luxury residential sites constitute
the architecture practice of this period, and according to Korkmaz (2007), all this architectural activity can be
characterised, with a general expression, as showcase architecture (Korkmaz, 2007).
Figure 14. The Commercing Center of World in Ankara (Architect: evki Vanl- 1988) (URL-9, 2015; URL-10, 2015)

By the 1990s, it becomes difficult to make a typological architecture definition. Because, for the process
aforementioned, making a generalisation within the context of architectural practice becomes very difficult for the
structure groups that cannot be expressed clearly. In other words, while structure cannot be included in a single
architecture understanding and this situation varies extremely, it is seen impossible to make a common architectural
understanding definition in the Turkey of 90s (Tanyeli, 2000). According to Yrekli (1998), because of the location
and environment of Turkey, it belongs to many places; it is inevitable to emerging of results not being clear in the
ethos and practice of architecture. In other words, within the modernism period of Turkiye, Turkiye hasnt reflected
the concepts that it has taken/ tried to take from the West nettably, the West also hasnt been informed of the
construction status in Turkey (Yrekli, 1998). In the context of Istanbul, the difference in the daytime and evening
use of space of the city as a result of being metropolis has affected the formation of a new architectural type, which
is type-villas. The metropolitan life being mentioned has shown itself as suburbanization in other cities of Anatolia.
Another advantage/disadvantage of metropolitan life has become big markets, shopping centres, airports, resorts
and hotel chains (Tanyeli, 2000).
The most important turning point on the theory and practice of architecture in the 1990s became taking the place of
the traditional design process of technological tools and questioning the new design process (Turan, 2011). The
situation in the subject has enabled to gain speed of architecture production and expanding the boundaries.
Figure 15. International Terminal of Antalya Airport -1998 (Architects: Doan Tekeli and Sami Sisa) (URL-11, 2015;
URL-12, 2015)
The Architectural Practice in Turkiye from 2000 to Today
The economic problems emerged on all over the world together with 2001 economic crisis have affected Turkey and
the architectural activity made in Turkey. The problems in the economic conditions, structure areas and many work
areas feeding on this have been affected from this negatively. Besides, the graduated architect lives problems about
finding a job. The economic uncertainty has brought the uncertainty in the structure process and has caused
vocational ethical rules to be slogged on. The architect has come to a position that he/she cannot have a voice (Dikici,
2000). The duty of architect has been to install up to function in a particular field, remove the maximum number of
time, how the counting of maximum money could be won.
In the 2000s architecture, while an architect actor performing his/her job, he/she has to consider the factors like
society, sector and law. From now on, the architect is regarded as successful or unsuccessful according to his/her
success scale that she/he has constituted in the relation environment with different disciplines. In other words,
architect has to work with most of the profession disciplines together connected with the area she/he works in order
to constitute a healthy design (Erdi, 2009). Henceforth, the architectural practice can be expressed over the situation
of recognition/identification of profession and professional responsibility/ethic rather than the identification of
auxiliary tools used and applied (Ergz, 2002).
Figure 16. Courthouse in Antalya (2006-2009) (URL-13, 2015; URL-14, 2016)

Evaluation and Discussion
NU.
FIGURE
NAME/YEAR
The First TBMM
Building (19171920)
ARCHITECTURAL
MOVEMENT
Neoclassicism
First National
Architecture Movement
Revivalism of Ottoman
COMMON ATTITUDES
Arched Windows
Larger Eaves
Integration of modern and
traditional
Arched Windows
Larger Eaves
Integration of modern
materials and traditional
motifs
Systematic order
Flat roof
Modest Facades
Raising up building with
colonnades
Raising up building with
colonnades
(But
only
faade)
Larger Eaves
Systematic order
Pure/Prismatic forms
Using new technics for
construction
Creative and innovative
approaches
The Second TBMM

Building (1924)
Smerbank
Merinos Woolly
Industrial
Establishment
(1935-1938)
Faculty of Science
and Literature of
Istanbul University
(1942-1943)
The Hilton Hotel in

Istanbul (1952)
The Faculty of
Architecture of
ODTU (1962-1963)
Brutalism
Modernism
Usage of exposed concrete

approaches
Building of
Tercman Journal
(1972-1974)
Cubism
Modernism
Horizontal windows
approaches
Modernism
German Modernism
Second National
Architecture Movement
Modernism
The Commercing
Center of World in
Ankara (1988)
International
Terminal of
Antalya Airport
(1998)
10
Courthouse in
Antalya (20062009)
Postmodernism
Cubism
German Modernism
Eclecticism
Revivalism of
Ottoman/Seljukian
Well-shaped holes on the

building
Emphasising entrance with
colonade/s
Transition with muqarnas
Horizontal windows
Arched Windows
Larger Eaves
Integration of modern
materials and traditional
motifs
Table 1. Ten Samples of the Architectural Practices from Late Ottoman to today.
Turkiye is a country that almost every 10 years, changes about its social and political history can be observed. It is
mixed up in an affair between the westernisation and nationalism. Modernisation approaches that start with
Late Ottoman and continue to 1930s with merging modern construction technics and traditional figures. Afterwards,
the terms as German Modernism and Modernity play a part in literature and practice of architecture by the
European architects that come to Turkiye in 1930s. However, in 1940s, the term of modern starts to characterised
as un-identified and it triggers new searchings about Turkish architectural identity. The iconic faces of the city start
to release with the planning and urbanisation approaches in 1950s and these buildings are the sample of European
Modernism. This circumstance goes on to 1980s, however, after 1980s, the views, which are opposite to unidentified modernism, start to be a new definition of non-identified architecture and change the silhouette of the
cities all over the Turkiye. The unstable weather on Turkiye continues through 2000s and as the results of these
circumstances, Revivalism of Ottoman and Seljukian Architecture and practices on modern buildings can be
observed together.
Conclusion
The century of Turkish Architectural Practice can be divided into 5 categories as From Late Ottoman to 1930, From
1930s to 1940s, From 1940s to 1950s, From 1950s to 1980s, From 1980s to today. These periods that
follow one another are the indicators of Turkish social, political and economic history. The 10 samples that
investigated in the text demonstrate the reality that Turkish Architectural practice gets stuck in the modernity and
the nationalism. Instability generates chaos and chaos generates instability then. Thus, Turkish Architectural Practice
defines by the construction that non-defining, nebulous aimed, influenced from global economic systems. Neither
Turkish Architectural Practice cannot retrogress, nor proceeds. It constitutes new conceptional aspects that take
apart in the middle of uncertainty.
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BECOMING A LAND OF "EXCHANGE:"

ARCHITECTURAL DISCOURSE ON TOURISM IN
TURKEY BETWEEN 1960S AND 1970S
GKSUN AKYREK
ABSTRACT
Starting from the 1960s, the history of mass tourism is said to have entered its golden age. Within the rather optimistic
context of the post WWII atmosphere, this apparent mobility of the masses especially in North America and Europe
was also an outcome of increasing wealth, curiosity and improvement of transport technologies mainly with the
aeroplane. The most common everyday terms like the tourist, package tour, (salaried) vacation, recreation,
sightseeing, hotel chains, resort towns and many more, are facts and experiences introduced into the modern
everyday culture following the 1960s as part of this process. Nevertheless, all these came along with major
transformations in the social, economic, cultural and physical geographies of countries enthusiastically becoming
sites of this new network of the international tourist flow. Specifically, conversion of the Mediterranean countries'
shores into a whole chain of re-organized beachfront with supplementary cultural attractions is part of this spatial
transformation having individual histories within their particular contexts.
Dell Upton (2000) claims that "capitalism no longer seeks raw materials and markets but cultural raw materials
that can be transformed into hard cash for the amusement of metropolitan consumers." Thus, the term "exchange"
as a key concept defining this process becomes relevant not only for currencies but for information of all kinds. As a
shore country of the Mediterranean with a long coast line, Turkey has also willingly taken part in this process of
becoming a popular venue of exchange/flow. This was primarily managed by the national government as part of the
planned economic development throughout the 1960s. Thus, this study aims to discuss how this process of
transforming the coastal spaces of Turkey into sites of international vacation, recreation and interaction or shortly
"tourist destinations" was discussed and visualized within the architectural field, among the architects, between
1960s and 1970s. As witnessed in the architectural publications of the period, tourism as a field of national
development has not only provided opportunities for new commissions but also for new architectural experiments
and new perceptions of the historical and cultural heritage of the country. On the other hand, it has also been an
inevitable site of competition and confrontation with the international actors of architecture. Thus, the national
periodicals of Arkitekt and Mimarlk will be main sources for this research which aims to provide a partial architectural
history of the 1960s and 1970s.
Reference:
Upton, D. (2000), Authentic Anxieties, in N. AlSayyad, ed., Consuming Tradition, Manufacturing Heritage: Global
Norms and Urban Forms in the Age of Tourism (London; New York: Routledge), p.298.
FROM SEDAD ELDEM TO TURGUT CANSEVER, THE

LEGACY OF A SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
ELIANA MARTINELLI
Eliana Martinelli, PhD Candidate in Architectural Composition, University IUAV of Venice
Abstract
The theme of this proposal focuses on the concept of "transmissibility" of architectural knowledge unfolding within
a School of Architecture. The aim is to highlight the principles that, by the transmission of thought from a Master to
a Scholar, have contributed to the development of a Turkish Architecture School. In this specific example, I would
like to analyse the influence of Sedad Eldem (1908-1988) teaching method in the work of Turgut Cansever (19212009).
The architecture of Turgut Cansever is morphologically distant from that of Sedad Eldem and draws on a very wide
semantic repertoire, which cannot be reducible just to the influence of a School of Architecture. However, the
experience in the Seminars on National Architectural Style and the academic and professional training with Sedad
Eldem had a decisive role in the formulation of the theoretical thought of Turgut Cansever, and this influence is
clearly legible in his works of architecture.
Two transmission subjects, which played a central role in the formation of this idea of school, in particular can be
outlined; namely the notions of "type" and "building process. Eldem in his texts, as Trk evi o Yap, has deployed a
range of possible proposals about the types and the architectural elements. These were part of the same tradition,
but at one time made possible the development of a new architecture. "Type" and "building process" are, in this idea
of School, part of the same cultural legacy, based not on the imitation of models, but on valuable operating tools to
work in the city.
The type has to do with the transmissibility of the settlement and urban facts and is linked to the concept of identity.
The very notion of identity admits the variation within a common formal repertoire, therefore the use of types in
architecture allows a great operational freedom, in terms of architectural composition. Cansever resorts in his
architecture both to the variation on the same type (as in the Demir Village in Bodrum, where the architect works
through the investigation of the local settlement types), and to the typological contamination (as in the Turkish
Historical Society building in Ankara).
Even more evident in terms of teaching transmission from Eldem to Cansever is the conception of architecture as
"building art". The character of the building process, in which standard elements are joined together to create a
structurally and compositionally unitary system, is a feature widely developed in the work of Cansever. Thus the
reasons that lead the type into a concluded form are above all constructive ones, while the settlement choices are
closely linked to the site.
In this sense the effectiveness of a teaching transmission can be evaluated not on the formal emulation, rejected
several times by Eldem himself as a matter of fashion, but on the possibility of forming a critical ability, through a
working method based on the study of the project in relation to the site, analysing case by case the possible success
of the proposed solutions.
Transmissibility of a School of Architecture
First of all, it is important to clarify what is meant here for transmission. Education is, by its very definition,
transmission of values, that is meanings held true in time; but the values are, in the case of a School of
Architecture, intrinsic to the subject of the transmission itself, namely the design.
The generative process of design has the capacity to encompass: the urban facts that formed the city over time; the
natural facts, influencing the urban development; the political and social ones, that describe a specific age and finally,
the human and anthropological ones, very often transcending the place. This great potential of the project
unfortunately remains unexpressed in most of contemporary architecture, which pays less attention to the
compositional process rather than to the finished object, or to finished parts of it, refusing to interpret the complex
needs of its time and merely accepting ready-made forms, mostly obtained from architectural magazines. The
project, in its sense of synthesis, may instead be the bearer of communicable and long-lasting meanings.
The contribution of Sedad Eldem has permitted a whole generation of Turkish architects to make choices, by a change
in method: no longer Western spatial models to emulate, but a Turkish city to refer to. The aim of architectural
research is, according to Eldem, to set up the field for a subsequent development of Turkish architecture.
Some researchers wondered how it is possible that a distinguished architect as Eldem, so attentive to the
transmissibility of his teaching, has not actually left a detailed written account of his theoretical thinking, despite
having published substantial volumes that collect its fruitful academic research (zkan, 1993, p.56). Probably, it is
not a coincidence but a deliberate choice. Could Eldem be considered the "silent Master" of this generation of
architects, the one who, working with a sort of maieutics, asked for questions and left them open?
He never expected his students to create a whole building from a scratch. First they had to master the existing
heritage which provide a range of solutions if not for the whole building, then certainly for their component parts.
New buildings derive from existing possibilities that have already been thoroughly tested and are known to be
architecturally valid, so to design each and every component of a feasible building, his students first had to perfect
their knowledge of existing techniques to provide a vehicle for their individual talents. (zkan, 1993, p.55)
Eldem chose the experimentalism, i.e. the direct verifiability of proposed formal solutions, as working method, and
the architectural references as tools. His books, even if they dont expose real theories supplied by principles,
represent his theoretical corpus, in the guise of modern treatise (it should be remembered that Eldem studied
Vitruvius and Vignola treatise in the Mongeri class at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul).
As the heterogeneity of Eldems work, also his teaching gave rise to various examples of architecture. Although it is
difficult to identify at first glance the destiny of his legacy also for some difficulties of Eldems personality, which
made him unpopular with many of his students we could define Turgut Cansever as the student that brought a
new level of existence to Eldem's ideas (zkan, 1987, p.19), chasing a conception of modernity far away from the
classicism and the rationalism, but always looking for an expression of identity.
Initially interested in painting, Cansever chose to go on with architecture studies after attending the course of Yap
("Construction"), held by Eldem at the Academy of Fine Arts. The course dealt with the Turkish house in his typological
and technological elements, analysing the building process, from the foundations laying to the roof completion.
Cansever graduated in architecture in 1946, with a project for a municipal building in the Beikta district of Istanbul,
under the supervision of Eldem, with whom he continued his career, working until 1951 as his assistant, in the Yap
class and in some projects. From that year Cansever opened his own studio and undertook an independent research
project.
Figure 1. Cansevers municipal building project (1945). Rights holder: Rahmi M. Ko.
The architecture of Turgut Cansever is morphologically distant from that of Sedad Eldem and draws on a very wide
semantic repertoire, which cannot be reducible just to the influence of a School of Architecture. However, the
experience in the Seminars on National Architectural Style and the academic and professional training with Sedad
Eldem had a decisive role in the formulation of the theoretical thought of Cansever, and this influence is clearly legible
in his works of architecture.
Two transmission subjects, which played a central role in the formation of this idea of school, in particular can be
outlined; namely the notions of "type" and "building process. Eldem in his texts, as Trk evi o Yap, has deployed a
range of possible proposals about types and architectural elements. These were part of the same tradition, but at
one time made possible the development of a new architecture. As Bozdogan (1987b, p.45) writes, the Eldems
"typological consciousness echoes that of the Enlightenment theorist Quatremre de Quincy in the sense that type
is the constructional logic of form derived from reason and use". "Type" and "building process" are, in this idea of
School, part of the same cultural legacy, based not on the imitation of models, but on valuable operating tools to
work in the city.
The type
The type has to do with the transmissibility of the settlement and urban facts and is linked to the concept of identity.
The very notion of identity admits the variation within a common formal repertoire, therefore the use of types in
architecture allows a great operational freedom, in terms of architectural composition. Representing the type a
"promise of architecture" (Grassi, 1988, pp.129-141), it expresses some pre-morphological constants, allowing a
critical look towards the settlement.
Figure 4. Turkish housing types. From: Eldem, 1984, pp.34-36.

An example is the significance of the sofa, the central space of the Turkish house, resulting from the primary
arrangement of the odalar ( "rooms") in the plan. In Eldems design for a trilogy of houses, it takes on different
meanings depending on the location and weather conditions in which the dwelling is located. As Akcan (2012, p.139)
summarizes a summer house had a closed sofa at the center; a year-round city residence had a closed peripheral
sofa along its faades; a city house in a hot and arid climate had open sofas and terraces on very floor. The shape
and the position of the sofa conciliate between the domestic (living space) and the outside (the landscape), between
private and public. The essence of the modern Turkish house is expressed in its plan: Eldem did not follow either Le
Corbusiers plan libre or Loos raumplan, instead organizing any specific feature of living in a space allocated to it,
joined around a core with a symbolic value (Akcan, 2012, p.140), namely the sofa, whose functionality is ambiguous
for the modern Turkish family, but whose meaning remains, like a message from the past.
The link existing between house and site is handed down by Eldem and also by other important protagonists of this
academic renewal season. In Das trkische Wohnhaus (1941), Ernst Egli affirms that the house contains the most
primitive impulses of man and expresses the instinct that binds him to the surroundings. Comparing the development
of the Roman house with those of the Greek and Saxon house, he highlights how different building types demonstrate
the same approach to the settlement, which comes from the need of a sedentary lifestyle. These types, as they
evolve, fill in a compact manner the lot, occupying first the boundaries to create closed and continuous facades,
instead leaving open a central courtyard. According to Egli, the Turkish type, by contrast, draws its origins from the
nomad tent, which has become, in a subsequent evolution, a wooden pavilion (Ksk). But what distinguishes the
Turkish embryonic type from other typological examples, from Asian too, is that the pavilion has never directly
integrated with the surrounding area, but is located inside a border wall, enclosing a private garden. So the house
occupies the lot starting from the middle, and not vice versa.
Figure 5. Development of the Roman, Greek, Saxon and Turkish house in comparison. From: Egli, 1941, p.60.
The critical thought of Turgut Cansever is based on these teachings. One of his first projects is the restoration, in
1949, of the Sadullah Paa yal along the Bosphorus. The building was in deteriorating conditions and had undergone
over the centuries many alterations, not always congruent with the original structure. Cansever here had the
opportunity to verify by construction the teaching of Eldem and to reflect on the spatiality of the house. In particular,
he reached the idea that, like the mosques and the Turkish town, the Turkish house is composed of structurally
distinct and functionally independent parts, which together form a unit, but without losing their particular
characteristics. The central sofa is considered by Cansever as directly connected with the city and the landscape,
according to a multidirectional axiality. On this space are leaned different rooms, each one with a coherent size with
its function. The composition of the Turkish house spaces, in Cansever interpretation, has similarities with the Mies
Van der Rohe design, where space is imagined as a continuum, on which are interposed walls and pillars. In this case,
however, the interposition on the continuous space of the city is given by the settled tectonics, that enclose in turn
the rooms of the house, always maintaining openings on the surroundings. The relationship between the rooms is
narrated by the light, understood as a space variable, which, filtered by a careful use of the windows, can interpret
the hierarchies.
Figure 6. Plan of the Sadullah Paa yal (1949). Rights holder: Cansever family.
Figure 7. Foto of the central sofa of the Sadullah Paa yal (1949). Foto by C. Emdem. Rights holder: Cansever family.
Istanbul represents the built model of the Ottoman city, the starting point for the modern experimentations on the
Turkish type, nevertheless the typological analysis was developed in the whole Anatolia by Eldem, during the '30s,
'40s and '50s, through the Seminars on the National Architectural Style. In the following decades, Cansever has
continued to work on typological experimentations in his projects, in various regions of Turkey.
In the headquarters of the Turkish Historical Society in Ankara, built between 1962 and 1966 and awarded with the
Aga Khan Award in 1980, the architect used, for example, the contamination between different types to build a
"house", which embodies the entire Turkish culture in its complexity.
In this case the architect confronted himself with the difficulty of working in a city that had lost most of its original
structure, due to an inadequate urbanization. The construction of a new administrative and management centre
caused indeed the gradual destruction of the historical urban fabric, still to be largely recovered. When, in 1935,
Sedad Eldem wrote Anciennes maisons d'Ankara, the city kept still preserved some of its former neighbourhoods. In
this text, the description of the Anatolian house, with a specific attention to the materials and construction features,
anticipates almost forty years his projects and those of Eldem himself and Cansever for Ankara, but it seems already
showing the intentions that will be developed by both the architects.
Cansevers design for the headquarters of the Turkish Historical Society, as a completely closed Ribat in the desert,
isolates and defends itself from the architectural conditions of the surroundings, allowing to develop inside a
narrative made of contamination and interactions between types. When it is not possible to find references in the
city of the present, Cansever looks for them in the past. The plan structure reminds us a madrasa, but also a Turkish
house. The proportions between the parts are established by the use of a structural grid of 3.20 x 3.30 meters, which
refers to the size of the beams of the traditional architecture, the grid that also uses insistently Eldem in his designs
for the Indian and Dutch embassies, built between 1965 and 1977.
The compositional focus is the central hall, which like a sofa of a home, the madrasa court or the great hall of a
mosque is conceived in continuity with the urban space, although separated from it. It is the compositional pivot
around which are connected public and private spaces, the house and the city. On this space and on the facades are
opened large wooden windows designed in reference to the Ottoman Kafes, the jealousies of Topkap Palace, behind
which were kept under close surveillance the successors to the throne of sultan.
A veritable anthology of Turkish architecture is here represented. The building externally looks totally anti-classic,
despite the planning recourse to archetypes deduced from the Turkish and the Islamic tradition. It is hard to find a
unique point of view to grasp its overall size, it is easier to read the building in parts, pieces of architecture assembled
together. Where the city is no longer able to be principle, the architecture of Cansever becomes bearer of a city
message.
In designing the Indian (1965) and Dutch embassy (1973-77) in Ankara, the mature architect Eldem will take to an
extreme level the theme of the house, from a completely new point of view, which is to represent another country
in the typical forms of a Turkish building. In the embassies projects, just after Cansevers Turkish Historical Society,
the housing types acquire a new dimension and are made more complex by the presence of spaces not functionally
related to the housing. Interestingly, in this period the work of the two architects is combined by operating in the
same city and at the same theme, developed from an ancient common research.
Figure 8. First floor plan of the Turkish Historical Society headquarters (1962-66). Drawing by Eliana Martinelli.
Figure 9. Ground floor plan of the Dutch embassy by S.H. Eldem (1973-77). From: Bozdogan, 1987a, 139.
Standardization of the building process
In the projects for new urban settlements in Turkey, Cansever uses the principle of variation on the local type. In
particular, are noteworthy the Demir village in Bodrum, designed in a first step in 1971-72 and completed in 1987;
the Batkent new town near Ankara, designed in 1980-81; the Kaleard district in Sivas, designed in 1998. In these
new neighbourhoods the type seems continuously to conform on one hand to the settlement, landscape and
topographical necessities, related to the location of the house, on the other hand to the residential needs of the
people who lives in. Rather is the participatory planning with the inhabitants a widely adopted method by the
architect. The typological variation, however, assumes the idea of a standard type; the standardization of the plan
indeed is a basic compositional criterion in the Cansever designs for new settlements. The layouts are drawn by
altering from time to time the orientation of the same plan, while in the facades the position of the windows, even
if they have equal size, is never the same.
Figure 10. Partial plan of the Kaleard district in Sivas (1998). Rights holder: Cansever family.
This consideration is useful to introduce another principle of transmission, in the teaching of Eldem to Cansever,
namely the conception of architecture as "art of building", a reference in turn to the yap sanat of Bruno Taut (1938).
The use of both planimetric and constructive standards acquires a central role in the thought of the two architects.
In the historic period when both are working, Turkey, and Istanbul in particular, needs a growing number of houses,
because of the incessant population increase.
For Eldem, who had the opportunity to visit between 1929 and 1930 the industrial English cities, highlighting the
poor housing conditions, and the German Siedlungen, the solution can lie in the standardization and use of local
materials.
In his four-step social housing program, he first suggested using local materials, such as brick, stone, wood, adobe,
Ktahya mosaics, and tiles, and importing only reinforced concrete. () Second, he insisted on using local labor,
additionally noting that Turkish construction workers were still inexperienced to build overly elaborate structures,
and thus proposing to simplify the unit plans and details. Third, he proposed to standardize not only plans, but also
building parts such us windows, doors, toilets, and sinks. And finally, in an unexpected move, Eldem proposed to
eliminate the private architect as middle man. The typical plans should be prepared in an office of the municipality
in order to remove the fees of the individual freelance architect. (Akcan, 2012: 127-128).
Following these criteria Turkish architecture, according to Eldem, can emancipate and become a national work.
The points promoted by Eldem in its housing program will be implemented by Cansever, who will draw up operational
proposals during the '70s, as director of the Greater Istanbul Planning Authority (Cansever, 1981, p.80). It is important
to clarify that the meaning of "standard" expressed by Cansever in his essays and in the official documents distances
itself from Western modernism positions. Cansever often recalls how in the early republican period in Turkey were
mainly introduced urban standards imported from the West, with the disastrous consequence of destroying the
characteristics of the Turkish city, that for Cansever are reflection of a set of human and ethical codes, deeply-rooted
in the culture of place. The standards legislation is rather important in so far as it is able to respond to the needs of
a community. The standard is thus the instrument of expression of a sense of belonging to transmit to the future
generations, based on functional requirements, because linked to anthropological questions still valid.
Figure 11. Detail of the concrete structure construction of the Gztepe Apartment (1965). Rights holder: Cansever
family.
Figure 11. Detail of the wooden structure construction of the Hadi Bey yal (1994-99). Rights holder: Cansever family.
In his architectural thought, Cansever always raises the question of the relationship between the universal and local.
In most of his writings he returns on the idea of standard, referring to Frank Lloyd Wright: We need to develop the
standards. It is so that all men may have the pleasure of common things. (Cansever, 2012, p.21) Cansever gives as
example the old windows standard of the Ottoman vernacular architecture: The standard of the windows is the
same in every city of the empire, in Mostar, in Safranbolu or to Denizli. [...] This means founding on the same point
of view the relationship between the inside and the outside of the building. (Cansever, 2012, p.18) In this way it is
possible to create a continuity in the experience of the site. (Otkunc, 2013, p.34)
In this regard, for example, a building element of the yal, treated by Cansever as theme in most of his projects, is the
large shutter that opens onto the sea and the garden, establishing continuity with the landscape. The shutters
gradually assume in its projects a more complex meaning, combining the formal idea of the Ottomans Kafes with the
need to have views on the landscape, as in the case of the Anadolu Hotel in Bykada Island (1951-57), or on an
internal space considered part of the city, as in the Turkish Historical Society headquarters in Ankara.
While the thought of Cansever appears far too reverential towards the tradition, especially the Islamic one, his
designs express a constant search for innovation. In each new project, Cansever tried to introduce a new building
technology: a rationalised traditional tecnique, an in-situ semi-industrial method, a new use of some local building
materials. (Ycel, 1983, p.63-64)
Figure 12. Anadolu Hotel in Bykada (1951-57). Rights holder: Cansever family.
Figure 13. The Kafes of the Turkish Historical Society headquarters (1962-66). Foto by R. Gnay. Rights holder:
Cansever family.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be assert that the effectiveness of a teaching transmission can be evaluated not on the formal
emulation, rejected several times by Eldem himself as a matter of fashion, but on the possibility of forming a critical
ability, through a working method based on the study of the project in relation to the site, analysing case by case the
possible success of the proposed solutions. By contrast, the architectural theories assumed as irrefutable are
reduced, by those who uncritically emulate, to formal bedrocks that produce trendy building. Affirms in this regard
Eldem during an interview in 1987:
"As I explored the origins of authentic Turkish architecture, fashions were sweeping the architectural lingua franca.
These fashions become major illnesses in the countries they take root in, especially societies that are vulnerable
because they lack determination and have no strength of character. Weakness of character leads to imitation, and
you cant fight that. It will take generations to understand what I was trying to do." (zkan, 1993, p.57)
References
Akcan, E., 2012, Architecture in translation: Germany, Turkey and the modern house. Durham: Duke University Press.
Bozdogan, S., 1987, Modernity in tradition. In: Bozdogan, S., zkan, S. and Yenal, E. eds. 1987, Sedad Eldem: Architect
in Turkey, Singapore: Concept Media. Ch.2.
Bozdogan, S. and Yenal, E., 1987, On an architect. Sedad Hakk Eldem of Turkey. Mimar: Architecture in development,
24, pp.44-66.
Cansever, T., 1981,Thoughts and architecture. Istanbul: Trk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi.
Cansever, T., 2012, Kubbeyi Yere Koymamak. Istanbul: Tima.
Egli, E., 1941, Das trkische Wohnhaus. Schweizerische Bauzeitung, 117, pp.59-63.
Eldem, S.H., 1935, Anciennes maisons dAnkara. La Turquie kemaliste, 7, pp.10-12.
Eldem, S.H., 1984, Trk Evi: Osmanl dnemi / Turkish houses: Ottoman period. Istanbul: Turizm Deerlerini Koruma
Vakf TA. Vol.1.
Grassi, G., 1988, Architettura lingua morta. Milano: Electa.
Otkunc, A., 2013, La (Re)construction du lieu: le cas de larchitecture de Turgut Cansever. In: Espace Matires Socit:
architecture en recherche. Grenoble: ENSAG, pp.25-36.
zkan, S., 1987, Echoes of Sedad Eldem. In: Bozdogan, S., zkan, S. and Yenal, E. eds. 1987, Sedad Eldem: Architect
in Turkey, Singapore: Concept Media. Ch.1.
zkan, S., 1993, Fifty years of Modern Turkish architecture: a search for identity. Zodiac, 10, pp.55-59.
Taut, B., 1938, Mimar Bilgisi, Istanbul: Gzel Sanatlar Akademisi.
Ycel, A., 1983, Contemporary Turkish architecture. A thematic overview through the work of Eldem, Cansever and
Cinici. Mimar: Architecture in development, 10, pp.58-68.
AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON BLURRED MARGINS

BETWEEN ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE
BURN YILMAZ, T. NUR ALAR
Burin Ylmaz, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, T. Nur alar, Prof. Dr., TOBB
University of Economics and Technology
*This paper is a part of the ongoing master thesis on the Master of Architecture Program at TOBB University of Economics and
Technology.
Abstract
The contemporary built environment has already exceeded the classical terminology and theoretical framework of
architecture and landscape. The discursive content, techniques and the production of new territory of built
environment are not at the intersection of distinct knowledge-basis anymore. So, it can be said that the production
could not be interpreted as a singular object and also could not be comprehended through the knowledge of one
field. In this sense, all productions in the city form the scape of it. The concepts of neither architecture nor landscape
are relevant or valid to explain that current situation, which has overwhelmed the classical understanding of place,
topography, landscape, building, morphology, typology, even inside and outside.
In this respect, the objective of this study is to picture out the theoretical framework of this contemporary spatial
production and develop a new conceptual content. Thus, particular cases of new spatial production shall be examined
to trace certain qualities and characteristics. Besides, the etymological and conceptual formation of the concepts of
landscape and architecture shall be investigated critically in order to understand the mutual relationship between
the discursive mode and physical mode of spatial production.
It is considered that the analytical investigation of the concepts of landscape and architecture shall provide a
method to derive new keywords and concepts. Consequently, it will be possible to offer a new conceptual framework
for the contemporary modes of spatial production.
Keywords: Architecture, Landscape, Discipline, Margin, City.
The Field of the Study
There are a vast amount of complex discourses and concepts aimed at understanding the phenomenon of
contemporary cities at the present time. It has been observed that classical terminology has already fallen short in
its efforts to comprehend new spatial production. Upon examination of the new concepts, it can be observed that
the concepts are also transformed in a complex way. A great number of the concepts are improved in order to
represent the built environment with terminology such as a cityscape, techno-scape, transportation-scapes, suburbscape, subcityscape, waterscape, colourscape, windowscape or even skyscape. The same situation can be
encountered with regards to spatial production. Hybridity, fusion, complexity, and amalgamation are used to define
methods of spatial production. It is claimed that, within the effort to understand the current situation, the
multiplicities of the concepts about built environment and the spatial production in it, indicates the disorder of the
discourse. Thus, the city has a magnitude and complexity that cannot be comprehended through a single disciplinary
approach. The point of view of this study is that the new perspectives should be developed in order to better perceive
the current phenomena. It is necessary to come up with new concepts in order to understand the era and to develop
an idea about the city.
It is important to start with a concept that intersects all of these disorders and multiplicities. SCAPE, which was
introduced by Rem Koolhaas can be used to cut across the city through its boundaries, margins, center, periphery,
inside, outside, figure, and ground. Thereby, all production in the city forms the scape of it. Adding this, Rem
Koolhaas understands the city as a field determined by accumulations, connections, densities, transformations, and
fluctuations. Angelil and Klingmanns (1999, p. 24) interpretation of this perspective can be seen in the following:
This choice of terms, borrowed from the field of topology, points to a conception of the city as a dynamic system in
which architecture, infrastructure, and landscape are no more than events or occurrences within an uninterrupted
spatial field. According to the article entitled Hybrid Morphologies by Angelil and Klignmann, the term scape is
the amalgamation of infrastructure, architecture, and landscape. The togetherness and convergence of these
components become crucial when comprehending cities as a whole. The substitution of architecture as landscape,
infrastructure as architecture, and landscape as infrastructure, can introduce more potentials in the understanding
of the city phenomena on other grounds rather than comprehending it conventionally. In addition to this, they
present a project, entitled Dolphin that belonged to Rem Koolhaas, as a hybridization of components within a space
of topological extension instead of prioritizing architecture. In their work, they advocate that dissolving the
boundaries between architecture, infrastructure, and landscape de-centers the notion of the architectural object
(Angelil & Klignmann, 1999).
As exemplified above, the concepts of architecture or landscape are neither relevant nor valid when attempting to
explain the current situation, which has overwhelmed the classical understanding of place, topography, landscape,
building, morphology, typology, and even the perceptiong of inside and outside. With the convergence of these two
disciplines, new terminologies are formed. Herein, Anthony Vidlers (2000) discourse gains importance:
Folds, blobs, nets, skins, diagrams: all words that have been employed to describe theoretical and design procedures
over the last decade, and that have rapidly replaced the cuts, rifts, faults, and negations associated with
deconstruction, which had previously displaced the types, signs, structures, and morphologies of rationalism. The
new vocabulary has something to do with contemporary interest in the informe; it seems to draw its energies from
a rereading of Bataille and a new interest in Deleuze and Guattari; its movies of choice would perhaps be Crash before
Blade Runner, The Matrix before Brazil; its favorite reading might take in Burroughs (but no longer Gibson), Z izek
(but maybe not Derrida). The representative forms of this by now strong tendency are complex and curved, smooth
and intersecting, polished and translucent, thin and diagrammatic. Both the new vocabulary and its materializations
intersect with and take many of their techniques from digital technology; indeed many of the projected and built
designs would be unrealizable, if not unimaginable, without it. They are words and forms conceived and manipulated
in a virtual space, with, nevertheless, an intimate relationship to production techniques and the technology of
materials. Such a relationship would be impossible without the digital interface that construes information,
theoretical and practical, according to the same rules of representation and replication.
As Vidler stated, terminology should be updated based on its era. It can be seen that the terminology and reading
forms have changed by transforming and changing structural elements. Based on these notions, it seems that the
current concepts of neither landscape and architecture are inadequate to comprehend the new era. It is claimed
that, when the historical period of landscape is analyzed the transformation of the concept can be seen. To illustrate
the evolution and changes in the status of landscape, Alex Wall (1999, p. 233) indicates in the seminar Cityscape: The
Urban Surface that was organized in 1994: The term landscape no longer refers to the prospect of pastoral
innocence but rather invokes the functioning matrix of connective tissue that organizes not only objects and spaces
but also the dynamic processes and events that move through them. This is landscape as active surface, structuring
the conditions for new relationships and interactions among the things it supports.
Kelly Shannon (2012) also summits that the landscape has altered from natural and artificial to richer term such
as embracing urbanism, infrastructure, strategic planning, architecture and speculative ideas. She states the most
crucial discourse about landscape has evolved from pictoral to strategic or operational perspective. Landscape
discourse has transformed from picture to process. It is claimed, that borrowing concepts from other disciplines
would enable new discources to redefine its agenda and enlighten its knowledge of origin. Until the middle of the
twentieth century, the fields used the references from well-established areas such as archaeology and the philosophy
of history. From the mid-twentieth century till present day however, architectural theory has used more fluid
discourses like as structuralism, semiotics, cybernetics, cultural studies, and gender studies, etc. It can be seen that
with new and original perspectives that are based on the knowledge of neighbouring fields can cause the emergance
of new voices in architectural theory. At this juncture, a multi-layered interdisciplinary approach gains importance
through representation and questioning while transforming the intrinsic knowledge of architecture (Crysler, et al.,
2012).
This study builds upon the intersection between architecture and landscape. In doing so, this study aims to provide
a method or to derive new keywords or concepts to strengthen this intersection. Therefore, the evolution of the
disciplines to claim a new and authentic conceptual framework will be examined. Thus, particular cases of new spatial
production will be examined to determine certain qualities and characteristics. Along with this, the etymological and
conceptual formation of the concepts of landscape and architecture will be critically investigated in order to
understand the mutual relationship between the discursive mode and physical mode of spatial production. To
understand this intersection between these two crucial terms, it is a necessary to investigate the margins, instead of
the knowledge that is already in the origin. Due to the fact that new spatial production cannot be fully understood
with the original knowledge of the field, it shall be investigated at the area that is blurred. This blurring will provide
to the new level of insight.
It is possible to claim that the complexity of a city has made it impossible to comprehend and produce knowledge of
the city through one specific discipline or area. Thus, a transdisciplinary approach is compulsory. In that sense, new
and experimental fields with their blurred margins could be relevant and inspiring. It can be said that to utilize
information from the other fields that are interested in the city can help expand the margins that are generated. This
study strives to re-evaluate the nature and the structure of the city through the architecture, environment, and the
landscape.
Bernard Tschumi supports the idea that in order to create a new approach in spatial production one should stay at
the margins:
In the second half of the seventies, there was a huge gap in architecture. There were two diverging movements.
Some sought refuge in the history of architecture. In order to redefine the discipline, they began emphasizing the
memory, the typology and the morphology of the cities. In this way, they returned to the centre. But felt- perhaps
because of inclination or instinct- that you have to go as far as you can. In the centre, I would never find anything
new. I can break new ground on the edge, in the margin. And what is the margin of architecture? It is the point where
it comes into contact with other areas (rather than disciplines) because I operate on the boundaries, I believe I can
ask the real questions. But if I had operated from the centre, from history, then I could only dig more deeply into that
same centre. (Steenbergen & Reh, 1996, pp. 9-10).
This discourse supports the idea that spatial production should digress from the boundaries of the discipline. As
Tschumi stated, it can be practised unidirectionally within the limits of the architecture. On the other hand, it will
gain versatility through its boundary because of its energy. Today, it cannot be exactly determined where disciplinary
margins begin or end, and what they are comprised of. It seems as though the scopes of these disciplines enlarge
and transform through the penetration into each others border areas. In light of this, it can be easily said that the
boundaries are blurred. The city is a complex phenomenon that can be understood by examining the blurred areas.
It will offer a new thing to the city, which is a production of the multidisciplinary approach, by becoming distant from
the center of the scope. Otherwise, by staying at the center one will be forced to exist with an established knowledge
that is contained in certain limits. This situation will impede the transfer of knowledge between disciplines from
taking advantage of this knowledge due to the fact that each discipline has developed its own set of knowledge
independent from the other. By only improving the knowledge at the center, the disciplines will be left in a congested
space and working within this space will eventually lead to a vicious cycle. Today, this congestion is slowly diminishing
and the boundaries of the disciplines are expanding.
In this study, in order to comprehend and enhance the margins of the disciplines of architecture, these boundaries
will be investigated from the outside of the habitus. Habitus is a term, introduced by Bourdieu (1971, p. 83), A
system of lasting, transposable dispositions which, integrating past experiences, functions at every moment as a
matrix of perceptions, appreciations, and actions and makes possible the achievement of infinitely diversified tasks,
thanks to analogical transfers of schemes permitting the solution of similarly shaped problems. The idea of habitus
can be seen as an intellectual familiarity through the integrating of past experiences in reference to everyday tasks.
In this study, habitus is used to represent knowledge in the field of architecture. It can be presented as a significant
case, since being outside of the habitus generates a deeper understanding of the habitus. The circumstance of
being outside is explained by Elizabeth Grosz, who argues architecture from the perspective of philosophy. In this
study, outside will be defined as the knowledge of the landscape. Transforming or enhancing the knowledge from
the outside will improve the status of the discipline of architecture. The boundary between the inside and the outside,
just as much as between self and other and subject and object, must not be regarded as a limit to be transgressed,
so much as a boundary to be traversed (Grosz, 2001, p. 65). She clarifies that the situation from the outside when
exploring architecture, is not just the exterior of buildings. She defines the status of the outsider as a non-related to
architecture (Grosz, 2001). For this reason, outside can reference landscape and can also demonstrate what is both
literally and figuratively outside of an architectural area. This perspective gains significance due to the translation of
knowledge from the outside (landscape) to the inside (architecture). The content of the habitus will be
enriched through the transformation of the knowledge from the outside. As stated by Grosz (2001), this case quoted
from the chapter of Introduction in the book entitled Architecture from the Outside will provide an experimental
approach to the knowledge of center. Outside each of the disciplines in their most privileged and accepted forms,
outside the doxa and received conceptions, where they become experiment and innovation more than good sense
with guaranteed outcomes, we will find the most perilous, experimental, and risky of texts and practices.
The degree of association between the two disciplines which are landscape and architecture should be examined by
comprehending from the outside. As Rem Koolhaas (1995, p. 574) states below, in order to understand new spatial
products or terms, it is crucial to be informed of about its historical backgrounds like genealogy: The history of
architecture is not the chronology of architectural form but the genealogy of architecture will. From this point of
view, the relationship between landscape and architecture shall be presented as a genealogy and not only in a
chronological order because, when these two disciplines interact, they transform differently from their components.
This process can be evaluated as a knowledge transfer. The produced outcome contains a little bit of both and can
be considered a hybrid from the beginning state. It reveals a fusion that has more energy. When examined, it could
be seen that this type of combination resembles that of the the knowledge transfer that is similar to that of genetic
science.
When genealogy is analyzed, it can be seen that hybridization increases in every generational step. At the last step,
it can be seen that the knowledge from the beginning has been transformed and contains more information from its
predecessors. In this study, it is claimed that when examining the relationship between landscape and architecture,
there is an indication of similar characteristic like genealogy. It is also claimed that while landscape and architecture
have an ancestor in common, a degree of the variability can be observed when they are interacting with each other.
The present status of landscape and architecture can be said to parallel the latest step in the genealogy tree, since it
contains more hybridity from its predecessors.
The Theoritical Background of Interplay Landscape and Built Environment
Tom Turner (1996, p. 179) stated that the worlds first park was made by homo sapiens erecting a fence to protect
an area of land. Then, the private parks were made for families of kings. After that, public parks began to be included
in the plans of grand cities. When grand cities came to be planned, spatial ideas were often developed in the rulers'
parks and passed through to the streets and spaces of the cities in which their dictat ran. This practice no longer
operates because, in modern states, rulers are shy of conspicuous consumption.
Figure 1. Tom Turner's graphic for Greenspace leaked out and almost destroyed the City (Turner,1996, p.180)
Turner (1996) states the parks in the nineteenth century known as a public parks, were bound due to the fact
that they were locked at night. Later on, these parks were linked by parkways, an idea developed by Frederick Law
Olmsted, who is known as the first landscape architect. Finally, as Turner describes, parks began to capture the city.
Thus, greenspace began to organise the cities and became the core elements for the city planning over time.
There are some terms that are commonly accepted and used in the landscape field such a picturesque, landscaping,
landscape gardening, landscape design, landscape planning, landscape engineering, landscape architecture, etc.
One of that terms, picturesque, marked the end of the classical landscape ideal of the Enlightenment. With the
marching of industrialization, the rural areas gave way to the development of cities. Thus, the landscape garden was
placed between the country life and industrial metropolis. The form of the landscape garden developed on the edge
of picturesque tradition and the landscape architectonic experimentation. The landscape garden could be seen as a
significant component of the urban revolution. In the 19th and 20th century cities, the picturesque landscape had a
leading role. Its device appears more essentially modern; the decline of rural life and the arrival of the industrial
society marked the beginning of an urban landscape architecture, which even in our own age has not fully explored
its great gamut of possibilities. (Steenbergen & Reh, 1996, p. 253) Steenbergen and Reh (1996) classified the term
landscape with three imaginary layers which were the natural, agricultural, and architectonic landscapes. They
used natural landscape to describe the natural state of nature. Then, they saw the agricultural landscape as a
process of the growing. And finally, they used architectonic landscape to explain the constructed environment. This
study also focuses on the last term architectonic landscape because of relation to the city.
When examining its history, it can be clearly seen that landscape architecture has been deeply influenced by art. It
created the basis of the discipline of landscape architecture by not only transforming the natural state of nature
through art but also built this transformation through the reflection of the picturesque views of nature.
To illustrate, English landscape design developed within the Ideal Theory of Art that derived from Aristotle's
interpretation of Plato's Theory of Ideas. All objects were seen as imperfect copies of universal ideas, and the artist's
job was to get as close as possible to the ideal. Tom Turner (1996) states that before the eighteenth century,
landscape design was based on imitating nature. In order to do this, practitioners used the Neoplatonic axiom art
should imitate nature.
It can be said that it is diversified from the case that had emerged at the first time while examining the existence of
connection between two fields. This can be seen as a critical phenomenon, because of its ability to organize the city
and ability to feed the discipline of architecture. Adding to this, the fact that this phenomenon has evolved as
belonging to the city when it originally it belonged to nature can be seen as significant.
When examining the knowledge transfer between the landscape and built environment, three varied generations
can be observed. These generations are presented in this study as reproduction, combination, and invention which
are quoted from the book titled The Non-Objective World by Kasimir Malevich. Malevich (1959, pp. 30-31) argues
that a realistic artist reproduces nature as it is, and that there is no creativeness due to the fact that they are just
imitating nature. An artist who expresses himself rather than imitates, includes new realities in his works, and these
works create their own realities. Thus, it is presented that the latter is more significant because of the addition of
something to art. Malevich categorises these acts under the three title of activities:
- that of invention (the creation of the new)
- that of combination (the transformation of the existing)
- that of reproduction (the imitation of the existing).
This classification is used for grading the art object, it can be used for analysing the interplay among the disciplines
which create the built environment. For this reason, this classification organizes the main structure of the study.
Figure 2. The Background of the Study
At the end of the nineteenth century, a new specialization area started to emerge titled landscape architecture.
This new emerging discipline was caused the by idea of a seperation within the field of the design. At first, the term
landscape was used to express nature as an image of nature, but Olmsted defined landscape architecture as a
discipline that built the environment when he presented Central Park. Thus, a new field began with the creation of
Central Park. It is clearly seen that the condition of the discipline still presented as a reproduction due to the
mimicking of nature and art. The term Reproduction is not incorrect reading for Central Park and the design of that
era, since the park arose as a state of nature and was built by mimicking. Its lake was artificial, its trees were planted,
and its topography was also constructed. It may be perceived as innovative for the 19 th century to build green in the
city but it is inadequate to comprehend the contemporary cities. Frederick Law Olmsted (Beveridge, 2015) also
explained this park as a natural scenery: The first point to be kept in mind then is the preservation and maintenance
as exactly as is possible of the natural scenery; the restriction, that is to say, within the narrowest limits consistent
with the necessary accommodation of visitors, of all artificial constructions and the prevention of all constructions
markedly inharmonious with the scenery or which would unnecessarily obscure, distort or detract from the dignity
of the scenery. It can be seen that many concepts and terminologies that are found in the intersecting areas have
evolved with the maintaining and interpreting the disciplines repeatedly. A transforming city will in turn, transform
the concepts. Charles Waldheim, the creator of the landscape urbanism concept, defends that planning is formed
by the pattern of the landscape, and not according to the buildings. Thereby, the landscape appears as a design
decision while organizing the city according to existing landscape and shall be evaluated as a combination.
Landscape urbanism can be shown as an example for blurring the boundaries of the disciplines, and that the
conceptual framework of landscape has transformed in order to belong to the city. The High Line project in
Manhattan, New York, can be exemplified as a product of landscape urbanism. This project is presented by James
Corner Field Operations (2009):
The design is characterized by an intimate choreography of movement, with alternating vistas and experiences.
Distinctive paving, planting, furnishing, lighting and social spaces create an authentic and memorable New York City
experience. The High Line is widely recognized as a huge success and demonstrates the value in creating new and
fresh public spaces in the City.
And Finally, it can be exemplified Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle Washington, was designed by Weiss/Manfredi,
as an inventional project because of the use of knowledge from more than one discipline. It not only creates an
artificial landscape, but also a new spatial product. The design invites new remarks by using art, landscape and
architecture (Minner, 2011). It has more differences than the conventional parcelling. With this project, it can be
seen that the problem of building is approached with an integrative attitude. So, the generated product contains
the knowledge of more than one field.
In conclusion, this study aims to investigate the new condition between landscape and architecture. It will be
offered as an invention area for the understanding of the new structuring. It is seen as a crucial for understanding
innovative ideas through contemporary cities.
The thought that had redefined as invention based on reproduction and combination forms the methodology of
the study. These perspectives are improved for analysing the intersection between landscape and architecture.
Towards a Further Expansion
The paper explores the interplay of architecture and landscape with the aim of providing a new framework for
contemporary spatial production. When the historical background and the genealogy of the term landscape are
analyzed, it can be seen that the term has always been related to architecture, urbanism, and city. They have always
been connected, only the degree of connection has changed. Earlier, the combination of the term landscape with
architecture was the first step, followed by the combination of the term with urbanism and later with art. When
reviewing this evolutionary process, it is said these notions are always a fusion and always contain hybridity. This
genealogy analysis can possibly provide the infrastructure for a new conceptual framework. While, understanding
and analyzing the relationship between the two concepts, will open up new horizons.
References
Angelil, M. & Klignmann, A., 1999. Hybrid Morphologies. Daidalos, Vol.73.
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[Accessed 30 May 2016].
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Steenbergen, C. & Reh, W., 1996. Architecture and Landscape: The Design Experiment of the Great European
Garden and Landscapes. Munich: Prestel.
Turner, T., 1996. City as Landscape: A Post- Postmodern View of Design and Planning. 1st ed. London: E&F Spon.
Vidler, A., 2000. Warped Space: Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
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Landscape Theory. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
SURFACE RE-CONFIGURATION:
PARASITIC ARCHITECTURE INTERVENTION THEORY
ON ABANDONED AND UNUSED STRUCTURES
M. DANIAL ISMAIL
Engineering and Architecture Faculty, Kastamonu University, Turkey
Abstract
A parasite in scientific definition is a living organism that is attached to a living host for survival advantages such as
food, nutrition, breeding and also reproduction. Parasitic architecture can be defined as an adaptable and exploitive
form of architecture that creates a relationship with its host building containing different program configuration but
rely on the same end user, location advantages or even structural needs. Analysis of the Torre David, a 45-storey
office tower in Caracas as a case study to understand the characteristics of a successful parasitic architecture reveals
a deeper understanding on how additional alterations on the abandoned site building can further encourage a more
functional and safer environment as a host. The abandoned spaces are evaded by squatters and families from slums
to have a more comfortable life in the city. Considering these structures are unused and low cost housing
developments are not enough, it is only fair for these people to take refuge and bring life to these long abandoned
concrete shelter. These people act as parasites to the host building by building their new homes using found materials
scattered around the unfinished building site and also material scavenged from their previous slum housing units.
Like mushrooms living of a tree log, it is a rejuvenating intervention on behalf of humanity and the citys appearance
as they eliminate unused bare structures and put them to good use. As a critical exercise on this theory of surface re
configuration, a photograph of an unfinished and abandoned building is selected and visually dissected into
segments. Proposed alterations include reducing the height of the building, re - organising segments of the building,
cutting openings and making connections between separated spaces and enhancing the structural integrity of the
host building. The approach is to further enhance the host structure spatially and to identify how to open structures
to create more habitable surfaces and openings. The proposition is to enhance workable surfaces for maximum and
better space usage without compromising the spatial quality and living environment. Making use of abandoned sites
to live its potential and also solving unorganized housing issues seem to be a legitimate answer. Juxtaposing the
scenario from a negative to a possibly positive defines urban development to another level. Taking into consideration
the climatic and environmental aspects while deciding the incisions on the structure is a factor to take note. Addition
of workable surfaces can make parasitic adaptation more effective.
Introduction
Living in the city is much harder than we think. People who are categorized as the urban poor could not afford to buy
or rent property. Examples of the urban poor include people who migrate from neighbouring cities and even
neighbouring countries to come and find job opportunities in a more developed economy. Foreign construction
workers who are hired for cheap labour costs are popular in South East Asia. Constructions in the city require massive
amounts of workers to finish projects on time. Project sizes and durations vary and often stretch from one to five
years. Interestingly, the same amount of time can qualify a migrant worker to apply as a permanent resident. Part of
the people who migrated come from undeveloped countries and prefer to stay in the country which they work with
better life quality.
Some construction companies do not provide their workers accommodation but encourage them to build their own
temporary living shelters near to the construction site. These shelters later become slums and for the people who
decided to stay, remain living in poor conditions. These slums often get caught in between developments and often
become an eyesore for the cityscape.
On the other hand, developing countries is South East Asia has its ups and downs economically. As a result of this as
in other developing countries is the Americas and Africa, some developments stop before completion due to
unforeseen financial problems. Unfinished structures remain unfinished and left as is on site. The question of how
these buildings can be dealt with still remains grey, however, new strategies of urban transformation that include
this issue is constantly proposed and debated.
Is it possible to combine these two issues together to form a possible solution? Can we encourage slum habitants to
revive the remains of an unfinished project?
Parasitic architecture explores this idea of a host building and parasitic like habitation strategies. The host building
will provide structural support and shelter from the main elements of nature such as direct sun, heavy rains and
strong winds. Proposals from architects, research groups and students try to utilize this idea and give samples of
what their vision of how some parasitic interventions could be built. Not only slum habitants, but proposals aim a
wide spectrum of people including the homeless, street dwellers, and travellers. Some of these projects try to put
forward the idea of nomadic living that focuses more on temporary living strategies, sourcing food and other
resources from their surroundings.
This study however focuses on the slum habitants which are keen to settle rather than a nomadic lifestyle. Although
being a parasite forces you to work with the available conditions of the host, in this study, the main feature will be
how to augment the host building, creating a more efficient and workable foundation for the homes to be applied
to. Strategies of how the building can be turned again to workable pieces and re-arranged are studied.
Torre David, Caracas
The tower of David in Caracas is a perfect example of how people can inhabit an abandoned construction and
transform it into a solution to slum housing issues. There are many studies done on this project and even a
documentary was made interviewing several families who stay there. They described the abandoned tower as a
saviour, giving them a second chance to live properly and become a part of the urban society. The tower or host
building, provided them immediate weather shelter, and allowed them to personalise the level of privacy and desired
spatial division within a certain boundary. Boundaries in the tower are determined by the tower comity formed by
the people living there.
Iwan Baan wrote in his book Torre David, people from slums started inhabiting the tower making up new programs
for the interior space as they went along tunnelling, breaking and knocking through the existing structure. People
living there built upon the ready available structure, and worked with whatever materials they could source from the
surrounding site and with cheap materials that are bought. Although most of the floors in the tower are completed,
some areas still have dangerous openings in the floor slabs in addition to unfinished interior wall divisions and
windows. Designed as an office tower, the building in design terms is not easy to be settled in and made into
comfortable homes. Each home layout is different and has a sense of character. Only half of the floors inside the
tower are currently inhabited, but more families are coming, adding population to the parasitic colony.
Figure 1. Openings in the walls are made for better circulation (Iwan Baan, 2010)
People migrating and settling in the tower have their own way of adapting to the host building. Like parasitic life in
nature, they adapt and evolve at a personal rate depending on conditions of the environment and their personal will.
New migrants start to live in pop up tents and mainly focus on the basic necessities such as sleeping and dining
spaces. Habitants that have stayed longer have a more established layout with more solid partitions and additional
types of living spaces. Apart from setting up homes, other programs started to be introduced into the tower. Shops,
sports areas and also religious spaces were located in different parts of the building and in between floor. Small
businesses like mini markets, tailors and barbershops can be found on certain levels providing service to the floors
near to it.
Figure 2. New settlers set up basic necessities before beginning build

their new home. (Iwan Baan, 2010)
Starting from the 29th floor and above, the floors remain empty because there is no elevator and complete staircases
that can be used as the main access. Even though the other floors above have good conditions and could host
additional families, they remain idle. Systems and building services start to adapt to the dwelling locations, water
and waste systems are organized and planned to accommodate the habited levels and change the original proposal
for the tower.
Figure 3. Floors marked in red are floors where people are

currently living in. (Iwan Baan, 2010)
Expressive alterations to building designs

Making use of abandoned buildings to live its potential and trying to solve unorganized housing issues such as slums
seems to be a legitimate answer rather than leaving these buildings idle. Juxtaposing the scenario from a negative to
a possible positive defines urban development from another aspect. German architect O.M. Ungers describes his
Grossformen theory as an idea on how he plans to solve the issue of increased demand in housing, limitation of space
and poor relationship between cost and productivity by introducing a collective coherence solely by architectural
form. He believes that by building the unplannable, the users of the Grossform will be parasitic towards the form
created thus addressing their issues immediately rather than going through the traditional time consuming process.
Grossformen becomes the organisational masterplans that establishes the order within the city. As Ungers defines
the Grossform as a system rather than as specific objects, it allows for the individual growth and design to emerge as
a parasitic architecture (Ungers O.M., Grossformen im Wohnungsbau, 1966).
Ungers work is set to define a new strategy for massive housing developments in densely populated cities. The
building forms are defined by maximum efficiency of transit, exiting and entering the building. Ungers elaborates
that by the people expressing how they utilize the building with its surrounding streets, junctions, transit nodes and
etc., the building will express the form of architecture for the sake of architecture. Moreover, the Grossform is not
about size but rather as an architectural expression across all scales, grounding to the unpredictable and fleeting
condition of life in the city (Schrijver L., The Archipelago City: Piecing together Collectivities, Oase 71)
Figure 4. Grossformen concept exercised in an unban design project by Adip.

(Island life, 2010)
In the 1970s, ideologists called the Anarchitecture Group with members that include artists Laurie Anderson, Tina
Girouard, Carol Goodden, Suzanne Harris, Jene Highstein, Bernard Kirschenbaun, Richard Landry, and Richard Nonas,
as well as the architecturally trained artist Gordan Matta-Clark. Matta-Clark had produced fantastic pieces of
artworks by slicing, opening and carving abandoned buildings and transforming the spatial experience to another
perspective. Although he produces more artistic pieces rather than professional architecture, his works can be seen
to put forward ideologies opposite to modernist thinking. Matta-Clark said in an interview, far from addressing
humanitys problems, most architects were not solving anything except how to make a living. Matta-Clarks thinking
has always been referenced as opposing the French artist and architect Le Corbusier. While Corbusier defines
modernist architecture as trying to solve problems of architecture, Matta-Clark responds with defining
Anarchitecture as not attempting to solve any problem. Matta-Clarks works are documented in film as well as
photographs, in a way to say as if his works of art is temporary and nomadic.
Figure 5. Gordan Matta-Clark making cuts on the building walls

On the 6th of September 2012, there was a discussion held at the UC-Berkly Centre for New Media and dialog
explores an unorthodox or even provocative understanding on how the city is used and operated. Reviewing works
from Gordon Matta-Clark and also movies such as Mole man and Hole in the ground gang giving a sense of forced
introduction to unplanned connections, holes, perforations, cuts and how it transform our relationship with
architectural space. Despite the fact that his works are mainly for visual effects, the notion of opening spaces by
cutting, forming holes and slicing buildings give a sense of what expressive architecture can be as described in the
Grossformen concept. Spaces open up to each other, trying to reach outside the boxed machine form, creating new
connections, access nodes and transit points in a building which may had restricted circulation. One of
Anarchitectures earliest exhibitions include various photographs of buildings mutated through natural and unnatural
disasters, reflecting some of Matta-Clarks ideologies; a response to cosmetic design, completion through removal,
completion through collapse and completion through emptiness. Anarchitecture, disrupts the natural state of a
building, physically applying eccentric alterations, as how a parasite would leave its mark on the host and changing
the hosts natural state.
Returning back to Le Corbusier, some of his projects in Chandigarh India such as the legislative assembly building
built in 1955, was planned according to specific programs but later ended up being used in a totally different way by
the locals. Corridor windows became places to hang dry cloths and wash faces besides being a normal corridor.
Specified programs of buildings will not be successful for people of different backgrounds and economic standings.
Somehow, modernism does not suit Asia as it did in the west, and rebellious behaviour in the usage of spaces in
modernist buildings can still be seen widely in Asia. The contrast in living cultures in foreign designed buildings can
be a catalyst for expressionism of building usage and become parasitic towards the host structure. Although the
buildings designed by modernists such as Corbusier or Louis Khan are visionary buildings, they still need to provide
good service to current habitants as well and not just architecture for the sake of architecture. Systems that do not
work gives an opportunity for the people to debate it, fracturing it and forming new and independent systems.
The rupture between the systems that are present and the ones desired by society does make a fertile breeding
ground for parasitic architecture.
Lebbeus Woods
Lebbeus Woods explains the rupture between an undesired system and the society as an opportunity for parasitic
architecture to take form. His hand drawn conceptual drawings show his vision of how parasitic system forms take
over host buildings. The parasitic forms that Lebbeus Woods use contain sharp and geometric edges clustered in
nodes outside and inside the building, running in and out from the host structure. The parasitic forms often seen
drawing out from the building, as if the host building cannot contain them and morphs into a new organism. Metal
panelling and steel rods are often used by Lebbeus Woods in his ideas as the main material for building parasitic
interventions.
Figure 6. From the San Francisco Project- Inhabiting the Quake, Quake City (Lebbeus Woods,
1995)
Edward Burtynsky explores India and Bangladesh to document the industrial impacts on several landscapes that are
now abandoned mines and quarries with damaged machinery and equipment everywhere. In his collection titled
Shipbreaking photographed at Chittagong, Bangladesh in the year 2000, Burtynsky documents pictures of a huge
shipwreck and how the locals dismantle it for recycling. The vessels were massive in scale, some were the biggest
ships ever built and this activity looked as if they were building new structures. Imagine if this is being done to
abandoned buildings, being altered and reconfigured according to the peoples immediate needs, dismantled,
reassembled according to their intended programs and further adaptation.
Figure 7. Shipbreaking site in Chittagong Bangladesh. (Burtynsky, 2000)

Urban Planner Rahul Mehrotra talked about unorganized development in urban India and how it will overwhelm the
planned developments with its sheer size and willpower. From his perspective, in India, the gated communities are
the parasites of the city and this is because gated communities tend to have their own water supply, sewage and
power systems that dont give back to the city but only occupying prime land. There is no doubt that India and other
developing country cities will be self-built or altered by the people rather than planned by professionals and the use
for abandoned structures will be reconfigured.
Surface re-configuration
Idea
The idea behind this theory is how to prepare and maximize efficiency of a host building for better parasitic
intervention. For effective spawning of micro dwellings, a well prepared host will result in a more workable space as
a foundation to start habitation. As the name of the theory suggests, host building components are re-configured to
create surfaces that are accessible and able to be worked on. Buildings that are abandoned but still have usable
building material mass will be recycled. Parts of the host building which are not accessible or not functional in existing
conditions are identified and re-configured through alteration, cutting and moving of building components. Types of
surfaces such as floor area, main walls and roof covering are main priorities.
Critical re-arrangement of a host building components requires heavy cutting and lifting machinery for main works
for concrete, brick, wood and metal materials. Looking at techniques applied by Reitveld Landscape Architects on
their work Bunker 599, They sliced open a bomb shelter bunker into two separate components and opening the cold,
thick, closed and indestructible bunker into the lake nearby by running a walkway through the centre exposed part
of the bunker. The centre of the bunker was cut from top to bottom in two parts releasing it from the original bunker
itself in one single piece. The strategy is to reference this technique of cutting big structural components and
rearranging them. Taller towers will be dissected and rearranged into a more horizontal building with interconnecting
circulation and access nodes, narrow buildings are to be opened up like a cardboard box creating a wider floor plan
and feeling spacious.
Figure 8. Bunker 599. (Rietveld, 2013)
The main problem with abandoned structures is the interior circulation and access points in between floors and
spaces. Although Matta-Clarks work was very visual and not made for habitation, the style of opening circle shapes,
lines and tunnels into the wall, ceilings and floor create amazing visual connection between spaces as well as having
more liberty for circulation purposes.
Visual exercise
As a visual exploration of this theory, a tower block building in Dammtor Messe area of Hamburg Germany was
chosen and the buildings photograph was taken. It was an old building called Hamburg Messe, and was to be
demolished and removed from the site in order to build the new InterCity Hotel Building. The site sits on St.
Petersburger Street, in between Heinrich Hertz Tower and Wallring Park. In the process of demolishing the building,
all of the old building materials were broken down and removed from the site in small quantities. To imagine all that
ready building material are just going to waste and broken down seems very wasteful and not sustainable. Instead
of breaking them into unusable waste, why dont we cut them down to proportions that can be transported but is
still useful to be re arranged into a new breeding ground.
Like Lebbeus Woods, visual experiments were made to produce different concepts of what the new host building
form could be. The picture of the building was marked according to its different components and later dissected and
grouped. The dissected components are re-arranged as a new form with a horizontal arrangement. The new form
then goes through an analysis program that predicts and visualizes the number of people who can inhabit it.
Apart from the building materials form the Hamburg Messe building, other materials from other sites are also
considered and transported to a new site. This site is an abandoned military testing ground photographed by Emmet
Gowin after 1986, from his photography series Changing the Earth. Emmet Gowin explores aerial photography of
landscapes scarred by human activities in the United States, Czechoslovakia, Mexico, Asia and the Middle East for
over 20 years. The photographs document landscapes, which are scarred by activities such as military test sites,
missile silos, coal mining and also weapon storage and disposal sites and resemble the language of expressionist
paintings. These sites are abandoned and have the same background narrative as abandoned building sites. With
familiar remains on site, the human reacts through instinct to objects or spaces that they are used to see or
understand visually making adaptation to these sites natural.
Figure 9. Hamburg Messe building before demolition and during demolition and dissected.
Figure 10. Re arranged host building form.
Figure 11. Possible arrangement for bigger scale
Figure 12. New host structure habitant prediction data

Model exercise
A typical shaped structural grid tower is made into a model using rectangular steel tubing, compressed chipboard,
brass rods, aluminium grill and wire mesh. The vertical section of the overall structure is cut into two components
and experimented on how an adaptation on the open structure would be according to the workable spaces inside it.
Just as O.M. Ungers did with his Grossformen project, a simple structure template was carefully reconfigured and
arranged for better adaptation and capacity for the adaptation process take place.
The focus is to exploit existing structures by multiplying them into separate nodes ready to be inhabited. Structure
components that are unusable are dismantled, moved, lifted, turned, separated, and joined to create more spaces
from the available resource. These nodes can be scattered trough out the plot area boundary in different scales of
clusters depending on the shape of the building component material. The method of the alterations made on the
structure will depend on the site and what it will host from its surroundings. Empty spaces in the host model are then
filled with light building wire mesh like materials with additional metal scaffolding support. These spaces are filled
with a series of micro dwellings suitable for small groups of families. The parasitic dwellings are shaped in interesting
forms, reacting to the host structures surfaces. This type of parasitic intervention is meant for sites that have tropical
climates and need more open air circulation inside their living spaces. The dwellings include sleeping and living
spaces, intended for people who are new and do not have much items.
Figure 13. Study model with parasitic micro dwellings view 1
Figure 14. Study model with parasitic micro dwellings 2
Findings
In the visual practice we can see that by dissecting the building picture into different components and rearranging
them, the host building can transform into a more usable structure with spaces that can be used to start assembling
personalised micro dwellings. There is no final form for the arrangement of the building components, but this form
is only one of many other possible typologies. After the specified arrangement was determined, the form was
processed through a blanket simulation to visualize in graphic how many people can be placed inside the form. From
the graphic visual, we can see that from the new form, more than 300 people can be placed inside. The new host
building also has less numbers of stacked floors, which is good for circulation. For this form, no micro dwellings were
visualised and is focused on the re arrangement of the host structural components only to determine a possible
effective arrangement.
The model study however is focused more on how parasitic micro dwellings can adapt on the new host building by
attaching them to the exposed surfaces. It can be seen that the host building can facilitate different and interesting
dwellings that seem to look they are emerging from the rigid structure. The dwellings appear to grow out from the
inside structure and face different orientations. Privacy of space can also be observed between different dwellings
but at the same time have visual connection. The host building spaces can be made into places as opened spaces for
public programs such as public gardens, small plaza places in between dwellings and walking paths.
Conclusion
From both studies of visual and model, it can be concluded that by re arranging structural components of
abandoned building materials, we can prepare a host building quickly with the ready materials and can spawn an
impressive amount of micro dwellings. In the visual study, the host building is placed in a site from one of the
locations from Emmit Gowins scarred landscapes to express an utopic narrative to the drawing. The other views of
the host utopia shares the same language like of Dogmas drawings, which tries to put forward the sense of sublime,
not fully formed and the vision of opportunity. The form created form the components of old buildings, shape a new
and not resembling the old form, giving new life and a sense of future for possible habitants. Parasitic architecture
can be defined in many ways and design strategies, however, the surface re configuration theory is all about
preparing the host building by strategies that are mainly adapted from the Grossformen concept and the
Anarchitecture movement. This theory tries to provide quick response to unorganized housing communities by
reusing abandoned structure to make use of available building materials as a starting foundation. This theory calls
for future works to explore the possibilities of this idea, and help inform professionals and academics about the
opportunities of surface re - configuration as a method of preparing host structures for effective parasitic spawning.
References
1. Reynolds, Jock, 2002. Emmet Gowin: Changing the Earth. Yale Union Art Gallery, Oregon.
2. Brillembourg, Alfredo, 2012. Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities. Lars Muller Publishers, Zurich.
3. Delawar, Wasel, 2010. Groformen. Adip, Munich.
4. Woods, Lebbeus, 1992. Lebbeus Woods: Anarchitecture Architecture Is a Political Act (Architectural
Monographs, No. 22). Academy Press, USA.
5. Crowford, Jane, 2013. Gordon Matta-Clark: Moment to Moment: Space. Moderne Kunst Nrnberg,
Germany.
THE EMBRYO OF AN URBAN BACKBONE: THE

ISTANBUL-LONDON ROAD
ERDEM NGR
Erdem ngr, Res.Asst., Istanbul Kltr University
Abstract
D-100 state highway (still E-5 in everyday language) which is remembered mostly due to traffic accidents was in fact
an important transportation backbone and infrastructure investment, which totally changed the macroform of postProst Istanbul. D-100 highway was completed in 1973 with the opening of the Bosphorus Bridge and its connecting
freeways; and actually after 1974 when the Halic Bridge was put into service. In accordance with the criticisms of
urbanists and architects of that period in UCTEA (Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects), the first
bridge has created new demands and in 1988 second Bosphorus Bridge was opened. At the present time, the
construction of third Bosphorus Bridge is finished and it's put into service.
D-100 highway played an important role in the non-egalitarian, uncontrolled and uneven urbanization of Istanbul.
Despite this consequence, the idea of an continuous automobile road between Asia and Europe had different
motivations and different names in each period starting with 1930s: while the European countries were dreaming of
an easy connection to their colonies, the new Republic of Turkey was requesting international recognition and also
some income from tourism. During the Second World War, the highway (Londra Asfalt) was important for military
transportation and also as a residential device against a possible Nazi occupation. In 1950s rapid Americanisation of
social life and modernization of agriculture, the highway (Boulevard of Marshall or the New London
Motorway+Ankara Motorway) was an important integration element for domestic market and also symbol for a
suburban life with individual automobiles. In this period the New London Highway was listed as part of European
Road-5 in the 1950 Geneva Declaration on the Construction of Main International Traffic Arteries and at the same
time performed as a land speculation device. In 1960s planned economic system E-5 was designed and
conceptualized as a transportation backbone, which was going to be used as a regional planning device. After 1975
AGR(European Agreement on Main International Traffic Arteries) and 1977 TEM(Trans-European Motorways) E-5
was abolished and became D-100. After 1980s D-100 was not a peripheral road anymore bu an internal congested
road in the globalizing city of Istanbul.
D-100 was conceptualized by Luigi Piccinato both during the planning process in ller Bankas (1958) and also in the
1967 report of Great Istanbul Master Plan as a backbone (colonne vertbrale) bordering the city as a peripheral
road and also connecting it to the surrounding territories to create an open modern city plan. Following this organicist
metaphor, this paper will briefly investigate the change of the London Motorway as an embryo in Istanbul during
1930-1960.
Keywords: London-Istanbul Highway; E-5; D-100; urbanization; modernization; Turkey
The [hi]story of London Highway starts with an eight-pointed plan proposed by British Automobile Association(AA)
in Dolmabahe Palace during the annual general meeting of Alliance Internationale de Tourisme(AIT) in 1930. Only
the first three points of the plan involved actual road building work and the remaining points were implementations
like special signs, maps and hotel improvements. With its starting point and destination, the suggested plan was
bearing the mark of British colonial intents (Badenoch, 2007). In the future, the idea of an touristic road reaching
colonies was going to become a part of Istanbul's urbanization problem:
With the proposal of AA and the support of Turkish and Hungarian Touring Clubs, the wish to construct a road
starting from Calais in the north of France and arriving Istanbul was accepted by the other members and a work plan
was organized in order to realize it. The opening of this road, which was going to be named as London-Calcutta
Itinerary, initiated the idea of improving international roads in Europe hierarchically and layed the foundations of
D-100 highway traversing Turkey in the west-east direction. (Evcin, 2014)

On Dec.11, 1931, Cumhuriyet reports that a nine meters wide automobile road connecting eight European countries
was in process and the aim of the British Automobile Association was to extend the road until the city of Kalkutta at
the other end of India. At the AIT meeting held in 1932, the proposals of Calcutta and Cape Town extensions from
Istanbul were fleshed out. Even the Dutch added their own imperial vision by proposing an extension to their colonies
in Indonesia, although the road did not pass through the Netherlands. These meetings were taken serious, hence a
committee for construction was established at the meeting held in 1935 in Budapest featuring ministers of the
respective national governments, as well as representatives of the International Red Cross (and later the director of
the League of Nations Section on Communication and Transport). Almost every country at the meeting in Budapest
had adopted the London-Istanbul road into its national road-building scheme. As well as being a service for rich
tourists, it was also a way of dealing with the economic crisis of 1929 via constructing new roads and organizing the
old ones. Most of the countries were considering the road project as a part of their national employment project.
There was also the hope that the increase of car traffic between countries might increase also the wealth, so that
many of the road planners were dreaming of mass automobilisation. In particular, the consolidation of the connection
of country side with urban centers, would enable farmers to sell their products in broader markets. The principles laid
down in 1935 were foreseeing the construction of roads also for freight traffic, however tourism with idyllic views was
in contradiction with it. While in 1937 there were laws for private vehicles, no agreement for trade was made
(Badenoch, 2007).
Martin Wagner, invited by the Municipality of Istanbul in 1935 to be a consultant to the Directorate of Development,
was also mentioning in his report stanbul ve Havalisinin Plan (Plan of Istanbul and Environs) the meeting held in
Budapest and highlighting the commercial, military and touristic importance of a highway connecting Istanbul with
her periphery:
The city of Istanbul, as an important travel point especially for wealthy Europeans, is obliged to make available the
opportunity of an uninterrupted automobile road arriving from Edirne to Eminn. The London-Istanbul highway
has to be extended from Ankara to Damascus and be branched into Baghdad and Cairo also. In this manner the old
caravan roads will be revitalized. [] On the other hand the countless benefits of a road reaching from Edirne and
Athens to Istanbul might be summarized as follows:
a) All the strategic plans show that the construction of a highway from Gelibolu and Edirne is an obligation.
b) For agricultural policy, it's necessary to built a highway towards Istanbul rendering possible the door to door
transportation and the most low-priced and the rapid transmission of agricultural products to Istanbul.
c) It's also necessary for tourists coming from Europe.
(Wagner, 1936; Duranay,Grsel,Uray, 1972)
In his report, under the section titled Military Roads Network, Martin Wagner put emphasis on the construction of
the main roads network in relation to the protection of the country because of the motorization of the armies and
translates the commercial formulation of 'door to door' into 'barracks to trench' due to military necessities. Like all
the other first generation foreign urbanists, the proposal of Wagner was also not accepted. According to Bilsel (2007)
Wagners' regional planning attitude, considering the hinterland of Istanbul and also the dimension of economic
growth, was not evaluated as 'sufficient' by the Ministry of Public Works at that time and this rejection may be
explained with the zeitgeist of the era.
After 1935 the requirement of a highway policy, beside the railroad policy of the young republic, was appearing both
in newspapers and also mentioned by the ruling clique. On Sept. 27, 1937, with an opening ceremony the part from
Topkap to Lleburgaz (155,5m in length and 7m in width) of the Istanbul-Edirne-London Road was put into service
by Ali etinkaya, Minister of Public Work. Although the road is called Istanbul-London Road, it was arriving in fact
until Lleburgaz. While the convoy was on his way from Topkap to Lleburgaz, the peasants from Silivri, orlu and
other villages were ready on the roadside applausing and shouting to celebrate the new road. At the destination
point, a big arc was constructed and under a big map of Thrace it was written: Roads are the blood vessels of the
Republic.
Figure 1.Istanbul-London Road: Istanbul-Lleburgaz part of the asphalted road is opening today in Cumhuriyet
(left); Istanbul-Edirne-London Road: The asphalted road was opened by the Minister of Public Work yesterday in
Cumhuriyet (right)
Next day, on Sept.28, 1937, in his article published in the semiofficial RPP (Republican People's Party) newspaper Ulus,
Falih Rfk Atay points out that in some cases, not only tourism but also national security and all kind of transportation,
highways might be more usefull than railroads (As, 2013). On Oct.1, 1937, in the opening speech of the Parliament,
Mustafa Kemal Atatrk informs that the European tourist road departing from Istanbul is being asphalted and states
that it's necessary to intensify the highway construction and advance it within a plan in order to connect the railroads
to the hinterlands and improve their capacity for the national economic development (Millet Meclisi Tutanak Dergisi).
Before the WWII, London-Istanbul Road was considerably taking place in the international press. On March 1, 1936
The Milwaukee Journal declares that all the governments agreed for the road construction because of two main
reasons: the first one was the income from tourists and the second one was supporting railroads for the
transportation of soldiers and military supplies during the war. The article shows the Autobahnen being constructed
by Adolf Hitler in Germany as a good example and informs that the London-Istanbul Road will be completed in 1940.
Another article published in The Mercury Newspaper in 1938 reports that a large part of the road is completed despite
international unrest and after the completion of the road the motorists will be able to travel with comfort from
London to Istanbul in five days.
Istanbul-London Road was an important part of the tourism leap of modern Turkey. According to Evcin(2014) the
modern tourism infrastructure, which was being established during the radical modernity period was at the same
time a propaganda device. In this way a new state with poor economic conditions coming out of an independence
war was going to be able to introduce her civilized qualifications in an international medium. In the conference
International Route Londres-Stamboul which was held in 1935 in Budapest, the Turkish delegate Reat Saffet
Atabinen does not conceptualize the road as a one-way direction from the civilized West to the oriental East, but as
an interpenetration of different cultures. According to Badenoch(2007) his speech was aiming to show the equal
history and modernity of Turkey against the discourse of the superiority of the West, which was emphasized during
the conference.
Figure 2. International newspaper articles from 1930s about London-Istanbul Highway

The road project, interrupted due to WWII, brought to the agenda again by the United Nations. Established in 1947,
the UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) put forward explicitly the goal to connect all the
European countries through the building of material systems (Badenoch, 2010). In July 1948, representatives of ten
European countries and the United States conceptualized an international highway network within the framework
of UNECE. However at the same time the United States started the Marshall Aid Plan in order to support the economic
recovery and the military unification of European countries against the communist bloc (Mom, 2005). The Marshall
Plan led to the creation of the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) on 16 April 1948, in order to
meet Marshall's request for "some agreement among the countries of Europe as to the requirements of the situation
and the part those countries themselves will take". The OEEC was assigning authority to continue work on a joint development program and in particular
to control the distribution of aid. In 1961, the OEEC evolved to become the infamous OECD (OECD,2016).
The Economic Cooperation Act, which also includes the aid to Turkey, was signed on 4 July 1948 and the law was
accepted on 13 July 1948 in the Turkish parliament (Klnkaya, 2013). Within the scope of Marshall Aid, the guidelines
of the highway policy has been determined with the report of Deputy Commissioner of the BPR(Federal Bureau of
Public Roads) Harold Hilts in 1947. The so called Hilts Report included suggestions like education of technicians in
Washington and employment of American engineers. According to this report a state highway network (23.000km)
was accepted and a nine-year long plan was prepared. The General Directorate of Highways, established on 11
February 1950, was charged with the application of the highway plan (Dik, 2008). On 16 September 1950, Turkey
signed the Declaration on the Construction of Main International Traffic Arteries. 4.835km long part of the accepted
54.000km long international road network was located in Turkish territories (Tekeli&lkin, 2010). In 1954 the
decleration was legalized in Turkish Parliament and the E-5 route was defined legally.
Figure 3. The 1961 revised version of the Geneva Declaration signed on 16 September 1950. The route E5 from London
to Turkish-Syrian frontier was also included.
The construction of the 'New London Highway' or the so called 'Boulevard of Marshall' was supervised personally by
the Prime Minister Adnan Menderes in 1956. It was a shortcut of the old London Highway (which was partly asphalted
in 1937) and also an international touristic road connecting the airport to the city center via the famous Millet
Motorway. The propaganda book stanbul'un Kitab, published to praise the 'Menderes Operations', compares the
two roads in an emotionally overloaded manner and likens the old one to a crawling reptile split into pieces. It
asserts that the old road was only 6m wide, crooked and dangerous; while the new one is 50m wide, new and clean.
This propaganda affected the property market as a big land speculation. Throughout the 1950s Turkish corporations
like Trk Mesken (Kollektif) irketi, Trkiye Kredili naat Messesesi, Baheli Ferah Evler Arsalar naat Messesesi or
Trk Yap Messesesi were marketing their building plots via the closeness to the New London Highway. As Zeki Sayar,
the Turkish architect and editor of the magazine Arkitekt, states in 1953 land speculators were dividing the land from
Sirkeci to Silivri into parcels and selling to people by bringing the Istanbul-London Highway forward, showing attractive
advertisements and providing payment conveniences. The propaganda of the New London Highway a.k.a Boulevard
of Marshall can be seen visually in the advertisement page of a land speculation firm called stanbul Yap Kollektif
irketi already in 1953. The land is located in Avclar Village, which was promoted as being at the intersection of the
Old London Motorway and the future Boulevard of Marshall (although the old road was discredited and visualised
exaggeratedly crooked). However the schema is wrong because the real intersection was going to be formed not in
Avclar but in the north of Ataky and southeast of Bahelievler.
Figure 4. Schema illustrating the old Londra Asfalt and the new Maral Bulvar in the advertisement of stanbul Yap
Kollektif irketi
In fact Bahelievler and Ataky was going to be established exactly in that period and designate the area. First, at the
beginning of the 1950s Baheli Evler started a land speculation activity around itself and than after 1957 the Ataky
Settlement started to urbanize the area around the intersection of the old and the new Istanbul-London highways.
While the north of the Boulevard was urbanizing mostly by land speculation and yap-satlk, in the south Ataky
Settlement was being constructed by the partnership of Real Estate Credit Bank and Istanbul Municipality. The project
was supervised again by Adnan Menderes and Italian urbanist Luigi Piccinato was working as a consultant.
In 1958 Luigi Piccinato started to work in ller Bankas in order to prepare a master plan for Istanbul. While in the
previous plans London Highway was rather a touristic and commercial road connecting the city center to the airport,
Piccinato was considering it as as a backbone (colonne vertbrale) decentralizing the city in the east-west direction.
It was going to connect the London Highway and the Ankara Highway via a suspended Bridge on Bosphorus in order
to create a liniar and open urban development axis. According to Tekeli (2013) the proposal of Piccinato was defending
a kind of antithesis of the previous city plans and was differentiated from them in two basic points: firstly, it was not
restraining itself within the city limits but was trying to find a solution through a regional spatial organization.
Secondly, it was rejecting the attitude of the all post-1930s planning studies, which were trying to unite and
concentrate the scattered city via rail and sea transportation. Instead Piccinatos' proposal was trying to create a
decentralized, open and linear system.
The urbanistic principles of Piccinato were followed also in the planned economic period after 1960 coup d'tat and
despite the criticisms of urbanists and architects in UCTEA and public protests against the construction of the
Bosphorus Bridge, the contract of the engineering projects of the bridge were awarded to Freeman, Fox and Partners
in February 1968. On 29 October 1973 the first Bosphorus Bridge connecting the Asian and European parts of the city
was opened. In 1974 the third Halic Bridge was also put into service and in the year 1976 the rest of the connecting
beltways were completed.
Although the idea of a highway bridge for automobiles was circulating since 1930s it was put as an urban planning
principle by Luigi Piccinato. He was expecting that this urban backbone was going to limit the growth towards the
north and protect the Northern Forests of Istanbul. However in a very short period of time, the E-5 started to change
the macroform of the city. After 1975 AGR(European Agreement on Main International Traffic Arteries) and 1977
TEM(Trans-European Motorways) aggreements the E-5 route was abolished and it became a state road called D-100.
After 1980s D-100 was not an international peripheral road anymore but an internal congested road in the globalizing
city of Istanbul. The embryo of this highway can still be find in today's maps of stanbul with the name of Eski Londra
Asfalt Caddesi (The Old London Motorway Avenue).
Table 1. The construction timeline of the E-5 Highway in Istanbul
References
As,E., 2013. Cumhuriyet Dnemi Ulam Politikalar (1923-1960), Atatrk Aratrma Merkezi Yaynlar, Ankara.
Badenoch, A., 2007. Touring Between War and Peace: Imagining the 'Transcontinental Motorway' 1930- 1950, Journal
of Transport History, 28(2), pp.192-210.
Badenoch, A., 2010. Myths of the European Network: Constructions of Cohesion in Infrastructure Maps, in
Materializing Europe: Transnational Infrastructures and the Project of Europe, Badenoch, A. & Fickers,A. (eds.),
Palgrave, pp.47-77.
Bilsel, C. (2007) Cumhuriyet Dnemi stanbul Planlama Raporlar 1934-1995 (Yayn Deerlendirme), Mimarlk, 338
Dik, E. (2008) 1948: Marshall Planyla Hr Dnyaya Giri, Aklamal Ynetim Zamandizini: 1940-1949 iinde,
Trkiye Cumhuriyeti dare Tarihi Aratrmas (TDATA) A SBF Kamu Ynetimi Aratrma ve Uygulama Merkezi : 3,
Ankara
Duranay,N., Grsel,E., Ural,S., 1972. 1932-33 Cumhuriyet Dneminde stanbul Planlama almalar, Mimarlk 105(7),
pp.67-108.
Evcin, E., 2014. Trkiye Cumhuriyetinin lk Yllarnda Turizm ve Tantma Faaliyetleri, Ankara niversitesi Trk nklp
Tarihi Enstits Atatrk Yolu Dergisi, 55, pp. 23-82.
Feyzi, M., 1931. Siyasi icmal: stanbul-Londra Yolu, Cumhuriyet, 11 Dec.p.2.
Mom, G. (2005) 'Roads without rails: European highway network-building and the desire for long-range mobility',
Technology and Culture, 46:4
Tekeli, . ve lkin, S. (2010) Cumhuriyetin Harc:Modernitenin Altyaps Oluurken, stanbul Bilgi niversitesi Yaynlar
Tekeli, . (2013) stanbulun Planlanmasnn ve Gelimesinin yks, Tarih Vakf Yurt Yaynlar
Wagner, M., 1936. stanbul ve Havalisinin Plan, Arkitekt,10-11&12, pp.301-306&pp.333-337.
-, c.1957, stanbul'un Kitab, stanbul Vilayeti Neriyat ve Turizm Mdrl, stanbul.
Cumhuriyet, 1937. stanbul-Londra Yolu, Cumhuriyet 27 Sep. p.7.
Cumhuriyet, 1937. Asfalt Yol Dn Nafia Vekili Tarafndan Ald, Cumhuriyet 28 Sep. p.1
Cumhuriyet, 1953. Maral Bulvarnda 20 Lira Taksitle Arsalar, Cumhuriyet 29 Nov. p.8
The Milwaukee Journal, 1936. London to Istanbul Road Will Be Ready by 1940, Available at
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AN EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH TO THE

UNDERSTANDING OF ARCHITECTURE THROUGH
COMPLEMENTARY CONCEPT-PAIRS
ASLI EKZTEPE, T. NUR ALAR
Asl Ekiztepe, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, T. Nur alar, Prof. Dr., TOBB
*This paper is a part of the ongoing master thesis in Master of Architecture Program at TOBB
University of Economics and Technology.
Abstract
Todays architecture, shattered by large-scale iconic buildings, has become the product of the obsession with
marginality, instantaneity, fashion and the lack of a sense of place. The role of architecture seems to induce chaos
instead of serenity whereas its task should have been to act as a generator that interweaves two complementary
concepts, such as chaos and serenity. It has been discussed that the mission of architecture -once undoubtedly based
on the concepts of truth, ethics, and commitment to nature- has faded away. Architecture comes to be selfreferential and self-motivated, rather than being grounded in social reality. Narcissism and self-indulgence are
replacing empathy and social conscience. This could mean that the concept of architecture essentially comprising
particular concepts, like yin and yang has begun to be deficient, in terms of lacking one side, which would stimulate
the vanished values stated above.
With this in view, the objective of this study is to present a way of thinking through complementary concept-pairs
that would model an experimental approach to the understanding of architecture. It will do so by reviewing manners
of complementary concept-pairs, emphasizing both sides of architecture and by redefining a conceptual content for
architecture. In doing so, it will refer to a particular set of complementary pairs, such as rationale-intuition, focuswhole in harmony, and accumulation-content. These complementary pairs would eventually lead to a diverse form
of architectural thinking, and promote the in-between zone in which complementary pairs would productively
collide.
The proposed argument of this work is that the conceptual approach appropriate for this new age, structured along
with these complementary pairs, provides the necessary transfer from the constructed to the blurred zone, from the
dull to the dynamic, energetic and inexhaustible field; that it obliterates strict boundaries and promotes a kind of
thinking beyond boundaries. Consequently, this new experimental approach to the understanding of architecture
would possibly restore the balance between the sides that had been strictly separated before, encouraging hope for
a new age instead of being worried about it.
Keywords: concept-pairs, new age, architectural concepts.
Master, where are you going? asked Squall. To the Great Valley, said Dar Thickness. Why? The Great Valley is
the place where one can pour without ever filling up and draw without ever using up. [Heaven and Earth]
Chuang-Tzu
Introduction
Throughout history, many architects have expressed their approaches concerning the understanding of architecture
for a new age. Likewise, todays architecture has become the product of the obsession with marginality,
instantaneity, fashion, and the lack of a sense of place. Today, the architects that worry about the new age of
architecture have tried to describe their approach to the future. As described by Luis Barragan (2016) during his
Pritzker Prize acceptance speech 35 years ago concerning the future of architecture, the language of architecture is
deprived of the concepts of the words that are beauty, inspiration, magic, spellbound, enchantment, as well as
silence, intimacy, and amazement. The concept of architecture has become a kind of product of an industrial society
that splurges to produce something for short-term consumption (Krier, 1989). The mission of architecture, that at
one time was undoubtedly bound up with the concepts of truth, ethics, and commitment to nature, has vanished.
Architecture has become self-referential and self-motivated instead of responsive to social reality. Narcissism and
self-indulgence have come to the forefront by keeping empathy and social consciousness in the background. In
relation to this, Tadao Ando asserts that modern people that have become lost in consumption need nature
foremost. He also states that nature should not turn into a consumption product or become ordinary in the physical
dimension. On the contrary, it should welcome a genuineness that has grown in daily life. For this reason, in this age,
it would be preferred to examine the ignored values rather than pursuing comfort zones of people (Kawamukai,
1990).
Nowadays architectural discourse tries to find its place between two sides. As stated by Hal Foster, one is to chase
the forces of technological dematerialization. The other side is to get a better experience of architectural materiality
(Foster, 2004). It could be claimed that it is by virtue of the disconnection between natures time and human time.
According to Glenn Murcutt (2012, p. 15), the relation between natures time and human time has been explained
as follows:
The time of nature is her daily cycle, her seasonal cycle, the time of the phases of the moon, and the consequential
tidal movements, the time it takes for a storm to develop, the clouds to gather, and then pass. This is natures time.
Human time once worked with natures time, but no longer. Human time has over the last 60 years developed into
accelerated time, and it is out of synch with natures time. During this period of human time, there have been in
architecture works that have shown brilliance, but such brilliance may not stand the test of time. Affluence, during
this recent period of human time, has been unprecedented and greed has provided the disconnect between the
rhythms of natures time, and human time.
On the other hand, for a new age, in A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink (2005) expresses six essential aptitudes: design,
story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning that professional success and personal satisfaction increasingly will
depend on. He defines this age as the Conceptual Age which has an economy and a society built on the inventive,
empathic, big-picture capabilities of whats rising in its place, instead of being built on the logical, linear, computerlike capabilities of the Information Age. The Conceptual age is invigorated by a different form of thinking and a new
approach to life. Accordingly, it is clear that the understanding of architecture needs an update for a Conceptual age,
which would serve two sides seen as opposites: humans and natures time. Meanwhile, it requires comprising
inexhaustible concepts of words that would keep pace with every age. As stated by Jullien (2011, p. 222), the worth
of the teaching of Confucius is related to not ignoring the excitement, so the thought is perpetually moving within its
excitement. This thought renews itself rather than jamming itself in a certain concept. The thinking of Confucius
especially rejects the characterizing system that concretes in its formulation, so begins to be infertile. Similarly, in
the direction of the teaching of Confucius, these concepts of words should have a capacity that could update
themselves according to the age, means to be dynamic, not to have an expired date.
The Characteristics of the Understanding of Architecture for a New Age
It could be stated that a new understanding of architecture should not be closed, while the lexical meaning of
closed connotes to have strictly defined boundaries which are not open criticism or new ideas, Tadao Ando (1993)
expresses his thoughts concerning the meaning of closed as follows:
At today, society is a sort of closed culturally. Especially in architecture, historical and territorial side of culture has
boiled down to abstraction. Instead of it, qualities based on rationalism and simplicity, ordinariness corresponds to
the characteristics of architecture. Everything is made with reference to functionality and rationalism. Thus,
homogeneous spaces that are the lack of individualism have begun to be dominant. Homogeneous spaces belonging
to Modern period are the products of closed-minded practices. Spaces expand indefinably, people are invited these
huge spaces. The distinctive qualities of spaces have faded away. Places are deprived of humanity. The result is the
disappearance of the essence of architecture. Architecture has turned into a product. On the other hand, especially
in this country, powerful economy provides the architects to implement their strong-minded designs. The context of
a place has been forgotten by the architects that do not restrain their own individuality in their designs. So,
architecture becomes a practice that architects implement their own desires on. My view is that primarily we should
get rid of this intricate situation.
According to Ando (1993), the closed defines todays architecture. It means that the conception of architecture has
been feed only by the rational and functional characteristics of architecture. Hence, the closed framework of the
conception of architecture makes architecture into an exhaustible object. In the same manner, the work that Eco
(1989) mentions, continues to be inexhaustible as well as being open. As a work is open on account of its
susceptibility to countless different interpretations which do not impinge on its purified content, every interpretation
of it gives a fresh point of view. The concept of the word openness, objects to a field of rigidly pre-established and
ordained interpretative solutions. In other words, these rigidly defined boundaries result in a closed framework of
architecture. In a similar way, philosophically, it is crucial to be open to the multitude and almost the infinite number
of perspectives. It makes people think and perpetually explore, and leads profound new thoughts. This defined
thinking system is open. According to Aristoteles and Platon, this openness is a requirement for philosophy to become
widespread. In this respect, the words of Aristoteles and Platon have stayed up to date (Jen-Paul Dumont, 2011, p.
103). So, in order to update itself, the new understanding of architecture needs blurred boundaries and openness in
architectural thinking instead of rigid boundaries or closed way of thinking. In order to achieve this, the concepts of
terms that absolutely compose the conception of architecture, require the getting rid of their strict pattern. Indeed,
in so doing, its aim is to neither reject nor accept particular techniques but instead to redefine them (Leatherbarrow,
2004).
With regards to todays architecture, the initial conception of architecture that consists of strict and opposite poles
such as function-form and beautiful-ugly, should actually find itself in-between and feed from these two poles. Thus,
it should exclude itself from the rigid boundaries and welcome blurred ones. According to Peter Eisenmann (1989),
the in-between field has been defined as follows:
The one of the conditions of other architecture is betweenness by which is meant to suggest a condition of the object
as a weak image. If the object were to have a strong image this would give a primary dominant meaning to that
image. Not only must it not have a strong image, it must have two weak images. In other words, it must be between
in its imageable sense: it is something which is almost this, or almost that, but not quite either. It has to be at some
distance so that it cannot be fully known. But it cannot be so far away that it cannot be known at all, the experience
is the terror of a partial knowing. Yet it cannot be too close and too familiar. Therefore, it must have a blurring effect.
It must look like t is out of focus: that it can almost be seen but not quite.
Peter Eisenmanns discourse alleges that the conception of architecture should discard strict structure and the
system of values that had been based on opposition dialectically; instead it should find the blurred field between
opposite the sides. In a similar manner, as Tadao Ando (1993) expresses, architecture oscillates between two extreme
points. These points refer to inside-outside, East-West, abstraction-representation, piece-whole, history-present,
past-future, simplicity and complexity. At any given time, it has a constant position between these points. That is by
virtue of not having a desire to close it in a rigid box. Even if the design is decided to be complete, secondary thoughts
come to mind. It is a kind of tension that involves doubt and distrust. As the amplitude of oscillation expands,
dynamism in architecture increases. Specifically, in Chinese painting, the emptiness could be an example to clarify
in-between field as an architectural concept. It is specified as follows:
Even within the visible world (painted area), emptiness, represented by clouds, circulates between mountains and
waters, which constitute its two poles. The cloud, born from the condensation of water but also taking on the forms
of the mountain, is an intermediary form between the two apparently antinomic poles, drawing the two, mountainwater, into a process of reciprocal becoming. In the Chinese perspective, without emptiness between them,
mountain and water would stand in a relationship of rigid opposition and thus be static. Each would oppose the other
and through this opposition be confirmed in its definite status. With emptiness as intermediary, the painter creates
the impression that the mountain could virtually enter the emptiness and melt down into waves, and that inversely,
the water, by way of the emptiness, could rise up into a mountain. As a result, mountain and water are no longer
perceived as partial elements opposed and frozen but as embodiments of the dynamic law of the real. (Cheng, 2006,
p. 37)
Accordingly, the in-between field like the emptiness in Chinese paintings makes the understanding of architecture
an inexhaustible concept within this dynamism and energy.
One of the ways of understanding how complementary pairs productively collide while generating an in-between
field would be to look at yin-yang philosophy. Chinese thinking has preferred to define the cosmos as continuously
changing rather than establishing a design world that has been regulated with fixed concepts (Russ, 2011, p. 18). At
this stage, Chinese philosophy could be a referable way to define the in-between concept. So as to define Yin-Yang
philosophy briefly, it has been said that they are two complementary principles of Chinese philosophy. While yin
represents negative, dark, and feminine, Yang represents positive, bright, and masculine. Their interaction is thought
to maintain the harmony of the universe and to influence everything within it. According to Yin Yang, everything has
two-poles that oppose each other. These poles are interconnected and interconverted. They also contain and infinite
number of poles and are related each other as producing- consuming, supporter-constraining (Paul U. Unschuld,
1943). In a similar manner, Tadao Ando (1993) states that when architecture that is rationally defined is analyzed, it
could come up with an irrational side. Everything could not be explained rationally. Similarly, Umberto Eco (1989)
places infinite at the very core of the finite instead of traditional dualism between them. Indeed, one of the
characteristics of Yin-yang could be defined as poles that certainly involve its opponent. On the other hand, as yin
yang says that opposite poles contain infinite poles in them, it could be asserted that this multiple polarity in the
conception of architecture brings validity and richness in potential. Hence, on the basis of Chinese philosophy, even
if these poles seem like opposite poles linguistically, it could be alleged that they are intrinsically complementary
pairs that interweave each other.
Before expanding on complementary concept-pairs, it is crucial to understand how these pairs come together. As
stated by Foucault (2005, p. 20), How did it organize the figures of knowledge? And if the things that resembled one
another were indeed infinite in number, can one, at least, establish the forms according to which they might resemble
one another?
Then, he (2005, p. 20) continues that one of the answers is convenientia.
This word convenientia really denotes the adjacency of places more strongly than it does similitude. Those things
are convenient which come sufficiently close to one another to be in juxtaposition; their edges touch, their fringes
intermingle, the extremity of the one also denotes the beginning of the other. In this way, movement, influences,
passions, and properties too, are communicated. So that in this hinge between two things a resemblance appears. A
resemblance that becomes double as soon as one attempts to unravel it: a resemblance of the place, the site upon
which nature has placed the two things, and thus a similitude of properties; for in this natural container, the world,
adjacency is not an exterior relation between things, but the sign of a relationship, obscure though it may be.
So, the approach to the relations between these pairs can be done in a similar way. Moreover, the brush-ink pair in
Chinese painting could be another interpretive example to understand how these pairs have been combined. This
brush-ink pair has been specified as follows:
Ink, with its endless nuances, seems sufficiently rich in the eyes of the painter to incarnate all the variations of color
that nature has to offer. Ink must be associated with the brush, for in isolation it remains just potential material, to
which only the brush can give life. Indeed, their intimate union is often symbolized by sexual union. There is,
nevertheless, a division of labor. Following so many others before him, Han Chuo of the Sung said The brush to give
birth to substance and form, the ink to capture color and light. (Cheng, 2006, p. 65)
In the light of these discourses, rationale-intuition, focus-whole in harmony, and accumulation-content could be
propounded as complementary concept-pairs that would nourish in-between field; and thus leads an experimental
approach to the understanding of architecture.
Expanding on Complementary Concept-Pairs
Rationale-Intuition
Towards a new understanding of architecture, as rational thought stands as a trustworthy method, intuition would
also be an influential way of thinking. Intuition has an important role in the understanding of things that can be felt,
but not be expressed based on logical reasons. To clarify, a rational approach depends on ability, which is measured
by many of the conventional IQ test problems. Also, it is associated with the ability in science. On the contrary,
intuition demands an open-ended approach seeking alternatives where there is no clearly correct answer (Lawson,
2005). The Malaysian architect Ken Yeang makes sense of intuition rather nicely:
I trust the gut feeling, the intuitive hand, the intuitive feel for the project. You can technically solve accommodation
problems, you can solve problems of view and so on but which problem to solve first is a gut feeling. You cant explain
it but you feel thats right and nine times out of ten you are right. (Lawson, 2005)
According to Ken Yeang, the efficiency of intuitive thinking cannot be ignored in architectural thinking, since
trustworthiness of intuition seems obvious.
Intuition or rationale alone are not sufficient to enhance architectural thought, but the balance between creates a
more productive way of thinking in architecture. Thus, intuition and rationale must be approached as a
complementary concept-pair. To succeed in providing the balance between them, it is important to sense of when
and which approach will be needed in the designing of architecture. In short, technical solutions that depend on
rational approach could not answer the problems that have the need for non-technical answers (Leatherbarrow,
2004). The phase non-technical answers could describe a case that applies to intuitional senses. This means that
the conception of architecture can find its place in the in-between zone of rationale and intuition. Rick Joy (2002)
emphasizes the importance of intuition over theoretical speculations as follows:
In the designs, a great deal of attention is given to the qualities of the sensual experiences. After achieving a
thorough understanding of the owners aspirations and the required functional aspects, I frequently enter into a
realm of mindfulness that relies predominantly on intuition. This realm allows for a synthesis of the logical aspects
of the design and a visceral understanding of the experiencestranscending the theoretical.
According to Joy, while the owners desires about the design need a rational approach, the visceral understanding of
the experience refers to an intuitional one.
The concept-pair of rationale-intuition could also be explained with Platons participation theory. The
participation theory means that forms cannot independently exist and be participated. Specifically, while the sensual
one contains the meaning of rational one completely, the function of rational one is to clarify and structure the
sensual one in order to make it visible (Jen-Paul Dumont, 2011, p. 54). In a similar manner, Pallasmaa (2005) defines
the relation between rationale and intuition as follows: Architecture cannot, however, become an instrument of
mere functionality, bodily comfort and sensory pleasure without losing its existentially mediating task. A distinct
sense of distance, resistance and tension has to be maintained in relation to the program, function, and comfort.
Consequently, supposing that the understanding of architecture is brought into balance between an intuitive and
rational way of thinking, it would find a place where architecture grows in a productive way.
Focus-Whole in Harmony
It is claimed that architects not only tangibly put the building on the site but they also harmonize all of the qualities
extracted from nature. In other words, the aim of architecture could be to synthesize the things found from the earth
in a built form in harmony with each other. Experiencing a building results from sensing all of the qualities within it.
It is a kind of touching the world. In the title touching the world, Pallasmaa (2005) expresses his feelings about
focusing on something as follows: The defensive and unfocused gaze of our time, burdened by sensory overload,
may eventually open up new realms of vision and thought, freed of the implicit desire of the eye for control and
power. The loss of focus can liberate the eye from its historical patriarchal domination.
Likewise, while building demonstrates the human understanding of by replicating what is seen in nature, it adds what
is perceived to be lacking in nature (Schulz, 1991). To put it another way, buildings are intensified versions of the
world embracing all sensory qualities in harmony (Erzen, n.d.). Furthermore, according to Steven Holl (2002),
architecture is linked with music that comprises of rhythm and balance. He describes architecture as frozen music.
He argues that architecture rises in harmony with the qualities of light, texture, material, and color, as in music.
Actually, the beauty of music does not just originate from the parts of music. Instead, the sequential parts of music
are more important when compared to the others. When initially listened, the beauty of these parts could not be
distinguished. The magnificence of the music is perceived as a whole when listened repeatedly (Piano, 1991). Thus,
it brings the originality. In a similar way, the originality of Platon involves the similarities and differences, the
singularity and plurality, the parts and complement, the simplicity and complexity concurrently in harmony (Jen-Paul
Dumont, 2011, p. 68).
On the other hand, as features like color, light, texture, and material can be seen as concrete ones, there are qualities
that can only be perceived in the abstract. To explain, Maurice Merleau-Ponty emphasizes the harmony of qualities
as follows: My perception is not a sum of visual, tactile and audible givens, I perceive in a total way with my whole
being. I grasp a unique structure of the thing, a unique way of being, which speaks to all my senses at once.
(Pallasmaa, 1999, p.78)
To put it in another way, architecture, which is organized with geometry, revives with nature that contains the wind,
water, and the sun. All of these overlap and become integrated as diverse items, so they exist in a harmonic accord.
That is to say, the structure tries to describe the parts while referring the whole, which is important in order to seize
the moment and constituting the eternity of the building (Ando, 1993).
In that way, architecture appeals to all senses to emerge itself in harmony. All in all, it could be said that the challenge
for the new understanding of architecture is not only to focus on one thing but also to harmonize all qualities, which
infers to approach these terms as a complementary-pair.
Accumulation-Content
As the accumulation of knowledge helps to form the building, the content of that building also enhances the
understanding of architecture. Architecture not only means superimposing knowledge into the design of a building,
but also, it also carries meaning within it. Daniel Pink (2005, p. 79) also remarks that it has needed a purpose,
transcendence, and spiritual fulfillment in this age that is full of breathtaking material plenty. So, he emphasizes the
importance of content along with accumulation. Indeed, the content could refer to the soul of architecture. According
to Christian Norberg-Schulz (1991), to give the meaning to place, socio-economic factors are not enough. He tries to
explain its soul as follows: The existential meanings have deeper roots. They are determined by the structure of our
being-in-the-world. Besides, to recall the soul of architecture, architecture needs to be thought on the phenomena
of it. Phenomenology is defined as a return to things and it takes a stand against abstractions and mental
constructions (Schulz, 2007).
While everyday life is formed by concrete phenomena as animals, flowers, trees, forests, stone, and also sun, moon,
and stars, it is also formed by more abstract phenomena such as feelings, the content of existence of the world
(Schulz, 2007). Feelings help to recall the soul of architecture. To illustrate, Juhani Pallasmaa (2005, p. 58) expresses
his feelings when he walks around Louis Kahns Salk Institute in La Jolla, California: When entering the magnificent
outdoor space of it, I felt an irresistible temptation to walk directly to the concrete wall and touch the velvety
smoothness and temperature of its skin. Our skin traces temperature spaces with unerring precision; the cool and
invigorating shadow under a tree, or the caressing sphere of warmth in a spot of sun, turn into experiences of space
and place.
The soul of architecture finds itself through stimulation in feelings. In doing this, architecture also applies intimate
experiences such as sound, smells, tactile qualities, and moods that often have more importance than an object itself.
That feeling makes people aware of actually being there (Joy, 2002). In short, that is a grasp of the soul of architecture.
As stated by GuerillaArchitects (n.d.), architects should not need to build big to create large value. It is crucial to
design intense even so tranquil building, in that the soul of building could be felt. Its design is simple but in fact
substantial, which means qualified building (Ando, 1993). Consequently, accumulation and content would be a
complementary concept-pair because it could not be thought that architecture consists of just adding required things
into one bowl. There is the essence and soul within it that makes it different from a recipe.
Conclusion and Recommendations
In conclusion, up until now, the boundaries of all these terms have been hardened. It can be suggested that these
boundaries should be broken. Today, a new understanding of architecture would find its place beyond the boundary
that has been formed as a hard-edged shape. Architecture would then itself slip into this in-between field. The
redefinition of this architecture could be: in-between architecture along with complementary concept-pairs. These
complementary pairs could be rationale-intuition, focus-whole in harmony and accumulation-content. However, it
does not mean that it could not be constituted of pairs such as accumulation-intuition, rationale-content,
accumulation-whole in harmony. Besides, the system of complementary pairs gives a meaning, a worth, an essence
and lastly a consistency to the new understanding of architecture. On the other hand, as stated by Umberto Eco
(1989, p. 17), Consciousness, which is commonly taken as an extremely enlightened region, is, on the contrary, the
very region of indetermination. So, this newly redefined conception of architecture would regain consciousness in
the blurred in-between field. Also, this field could be defined as a high energized field that is triggered by
dynamism. Eventually, concerning the in-between field, it is defined as blurred as well as being open. The blurred
field is where the movement has occurred. Then, this boosts the energy of the field. This point is where the
conception of architecture gains consciousness as to define itself as timeless.
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ANCHORING:RE-UNDERSTANDING THE
ARCHITECTURAL PROCESS FROM VOID TO PLACE
BAAK YURTSEVEN, T. NUR ALAR
Baak Yurtseven, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, T. Nur alar, Prof. Dr., TOBB
*This paper is a part of the ongoing master thesis in Master of Architecture Program at TOBB
University of Economics and Technology.
Abstract
Ever since the 1980s, architectural discourses have been dealing with concerns about the new millennium. These
concerns have underlined that one of the most important aspects of designing an architectural project is to envision
the design of the site and the building itself together rather than designing them separately. The paper discusses an
architectural design process that focuses on the transformation of voids to place, while developing a sense of place.
To this end, the paper suggests that such a transformation of voids have the potential to integrate interior and
exterior spaces. Discussions on the integration of interior and exterior spaces have been a commonplace in
architectural agenda. However, there is a lack in researches on the means that would ultimately lead such a design
process towards the transformation of voids into interfaces between interior and exterior spaces.
The objective of this study is to present a possible way for developing a sense of place by exploring the voids as a
generator that would trigger a new urban life with the design of a building and its environment. In this respect, these
generative voids might be explained with the concept of anchoring and its dimensions. Anchoring describes the
relation of a building to a site and landscape, to its culture and to its metaphysical-poetic-physical origins, which
makes the sense of place. In this regard, the place will be examined in detail with paradisciplinary approach by
examining a number of projects.
The proposed argument of this work is to determine how the life will continue and provide the integration of the
peoples lives and the design fields. In addition to that, rehabilitating urban living conditions and regaining the lost
spaces in the city would create a new path for landscape and architecture. Consequently, the place could have a
meaning with the concept of anchoring that provides the integration of the interior and exterior space. This
interaction will redefine a new architecture in the future and create a paradigm with regard to the urban life. At this
situation, Helsinki Horizon 2030 projection showing these justifications would make preparations for the targets of
the urban life and help to create a greater sense of individuality on the site.
Keywords: landscape, architecture, anchoring, urban life, void, sense of place
Introduction
The subject matter of this study discusses the integration of the site and the building along with a design process that
moves towards the transformation of voids to place with a para-disciplinary approach. Voids created within
architectural designs collectively form the urban voids and determine the relationships between interior and exterior
spaces. The terms void and place are different from each other. The void, is really a void, and is a space that is not
generated because they usually refer to generated empty spaces. On the other hand, the place is an occupied space
and is limited compared to the void, which brings with it spatiality and openness. While designing the architectural
and urban spaces, it should be noted that architecture is related to place and the site. Instead of identifying the place
as strict and limited, both the site and the building should be examined together with a dimensional approach. On
the other hand, in architectural discourses, the subject of the place is considered as superficial and is largely ignored,
thus the building becomes estranged to its location. In other words, as long as they are designed separately, the
relationship between the nature of the site and the nature of the architectural project could not be healthy.
Therefore, the building should convert voids, being a generator for a new urban life, to the place with the design of
a building and its environment. While providing the integration of the site and building, the concept of anchoring
would be important in terms of understanding the process of the transformation of voids to place and emplacement.
According to Steven Holl, anchoring discusses the intention to ground a work of architecture to its place. At this point,
the site of a building is more than a mere ingredient in its conception. It is its physical, metaphysical, and poetic
foundation. The building transcends both physical and functional requirements by fusing with a place, by
gathering the meaning of a situation. Architecture does not so much intrude on the land scape as it serves to
explain it (Holl, 1989, p.9). This shows that an architectural object occupying a place in the city creates voids and
constitutes the landscape, which enhances the urban life and carries the structure into the future.
Ever since the 1980s, architectural discourses have been dealing with visions about the new millennium. These
concerns have underlined that one of the most important aspects of designing an architectural project is to envision
the design of the site and the building itself together rather than designing them separately. At the same time, many
theorists have looked for an answer as to how new architecture and the new urban life will be. Thus, it is necessary
to examine both the site and the building as a whole in order to understand the relationship between them. This
situation has been emphasized in other disciplines like painting, philosophy, and literature. In Boccionis manifesto,
he says that the need to revolutionize the exterior of the building was based on feelings and sensations, and it
provided the relationship between the exterior scene and interior emotion, which would give birth to the new
architectural line (Meyer, 1995, p.163). As stated by Boccioni, the new architecture is built simultaneously with its
interior and exterior, so this coexistence becomes meaningful when an architectural design is thought with its
environment. In addition to this, the relation between the building and he site is emphasized in literature as well. In
his essay Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Italo Calvino mentions that There is a clear tendency toward
dematerialization in design structures that are meant to be anchored to the ground rather than to weigh upon it
(Modena, 2011, p.142) Upon examination through many disciplines including literature, painting, and art, it is
possible to say that the concepts of emplacement and place are actually related with figure-ground. The integration
of the themes of the future would provide a meaningful site with respect to the new architecture and would help the
re-construction of a new urban life. Many philosophers like Deleuze, Heidegger, and Bachelard have discussed this
situation. According to Deleuze, a new way of looking at the relationship between architecture and its environment
has developed and that architecture could propose some kind of event in which interpretation of the environment
is problematized (Williams, 2000, p.204). This shows that the outside is nothing more than a void of the inside, which
constitutes a new kind of harmony between them and develops the sense of place. In a similar way, Bergson says
that place is something like a void and a resource waiting to be filled with significance and meaning (Read, 2007, p.5).
It means that place is a cognitive and emotional experience while containing cultural values and practices that
connect people to place. As stated by Gaston Bachelard, We dont live inside a void that could be colored with the
diverse shades of light; we live inside and outside a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one
another. (Casey, 1998, p.299) Accordingly, the integration of the site and the building would bring the idea of a
heterogeneous and differentiated realm. Therefore, the transformation of voids into interfaces between interior and
exterior spaces should be taken into consideration with its multiple dimensions including spiritual, physical,
emotional, poetic, and cognitive links.
The void, as a generator that would trigger a new urban life with the design of a building and its environment, could
change the spatial configuration and the meaning of the place. At this point, the concept of the site gains importance
because the voids, including human movements, may give a meaning to the site in terms of the relationship between
architecture and landscape. A site should be thought of within an evolving self-referential frame, a visual frame
meant to qualify and strengthen the natural potential of a city over time Both vision (that is to say the individual
projection on a site) and actions (the individual or collective use of an environment) contribute to our understanding
of a place. (Waldheim, 2006, pp.94-95) This demonstrates that the site creates a new situation and a dialogue
between place and architecture. This dialogue creates a constructive conversion in modern life when the relation
between architecture and site is provided and expressed in new ways. Hence, looking at the urban life scenarios is
significant.
The Urban Life Scenarios
Looking at the urban life scenarios in the last century, it is possible to say that lots of theorists mention the
relationship between nature, building, and the sense of place. Norberg-Schulz claims that the responsibility of an
architect is to discover the genius loci and design. He states that the architects task is to reveal nature by situating
and utilizing the landscape. The current interest in constructing the site reflects the desire make a place (Nesbitt,
1996, p.49). According to Norberg-Schulz, the landscape is brought closer to us by buildings gathering the properties
of the landscape, thus the relationship between vertical-horizontal rhythms in architecture and landscape play a vital
role in the experience of a site. In the same manner, Abraham mentions that just as human life takes place in the
physical environment; buildings do as well, acquiring their position in the landscape by forming a relationship with
it. The physical environment is a place in which everyone and everything interacts. The man-made environment and
architecture exist alongside the naturally formed landscape and topography (Maminski, 2004, p.26). As stated by
Tadao Ando, architecture has strong links with the landscape and thus creates a new landscape. Ando emphasized
the coexistence of architecture and landscape over theoretical speculations as follows:
The presence of nature within an architecture austerely constructed by means of transparent logic. The elements
of nature bring architecture derived from ideological thought down to the ground level of reality and awaken manmade life within it. Contemporary architecture has a role play in providing people with architectural places that make
them feel the presence of nature. Architecture transforms nature through abstraction, changing its meaning. When
water, wind, light, rain, and other elements of nature are abstracted within architecture, the architecture becomes
a place where people and nature confront each other under a sustained sense of tension. (Nesbitt, 1996, p.460)
According to Ando, landscape and architecture constitute a meaningful whole because architecture transforms the
site through abstraction and creates a place which gathers nature and people. In this situation, not only does
architecture create a new landscape with the formal characteristics of the site, but it also relates to the senses. In a
similar fashion, Manual Gausa states that the new relationship between architecture (building) and landscape (site)
is a hybrid contact. The mutual inflection of the site and building emanates from a changing attitude toward naturefrom a romantic understanding of the natural to a mixed approach (Mallgrave and Goodman, 2012, pp.171-172).
Upon examining these discourses, it can be seen that the relationship between interior and exterior spaces have a
mutual bond and they are an inseparable whole. Many architects aim to develop a sense of place and examine the
integration of interior and exterior voids.
There are some manifestos that support the interaction of buildings with the site. In his manifesto titled Anchoring
(1989), Steven Holl mentions that architecture explains landscape and that the illustration of a site is not a simplistic
replication of its context; and to reveal landscape as an aspect of place may not confirm its appearance (Jenks and
Kropf, 1997, p.109). He reminds the fundamental nature of place in architecture. For Holl, the notion of site is a
primary architectural motivator. Thus when designing a building, the site operates at various scales that have
particular effects upon architectural projects. Actually, Holl aims to transcend the requirements of a structure by
combining with a place and landscape within its view. In a similar manner, in his Seven Points for the Millennium,
Kenneth Frampton (1999, p.78) mentions that This greening strategy possesses other pastoral benefits: first, the
current tendency to reduce the built environment to an endless proliferation of free-standing objects would be
overcome by landscape which would integrate everything into the surface of the ground and second, landscape
would have the advantage of being more culturally accessible to the man in the street, than the contemporary built
environment with all the seemingly unavoidable harshness of its instrumentality.
As mentioned earlier, the architectural discourses and manifestos between the 1980 and 1990s indicate that the
integration of interior and exterior voids trigger a new urban life and constitutes a hybrid contact between them. At
the same time, the coexistence of the site and building develops a sense of place by conveying the significance of
landscape and architecture.
The Discourses about the Sense of Place
The architectural views and manifestos of the past determine todays perspectives. This can be especially seen in the
New Futurists, defined by Jean-Louis Cohen, which have various discourses which is related to the architecture in the
late 20th to early 21st century. Architects such as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster, and Santiago Calatrava
have made projections about the future of architecture and the urban life. Zaha Hadid believes that architecture
actually consists of human activities and human mood, which are related to the human life. She claimed that
Architecture is not only a closed structure that holds the activities it is built for but it also should make its users
calm, think, keep them dry and motivate the spirit Architecture should be a unique thing leaving its influence in
the areas life and attracting people to experience it. (Abdullah, Said, and Ossen, 2013, p.2) This shows that she
designs a new kind of landscape by formulating her buildings. This situation causes to flow together with
contemporary cities and the lives of their peoples. Architecture not only includes physical features of the place, but
it also affects the spiritual values and the lives of people. Daniel Libeskind and Paul Goldberger (2008) explain this
situation with the form of communication. They believe that the architectural site has to be part of the story as an
act of communication. It is not just a container to be filled; on the contrary, it is part of the symbolism of the
building. This means that the site is not a container containing its physical configuration, on the contrary, it is a tool
that constitutes interfaces between the architectural and urban voids. In their practices, Norman Foster and Santiago
Calatrava integrate nature into their building design. As stated by Foster (2000, p.14), the sensitiveness to the past
and the place is significant so as to design the building. He states that the integration with nature or the urban fabric
is related to the sensibility of the place. In a similar manner, Calatrava mentions about that
Calatravas buildings dont impose on landscape or a cityscape. They are respectful of the fact that the world was
there first. They dont demand space, they enhance it. They dont fill space; they give it meaning-a new dimension to
the landscape, opening new horizons. (Sharp, 1992, p.28)
According to the New Futurists, place identity is a basic element that contributes to the sense of place. It is clear that
the creation of place identity is necessary in order to constitute the cognitive dimension of the place and the design
concept of a void. Thus, architecture should be thought with landscape to give meaning to the urban life.
The integration of voids and the relation between site and building have been discussed at several architectural
congresses throughout history. In his speech for the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Robert Venturi (1991, p.1) offers that
the determinant factor of design is the context, thus while designing a site, it should be from the inside out or outside
in. This act may create valid tensions between the inside and outside and constitutes a spatial record as an
architectural event. In a similar manner, Peter Zumthor generally designs his buildings according to surfaces, which
creates a topological spatiality, so the transition between inside and outside and the spatial continuity are provided
(Ursprung, 2009, p.2). This transition between the building and ground shifts from the abstract to concrete, and
causes a renewed interest in the specific surfaces. In light of the information which has been offered above, the
building and site having a profound effect on the various movements in the decades of 1980s, caused to think about
the sense of place. Developing the sense of place in relation to a particular system of activities, physical features,
experiences, and meanings is important for the inside and outside dualism on the site. According to Bachelard,
outside and inside form a dialectic of division, the obvious geometry of which blinds us Outside and inside are
both intimate- they are always ready to be reversed. (Relph, 2008, p.49) Thus, the transformation of interior and
exterior voids to place and the qualification of voids within these discourses may be expressed with the concept of
anchoring that was first described by architect Steven Holl. This concept would create a goal for Horizon 2030 in
Helsinki which is a development plan that aims to improve urban spaces by providing high-quality living and working
environments due to the necessity to rehabilitate the conditions of today.
Anchoring as the Design Concept of the Void
In the dictionary meaning of the word, anchoring is to moor a ship to sea with an anchor. On the other hand, in
architecture, this word means the relationship between interior and exterior void. That is to say, some buildings have
a strong connection with their places, thus they are unimaginable without their sites. In 1989, Steven Holl published
a manifesto called Anchoring. He states that Site and situation offer a particular field of research for each design,
which provides him resisting not only homogenous building practices, but also the replication of context. In using the
term anchoring, a particular relation between building and the site it is located in is made manifest. (Yorgancolu,
2004, pp. 33-34) According to Holl, the term of anchoring is used as a metaphor to show the fixation of a building
onto a particular site. The physical relation with site and building is taken to a deeper level. In addition to this,
anchoring designates a particular situation through which a building is rooted into its site. However, it is used as a
philosophical metaphor as well as a physical relation. Holl explains this condition as a fusion as an intertwined relation
between the intellectual levels of the idea with the experimental level of phenomena (Yorgancolu, 2004, pp.3334). At this point, not only does this fusion create the space, but also carries symbolic, metaphysical, and poetic
meaning. Steven Holl (1991, p.9) supports this view as follows:
Architecture and site should have an experiential connection, a poetic link. He maintains that a constructive
transformation in modern life is possible when the link between site and architecture are found and expressed in
new ways. Holl explicitly considers the importance of physical and psycho-environmental processes of the site as he
implements his anchoring theory which considers the importance of a buildings site to be more than a mere
ingredient in its conception. It is its physical and metaphysical foundation.
Within the context of architectural design today, the concept of anchoring describes how a building fixes itself upon
the site on which it sits and gradually changes its surroundings. These changes in the environment are later reflected
on the people that occupy these spaces. In such circumstances, voids can take form and may be designed with the
notion of anchoring. Similarly to Steven Holl, many architects and philosophers refer to the concept of anchoring. As
stated by Peter Zumthor (1998, p.18), I believe that buildings only be accepted by their surroundings if they have
the ability to appeal to our emotions and minds in various ways. Since our feelings and understanding are rooted in
the past, our sensuous connections with a building must respect the process of remembering. In a similar manner,
theorist Carol Burns (1991, p.155) says that every site has a unique intersection of land, climate or production and is
constructed of its specific features. Adding a new building to the site transforms its use in terms of topography,
circulation and senses. Therefore, while the building is shaping its surroundings, the site should be thought both
physically and conceptually. On the other hand, the connection between the site and architecture may reflect the
spirit of the place. Simon Bell refers to the concept of genius loci in order to express this situation. Simon Bell, a
landscape architect, in Elements of Visual design in the Landscape writes:
Genius loci, or the spirit of the place, is that quality or characteristic which makes one location or landscape different
from any other, and that is unique and individual to it. The concept is somewhat abstract and intangible and tends
to be more commonly understood on an emotional and subconscious level. It is, however, a most important attribute
in a place and may be fragile and vulnerable when changes occur in or around the particular location. (Karamanea,
2015, p.115)
This means that the spirit of the place is natively associated with beliefs with regard to the sacred character of places.
Likewise, Raimund Abraham supports that architecture begins with the creation of the site rather than with elements
of architecture such as aesthetics, materials or forms (Maminski, 2014, p.27). This shows that the site is the source
of the creation of architecture and place. As mentioned in the notion of Anchoring, the dialogue between the site
and architecture constitutes a third situation and infers a new meaning of architecture. Moreover, while architecture
is creating the interior and exterior void, at the same time it creates its own relations. At this point, the concept of
the site may be investigated in three dimensions as the physical, metaphysical, and poetic in order to clarify the
relationship between interior and exterior voids.
The Dimensions of the Concept of Anchoring
Physical Dimension
Towards a new conception of architecture, the concept of the site is important to examine with a para-disciplinary
approach. The basic dimension of the relation between the building and site is the inevitable physical and functional
connections. In his article The Murmur of the Site, Rafael Moneo claims that the site is the ground in which a building
is rooted; the site, he states, should be evaluated as the basic material of the building. For Moneo, architecture can
be thought of being since without the presence of the site, a singular and unique site, architecture and urban life
cannot exist. (Yorgancolu, 2004, p.35)
The physical dimension of the space is actually related to the environmental experience which occurs from the
integration of perception, sensation, and conception. (Figure1)
Figure 1. Experiential Perspective (Tuan, 1977, p.8)

Steven Holl describes that the nature of architecture is experienced in movement. The movement of the body as it
crosses through overlapping perspectives formed within spaces is the elemental connection between us and
architecture (Peters, 2001, p.16). This shows that the movement just materializes into the voids and without void,
there can be no movement. In addition to this, the German philosopher Otto Friedrich Bollnow, who in his book
Mensch und Raum, indicates that the notion of space is connected with human actions. He claims that space is
conquered through mans actions. Therefore, the German word Raum (space) meant the action of freeing a place for
settlement, before it came to denote the place as such (Schulz, 1988, p.29). There cannot be any doubt in the fact
that architecture begins with movement, since the body adds dimension to the site. Through motion, perception and
conception are evoked and the site may be perceived differently. In relation to this Micheal Hays (1998, p.469) states
that A simplistic view of human experience, derived from the projection of scientific models onto human reality,
exemplified by certain aspects of behaviorism and positivistic psychology, has hampered our understanding of the
essential continuity between thought and action, between mind and body.
Experiential perspective is related to the sensual impacts qualified by thought. Sensual impacts enable human beings
to develop the strong feelings for the place and the spatial qualities. According to Yi-Fu Tuan (1977, p.12), the sense
of touch is significant for physical dimension of the site. He says that the skin registers sensations and it is not a
distance sensor. However, it enriches the apprehension of spatial character of the site. In a similar manner, Michel
Foucault (2002, p.20) states that Those things are convenient which come sufficiently close to one another to be
in juxtaposition; their edges touch, their fringes intermingle, the extremity of the one also denotes the beginning of
the other. In this way, movement, influences, passions, and properties too, are communicated. This shows that
physical integrity depends on the experiential perspective which contains sensation, perception, and sensual impacts,
especially, the sense of touching. This is because the proximity between the site and the building creates a physical
relationship and provides for a deeper sense of communication. In The Manhattan Transcripts, Tschumi mentions
that architectural spaces need movement and events to achieve an architectural experience, which conceives a
dynamic manner (Havik, 2012, pp.127-128). As highlighted above, the physical dimension of the site is related to
movements and events. At the same time, these events evoke the perception and conception of the human being,
which enhances the spatial and experiential dimension of the outdoor environment. Therefore, architecture
becomes an active participant on the site. One of the most important examples showing the physical dimension on
the site is the renovation of the Lincoln Center Plaza in New York City by architects Diller Scofidio and Renfro with FX
Fowle Architects.
Originally designed in the 1950s, this space was supposed to create an inviting space not just a place for those
visiting an event at one of the many venues. Based on the limited success with this goal and the need to attend to
the aging exterior space the Lincoln Center organization decided to redesign the space. This space was meant to
create the urban refuge, a public space and be an emblem of Lincoln Centers new accessibility and openness to the
public. (Griswold, 2010, p.2)
For this project, the interaction between the inside and outside is significant in terms of experience and perception
because the voids in the project are perceived as a cube in spite of having various dimensions, demonstrating
varieties in terms of perception.
Metaphysical Dimension
The metaphysical dimension of the site is related to the branch of philosophy that explains the fundamental nature
of being and the world. To put it another way, the understanding of architecture requires metaphysical and spiritual
aspects, thus looking at philosophy is important in order to comprehend the relationship between interior and
exterior voids in architecture. The philosophy of the place is actually based on the relationship between the human
body and void. In this situation, the site becomes important metaphysically. When looking at the metaphysical fusion
of building, site, and landscape, it can be seen that phenomenology underlies attitudes toward them. Actually,
according to Norberg-Schulz (2007, p.415), architectural phenomenology is referred to a return to things against
abstractions and mental constructions. He mentions that the place is not just an abstract site, but also is a totality
arising from material things. At this point, the essence of the place is related to the sense of place or genius loci. He
says that,
A place is a space which has a distinct character. Since ancient times the genius loci, or spirit of the place, has been
recognized as the concrete reality man has to face and come to terms with in his daily life. Architecture means to
visualize the genius loci and the task of the architect is to create meaningful places where he helps to man to dwell.
(Trancik, 1986, p.114)
The site has a spirit and particular identity, so it is needed to be understood, accepted and respected by design. This
is because; the architectural phenomenology depends on the spirit of the place. Like Schulz, Heidegger states that
buildings are related to their environment by resting on the ground and rising towards the sky. Man-made
environments comprise artifacts or things, which may serve as internal foci and emphasize the gathering function
of settlement (Schulz, 1979, p.10). To put it another way, for Heidegger, the site makes sense gathering. According
to Heidegger,
Man needs to gather the experienced meanings to create for himself an image mundi or a microcosmos which
concretizes his world. Gathering evidently depends on symbolization, and implies a transposition of meanings to one
place, which thereby becomes an existential centre. Visualization, symbolization and gathering are aspects of the
general processes of settling; and dwelling, in the existential sense of the word, depends on these functions.
Heidegger illustrates the problem by means of the bridge; a building which visualizes, symbolizes, and gathers, and
makes the environment a unified whole. (Heidegger, 1971 p.152)
To go into further detail, the example of the bridge of Heidegger gathers the earth as landscape around a stream. It
connects both banks and makes a place come into presence. He mentions that The words earth and landscape
are not used as mere topographical concepts, but to denote things which are disclosed through the gathering of the
bridge. Human life takes place on earth, and the bridge makes this fact manifest. (Schulz, 1988, p.42) Moreover,
not only is the metaphysical dimension of the site related to the spirit of the place, but it is also includes the
phenomenological voids. These voids of the site respond to the individual events that have occurred within a city. To
put it another way, they contain historic transformations and clearings of the urban realm on account of natural
disasters or wars, which embodies strong memory and various emotions (Hall, 2010, p.9). Daniel Libeskind designed
his Jewish Museum in Berlin with an emphasis on this concept. In his project, he created voids that changed the
spatial configuration, the experience, and the meaning of the space significantly. These voids that connect memory
and remembrance are not simply the physically empty spaces in the city of Berlin that were caused by allied
bombardment. It can be constructed architecturally. The constructed void in the midst of the museum comprises
one-third of the total volume of Libeskind's addition (Lahiji, 1997, p.149). It is clear that the metaphysical dimension
in urban spaces is related to memories and spiritual reflections within the human psyche.
Poetic Dimension
The place always moves through the spatial volume. It sees forms and objects, hears sounds, and feels the breeze.
On the one hand, the place is a physical essence like wood or stone. On the other hand, it is shapeless in consideration
of its nature. Its visual form depends on the quality of light and its dimensions. If space is regulated or stereotyped
by stylistic elements, architecture has a particular identity. Therefore, poetry is related to the simplest daily
observations such as smells, weather conditions, colors, light or shadow with the complexity of human senses and
emotions. Juhani Pallasmaa (2005, p.41) mentions the relationship between senses and space in his essay The Eyes
of the Skin. He states that Every touching experience of architecture is multi-sensory; qualities of matter, space and
scale are measured equally by the eye, ear, nose, skin, skeleton and muscle. In a similar manner, Steven Holl
describes that the place may also be perceived with the senses, thus multi-sensory fusion is significant to experience
voids. As stated by Holl,
Though the eye, acting as what Steven Holl describes as a phenomenal lens, is essential in the interpretation of
architecture as a quality of light and shadow shaped by solids and voids, by opacities, transparencies, and
translucencies, the experience of architecture must be a multi-sensory fusion. Architecture has the potential to
simultaneously awaken all of the senses. In so doing, a design strengthens beyond a functional solution, and into a
phenomenological experience with embodied meaning; an event both site and circumstantially specific, molded for
an architecture of the present. (Mouch, 2009, pp.65-66) This means that sensory perception of spaces containing
light, shadow, colors, transparency, and materials engage in the complete experience of the void. Architecture and
landscape evoke poetically the emotional power of the senses. Peter Zumthor thinks that senses and memories have
a major role in designing and uses a core theme in his works. He states that memories, including the deepest
architectural experiences are reservoirs of the place, and addresses the sensory experience, forms, and public spaces
on a particular site (Havik, 2012, p.59). In addition to this, in his The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard (1994, p.222)
mentions that the poetic imagination of landscape and architecture allows people to notice the physical reality of
the site. According to Bachelard, the phenomenology of poetry allows us to explore the being of man as the being of
a surface, of the surface; that separates the region of the same from the region of the other. This shows that space
is not homogeneous; on the contrary, it exists with its dreams and memories, which constitutes a developed sense
of lived space.
Consequently, it could be stated that while the building is designed, it should be thought of its surrounding and a
para-disciplinary approach containing physical, metaphysical and poetic dimensions. As stated by Steven Holl, the
concept of Anchoring is significant in order to understand these qualities. This is because the relationship between
the site and the building natively express the dialectics of interior and exterior void.
Conclusion
Today, voids enabling the movement of people have been disappearing. As stated by Bruno Zevi (1990, pp.11-12),
while designing cities and buildings, it is necessary to think open spaces and free fields because the urban life
continues everywhere limited by the gaps like in open-close spaces, cities, streets, parks and gardens. Especially, the
life of a citizen formed with the approach of modern life is in a broken state and this situation decreases the human
activities and efficiency in space. Citizens no longer gather in these spaces, thus the urban life loses its quality. In a
similar manner, in his book named as On Streets, Stanford Anderson states that one of the most important
architectural and planning problems of the modern life is about voids between the buildings. Functionality gradually
substitutes in the internal spaces rather than the external spaces. The building is in a tendency to be an object rather
than relate to its own context (Trancik, 1986, p.8). In conclusion, since the 1980s, there are some architectural
discourses including the sense of place and the integration of site and building. Within these discourses, voids as a
generator for a new urban life have an important role, since the transformation of voids could develop the sense of
place in the city. It is necessary to enhance and contemporary architectural design to solve the problems with respect
to the urban life. At this point, the concept of anchoring would help to establish a link between past and future, and
the dimensions of the site would give some clues to create a new paradigm. However, there is the Helsinki Horizon
2030 projection which aims to create a greater sense of individuality on the site. As stated by Aristotle, A city exists
not just for the sake of living, but for living well. Similarly, design only has true meaning if it improves the quality of
life. The purpose of a design city today is to enhance everyday life in an ecologically sustainable way. (Louekari and
DeWan, 2010, p.16) This projection, titled as an Urban Pilot, is important in terms of making preparations to the
targets of future. The aim is to integrate landscape and architecture with the existing urban life and create a
memorable, emotional and livable architecture. Also, it would be an example for rehabilitating urban living conditions
and regaining the lost spaces in the city.
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ARCHITECTURE AS A RISK MARKER

SARRA KASRI
Architect PhD Student, LATTS PAE3C.
Abstract
How architecture can play the role of a risk marker? What are the expression of the risk and the logics of its spatial
integration?
The architecture as constructed space can help us to learn about the multiple realities of the territory. Indeed,
through its materiality, it provides information on technical intelligence and the optimal integration in the natural
topography of the site. Also, through the uses and signs that crystalizes, it informs the social, the political and cultural
logics of its production. Finally, architecture is the result of both spatial constraints and social standards built,
negotiated and solidified by time.
Thus, Architecture seems to be an interesting media for the identification and qualification of risks situations, these
being defined as the interaction between hazard and vulnerability of a valuable thing. It amounts to ask
architecture dimensions like the materiality and the temporality, but also standards and rules that structure the
design process and "the making architecture" under the risk pressure (natural and anthropic).
Through international examples from different cultural backgrounds (Tunisian, Algerian, French, Nippon and Greek
cases), our demonstration aims to question the context, transmission, reception of the architectural design process
concerning situations either integration or omission on the risk.
Introduction: Natural disasters: a universal problem
The trend observed in the recent decades shows a significant growth of disasters scenarios. These catastrophic
events bring together a broad spectrum of natural phenomena with various geographical and temporal
configurations added to different potentials of damage.
In view of the constant concentrations progress of people, activities and wealth in relatively restricted areas, the
resurgence of these natural phenomena with a high intensity generates the amplification of the damages process,
which exceeds their geographical area of impact. More than ever, the international community is concerned and
confronted to its precarious reality facing these vagaries of nature.
Through these findings, an international issue has emerged; it seems to have as a main aim the preservation of the
integrity and the development of territories challenged by natural disasters. In this context, the idea of an
international decade on the theme of the natural disasters was initiated by the North American Geophysicist Frank
Press. And through the Tokyo declaration in 1989, this event has focused on the power of science and technology in
the reducing damage caused by the natural disaster and also has concentrated on the importance of the education.
In this perspective, the decade 1990-2000 has constituted an abundant period with a lot of programs studying natural
disasters structured on five objectives to achieve:
Applying a current scientific knowledge
Encouraging scientific and technical initiatives to improve knowledge
Disseminate technical information
Establish programs of technical assistance and technology transfer
Develop educational formative activities
From these reflections, an International Day for Disaster Reduction, held every 13 October, celebrates how people
and communities around the world are reducing their exposure to disasters and raising awareness about the
importance of reining in the risks that they face.
In course of 2015, the theme adopted by the United Nations to celebrate the International Day for Disaster Reduction
is entitled "Knowledge for Life":
The focus of International Day for Disaster Reduction in 2015 was traditional, indigenous and local knowledge and
the way that they complement modern science and add to an individuals and societies resilience.
This theme seems to reflect awareness of the duty of contextualizing risk and management approaches. Thus,
changing the global scale reading to the local, it is interesting to note the existing paradox between on the one hand,
the homogenous and standardized approaches of the international political disaster management (probably justified
by the humanitarian and economic urgency of the situation) and secondly, the diversity of postures and thoughts
dealing with risks at each socio-spatial context proposed by researchers and local stakeholders.
Urban territory: Territory at risk
Civilization is nothing but the product of the concentration of urbanization.
Urban areas are special territories for understanding the socio-spatial complexity of human groups. Their
transformations trace the social, cultural, political and technological evolution of a society.
Urban territory: a double dimensional structure: material / immaterial:
Going beyond the abstract and absolute substance enunciated by Newton and Kant and anchoring in Leibniz's logic,
urban space becomes a stack of measurable space and classifiable substances (metric and topographic) added to
evolving social constructions (Jacques Lvy). At the interface of geography and sociology, space becomes territory
since it engrams social dimensions and subjective constructions (Jrgen Habermas). As Henri Lefebvre says: urban
space ... is not only organized and established, it is also modeled, appropriated by any group, according to its
requirements, its ethics and aesthetics ... 1 (1972).
In short, territories are the result of the interactions between space and society; they can be defined through their
material configurations, immaterial readings and stakeholder networks.
However, this research is interested in territory as re-ordination of space (Claude Raffestin, 1986) by a human
presence in a specific context. So this reflection is at the crossroads of a spatial form "natural" and a product space
(Di Meo).
Urban territory: territory at risk:
Through their social and spatial patterns added to their dynamic organization, urban territories are privileged spaces
for the risks location (Pigeon). Indeed the concentration of a multitude of interactions and exchanges (economic,
social) in a limit space perimeter may cause risk situations. Those circumstances are amplified by the strategic value
of the stakes and the vulnerable state of the urban territory.
In addition, through their interactions with a Nature characterized by a perpetual dynamism due to cyclic laws and
random phenomena, these territories are subjects to uncertain and hazardous disturbances. Thus, the urban area
can be considered as the context of the emergence of urban risks which, in return seem participate to shape those
territories and to impact the restructuring and the evolution of those areas. Actually, urban risk coupled with the
notion of security and insecurity contribute greatly to building the reputation of the places. As Valerie November
(2002) says: The risk is seen as an element participating actively and intrinsically to territorial transformations, able
to score some areas over the long term and even be "readable" in the landscape. 2.
So, to approach risk and urban in a global perspective, we must looking at the construction of a complex object both
resulting and active. This system can be made by the consideration of a series of tangible and intangible, human and
non-human parameters, with various temporality and spatiality.
Moreover, historical approach must be considered in the analysis of urban planning and risks management. This
analysis helps to focus and to consider the spatial stratifications that echo to societys evolutions, conjunctures and
crises. In this sense, during its evolution, the urban territory has various internal dynamics between the productive
forces and pulsing stimulating risk-taking to achieve the issues considered for some actors as fundamental to the
expansion of the city; but also repulsive forces that hinders the enhancement and development of this area depends
on other territories. This process of the risks instrumentalization manipulates the various representations of
different issues: economic, politic, identity, security. Thus this procedure creates a multitude of conflict situations
regarding ownership of the land. Moreover, the multiplicity of architectural and urban configurations seems
impacting significantly on the way to experience the city and thus interact with the notion of risk in both its impulsive
and repulsive dimension. In this logic, the risk can be considered in terms of contradictions: contradictions between
different risks, which reflect and express conflicts of interest, contradictions between collective interest and
individual one, contradiction between social groups, between regions, and value systems. (Metzger,DErcole citing
nest pas seulement organis et institu, il est aussi model, appropri par tel ou tel groupe, suivant ses
exigences, son thique et son esthtique
2
Le risque est vu comme un lment participant activement, intrinsquement, aux transformations territoriales,
capable de marquer certains espaces sur le long terme et mme, dtre lisible dans le paysage.
(November,2002)
Borraz 2011). In summary, study the history of the territories under the Risk prism can inform us about the various
logics that led to the expansion of those areas.
The world of the city, in essence, is over, until our most recent experience. Urban changes, legal and territorial,
urban and administrative, are accomplished without anyone really exorcises the initial form. (Roncayolo, 1990)3.
Thus, the consideration of risk seems to impact on the location and the morphology of the territory. So, in order to
develop this idea, this paper aims to demonstrate how architecture considered as manifestation of urban area can
act as a risk marker (through its materiality, its uses and its evolution).
Architecture as a risk marker
Architecture: an inhabited significant materiality
Architecture, as a space built, can inform us about the multiple realities of a territory. Indeed, through its materiality,
it provides information on technical intelligence and integration with the natural topography of the site. Through the
uses and signs that crystallizes, architecture learn us about the social and cultural logics of material and economic
production. It is the result of both the spatial constraints and social norms built and solidified by the time (Guy Di
Mo Daniel Pinson 1993).
Placed at the intersection of three dimensions of human existence, namely the natural, socio-cultural and
constructive dimensions, architecture can be viewed as a continuum of manifestations of the presence and evolution
of a human group on a geographical territory.
In light of this triadic construction, several dialectical tensions can be developed; their main objective is to inform
and to document the architectural and urban analysis especially from the perspective of risk. However, it seems
necessary to point the dynamism of these dialectical tensions influenced by the evolution of the society:
Architecture: Nature versus Culture
Architecture: Innovation versus Heritage
Architecture: Local versus Universal
Architecture: Technique versus Social
Architecture: Informal versus Formal
Figure 1. Triadic structure of the Architecture

Architecture: Marker of the citys evolution
I have always thought that the materialization of the architecture does not take place when it emerges, but when
it is built. Otherwise it has no meaning. Vernacular architecture, born on the spot, shaped by the constraints, is more
contextual definition. His strength, along with its fragility, is the fact that it is in the permanent and not in the event. 4
(Patrick Bouchain, 2010)
Le monde de la ville, par essence, est fini, jusqu nos expriences les plus rcentes. Les changements urbains,
juridiques et territoriaux, urbanistiques et administratifs, saccomplissent, sans que lon exorcise rellement la
forme initiale. (Roncayolo, 1990)
4 Jai toujours pens que la matrialisation de larchitecture na pas lieu au moment o elle se dessine, mais au
moment o elle se construit. Sinon, elle na pas de sens. Larchitecture vernaculaire, ne sur place, faonne par les
contraintes, est par dfinition plus contextuelle. Sa force, en mme temps que sa fragilit, vient du fait quelle se
situe dans la permanence et non dans lvnement. (Patrick Bouchain, 2010)
Tunis: Historical reading / evolution

Tunis is the capital of Tunisia, it is the first economic center of the country, in which seat all the main political and
administrative powers. The interest of this research focuses on the historical center of the city, indeed the multitude
of present urban models, the plurality of social logics and finally natural constraints mean that this scope can
significantly document the relationship between urban and risks "naturally occurring"
This part consists of the selective reading of Tuniss history. It attempts to trace the logics of the constructions of
different territorialities of this area by focusing on integrating natural site, the interplay of actors and resulting urban
and architectural materiality. Its in tracing the history that we inform the integration logics and cracks governing
urban today.
Geographical context
Tunis is built in an old morphological bowl filled with recent sediments composed with slime and clay and also on
small colonies composed of limestone's formations or sandy clay.
Moreover, Tunisia occupies the northern edge of the African plate. So, Tunis is near the tectonic fault Eurasia Africa
solicited by subduction movement. Tunis making it very vulnerable to seismic movement
Therefore, Tunis is highly vulnerable to seismic movements.
Figure 2. Map of Tunis Bay performed by the hydrographic service of the French navy in 1887 (source J.Revault, 1974)
Vernacular period:
A reading of the physical part of the implementation of the Tunis Medina seems to reflect an intrinsic intelligence to
that territory. The area has being composed of a complex natural landscape allowing various integration logics.
In the geomorphological preserve the site, the medina of Tunis is the oldest settlement in the area, is situated atop
a hill and down through the gently sloping hillside leading to the lake of Tunis, giving back to the sebkha Sedjoumi.
This choice of location seems to have several justifications that go back to the origin of the history of the medina and
its integration logic. Contrary to the logic of historical settlement of Carthage, seaport city open to the sea, the
founders of the medina with a defensive logic but also open to maritime trade, siting high on the hills, in bottom of
Tunis Lake perfectly meets the expectations of the time.
Through the practice of Maliki jurisprudence, understanding the logical integration of the concept of ownership
suggests that the Medina is understood as three-dimensional structure implying such entanglement of private places
with collective or public ones without corrupting each other. So Sabbaths those volumes of private homes that come
to step over public roads of varied scales. Moreover, it is essential to notice the primacy of private interest over the
public interest in the philosophy of Maliki doctrine applied in the Medina of Tunis. This norm seems to have
significantly impacted the image of the Medina and the conditions of its roads.
Logic establishment in the natural site: Intelligent implanting in natural site with the recognition of its
topographical, geographical and climatic potentialities.
Actors of governance: artisans and local Tunisians lawyers
Source of governance: Local Tunisian power inspired by the Maliki doctrine
Figure 3. Medina of Tunis and its fortifications (Sebag 1998)
Colonial period: engineering approach

Unlike the geomorphological nature of the establishings site of the Medina, the European city developed on a natural
site with a considerable vulnerability. Indeed, this new city settled at the bottom of an ancient morphological bowl
filled with recent clay sediments. A succession of hills of low height (max 50 meters) generates the circular
configuration of the site opening to the Lake of Tunis and giving back to the Sabkhat el Sijoumi.
In low-cons of native city, between it and El Bahira, the soil is almost exclusively composed of reported land of rubble
and detritus of all kinds urban deposits have slowly gained on the lake through the centuries.5 (Monchicourt,1904).
Despite the vulnerability of the physical site and its poor soil crossed by open sewers (Khandaq, pl khndiq)
discharging wastewater from the Medina to the Shott al-Bhira (Lake of Tunis), the choice of this territory to
implement the European city is rooted in logic preservation of authentic urban fabric of the Medina (which was not
the case with the Medina of Alger) but also to valorize the waterfront site with the faith in progress and technicality
to neutralize and bypass the natural vulnerability of the site.
Indeed, It seems evident through reports of the French administration that the lowlands between the Medina and
al-Bhira Shott (Lake of Tunis) is a territory of issues, which justifies the development work undertaken at the end XIX
century in this area.
Logic establishment in the natural site: the consideration of the natural site as a manageable and shapeable
support by the contribution of technology. Also its a strategic location that meets the economic and trade
issues
Actors of governance: engineers (French and Italians) from hygienist movement. Also French architects
subordinate to the engineers for realizing the embellishment plans of the city.
Source of governance: French protectorates administration
Figure 4. Representation of Tunis
En contre-bas de la ville indigne, entre elle et El Bahira, le sol est peu prs exclusivement compos de terres
rapportes, de dcombres et de dtritus de tout genre dpts urbains ayant lentement gagn sur le lac travers
les sicles. (Monchicourt ,1904)
Figure 5. Map of Tunis 1906 (Sebag , 1998)

Colonial period: modernist approach
France comes with its administration and its laws, its schools, clinics and hospitals, ports, roads, bridges and
railways, its public works and safety. It can give more and this is the order in the city, the generator order ensuring
the harmonious development of the city or village, which sets the stage, away waste, avoids lost time.6 (Eugene
Claudius Petit French minister of the reconstruction and town planning)
Considered as territory of allies, Tunisia is the target of an intensive attack during the Second World War. The ravages
are important to the point that it is the only one among the three countries of North Africa to be considered a disaster
area.
Being under the French protectorate since 1881, Tunisia is part of the French territory. Thus, following the disaster,
France has supported the reconstruction that took place under control of the French administration under the
leadership of a young team of architects and urban planners French on site.
The value of the consideration of this historical episode is double, it consists, first, in the understanding of the
interweaving of modernist and hygienist thought initiated by the Venice Charter under the leadership of a number
of architects like Le Corbusier and second, in the analysis of the Tunisians context and urban complexity of the site.
The major aim of this reflection is to consider the problem of the natural environment, physical and climatic
constraints in the fabric of the city.
In which way did the logic of think universal and apply locally supported by French administration impact on the
architectural and urban design in the context of this modern approach?
The main contributions of these modern architects consist in their approach and in their natural site hygienist reading
grid of the territory. In fact, special attention is given to the principles of sunlight, ventilation and volumetric
articulation of the buildings. Thus, these developers have expressed strong criticism of the choice of the European
6
La France vient avec son administration et ses lois, ses coles, ses dispensaires et ses hpitaux, ses ports, ses
routes, ses ponts et ses chemins de fer, ses travaux publics et sa scurit. Elle peut donner davantage et cest
lOrdre dans la cit, lordre gnrateur qui assure le dveloppement harmonieux de la ville ou du village, qui en fixe
les tapes, carte les gaspillages, vite le temps perdu. (Eugene Claudius Petit French minister of the
reconstruction and town planning)
City site (previously developed), whereas it is the opposite of what should be the location of a modern city. From
their analysis of the Tunisian perimeter, these architects and town planner have proposed logic satelitaire to extend
the Tunisian territory. With the achievement of some major development schemes between 1943-1953 in the area
of El Menzeh that enabled the implementation of their designs principles from urban scale to retail of the residential
units.
Logic establishment in the natural site: Intelligent implanting in natural site with the recognition of its
topographical, geographical and climatic potentialities.
Actors of governance: Architects and Town planners (French and European) from the modern movement Charter of Athens.
Source of governance: French protectorates administration
Figure 6. Analysis of the site and its potential by the Modern Architects and town planner group (AA- 1948)
The historical overview of the evolution of ancient core of Tunis allows knowledge of socio-spatial patterns that
influence the construction of the territory nowadays. The imbrication of stories and performances as well as the
dynamics of perceptions allow the transfer of the image of a territory crystallizing all vulnerabilities in a more positive
image sign of modernity, progress or authenticity. Thus, urban areas appear full of identity movement driven by the
interplay of risk: a perpetual construction and confrontation between vulnerabilities and issues
Tunis: risks situations
The aim of this paper is to examine the architecture as a risk marker: revealing the situations of vulnerability and
helping to understand the menaces logic. It seems judicious to question several notions of architecture through the
prism of risk like spatial and temporal scales, standards, practices and usages.
This part concerns the analysis of two types of natural hazards: earthquakes and storm water. The choice is oriented
by thirty interviews with multiple stakeholders, designers, managers and finally users and inhabitants.
The selection of risks situation is based on the presence of two different urban and architectural models:
The medinas houses: as experienced and managed today
The two buildings in the European historic center
Its important to notice that the disaster allows the identification of risk situations. Most researches on this topic are
based on an analysis of catastrophic episodes to define the dimensions and indicators to analyze. However, this does
not apply to the area of Tunis, as this zone is not impacted recently by significant natural disasters (earthquake,
important flood), making the report to the concept of risk "naturally occurring" very puzzled and floating. So, to
inform the links between architecture and risk, the investigation require more material and classifiable indicators as
damage factor and vulnerabilities.
Medinas houses and European buildings
Through the analysis of the corpus (see illustrations below), our investigation focuses on construction techniques and
used materials during life period of the structure. Indeed, the aging of architectural materiality makes vulnerable
the building and produces risk situations. The material degradation is due to the incoherence of uses advanced
through the time and influenced by the change of the users profiles (for the Europeans buildings European versus
Tunisians families and for the Medinas house Tunisois versus Tunisians families).
Moreover, the evolution of construction techniques (use of reinforced concrete) replaced the old techniques without
considering the effectiveness of the latters in managing risk (earthquake), which has more weakened the structure.
(Medinas house use of wood and variety of stones to reinforce the structure is replaced by the concrete frame)
This idea questions a lot of architectures dimensions: the training of architects and engineers increasingly based on
the rationalization and the knowledge of modern construction processes Also, What might be considered as
heritage in architecture only the appearance or structural intelligence?
Finally, its important to question the concept of property. In fact, this notion influences the architectures ownership
which impact to the perception of risk and the amplification of the vulnerability. Its the case of Europeans buildings
case (see illustrations below).
Conclusion:
Architecture as media allows itemizing risk studies. Indeed, through the historic evolution of the architectural and
urban answers, its possible to qualify the risk situations without need an advent catastrophic episode. Passing by
confrontation between uses and architecture materiality, an Evaluation of risks situations can be done.
Also, understanding this dialectic relationship among architecture and risk, it can impact the reflexing and the manner
to design architecture and to construct cities and territories. By proposing an adaptive architecture, and also by
respecting coherent structural intelligence from traditional buildings, the cities can be more resilient.
Figure 7: Medinas location
1. @ S. Kasri
3. @ S. Kasri
2. @ S. Kasri
3. @ S. Kasri
2. @ S. Kasri
4. @ S. Kasri
Figure 8. Medinas House : 1. Exterior view 2. Damage caused by rain water 3. Traditional technics: wood and
stones - 4.Modern technics: concrete frame.
Figure 9: European citys location
@ S. Kasri
@ S. Kasri
@ S. Kasri
@ S. Kasri
@ S. Kasri
Figure 10. Europeans Buildings: Exterior views and Damages caused by rain water and bad uses.
Bibliography:
Abdelkafi, J., 1989. La mdina de Tunis. Paris : CNRS ditions.

Bailly, A. (Dir.), 1996. Risques naturels, risques de socits. Paris: Economica.
Beck, U., Penser la socit du risque global. in Le Monde.fr, 23 octobre 2008, sect. Ides.
Ben Achour, M.A., 1988. Autorits urbaines Tunis au XIX sicle. Tunis : IBLA.
Bruant, C., Leprun S., Volait, M, 1994. Introduction. Rapports de larchitecture et de lurbanisme europens
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la gographie. in Linformation gographique 62, no 3 (): 99110.
De Constant, E., Benjamin P.H.,1891. La politique franaise en Tunisie: le protectorat et ses origines (18541891) / par P. H. X., 1891. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6529424j.
Frey, P., 2010. Learning from vernacular. Actes Sud.
Khaldoun, I.A., 1997.Discours sur lhistoire universelle, trad . V. Monteil (original 1375-1382) .
Lefebvre, H., La ville et lurbain - Revue Critique dEcologie Politique . Consult le 31 mai 2016.
http://ecorev.org/spip.php?article649
Lvy, J., 1999. Le tournant gographique, penser lespace pour lire le monde, Belin, Paris.
Mumford, L., 1964. La cit travers lHistoire, Paris : Editions du Seuil.
Metzger, P., DErcole, R., 2011. Les risques en milieu urbain: lments de rflexion. in EchoGo, no 18
Monchicourt, Ch., 1904. La rgion de Tunis. in Annales de Gographie 13, no 68.
November V., 2002. Les territoires du risque, le risque comme objet de rflexion gographique. Bern : Peter
Lang.
Pinson, D., 1993. Usage et architecture, Paris : L'Harmattan.
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Revault, J., 1974. Palais et demeures d't de la rgion de Tunis (XVIe-XIXe sicles), Paris : CNRS ditions.
Ricoeur, P., 2014. La Mmoire, lHistoire, lOubli. Paris : Seuil.
Roncayolo, M., 1997. La ville et ses territoires, Paris : Gallimard.
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Tunisie. Architecture dAujourdhui . 1948, s.d.
EPISTEMIC ANALYSIS OF ARCHITECTURAL

CRITICISM
RFAT GKHAN KOYT
Rifat Gkhan Koyiit; B.Arch., B.Phil., M.Sc., PhD.
Asst. Prof., Department of Architecture, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University
Abstract
Under a general perspective, criticism can be defined as a systematized judgments produced within the cognitive
process on human actions and artefacts. We can talk about the necessity of three important elements in order to
realize the activity of criticism. These are: criticizer, criticized and the judgment that criticizer develops over the
criticized. Within epistemological analysis -similar to the conventional knowledge analysis- they can be called as the
subject of criticism, the object of criticism and the critical judgment respectively.
The activity of criticism differs from the knowledge analysis in terms of these three elements. First of all, the object
of knowledge can be all existing things while the object of criticism are the assets resulting from voluntary activity.
For example, self-existing stone or tree in the nature can be an object of knowledge but not an object of criticism
while all kinds of thoughts produced by humans, like work of art, work of engineering, scientific work or activity that
can produced by human labor can be both an object of knowledge and criticism.
The subject of criticism separates from the subject of knowledge in terms of his attitudes and intentions. The subject
of knowledge has the intentions such as describing, explaining, comprehending, discovering and recognizing while
the subject of criticism has the intentions such as affirming, liking, encouraging, motivating, directing or vice versa
and the related attitudes.
Criticism as a form of judgment is different from information as a form of judgment by being value-oriented and
normative. Knowledge takes its power or resistance of existence from "truth" which is the only value that determines
the relationship between itself and its object. The properties such as measurability, quantity and objectivity of
knowledge are important in order to arrive at the truth value. Nevertheless, criticism takes its power or resistance of
existence from various previously accepted values in an open or covered manner between its object and itself such
as goodness, beauty, efficiency, effectiveness, affordability and the consistency among these values. Together with
this, obtaining and expressing information in terms of truth value can be a criticism object while criticism can be an
object of knowledge as in this writing.
Theory in architecture is accepted as both knowledge and criticism field of the practice. Mostly these two types of
judgments are consciously or unconsciously loaded with an integrated function to create a combination of theoretical
narrative. It can be said that this case is due to having the judgment object of the willpower together with the object
of knowledge of the description together visible, mostly in the same asset. Similarly, the fact that architectural
problems being not only understanding, discovering, learning and knowing, but also making decisions and being a
problem-solving activity explains the coexistence of knowledge fields with criticism.
However, this situation also forms an epistemic barrier in front of the scientification of the architecture as an
academic study field. Due to the nature of the normative qualified critical judgments, they are not considered within
the scientific information knowledge field as they are resistant against measuring, quantifying and objectifying. In
spite of containing how much descriptive knowledge, theories containing normative-quality judgments cannot be
considered as scientific theories.
This statement will discuss the aspects of the fields of architecture that are open to the judgment field and the
epistemic information field. Architectural subject, architectural object, architectural knowledge and architectural
judgment concepts will be intended to be analyzed in epistemological terms. The knowledge and the theories
produced on this subject in the literature will be discussed within the perspective of the put forward definitions.
Understanding Architectural Criticism
The major difficulty in understanding architectural criticism stems from the fact that the concept of architecture has
a multi-dimensional semantic content. We can define architecture partly as an artistic activity directed towards
sensations and emotions, partly as an area of technological applications related to how an architectural product is
produced, partly as a scientific field where the necessary information for this technological application is produced,
and partly as a philosophical study area in which we question the reason why we do all of the above. There are a
series of problems that are related to art, technology, science and philosophy that stand together as an intertwined
ball or an amalgam in the area of architecture. Undoubtedly, each of these areas has their own purposes, methods
and knowledge regimes that are quite different from each other.
Any type of architectural entity or activity is forced to simultaneously feed the requirements of this multitude of
purposes, methods, and types of information. However, this is not possible. It is not possible for all of these areas to
come together with a common purpose, method and knowledge regime. This means that every architectural activity
and entity is charged from the very beginning with a deep existentialist contradiction. Any production, decision or
judgment related to architecture cannot meet the requirements of art, technology, science and philosophy at the
same time.
What makes architectural criticism different from criticism in any other area is that it cannot just adhere to one of
these areas purposes, methods or values. When this happens, the emerging criticism would be an artistic, scientific,
technological or philosophical criticism rather than being an architectural one. Yet, architectural criticism must take
place exactly where this differentiation does not occur or where all these dimensions are carried out together.
What forces the architectural activity to exist in all of these areas together, cannot be possibly explained with the
professional or academic passion of people that work in the field of architecture. Likewise, it is misleading to see
architecture as an outdated categorical coding that collate many different information areas that cultural history
brings. What forces the architectural activity to exist in all of these areas together, is the multi-dimensionality of the
social and individual needs and expectations that push humans to shape the space in order to live. Human needs
and expectations for the space cannot be restricted to art, technology, science or philosophy only. The intervention
that is made to space in order to live is carried out in the unity of human existence that encompasses all of these
areas together. In order to give a meaning to this unity, human beings decompose it mentally and reassert it into the
areas that have different purposes, methods and information regimes. This brings art, science, technology and
philosophy into existence.
The difficulty and complexity of architectural criticism stem from the difficulty of understanding and explaining the
human existence as a whole. Architectural criticism always requires to analyze these multiple areas together. This
makes it difficult to determine the dominant value, norms and standards for architectural criticism; because each
area has its own values, norms and criteria according to its purpose. The validity and importance of critical judgment
is related to understanding which values are taken reference according to which criteria. For example, a critical
judgment that references factual correctness, logical consistency, mathematical certainty etc. may be considered
valid in the field of science, however, in the field of art it can be said that these values are far from being predominant
values.
Thus, all architectural criticism must start with an explicit or implicit assumption on what architecture is or ought to
be. Then, the values, norms and criteria required by this assumption would be determined.
Architectural criticism, despite the uncertainty and the multiplicity in the values, norms and criteria, has an
indispensably important position in architecture. Human needs and expectations related with space take its source
from the ever ongoing existential contradiction between him and nature. On one hand, the human is a part and a
result of nature. On the other hand, he is at the outside and against nature with his consciousness and free will. This
leads him not to be always himself, but to be something different than himself. No entity in the nature that does not
possess consciousness and free will cannot try to be something else. It can only change and evolve to become
something else to the extent driven by the forces of nature. However, human beings, create a second nature within
the nature with both individual and social consciousness. This second nature, brings out "what should be" and what
is desired" instead of what exists. From this moment on, the human loses his completeness and recognizes his
shortcomings in the face of what is required or desired. The search for an answer to his self-felt shortcomings in
spatial human life, brings architecture into existence. Prior to that, what determines this shortcoming is the criticism
that he directs to his spatial existence and only that directs the human to architectural activity. Therefore, if we're
going to define architecture as the search for answers to the multi-dimensional needs that the human feels in the
space in order to live, architectural criticism always precedes architecture and even makes it occur. This is valid for
every new situation that comes out from every intervention the human makes to the space. Thus, every architectural
action begins with a criticism to the existing reality.
Science tends to accept and understand the existing, instead of criticizing it, yet scientists produce concepts and
theories and may criticize the already existing concepts and theories. Hence, we can talk about a criticism to the
area of thought, instead of criticism to the area of physical/social reality. However in architecture, criticism to both
physical/social area and mental area are inseparably intertwined with each other.
The Object of Architectural Criticism
When we look at the nature from the field of architecture, no entity is an object of knowledge only for the sake of
knowing, without having any other intention. Every entity becomes an object in relation to human spatial needs. For
example, a stone is a potential construction element rather than just a stone; a land is a living space, a view loaded
with the value of natural landscape, rather than just a part of nature. That is, entities become objects by the
intentions determined by needs. In this regard, any object or phenomenon that exists by itself in nature can be the
object of criticism in relation to the architectural meaning it has. Similarly, a social group, an organizational structure,
or an organization that gather together for architectural activity, can be the object of criticism within the framework
of their intentions and activities.
Furthermore, since the ancient times, we can say that architecture still preserves the validity of the categorization of
"poiesis", "praxis" and "theoria" as the three basic frameworks of architectural critics object. What may be the
object of criticism in the context of poiesis , is the architectural product, aesthetic experience of architectural product,
and that product's technical and procedural processes that are responsible for the emergence of the product.
Whether architectural products meet the expectations like targeted form, functions etc., whether the process that
is conducted for these purposes are executed or not can be the subject of criticism. In the poietic Criticism, mastery
(phronesis) and production, in other words, architectural product and technical information are the focus of criticism.
As for the Praxis dimension, architectural attitude, architectural acts, architectural decisions or architectural intent
can be the objects of criticism. Here we can see architecture as an operation linked to the responsibilities and duties
required by the policy framework and processes that determine this process, rather than a process of obtaining a
predefined product. In this sense, ethics emerges as an important discipline for the establishment of values, norms
and criteria of architectural criticism. Being object of criticism, architectural praxis means problematisation of
architectural subject and its relation with the society. Because every ethical problem, problematizes the individual
as an actor with the effect of his actions on others, and on society and what it means for society.
Another dimension that may be the object of criticism in architecture is "theoria" part. Architectural theory, as an
integral part of architecture, is a conceptual study area where ideas on architecture and its problems are generated,
what architecture is/is not, what it should be/should not be is questioned. In this regard, we can say that architectural
criticism is also an area that can be included into architectural theory. At the same time, architectural theory being
the object of criticism, can be named as the theory over theory, the theory of theory or the critic of criticism. This
can be called as second order criticism, just as knowledge over knowledge is called as second order knowledge
(Brakel, 2010, 24) in epistemology, or it can be called as meta criticism just as theory over theory in philosophy is
called meta theory.
The Subject of Architectural Criticism
The other element of architectural criticism that we analyzed in the introduction from an epistemic perspective was
the subject of architectural criticism. Here it is important to emphasize the difference between architectural subject
and the subject of architectural criticism. We understand architectural subject as the subject that is in architectural
activity. That can be a subject seen as an actor in architectural production or action, or a subject that experiences the
architectural object. We can see both of these in the concept of architectural subject. However, when we talk about
the subject of architectural criticism, we point to a subject that makes an architectural judgment beyond all of these
and that can objectivize these subjects when required. As we mentioned in the introduction of this study, the subject
of the architectural criticism differs from the subject of architectural knowledge in terms of their intensions. While
the subject of architectural knowledge aims at purposes such as to describe, to explain, to understand, to explore
and to create awareness, the subject of architectural criticism has purposes such as to affirm, to motivate and to
mentor.
In this regard, in the architectural universe, we can mention subjects that have quite different positions and purposes.
Most of the time, naturally, mentioned subjects' positions can intersect with each other. Executive subject,
experiencing subject, knowing subject, criticizing subject are intellectual constructions and abstractions created to
present the complexity of the situation epistemologically and prevent misunderstandings. In practice, it is difficult to
say that there is an individual with only one of these positions. Thus, what is expected from the architectural critic is
not merely making judgments but making analyses and descriptions to uncover the elusive background of the object
of criticism, and form a basis to justify his judgment according to the values and criteria that are considered to be
valid . In this respect, architectural criticism is valuable as long as it is based on a good analysis with sound knowledge.
Architectural criticism wipes out prejudice, and presents the different sides instead of taking sides. Thus, the subject
of architectural criticism goes beyond, and tries to look back on the object of criticism from a distant location.
In epistemic analysis of architectural criticism, the concept of subject is important in terms of defining the context of
criticism. The context of architectural criticism is all kinds of conditions that reveal the judgment of criticism (Sharp,
1989, 11). The element that makes most of these conditions visible is the subject. The subject puts forward critical
judgment based on its previous cultural background, values and the relationship it has with the object of criticism.
When these conditions change, the critical judgment will inevitably change as well.
The subject alone does not determine the meaning of critical judgment. It is the relationship of the subject with other
subjects, meaning patterns that are previously constructed among the subjects and common value judgments. Each
and every criticism is based on acknowledging the existence of other subjects implicitly or explicitly. In that respect,
each criticism is a message from one subject to the other. This condition is valid even for architectural self-criticism.
Here, the subject makes himself, his architectural work or act the object of criticism and transfers the critical
judgment he acquired to other subjects. In any case, how other subjects will perceive the criticism or what effect it
would impose on other subjects is taken into account or directly aimed by the subject.
The Judgment of Architectural Criticism
The final element that we will focus on in the epistemic analysis of architectural criticism is the judgment of
architectural criticism. Like in knowledge classification, the judgment of architectural criticism can be evaluated in
two main frameworks; namely implicit and explicit. Implicit criticism is not expressed in words and in concepts. In
architectural setting, message and meaning are expressed through architectural symbols and forms, rather than oral
symbols. That is why, in every architectural work there is criticism about a previous solution to a similar architectural
problem, definition of architectural problem in similar situations or the previous use of the location of the
architectural work. This criticism is put forward by the architectural executer and is an implicit one embedded in the
architectural work, in the architectural building process or in the architectural act. The object of criticism is not the
architectural work or the process itself but the previous architectural approaches.
Implicit criticism is uncovered by analyzing and re-criticizing the architectural work, process or act through language
and concepts (Huxtable, 1990, 461-464). Explicit criticism consists of judgments formed out of explicit knowledge
and basic expressions such as A is B. Here, A always stands for the object of architectural criticism. B is As attribute.
The difference of critical judgment from knowledge does not stem from the object of criticism but because of what
is attributed to the object. If the attribution does not present a quality based on an assumption but on an objective
framework that could be assessed, experienced and acknowledged, the end result is knowledge. However, if the
attribution presents a quality based on an implicit or explicit assumption, value or norm, what we have is normative
judgment or critical judgment. For instance, in proposition K1 pillar is 2m high, "K1 pillar stands for A, and 2m
high stands for B. If this proposition is in line with reality and could be justified and proved, it has the potential to
be knowledge. But, the proposition K1 pillar is short, which can be reckoned as a criticism judgment, needs the
question in comparison to what? in order to test its truth value. This leads us to an implicitly or explicitly accepted
norm or a norm forming judgment. Norm forming judgments are in A should be B" format; not in A is B form.
Norms eventually end up in values such as it is good, beneficial, and nice that A should be B.
There are several norms in architectural culture that form a basis for architectural criticism. What make architectural
criticism different from other types of criticism are the norms that are acquired and acknowledged in architectural
discipline itself. Norms in architecture both prioritize critical judgments and leads the architectural procedure as well.
Architectural norms can be explicitly presented in housing notes, technical specifications or in some architectural
manifestations and declarations or could be implicit norms that just emerge in architectural culture. Architectural
criticism can be expressed according to these norms and make them the subject of criticism as well. However, it is
impossible to make an architectural criticism without norms. In this respect, architectural criticism is a battle of
norms, and beyond that, a battle of values.
Conclusion
Architectural criticism has ancient and solid roots in architectural theory. Yet, studies about architectural criticism
are scarce. Architectural criticism can be the subject of both a historical research and a formal analysis, as it is in the
present study. Whereas the evolution of architectural criticism can be presented in the cultural context from a
historical perspective; in formal terms, the nature, source as well as logical or informational aspects of architectural
criticism can be introduced.
In this respect, the present study that focuses on the object of architectural criticism, the subject of architectural
criticism and the judgment of architectural criticism has yielded the following results:
1.
The subjects of criticism may have very different cultural backgrounds, epistemic positions, individual
purposes and thus architectural criticism should be assessed in a contextual framework rather than a universal one.
2.
Architecture as the object of criticism is multidimensional in terms of meaning, action and thus architectural
criticism requires a holistic view.
3.
The critical judgment for architecture is linked to architectural norms and values and thus architectural
criticism could indirectly claim to determine what architecture is.
References
Aristotle, Metaphysics
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Brakel, L., 2010. Unconscious Knowing and Other Essays in Psycho-Philosophical Analysis, p.:24, Oxford University
Press
Elkins, J., 1996. "Art Criticism". In Jane Turner. Grove Dictionary of Art. Oxford University Press.
Gemtou, E., 2010. "Subjectivity in Art History and Art Criticism" . Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in
Humanities. 2 (1): 213. Retrieved 12 December 2013.
Huxtable, A. 1990. Architecture Criticism. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 134(4), 461-464
Sharp, D., 1989.Criticism in Architecture. In Criticism in Architecture, edited by Robert Powell. Singapore: Concept
Media/Aga Khan Award for Architecture,
Plato, Republic
Plato, Symposium
Notes
We mean by the concept of architectural criticism, a criticism about architecture, on architecture or a criticism of the
architectural quality of products and processes, rather than the architectural qualities of criticism or critics by
architects.
Otherwise, sciences would not be descriptive but they would rather be normative activities that tell us what should
be.
Aristotle makes a difference between "knowing how to act" (praksis /praktike) "how to do something best"
(techne/poiesis/poietike); he separated both of these from knowing by common sense and theoretical
knowledge; experienced person knows how it happens but does not know why. (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 981a)
We can say that these concepts are surprisingly useful for analyzing architecture even today.
Poiesis, in the Ancient Greek Philosophy, has the meaning of producing, constituting, or creating, a behavior
form that focused not on an internal but external aim. Aristotle takes poiesis as crafts, handicrafts distinctive
specialty. Reaching competence in poiesis, passes through working in techne (art) to the end. Poiesis (creative
production) in Aristotle forms an opposition with praxis (action) at the same time (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VI,
1140a).
Whereas "Poietike" in Aristotle is about creation, is about exposing himself at art (techne), realizing himself at art or
is about creative or applied science (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VI, 1140a).
Aristotle takes "praxis" as in the meaning of "action/effectively" or "doing/applying". Praxis, different from "poiesis",
carries its object in itself. The practical (praktike) knowledge with/for praxis composes into sections such as ethical,
political or economic knowledge. Praxis is used for qualifying human activity that inherits an ethical and political
attitude or position that forms an opposition between theoria and poiesis (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1094a-b;
Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1025b-1026a).
In Ancient Greek Philosophy It is used as thinking on a topic with all the details, well vision, watch, theoretical
research, thoughts, and deep thinking. Plato considers theoria same as thinking and knowledge of Good and
Beautiful, which are the best types of human activity (Plato, Republic, 540a-c; Symposium, 210b-212a). On the
other hand, Aristotle has spanned out why a human ought to adhere his life to theoria (thought/thinking) (Aristotle,
Nicomachean Ethics, 1177a-1179a).
In order to compare two different views that define scientific criticism as "demonstrating value judgment " and "
analyzing historically": (Elkins, 1996)
Art criticism in many different subject positions for or subjectivity status: (Gemtou, 2010, 213)
CASES OF INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURAL

CRITICISMS
DURNEV ATILGAN YAAN
ABSTRACT
Cases of International Architectural Criticisms is an ongoing study for the last three years as part of a master degree
Architectural Criticism course, students of which are dominantly international, coming from Syria, Morocco, Iran,
Iraq, Nigeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, Pakistan, South Africa, Bosnia Herzegovina and Turkey. Students
are asked to present cases of "Criticism in their own countries" through, journals/website, schools etc or other
mechanisms of architectural criticism about who decides the value of architecture and how. The study will be an
evaluation of attempts of the students to find instances and forms of criticism within a not so much Western world.
Misfit of cultural values with those of generic Western values is the most common theme of criticisms emerging in
various forms, while many cases include socio-political environments that restrain such actions or dominant political
leaders having an opinion about what kind of architecture should be built thereon are not that scarce.
HERITAGE ARCHITECTURE AND CAPITALISM

CHRISTINE MCCARTHY
Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
Abstract
This paper is an initial proposition that Critical Heritage Studies (CHS) is caught within the constraints of a capitalist
theoretical framework. CHS developed from the idea of intangible heritage following initiatives to include: social
factors, gardens as living monuments, and cultural heritage within the scope of heritage, giving greater emphasis to
non-material aspects of heritage and non-western cultural priorities. The paper begins to test the ideas of CHS
against two Environment Court decisions from New Zealand, whch operate under the RMA, which aims to achieve
sustainable management through the balancing of conflicting aspirations of development, economic,
environmental, social and cultural priorities.
CHS is strongly influenced by thinking shared by poststructuralism and revisionist historiography. Its shift from
heritage as a finite resource and a fluid, changeable set of values shares its rhetoric with late twentieth-century
capitalism. The paper is particularly interested in how these shared ideas of CHS and capitalism operate, and
explores the commonalities between Smith's 2006 Uses of Heritage and Milton Friedman's 1962 Capitalism and
Freedom.
Introduction
This paper is interested in scrtuinising the ramifications of Critical Heritage Studies (CHS) for built environment
heritage. CHS developed from the idea of intangible heritage following initiatives to include: social factors
(Amsterdam Declaration 1975), gardens as living monuments (Florence Charter 1981), and cultural heritage (Burra
Charter 1979; UNESCO 2003) within the scope of heritage, giving greater emphasis to non-material aspects of
heritage and non-western cultural priorities. Heritage theorists, such as Alivizarou and Craith, have linked the
development of intangible heritage to globalisation, stating that the idea of intangible heritage was a reaction to
the threat of globalisation to diverse, but fragile, premodern cultural traditions and practices (Alivizarou, 2011
pp.37-38, 39, 54; Craith, 2008 p.70). It is also notable that these shifts in heritage thinking occurred during the
period of Thatcherism, Reganomics and, in New Zealand, Rogernomics.
CHS is a further development which defines heritage as exclusively intangible, and challenges ideas such as: heritage
as a finite resource, and the "fetishising" of the expert, with the aim to shift an asymmetrical power balance towards
community values. For example, Smith states that "There is, really, no such thing as heritage" (Smith, 2006 p.11,
emphasis added). She criticises notions of heritage that: privilege specific aesthetics (e.g. the monumental), reflect
the views of experts as authority figures (e.g. historians, public servants), and are removed from the shared values
of communities. Additionally Smith's notion of heritage refutes any idea of intrinsic or absolute and unchanging
heritage values, requiring contemporary, rather than historic, relevance. Heritage, as understood in critical heritage
studies, is explicitly acknowledged as political, and it is argued this political power should be shifted from the elite
expertise to the community who have been "marginalised in the creation and management of heritage" (ACHS, 2012
n.p.). The emphasis is thus on cultural heritage values that have current value in the present, with an understanding
that values can change over time. This is all theoretically admirable.
Yet within this framework of ideas, heritage is political not absolute, and heritage values are fluid. While this theory
is strongly influenced by thinking shared by poststructuralism and revisionist historiography, its shift, from heritage
as a finite resource to a fluid, changeable set of values, shares its rhetoric with late twentieth-century capitalism. In
making this observation, this paper aims to scrutinise the premise of CHS using the context of built environment
heritage, specifically the effects of the Resource Management Act 1991 and Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga
2014. It is particularly interested in how these shared ideas of CHS and capitalism operate, and whether CHS's aim
to alter the power balance is naive, by causing power to shift from experts to developers, rather than the intended
empowering of the community.
For the purposes of this paper a comparison of Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom and Laurajane Smith's
Uses of Heritage will test the proposition that at a fundamental level, the theoretical framework of Critical Heritage
Studies is indebted to capitalist thought. After laying out this connection, the paper will consider the ramifications
of this commonality for architectural heritage, with reference to legal cases under the Resource Management Act
1991, specifically: Hamilton East Community Trust v Hamilton City Council and Universal College of Learning (UCOL)
v Wanganui District Council.
Capitalism and Freedom
Milton Friedman wrote Capitalism and Freedom in 1962. It is recognised as an influential text underpinning neoliberal political thought in the late twentieth-century personified by Margaret Thatcher in Britain (Thatcherism),
Ronald Regan (Reganomics) in America and Roger Douglas (Rogernomics) in New Zealand. In the book, Friedman
outlines an economic theory underpinned by the privileging of individual freedom in order to discredit socialism and
promote competitive capitalism. For Friedman, "economic freedom is ... an indispensable means toward[s]... political
freedom" because diffusing political power through the mechanism of the market of free trade is the only way to coordinate large economies without totalitarian state coercion (1962 pp.8,9,13). He stresses the utter importance of
"the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow man" and "the elimination of such concentration of power to the
fullest possible extent" (1962 p.15). In this schema, the marketplace does not coerce people because of the
"voluntary co-operation of individuals ... [where] both parties to an economic transaction benefit from it, provided
the transaction is bi-laterally voluntary and informed" (Friedman, 1962 p.13, emphasis in original).
Friedman also contrasts a government causing conformity to the market producing diversity, stating that, "in political
terms, [the market is] a system of proportional representation," enabling "unanimity without conformity" (1962
pp.15,23). For Friedman, the market comprises multiple and diverse individual exchanges, in contrast to government
resulting in "a law applicable to all groups" (1962 p.23). He claims that: "a major source of objection to a free economy
is precisely that it does this task so well. It gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they
ought to want" (1962 p.15).
Despite this opposition to centralised government power, Friedman acknowledges the need for government
("because absolute freedom is impossible"), while opposing unnecessary government intervention because of the
inherently self-governing nature of the market (1962 p.25). He describes government as the rule-maker and
"umpire," and identifies six important roles for centralised power to prevent interference with the freedom of
exchange (1962 pp.15,25,27). The first is "the maintenance of law and order to prevent physical coercion" (1962
pp.14,27,34). The second is to prevent monopolies because of the "conflict between freedom to combine and
freedom to compete," stating that the only valid mechanisms to exclude competitors are to sell "a better product at
the same price or the same product at a lower price," and because monopolies imply "the absence of alternatives,"
inhibiting "effective freedom" (1962 pp.14,26,28,34). It is this thinking that likewise invalidates collectivism because
it is underpinned by a principle that "some shall decide for other" (1962 p.34). The third is to prevent the unfeasible
compensation of any third parties, or "neighborhood effects" (1962 pp.14,30-32,34). The final three valid roles for
government are: to provide a definition of property, to provide a monetary framework, and to protect those deemed
not responsible (e.g. children and the mentally-ill) (1962 pp.27,33-34).
For Friedman, the efficiency of the private market, derived from specialisation and the division of labour, results from
the indirect benefits of voluntary co-operation to fulfil anothers' needs (by providing goods and services) for money
(1962 pp.13-14). Not only this, but - using the historical example of the 1957 "Blacklist fadeout," when banned
communists, working under the pseudonym "Robert Rich" in Hollywood, won an Oscar - he writes that "the fact that
people ... have an incentive to make as much money as they can ... protected the freedom of the individuals who were
black-listed ... giving people an incentive to employ them," presupposing that if someone needs a specific product,
this need will override any prejudice or favouritism irrelevant to the market objectives (1962 pp.19,20). As he writes,
"The competitive publisher, for example, cannot afford to publish only writing with which he personally agrees; his
touchstone must be the likelihood that the market will be large enough to yield a satisfactory return on his
investment" (1962 p.17).
Uses of Heritage
In 2006, 44 years after Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom was published, Laurajane Smtih wrote Uses of Heritage.
In a way similar to Friedman's opposition to socialism, Smith positions her theory privileging the intangibility of
heritage contrary to an older Authorised Heritage Discourse (AHD). Just as Friedman's theoretical work ultimately
strives for individual political freedom, Smith aims to democratise heritage and empower those voices and
knowledge which, in her view, are disenfranchised because they are not considered heritage experts. She states that
"[t]he ability to possess, control and give meaning to the past and/or heritage sites is a re-occurring and reinforcing
statement of disciplinary authority and identity" (2006 p.51). She continues: "[t]he application of "rational" expert
knowledge renders any social problems ... as 'non-political.' ... identity debates are reduced to debates over
'ownership' issues - 'who owns the past'" (2006 pp.51-52). She clearly identifies AHD as squarely within the realms
of property ownership and control. Her work responds to an idea of heritage (AHD) as class-based, conservative, and
controlled by an elite of "[e]xpert values and knowledge," drawing on "the narrative of nation and universality of
world heritage" (2006 pp.11,23,29,30,42,49,51,299).
Read adjacent to Friedman, it is not difficult to see AHD as discriminatory and hampering innovation. Just as
Friedman opposed trade protectionism and centralised government control, Smith finds the cultural monopoly of
heritage experts, and the anti-competitive nature of a universalised narrative of heritage, abhorent. Both theorists'
work reacts to situations which they find politically unpalatable.
Smith finds the difficulty with the heritage status quo (AHD) as largely attributable to a conventional focus on the
materiality of heritage:
The materiality of heritage is itself a brutally physical statement ... of the power, universality, objectivity and cultural
attainment of the possessors of that heritage. The physicality of heritage also works to mask the ways in which the
heritage gaze constructs, regulates and authorizes a range of identities and values ... In this gaze ... subjectivities that
exist outside or in opposition to ... [the constructed material objective reality] are rendered invisible or marginal, or
simply less "real" (2006 p.53).
To confront this privileging of the physical, Smith argues a case for heritage as intangible values and meanings that
are represented by a heritage site, or event or custom (2006 pp.53,56). As such heritage is not a thing, but instead
immaterial and volatile (2006 pp.2-3). The objects of heritage consequently do not have "any inherent value" (2006
pp.3,53). Heritage is fluid, a metaphor also used in relation to liquid capital. Smith's theorising hence converts
heritage from a fixed cultural asset (accumulating capital gains) to liquid capital, where wealth is produced from trade
(the process of circulating money), or, perhaps more accurately, to a cultural fiat currency - the most theoretically
"pure" representational form of currency, whereas the objects of heritage (e.g. buildings) could be reconceptualised
as once uncontested treasure and now commodities subject to fluctuating valuations.
This interpretation is strengthened by Smith's interest in the conceptualisation of heritage as a process of continual
negotiation, exchange and reinterpretation as an "active cultural process of remembering and of forgetting" (i.e.
memory) (2006 p.58). This process operates within communities and is an articulation of the continuing relevance
or irrelevance of historic values and heritage objects for the present. Heritage, in Smith's work, becomes a medium
for, and measure of, the expression of cultural values.
In this way contemporary heritage value is produced through re-evaluating the meaning and significance of the past
for the present (Smith, 2006 pp.1,58). As Smith explains it, heritage expresses "not only the experiences of the present
but also the needs of the present" (2006 p.58). This is a two-way exchange which Smith contrasts to the one-way
communication of AHD, and which, following Abercrombie and Longhurst, Smith describes as: "no longer be
conceived of as passive or neutral, a clear distinction between consumption and production cannot be maintained"
(2006 p.67). Traditionally, Smith argues, the expert interpretation of heritage sites is considered to be passively
consumed by visitors. Drawing on numerous research, she challenges this position arguing that the activities of both
heritage experts and heritage visitors are performative and negotiate "the meaning of the past and present"
(following Crang, Smith, 2006 p.66). Heritage is "an act of making meaning in and for the present" (2006 p.1).
A result of this vibrant and pro-active process and experimentation "with changing social values, meaning and
identity," is diversity, underpinned by a recognition that "no heritage discourse or moment of heritage is necessarily
uniformly shared or homogeneously constructed" and an appreciation of "the multiplicity of meaning that any aspect
of tangible or intangible heritage inevitably must have" (Smith, 2006 pp.74,81,306). Heritage in this sense, like
Friedman's reference to proportional representation, rebalances the perceived imbalance toward heritage elites.
This plurality likewise/inevitably enables disagreement/dissonance; "contesting and challenging a range of cultural
and social identities, sense of place, collective memories, values and meanings that prevail in the present and can be
passed to the future" (Smith, 2006 p.82). Smith equally identifies heritage as potentially progressive and able to
"challenge and redefine received values and identities by a range of subaltern groups," and "not only a tool of
governance, but also a tool of opposition and subversion" (2006 pp.4,52).
Resource Management Act
In New Zealand the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) and the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014
(HNZPTA) provide the framework under which decisions regarding heritage architecture is made. The Resource
Managment Act has been heralded as world leading law-making which combined town planning and environmental
legislation, with a current consequence that the tensions of development and environmental protection are inherent
to it - conflated in the term "sustainable managament" which is obliged to manage "the use, development, and
protection of natural and physical resources in a way, or at a rate, which enables people and communities to provide
for their social, economic, and cultural well-being and for their health" (RMA s5(2)).
The thinking associated with Smith's work is reflected - to a small extent - in this legislative structure which governs
heritage. Examples of such shifts include the introduction of the concept of "value" in the listing process with the
Historic Places Act 1993, and changes to the names of the relevant legislation and the government organisation
charged with protecting and advocating for heritage, namely from the Historic Places Act 1993 to Heritage New
Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014, and New Zealand Historic Places Trust to Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.
Saying this is not to assert a comprehensive incorporation of these ideas, but it is not foreign to have issues of
intangible heritage discussed in New Zealand courts. Two recent examples include Elizabeth Pishief's expert evidence
stating that: "The issues are not about the Native Land Court building but about identity - about whose heritage will
take precedence" (UCOL v Wanganui District Council [122]), and the Basin Bridge Board of Inquiry Decision which
noted of one expert's heritage evidence that "the framework provides for the consideration of both tangible and
intangible effects on heritage values" [604]. This section will examine two Environment Court decisions in relation
to issues of intangible heritage (UCOL v Wanganui District Council and Hamilton East Community Trust v Hamilton
City Council) and then tease out the potential consequences in relation to a capitalist reading of Critical Heritage
Studies.
The Hamilton East Community Trust v Hamilton City Council (2014) decision focussed on a site owned by the Catholic
Diocese of Hamilton which had two heritage buildings: Euphrasie House (1941) and St Mary's Chapel (1926). The
Diocese proposed to refurbish and earthquake strengthen St Mary's Chapel, and to demolish Euphrasie House and
replace it with a building more suited to the Church's needs. The context of discussion included reference to the cost
of repairing and strengthening Euphrasie House, which added to the case to demolish Euphraise House, but key
issues were the coupling of saving St Mary's Chapel with the demolition of Euphrasie House, and the heritage value
of the Church's long association with the site, specifically:
What in our view ultimately favours allowing the demolition of Euphrasie House is the unique situation that it is this
site and the surrounding precinct that present the narrative of the presence of the Catholic Church in Hamilton East
for well over a century. That presence is of local and regional significance. The heritage of a commitment to service
and to education is manifest at this place. In this circumstance, there is supportable argument that the Church should
be enabled to manage its own affairs in a way that is meaningful to its own mission and intent and that conserves its
heritage relationship to the place (Hamilton East Community Trust v Hamilton City Council [13],[110]-[111]).
The weighing of heritage trade offs of saving one building and losing the other was hence matched with the heritage
of Catholic occupation of site, manifest in intangible attributes of service and education, conferring a right of selfdetermination.
The UCOL v Wanganui District Council (2010) decision was complicated by the court seemingly being less than
convinced by the arguments of both parties involved. Universal College of Learning (UCOL) appealed a decision to
refuse them demolition of the former Mori Land Court Building in Whanganui. The NZ Historic Places Trust argued
the heritage merit of the building due to it being the only existing purpose-built Mori Land Court (1922), an
institution initially responsible for the alienation of Mori from much of their land - though the court's role had
changed by the 1920s when it was built - and as an example of government architect John Campbell's design. The
Environment Court, while acknowledge some heritage value of the building was not completely convinced by this
argument saying that:
Although we accept that the building does have architectural and historic qualities as identified by NZHPT we have
some reservations as to whether or not those qualities are of the significance which NZHPT has asked us to attribute
to them. ...We do not think that there were any features which proclaimed it to be a Maori Land Court ... Whether it
is one of his [architect John Campbell's] signifcant works seems highly debateable (UCOL v Wanganui District Council
[136]-[137]).
UCOL (and Te Puna Matauranga o Whanganui) wanted to demolish the building in order to provide facilities for Mori
students in the building of an iwi institute, and also argued that the colonial symbolism of the existing building meant
that it was not appropriate to house an iwi institute (UCOL v Wanganui District Council [121]). While the court
acknowledges the potential value of demolishing the building for iwi, it concluded that:
the outcome of these proceedings comes down to an assessment of the social and cultural benefits which might accrue
to Maori from the establishment of the iwi institute against the adverse effects on heritage values which might arise
from demolition of the Maori Land Court building. It is however, difficult to assess the benefits to Maori in other than
quite a vague and general way, when the nature of the iwi institute and what it is to do remains as nebulous as it
presently appears to be. ... we have concluded that the promotion of sustainable management requires decline of this
particular application to demolish the Maori Land Court building and establish a green space (UCOL v Wanganui
District Council [138], [47]-[151]).
The lack of precision in the NZHPT's articulation of the Mori Land Court building's heritage values was seemingly
matched by lack of certainty of the cultural priorities of Mori.
These two cases - one resulting in the demolition of heritage building and one retention, demonstrate heritage as
the contesting of values, and requires inquiry into how the building represents those values. The Hamilton decision
demonstrates the ability for the demolition of a heritage building to be leveraged against the restoration of another
- in this case, a higher ranked heritage commodity, and exchanged for the intangible heritage of site occupation and
association. It also posits the ethos of property rights conventionally associated with capitalism: "there is supportable
argument that the Church should be enabled to manage its own affairs in a way that is meaningful to its own mission
and intent" (Hamilton East Community Trust v Hamilton City Council [110]-[111]). The UCOL decision illustrates the
difficulties and slipperiness of assessing intangible values. The acknowledgment that there were both heritage values
in the historic building and social and cultural benefits for Mori in its demolition enabled the reversion to
conventional conservatism prioritising built form. While the court did not conceive of heritage as intangible, its slight
acknowledgement of the building's demolition as potentially having benefits demonstrates that heritage values
might be effected through destruction as well as preservation.
Conclusion
Friedman asserts that competitive capitalism "gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks
they ought to want" (Friedman, 1962 p.15). This sentiment also embodies Smith's proposition that the determination
of "heritage" should be removed from traditional experts perpetrating, as she would see it, historic class values and
prejudices. To an extent the Resource Management Act acknowledges this possibility, as the Hamilton decision states
"listing acknowledges, rather than creates, heritage value," yet Smith's model of heritage would challenge the
relevance and accuracy of the assertion - from the same legal decision - that "[h]eritage buildings are, by definition,
finite in number" (Hamilton East Community Trust v Hamilton City Council [5], [109]).
Instead Smith's commitment to intangibility confronts head on any simply idea of heritage building and identifies
heritage as inexhaustible and inherent to human culture and the creation of meaning and identity. She states that:
"Heritage may also be understood as a discourse concerned with the negotiation and regulation of social meanings
and practices associated with the creation and recreation of 'identity'" (Smith, 2006 p.5). It is to this extent freely
available, and so its mechanism of exchange is a negotiation of its substantive value, but not necessarily a point of
loss. In this sense, heritage is an ideal commodity, free of manufacturing costs, but poor in its ability to easily
understand and designate a universally understood value, something which, in Friedman's theory, the market can
and should determine.
With the theoretical conversion of heritage from cultural commodity to currency, any notion of stability is replaced
by volatility. Intangible values are mobile and in the context of the court, as seen in the UCOL decision, are slippery
to say the least. Smith detaches heritage from physical building, situating it exclusively within a value-system which
positions physical building's relevance as subject to its ability to represent specific values. It converts buildings (or
any other heritage object) from uncontestable treasure to a commodity subject to fluctuations in value and
appreciation.
A free trade model of heritage would be premised on different groups contesting their heritage values rather than
continuing the pretence of universally agreed heritage. It would identify the value of heritage by what it is exchanged
for. To some extent this is a model which the Environment Court in New Zealand wrestles with in the balancing of
the conflicting aspects (economic, environmental, cultural, social etc.) required in the negotiation of sustainable
management in Part II of the Resource Management Act. A conflict between this and Smith's theoretical construction
though is the potential, in Smith's model, for a conflation of all cultural values as ultimately forms of heritage, and to
be evaluated through a common currency.
What this means for heritage outcomes though is tied to the fundamental issues of power inherent in any society, as
Smith acknowledges: "heritage in any given society will inevitably reflect that of the dominant social, religious or
ethnic groups" (Smith, 2006 p.81), including the inertia of convention. Perhaps then the potential for systemic and
structural change, and the capacity of minority voices to influence, which is of the greatest significance, a possibility
that Friedman entertains but gives limited support. He argues that advocacy of unpopular causes must be at a cost:
"no society could be stable if advocacy of radical change were costless, much less subsidized. ... What is essential is
that the cost of advocating unpopular causes be tolerable and not prohibitive" (Friedman, 1962 p.18).
In a world where phrases such as "chequebook justice" is a known term, the distribution of resources is critical to
ideas of fairness and political freedom - aspirations common to both Smith and Friedman. Smith's framework
refigures heritage as theoretically a resource available to all, because it is admonished from its physical obligations,
but while this utilises a capitalist analogy, it does not resolve the issue that ultimately money is power. It does
however provide initial openings for alternative voices to be heard even if they are not yet decisive. The removal of
the idea of loss in a simple sense, and the privileging of the construction of heritage, makes possible the argument,
put forward in the UCOL decision, for example, that physical destruction could have positive heritage outcomes.
References
Alivizarou, M., 2011. "Intangible heritage and erasure: rethinking cultural preservation and contemporary museum
practice." International Journal of Cultural Property. 18(1):37-60.
Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS)., 2012. "2012 Manifesto" Accessed 29 September 2016.
http://www.criticalheritagestudies.org/history/
Australia ICOMOS., 1979. Guidelines for the Conservation of Places of Cultural Significance ("Burra Charter").
Accessed 29 September 2016. http://australia.icomos.org/wp-content/uploads/Burra-Charter_1979.pdf
Craith, M.N., 2008. "Intangible Cultural Heritages: The Challenges for Europe." Anthropological Journal of European
Cultures. 17(1):54-73.
Friedman, M., 1962. Capitalism and Freedom. London: University of Chicago Press.
Hamilton East Community Trust v Hamilton City Council ENV-2013-ALK-000065 (2014)
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014 No 26 (New Zealand)
ICOMOS., 1982. Historic Gardens [Florence Charter 1981]. December 1982, Accessed 29 September 2016.
http://www.icomos.org/charters/gardens_e.pdf
ICOMOS., 1975. The Declaration of Amsterdam [Amsterdam Declaration]. 21-25 October, Accessed 29 September
2016.
http://www.icomos.org/en/charters-and-texts/179-articles-en-francais/ressources/charters-andstandards/169-the-declaration-of-amsterdam
Report and Decision of the Board of Inquiry into the Basin Bridge Proposal (August 2014)
Resource Management Act 1991 No 69 (New Zealand)
Smith, L., 2006. Use of Heritage. Oxon: Routledge.
UNESCO, 2003. "Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage [Paris, 17 October 2003]"
Accessed 9 January 2016. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001325/132540e.pdf Accessed 9 December
2015.
Universal College of Learning (UCOL) v Wanganui District Council ENV-2008-WLG-000191 (2010)
A MONUMENTAL DESIGN OF THE AUSTRIAN

ARCHITECT, CLEMENS HOLZMEISTER: MILITARY
ACADEMY BUILDING
LEYLA ALPAGUT
Buildings reflect not only the sense of architecture of the period they were erected, but also the political, social, and
economical features thereof, with which they interacted. In view of the architecture of the Early Republican Period,
it provides significant data, shedding light on the historical readings thereon, thanks to its features involving
consistency and change.
Post-Reform Era (Tanzimat) experiences were particularly drawn upon in the establishment of Turkish Republic.
However, in spite of the absolute rejection of the Ottoman Empire during the first years of the Republican Era, the
Republic's structure which even imitated the Ottoman Empire in a sense of continuity should not be disregarded.
Buildings in Capitol Ankara from the 1st National Architecture Period (1908-1927) are among the prominent tokens
of such continuity. This sense of architecture, which undertook critical duties in the course of forming a national
awareness throughout the foundation stage, gave way to the Movement of International Architecture in 1930s.
These architectural examples which came to the fore in Europe, and applied in USA, consist of cubical forms with a
rational functionalist sense, free from ornamentation.
Capitol Ankara attained a contemporary plan by the mediation of German urban planner, Hermann Jansen, following
various planning experiences. Nearly all of the structures built in the capitol throughout this period were designed
and applied by architects coming from German-speaking countries, namely in particular E.Egli, B.Taut, C.Holzmeister.
Military Academy Building, as being the subject matter of this study, on the other hand, was created by Clemens
Holzmeister, who also made the designs of numerous public administration buildings, including Atatrks ankaya
Mansion, and 3rd Turkish Grand National Assembly.
While being initially called by such names as Ecole Militaire, Mekteb-i Hassa, the school provided education at its
building in Maka until 1846, it was then moved to the Military Academy building in Pangalt where it resumed
providing education until 1936. Having been burned down in 1855, Military Academy Building of today was built in
place. This building was used from the foundation of the Republic until the Military Academy was moved to Ankara.
This famous building, where Atatrk also studied is being used for military purposes nowadays, hosting the Military
Museum within a section thereat.
It was mentioned within a writ, being kept in the Republican Archive of the Prime Ministry, which was issued by the
Minister of National Defense, Abdlhalik Renda, to the Prime Ministry as of 22.07.1930, that land expropriation works
had been initiated at the skirts of Dikmen upon the request of Turkish General Staff for the construction of the
Military Academy and Hospital buildings, projects of which had been designed by Holzmeister. In response to this
writ, Ministerial Cabinet decreed only two days later for the construction of the Military Academy. While it had firstly
been designed for 1000 students, it was then asked for extending the capacity of the building up to 1400 students.
Although it was respectively suggested to annex extra floors to the building, Holzmeister solved this problem by way
of having two blocks annexed adjacent to the main building at the east and west of the yard. It is known that,
expropriation efforts were going on throughout the construction of the building. It also indicates the importance
attached to the issue with the intent of completing the building as soon as possible.
Following the completion of the building as of 1935, it is seen that nearly all units of the school were thereafter
located inside it. It is suggested that, both the hospital building, which was then used as the barrack, and the
command building located at the west of the school were completed in the same year. New blocks were annexed to
the southeast and southwest parts of the building, starting from the beginning of 1960s, the structuring within the
vicinity of the main building was completed with the blocks hosting the lecture halls, which were built in 1972.
Starting from 1980s, new buildings in the form of large blocks were built far from the main building, and thereupon
the school was turned out to be a real campus.
Curiously enough, a sculpture, named Atatrk and Military Collegian, which negatively affected the architectural
texture, was erected onto the surface of the tower, located at the entrance axis, in 1981 for the memory of Atatrks
100th birthday. Modifications made in some of the corridors, study rooms, and classrooms in 1990s with the intent
of extension and renovations, Military Academy Building attained its outlook of today.
Having played a major role in Ankaras attaining the outlook of a contemporary capitol, Military Academy Campus is
situated onto a quite high spot at the skirts of Dikmen. Being a structure in the form of a quite large block, Military
Academys plan and frontal design was made with a symmetric conception. While entrance front of the structure is
consistent with the general characteristic of Holzmeisters architecture, it bears traces of 19 th century architecture
even if just a pinch. The multi-purpose hall and the dining hall, which are located at the east and west of the main
block with same size, but also with lower height, bring along a stratification extending to the highest spot of the
tower at the central axis.
The structure was shaped as extending from east to west, surrounded by a rectangular yard, and with three floors
over a semi-basement floor. Plan layout of the structure is quite simple. The main entrance, which was designed in
an emphasized tone, is situated at the center of the northern wing of the structure, facing to Ankara. The structure
is entered through the gates, situated at the right and left of the semi-open entrance hall behind the four square
columns within the axis. The gates at the south of the hall open to the yard. The corridors situated at the center of
the long wings, as well as the corridors situated at the side of the short corners facing to the yard surround the
structure all around. Vertical connections between the floors are maintained by means of the wide and spacious
stairs at the four corners. One rectangular block with two-floor of height was joined from outside of both eastern
and western (shorter) wings of the structure. Among these blocks, the eastern one was functioned as the multipurpose hall, and the western one as the dining hall.
There are three-floor blocks situated inside the yard in connection with the shorter wings, similar to those situated
outside. Inside these blocks, you may see quite complex functions assigned at the wings. For instance, museum and
dining hall at the east, and students' casino at the west. In view of the general distribution of functions throughout
the building, while the long-wing at the north is allocated for the study rooms, the classrooms are situated at the
south wing. In the shorter wings, there are bureaus, and places allocated for the social activities of the students.
Students barracks are situated mostly at the various spots of the upper floors.
The main front of the Military Academy, facing north, was formed more meticulously than the other fronts. It should
also be noted that, looking at this structure of Holzmeisters from outside, it displays not the impression of a yardtype structure, but the features seen in the other public structures. The tower in the middle of the northern front,
the entrance arrangement with columns, as well as the front at the both sides of the entrance being pierced with
vertical slits create such an impression. Similar features other than the tower and entrance are seen also at the other
fronts, which are formed simpler than the fore front. Interior fronts of the yard are arranged more simply, just like
at all other military posts of the 19th century.
Differences in the arrangement of the floors being seen at the entrance front of the structure resemble the rules of
frontal arrangement being seen in the structures of the 19th century. The middle section, where the tower and the
entrance is situated, creates along an emphasized effect, although it is neither protruded, nor indented. This effect
is brought along by the entrance with open front between the columns, stone framed square windows at the fore
front of the tower, and most of all by the gaps created at both sides of the tower at top floor level. Another significant
element of this front is that the windows of the first floor are surrounded by horizontal stone belts from top and
bottom. The vertical effect created by these belts balances the vertical effect of the tower. Furthermore, the vertical
slits dividing the side sections into two bring along a positive effect by piercing the front, thanks to their dimensions
and fractions. Ground and second floors of the front were coated by edelputz plaster, which was widely used on the
structures of that time. Windows of these two floors are separated from those of the semi-basement and first floors
with their rectangular forms. The semi-floor, which was coated with bossage Ankara stone up to the subbasement
level, is like the base of the structure with its small windows. The single-floor salon and the mess-hall annexed to the
eastern and western wings of the structure are the elements of this front, which remain in the background with their
lower hieights.
The emphasis similar to that at the entrance section is not seen also at any element of the other three fronts of the
structure. The yard fronts are simpler than the outer fronts. The rectangular yard was tried to be animated by the
blocks annexed to the eastern and western wings, and by the reflection of the entrance section overflowing to the
yard.
The Military Academy Building is a contemporary interpretation of the military structure tradition introduced during
the Westernization Period of the Ottoman Empire in Ankara of the Early Republican Period. While the Ottoman
Empire had been interacting the most with France throughout the Westernization Period, this suggests that, yard
plan scheme of Ecole Militer of Paris was imitated at the newly built military schools. Many military structures built
in this period reveal the adoption of this plan scheme, which addressed to the new requirements. The Military
Academy Building in Ankara carries on the military structure of Ottoman Westernization Period within the frame of
the architectural concept of its time, particularly with its yard plan arrangement.
Holzmeister applied the yard plan scheme at Salzkammergut Bad Ishl, and at Kurtmittelhaus, other than the Military
Academy and the Ministry of National Defense. The yard plan of the Ministry of National Defense that Holzmeister
had designed at such an earlier date as 1927 is seen to become even more developed at the Military Academy, which
was completed in 1935.
The building, which bears the features of both the international architecture concept, and those of Holzmeisters
unique architecture, is a monumental structure of the capitol drawing attention with its architectural identity since
the day it was erected. While new structures were annexed to Ankara Military Academy Campus, which is consisted
of numerous structures, unlike the Military School in stanbul, sufficient respect and elaboration was paid by way of
seeking solutions with size and distance not to bring harm to its architectural identity. However, at such a structure,
which is recognized as a cultural asset, the sculpture erected onto the surface of the tower, as well as the figures
applied with high relief technique are thought-provoking with their outlook ruining the architectural identity of the
structure.
NOTES:
1.
A study similar to this was verbally introduced in the Symposium An Architect at the Cornerstones of the
History: Clemens Holzmeister, organized in 2003 at the Faculty of Architecture of stanbul Technical University, but
was not published.
Clemens Holzmeister
Military Academy (Military Academy Archieve)
Military Academy (Military Academy Archieve)
PUBLIC SPACE OF NEIGHBORHOODS, A CASE

STUDY OF MISURATA CITY, LIBYA
IBRAHIM ABAID
Ibrahim Abaid, M. Arch, University of Nottingham, UK
Abstract
This paper focuses on the role of public spaces in the neighbourhoods in particular, as a crucial indicator of their
success. The research essentially explores the impact of public space on the social value including sense of community
and psychological comfort in the local communities and its influence on the residents relationship, second, it
investigates the different characteristics between the traditional neighbourhoods TN and the governmental once GN
in terms of the level of interaction and the community cohesion in the outdoor public space. Finally, discussing the
social satisfaction of the residents towards the existing public space in two neighbourhoods named Almegawba and
9th July Misurata-Libya. The research highlights significant issues with regard to urban redevelopment of new
residential areas and contributes to establishing a developed framework to the future urban schemes.
Keywords: Public space PS, sense of community, interaction, psychological comfort, cohesion, social relationships,
satisfaction.
Introduction
The idea of the research was based on the latest policy of Libyan government when it started to build a large number
of housing units around the country. This policy was set mainly to make a solution of the shortage in the housing
units as well as to regulate the rapid urbanization within a developed plan for a period of 20 years since 2005 to 2025
(Kezeiri, 2007). In Libya, in the last decade, the government has set a new policy to provide housing units because of
the rabid urbanization due to the increase of the population growth by building new neighbourhoods which defined
in this study as a Governmental Neighbourhoods GN. The government claims that this new strategy aims to fill the
shortage of houses within as shorter time as possible. Therefore, a phenomenon of mixed users communities has
started to emerge newly in the country which has different form than the traditional settings. The traditional
neighbourhoods often include families who live together as neighbour long years ago, all residents know each other
very well, and this form usually has strong community cohesion. This research evaluates the public space in these
communities from a social perspective, through deep qualitative discussion to establish a specific framework of the
future neighbourhood projects which may contribute to the urban development of the city, hence, to the other cities
of the country.
In this research, public space is defined as space used and shared by all the people who live in the neighbourhoods
of the city regardless of their age, gender, status and cultural backgrounds (Iveson, 2011). An example of public space
forms in the neighbourhoods such as parks, squares, gardens, children playgrounds and green spaces (Madanipour,
2013). This type of public space plays a significant role in the urban development and quality of life (Das, 2008). This
research investigates the social satisfaction of people within the public space of their community. Therefore, there
will be an examination of the quality and effectiveness of the public space within the neighbourhoods by measuring
the availability and provision of many elements such as playgrounds, physical settings, and green areas in order to
assess the residents' satisfaction (Kim and Kaplan, 2004). In addition to that, research intends to examine the social
aspects and the level of the interaction between the residents (Cattell et al., 2008). Due to the moderate temperature
and humidity conditions in this region during almost all of the year, people usually use open public space in all seasons
but nor the close spaces as it is not popular in this country because of the climate conditions. Thus, this research
focuses on open public space of neighbourhoods in particular regarding the case study in Misurata city-Libya, with
taking on account the advantages of the weather conditions in this region.
Research Context
According to the former mentioned policy of the Libyan government that planned to build large number of houses
within a short time, this action may create some negative affection such as social isolation, less interaction and
community disorder because the residents of these new neighbourhoods do not know each other and they come
from different parts of the city and probably from another cities of the country. The new neighbourhoods contain
hundreds of housing units, occupied by users from different backgrounds: different habits, status, education levels
and different mentality. It is important to know how do residents feel about themselves and about others, how they
use the open space around their houses and what activities that link their interests. Watson and Kessler (2013) states
that there is an evidence shows that the design concept and green areas have fundamental impact on the users in
these neighbourhoods in many aspects such as their health, comfort and feeling of safety and security (Jalaladdini
and Oktay, 2012). Thus, the investigation should not ignore the physical characteristics such as, sidewalk (paths)
design, seats, green areas and playgrounds in order to gain the fulfil picture of the community composition and to
find out the impact of these elements on the local community.
This research aims to focus on the role of public space in residential areas/neighbourhoods in terms of social values
and sense of community. This role will be examined through measuring the impact of public space inside the
neighbourhoods, social coherence and community interaction (Kim and Kaplan, 2004). The findings will conclude a
clear evaluation about whether the governmental/private projects have considered these dimensions or not with
regard to the social needs of the residents. The main objective of this research is to illustrate the impact of public
space of neighbourhoods on the social integration and to ensure that design of public space enhances the sense of
community which should lead to a better quality of social life.
Methodology
Initially, there are three advanced approaches to collect data of research: quantitative, qualitative and the mixed
methods (Creswell, 2013). Nevertheless, these three methods may seem separated, but practically they are used in
varies approaches for different purpose depends on each discipline and the nature of the study, the elements of the
research methods in which the result become more contributable (Beins, 2012). The mixed methods research is
placed in the central position between the two other methods, because it integrates components from both
quantitative and qualitative approaches. Additionally, the case study approach which usually identified as a
qualitative study design, e.g., quantitative experiments or qualitative case study (Creswell, 2013).
Photo 1: Location of the case study sites: a): Almegawba (TN). b): 9th July (GN)
It has been suggested from many scholars and professionals that the appropriate research approach in such study is
the mixed approaches method which combined of quantitative and qualitative case study (Merriam and Tisdell, 2015,
Yin, 2013). The case study includes two sites, a) Site 1 named 9th July, which is governmental neighbourhood GN;
b) Site 2 named Almegawba, which is a traditional neighbourhood TN, in the city of Misurata, Libya, see Photos (1,
2 & 3). All the quantitative data gathered from the questionnaires has been input to the statistics programme SPSS
to be able for analysis and Nvivo version 10 software has been used for the qualitative data gathered from the indepth interviews. A mixed strategy used in terms of data collection including random and snowball policies to ensure
the accuracy of the information and avoiding bias answers (Woods et al., 2015).
Photo 2: a) 9th July Neighbourhood (GN)
Photo 3: B) Almegawba (TN)
Questionnaire: 200 questionnaires were sent out to the residents of the two above sites, a total of 158
questionnaires were returned as following: Almegawba neighbourhood 81 participants and 9 th July neighbourhood
77 participants. The questionnaires include a number of open-ended, closed and multi-choice questions.
Sampling strategy: sample selection was obtained using a snowball technique, "This involves asking people who have
participated in a survey to nominate other people they believe would be willing to take part sampling continues until
the required number of responses is obtained" (Kitchenham and Pfleeger, 2002 , p19). Participants joined to take
part of the research through an invitation from other residents and so on. Data collection was stopped when the
appropriate number of questionnaires has been reached and repeatable answers from the last few participants were
noticed (Kotrlik and Higgins, 2001).
Interviews: In-depth interviews conducted to provide a further understanding of the existing situation as well as to
gain clearer features about the quality of the public space of the case study. Moreover, to collect appropriate
evidence that clarifies the research issue and contributes to solving the research matter and creating a coherent
framework to be used in the future policies. There was total of 15 interviews conducted during the field work as
following: Decision makers 4, Professionals 4, Residents of Governmental Neighbourhoods GN 4, and Residents of
Traditional Neighbourhoods TN 3.
Limitation: Limitations of the research conduction starts from the literature sources to the data collection difficulties
due to the lack of database available in the responsible authorities in Libya. Accordingly, to minimise the possibility
of this limitation, researcher has spent extra individual effort to gain the most of the essential and appropriate key
information. These efforts including contacting the relevant local consultant authorities, effective use of the
researcher experience during the work period in similar firms. Further efforts have been made through the in-depth
interviews with decision makers and professionals. These difficulties are not only because of the lack of data but also
the poor documentation system of the country of the case study. Nevertheless, this matter is challenging issue, but
at the same time it increases the value of the research to contribute effectively to the future researches in this field.
In addition, there might be a slight limitation according to the reliability of the data collected from participants,
especially the data by questionnaire method. There is evidence that participants might not be completely aware of
the function and purpose of the public spaces and their use due to the lack of attention to this subject. Therefore,
researcher overcome this point by conducting a pilot study which allow amending and adjusting the questionnaire
form before sending it out to the participants, so it increases the accuracy of the data obtained. It will also provide a
wide range of suggestion from the participants which can draw a clear understanding and evaluation to the existing
situation of the public space in these neighbourhoods.
To conclude, the idea of the research has been explored to contribute to the future development of the Misurata
city, likewise to the other similar cities of Libya. The fact that, this research is quite new in the city of the case study
thus, it is positive action that probably open a new approaches of future researches to promote the urban
redevelopment not only to the city of the case study but also to the entire country. However, this research is based
on former literature to the similar cases from other cities over the world such as in Turkey, Iran and Mediterranean
region which can be contributable as a similar case study (Oktay and Rustemli, 2011, Ghoomi et al., 2015, Jalaladdini
and Oktay, 2012, Costa and Lopes, 2015) . The research is aiming to evaluate the quality of public spaces in the local
neighbourhoods and examining the social satisfaction of the residents with regard to the social dimension.
Conceptual Framework of the Research
The approach of this research is designed to find out evidence about the positive features of the public space in
neighbourhoods, data collection techniques formed to explore answers to the research question/s and highlight
the appropriate tool in order to identify and clarify the situation of the public space of the neighbourhoods in the
city of Misurata, Libya. A part of that is to find out answers to the question/s that is adopted in this research which
are:
a)
How public spaces of the neighbourhoods improve and enhance the quality of residents' life, and how this
affects the sense of community and social cohesion of the community?
b)
Why developing the public spaces of the neighbourhoods are important? To what extent is the public space
enriches the quality of urban design of the city?
c)
Do residents feel socially satisfied with the public space quality in their neighbourhoods?
Therefore, data collection tools structured to provide information about the key points as following:
What are the bases of the public space design in Misurata neighbourhoods?
How do people feel about the space that should be shared for public activities? And do they obtain the
benefits of their functional purpose or not?
Why people use this space and when? Are they socially satisfied with the quality of the existing public space?
Is this public space suitable for all the residents groups such as children, youth, female, adults and elderly?
Discussion and Findings
The Influences of residents' relationships:
This paper focuses on the social side of residents' relationships in the public space of neighbourhoods. The residents'
relationships within the residential areas and cities' neighbourhoods are one of the most fundamental issues that
urban quality is facing in the country of the case study (Salhin, 2011). In the following section, research attempts to
illustrate the significant of these relationships and its impact on the urban development of the residential areas
including the both types of common neighbourhoods of the local region.
The Cohesion and Social Interaction between the Residents:
Social relevance is one of the central issues that should be considered in neighbourhood design concepts (Carmona,
2010). In this research tools to examine the level of residents' relationships and the magnitude of their social
interaction were applied. Findings show that almost all of the participants stated that public space plays an essential
role to strengthen the relationships between the residents of the neighbourhood, see Figure 1.
Figure1: Residents' attitude towards the importance of sharing activities in PS of the neighborhoods
In terms of social interaction, participants indicated that they have a limited range of activities in the public realm of
their community because of the lack of facilitated public spaces. Therefore, they use the private spaces most of the
time at their houses gardens. On the other hand, the level of participation depends on the category of the residents
whether they are male/female, individuals/groups and children/youth etc. (Loughman and Montias, 2000). For
instance, men usually use the public space more than female because of traditional backgrounds which are different
than other nations such as in Europe and USA. In this local community because of religion rules that not allow women
to speak and interact with men and women are not allowed to be unaccompanied with a relative man like her father,
brother or husband. This will be discussed more in the section of behaviours and backgrounds.
The social value of the community actually is directly linked to the open and public spaces as they are the main spaces
regarding interaction and integration (Gehl, 2011). These activities create a better chance for the residents to
interact, therefore, this will strengthen the level of relationship between the residents by involving them in activities
that can build a good level of communication (Gehl, 2013). Moreover, the social function of the PS can help to get
residents more involved and promote the level of intimacy between the neighbours. One of the significant findings
in this research is that participants support the idea of mixed age groups in the public space which can be the base
of creating these types of activities for the age groups with an appropriate range for each one. This involvement can
lead to the integration between the residents together and finally will strengthen the relationship and the intimacy
between the residents.
Table 1 shows that 50.0% + 29.7% = 79.7% of the participants in this neighbourhood who agreed or strongly agreed
that public space contributes positively and helps to provide psychological comfort to the residents of the
community.
Public space contributes to providing psychological comfort to the residents
Frequency
Valid
strongly disagree
disagree
natural
agree
strongly agree
Total
1
8
21
79
47
156
Percent
.6
5.1
13.3
50.0
29.7
98.7
Valid Percent
.6
5.1
13.5
50.6
30.1
100.0
Missing
Total
999.00
2
158
1.3
100.0
100.0
Table 1: The participants' attitude towards the impact of the PS on the psychological comfort of the residents
From a social perspective many participants indicated in the interviews that when the revelation in Libya was started
on Feb 2011 many social problems had happened in the GN, less problems were occurred in TN which indicate that
the level of integration between the residents are not the same in the two types of neighbourhoods. This case
confirms that the relationship between the residents of the same neighbourhood was not enough to provide safety
to the residents who come originally from other cities. Many residents had to move from a certain neighbourhood
to another, as they had experienced different acts than what their neighbours were expecting. Therefore, the
residents who are not originally from this community prefer to return to their original area or city because they felt
insecure in this community, while this situation did not happen in TN because all the residents knew each other and
they face all the problems and the reaction of the government during the revolution together and they help, share,
cooperate and support each other.
The most common and popular activities in the public spaces of the neighbourhoods are meeting other residents,
exchanging ideas and chatting (Iveson, 2011). These activities will create a high level of life quality which confirms
the preference of the integrated communities. Therefore, based on the research findings public space of the
neighbourhoods is the most effective area that impacts the relationships between the residents which is the core
link of the community cohesion. For instance, one of the participants explains the relationship between the residents
in a traditional neighbourhood as following: "I am not exaggerating that we were like one family in the previous
community". For example, when a mother of one of the neighbours get ill, one of our community mothers will join
that family staying in their house and do all the housework and take care of this mother until she recovers. In the
same way, the youth who are in the similar age, they grew up with a very strong relationship. This makes them always
feel like brothers and even more because they were spending the most of their time together outdoor in public space
of the community. Many participants argue that this relationship is not as before according to several changes as
indicated in this study former and later on.
To conclude, public space activities are strongly supporting the cohesion and the integration in our neighbourhoods
which lead to successful and comfortable communities.
The influences of public space on children's interaction within the neighbourhood:
Regarding the age groups in this research, results show that children often use the public space as a place to discharge
their energy and making friendship with other children during the play activities in their free time. In addition, public
space also used in the social events of the local community because in local culture public space is the main place
that people usually address their activities such as weddings (marriage festival) and consolation (it last few days after
the funeral). Gehl (2011, p21) highlights that "people in general inspired to others action, children see other children
at play and get the urge to join in, or they get ideas for new games by watching other children or adults". Therefore,
the idea that is not to provide a public space rather than how to allow and support the residents to communicate
and share the spaces to increase the level of interaction and create an appropriate sense of community in their
neighbourhoods.
Many participants believe that children are more likely to have a strong relationship than adults, because they spend
more time together and grew up together with very interact activities, thus, the expectation is that the second
generation will have stronger relationships and social communication which lead to integrated and coherent
community.
Physical activities in outdoor space are the most preferred to the children in the sites of the research, children love
to spend their time out of their houses. This issue is also debatable, as almost 20% of the participants think it is not
safe enough to send their child on the public spaces. The playground for the children is also one of the most important
elements that contribute positively to the link between families, some families start to know each other and become
friends because of the relationship between their children see photos (4, 5 & 6).
Photo 4: children play football outdoor, by researcher, location 9 th July GN, 15/08/2015
Photo 5: children play in the city playground, by the researcher, 13/08/2015

Interestingly, the study highlighted statement from many participants who indicates that life now become faster and
people affected significantly by the speed of life. They explained that the feeling of integration and cohesion between
the neighbours might be affected by the change of the life's rhythm. Noticeably, nowadays people seem more
engaged and busy with their work, study and other businesses rather than social activities.
With regard to the majority of the participants in both research methods, the survey and the interview, they stated
that children are not happy with this situation of the public space. This is because of the lack of facilities and the
provision of the green areas, playgrounds, pitches and open spaces. One of the interviewees indicated that "I think
children are not happy to use the public space like in our time before 10 -20 years". With regard to the findings the
following points might be the most dominant reasons of this change which led to a concern from the parents of the
children:
Photo 6: poor public space, by the researcher, Aljazeera Neighbourhood, Misurata Libya, 19/08/2015
The form of life has been changed, now there are more risks for children: the number of cars has increased;
the parents are busier as they spend more working hours so the control of watching their children may become less.
Therefore, most of the people prefer not to let their children play out in public space. Instead, they go together with
them to the beach in the summer time or to any central gardens or countryside in another season.
Recently, there is more traffic on the streets of the neighbourhood; it becomes more crowded (high density)
which need a special design for the pedestrian movements. There should be a safe area for children to play in; this
can also create weaknesses in the social communication and risk to the children who play in the public spaces of the
neighbourhood.
Many children are addicted to the new technology tools such as computer games, X-box, iPad and other home
games rather than going out for physical activities.
Because of lifestyle change which make people work more hours, thus, the carrier/parents literally have less
time to share activities with their children, thus, they are more convenient to keep children at home because it is
safer and easier to be watched.
According to the rhythm of life change, one parent stated in the interviews that "we have less time for social activities
than before". He explained that "when they come back from work at 16:00 pm need time for lunch with the whole
family, then everyone will have some rest then children need to study and do their homework then it is dark". This
is probably the case for many local people nowadays, everyone their children goes to school has less time to spend
in social life, as a result, the only chance that we would use for social activities is the weekends. This is limited their
time of participation in the public space within their community, and they mostly use the weekends for going out to
the beach, visiting other families and picnicking. Therefore, the rhythm of life also affect the relationships between
the residents even though they all live together in the same neighbourhood yet there are some other features which
minimise the chance of interaction and promoting the relationship between them such as spending more time at
work, traveling and spending time on electronic devices than socialising with neighbours.
Photo 7: children play football on streets, 9th July neighbourhood, Misurata, by the researcher on 12/08/2015.
The above photo 7 shows children while they are playing football on the roads because there is none/less facilitated
playground, pitches and sport open spaces for such activities. These daily activities that children do in their free time
might be really risky and can cause accidents at any time, therefore, the enclosed safe public spaces for the children
activates are fundamentally necessary. All the participants included in this study stated that the most needed facility
in this neighbourhood is the prepared public spaces such as playground, pitches and soft areas etc. see figure 2
show the percentage of the participants who are disappointed because of the lack of children facilities in the public
spaces.
Figure 2: Participants satisfaction towards the PS of their neighbourhood

The above figure 2 illustrates the level of the residents' satisfaction towards the quality of the public space in both
neighbourhoods while the figure 3 shows the value in each individual neighbourhood separately.
9th July neighbourhood (GN)
Almegawba neighbourhood (TN)
Figure 3: Participants satisfaction towards the PS of their neighbourhood

In particular the questionnaire survey includes a specific question about the most negative feature of the public space
of the neighbourhood, almost all of the participants stated that "lack of children's playground and sport places for
the youth" which yet indicate the massive need for these elements in the neighbourhood to be more successful and
to fulfil the local social needs especially the children and the youth's desire. In figure 4 it is very clear that over half
of the participants are married and have children, this percentage is applicable to the neighbourhood population
because the selected sample is representative.
Participants' status
1%
30%
married (have children)
54%
15%
married (no children)

single
missing
Figure 4: This graph shows the participants' status

The impact of poor PS of the neighbourhood:
One of the research tasks is to classify the most effective social features that impact the behaviour of the residents
either in negative or positive cases. The results show that daily activities of the residents in the neighbourhood
especially in the public space are not enough to vitalise the public space. In many parts of the neighbourhood there
are empty neglected areas, see photos (8 & 9). However, this area might be used for some social events. The following
interpretations show in details the positives and negative of the public space features and how they affect the social
life of the residents of the neighbourhood. Madanipour et al. (2013, p50) highlight that in public sphere there is a
fundamental question which always should be asked: "To whose service should public space be built".
Photo 8: neglected PS in the central of GN, by the researcher, Aljazeera, Misurata, Libya, 25/08/2015
A large number of participants who indicate that the most need for them now are to build up the relationships with
their neighbours because they do not know them very well. Therefore, they dont feel the sense of integration in the
neighbourhood, and most of them answered as following towards the question "what is your urgent social need in
the neighbourhood now?", looking for a warm social relationship with the neighbours, good communication, social
intimacy, activities involves the residents and strengthen the social cohesion. This reaction from the participants
confirms that the open and public space in the neighbourhoods is the most favourite place that residents need to be
involved in.
In 9th July neighbourhood, some of the participants stated that the size of the existing PS for young children is enough,
as they often adapted themselves to the available space even if it is too small. However, their parents are completely
unsatisfied with this size of public spaces; they claim that it is not appropriate for the children and the youth activities.
From this perception from the residents of the neighbourhood, it is worth to mention the statement of Gehl and
Svarre (2013, p2) indicate that designers often get involved in their design ideas and forget about the life. "While
architects and urban planners have been dealing with space, the other side of the coin life has often been
forgotten".
Photo 9: Poor open PS in the GN, by the researcher, Aljazeera, Misurata, Libya, 25/08/2015
In terms of the public space quality, from the findings of this research, it is clear that one reason for the weaknesses
of the residents' relationships is the lack of facilitated public spaces. As a result, there will be a less chance for the
residents to meet, gather, share activities and practical communication, which may lead to a disintegrated
community. Because of less sharing and participation in the community, there might be a social isolation and this will
not help for the cooperation and the interaction between the residents.
Culture background and residents' behaviour:

According to the qualitative data collected from interviews, all the participants agreed that the public space is the
dominant place where residents can interact with each other. Especially, the residents who age between 7 and 15,
they indicated that they have a very strong relationship in this particular age as they were having the most of their
free time together applying varies of activities.
In terms of public space quality, residents from this particular ages that mentioned former do not actually care about
what facilities has the public space contained, they will usually create their way to innovate several activities because
they have no choice apart of that see photo (10). From another point of view, residents who age from 18 and above,
they are thinking about the safety of their children and family members. Therefore, the research focus on the adult
perception towards the quality of the public space and how they will describe it as a place where they have to spend
their leisure time with their children and share with other residents social activities.
Photo 10: Plenty of open PS with poor provision of physical settings and entertainment facilities, by researcher, GN,
Misurata, Libya, 25/08/2015
Findings show that the most important factors for the level of interaction between the residents are the time,
behaviour and people's react to other residents' actions. Hence, the culture background, local behaviour and local
relations are the bases of residents' action towards others while they are sharing activities. For this reason, the study
found out that TNs are more integrated and coherent than the governmental once because people know each other
from a long time. This makes them more careful when dealing with neighbours and always trying to be positive to
their community. On the other hand, in GNs because the residents come from different parts of the city and from
other cities and live in the same neighbourhood, so it is less possible to interact with each other. Many participants
demonstrate that they often spend time with their friends from the families that they know even if they live in
another area, at least until they become more familiar with their new neighbours. From the research data, this issue
can be improved in many cases, for example, if the neighbourhood provides facilitated playgrounds, green areas and
other relevant amenities which attract the residents to spend more time in their neighbourhoods. Therefore, create
more chance for the residents to interact and socialise with each other, which naturally lead to stronger relationships
between the local residents.
One important fact that study has measured is the number of residents who have a sense of initiation to contribute
positively to the neighbourhood development. Many of the participants indicated in the interview that residents are
not motivated to contribute positively to improve the PS of the neighbourhood. They always expect the government
to build and provide all the facilities. One resident stated that "I think the initiative actions from residents are unlikely
to happen at least in the near future because it is related to the background and the mentality of the residents".
Furthermore, from another point of view, some residents are ready to support and create a strategy to develop the
public space of the neighbourhood but they usually fail when it involves other neighbours who do not believe in
teamwork, cooperation and voluntary support. Although, their attitude towards the idea is very good but most of
the residents do not support it. They rather choose individual solutions such as going to the beach in the summer or
go to public gardens in the city centre rather than contribute financially to develop a permanent work of open public
space of the neighbourhood. They will only rely on the government to do so.
Another side of the study is to find out female contribution in the public, how women use the PS and do they have
the motivation to be part of the residents who supposed to be sharing and interacting in the PS of the neighbourhood.
Several women stated that they were using the public space, meeting, chatting in public and walking, however in
many cases were not comfortable because of the place quality. In terms of community behaviour and culture
background, the female does not equally share the public space, as they should have their own place within the
public space which does not exist. The common situation that female is only active to the public spaces when they
are participating as a group with their children, parents and brothers/husbands or with other family. In this case,
women can spend some time in the public which is considered as a weak participation. Therefore, many female
participant in this research suggesting that there should be a private places for women to apply their activities such
as walking, sitting and chatting with their friends and watching their children in a positive comfortable atmosphere.
Participants' Gender
37%
63%
Male
Female
Figure 5: Percentage of the participants' gender

In terms of the type of activities also there are many limitations can be found according to a culture and religion
restrictions see figure 4. That is why most of the participated female indicate that they need a separate space within
the PS of the neighbourhood for women, especially who are in the youth age. One of the participants stated in the
interview that "If we want to use the nearby space we should go as a group of female or as a family which limited our
participation in the public space".
Conclusion
The paper has investigated the very important side of PS development in the neighbourhoods and providing new
findings of psychological comfort and social integration of the neighbourhoods within the city of Misurata, Libya. The
findings show that neighbourhoods can be successful with regard to the resident's reaction and level of interaction
between them especially in the PSs of the neighbourhoods. From this perspective, it is essential that design and
development work should be based on local environment including the residents' behaviour and their perception
towards the understanding of sociality and community cohesion. Therefore, it is crucial that in the stage of
neighbourhoods design and urban development to be based on the residents' social needs in order to achieve the
right results according to the sense of community and social comfort.
Residents of the neighbourhood share the PS because of similar purposes with other residents which are spending
their free time in several types of activities. Public space is an important indicator for the level of successfulness of
the neighbourhoods, especially from social perspectives. In terms of psychological comfort, scholars in this field
indicate that open public spaces play a fundamental role to improve the quality of life and the community cohesion
(Nasar and Julian, 1995). Research show clearly that most of the residents are not satisfied with the existing quality
of the public space and they are looking forward to improvement in their communities. In figure 5 results show that
most of the participants either disagree or strongly disagree about their satisfaction towards the public space quality
of the neighbourhood.
Figure 6: Resident's satisfaction towards the PS of their neighbourhood

Overall results, almost all of the participants ensured that PS is the most significant place for all the residents. Hence,
they will be more connected and integrated. Also, youth can earn new skills and more experience and confidence by
interacting with the adult, this interaction may reflect positively on their life. In addition, most of the participants
stated that they will choose TN in a case of choices because they prefer to live near their relatives and the people
who knew from long time ago. This illustrates how much people are attached to the social features and how much
this community needs to be designed and based on social considerations in most of the projects. In addition,
residents need high-quality PSs and a central area which include facilities for children such as playgrounds and all
outdoor play areas. For youth more space is needed for example, sports pitches and green areas for walking and
some other activities, this makes the residents of the neighbourhood more interacted and more closed to each other
which lead to stronger relationships with the residents all around the neighbourhood. The public spaces are not used
properly because the government does not build playgrounds or such facilities for children. Therefore, the interaction
and the relations between the neighbours are not strong.
Finally, it has clearly appeared that PS is crucial indicator of the urban quality and the well-being of the
neighbourhoods' development. It plays an essential role not only in urban development but also in promoting and
enhancing the social interaction and the residents' satisfactory in their neighbourhoods. Therefore, creating
successful neighbourhoods which support and fulfil the social needs of the people is a fundamental need. This is
probably the key to improving the other related important elements such as safety, sustainability and environmental
communities. It is new future tasks to find out how all these communities can be linked together, and create schemes
that can improve the relationship between the neighbourhoods of the city to enhance the social cohesion in the
entire country.
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URBAN ARCHISCAPE AS A CONCEPT FROM THE EYE

OF WORLD KNOWN ARCHITECTS
BELIZ ARPAK
TOBB University Department of Architecture, Ankara Turkey
Abstract
With the development of technology and the changes society, the needs and the understanding of urban design,
landscape architecture and architecture itself have to change accordingly. In order to specify the changes and the
need of these changes, these disciplines should work together consistently and they should come up with different
viewpoints then the well-known ones such as the viewpoints offered by Kevin Lynch in the Image of a City, by Aldo
Rossi in the City Architecture, by Rob Krier in the Urban Space or by Robert Venturi in Learning from Las Vegas.
There is an emergence of the re-identification of city because cities may have dramatically changed through time and
architects cannot continue reading them with the existing urban terminology. Therefore world-renowned architects
have come up with new concepts like scape and archi-scape. This paper evaluates these terms through the
perspectives of Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi and continues with examples by Tschumi. According to Rem
Koolhaas Architecture alone cannot handle the problems of City and creates an opportunity to work with other
disciplines. However, every discipline has its own territories and profession so it is necessary to come up with a new
concept and discuss the city through this concept. This paper attempts to give clues about how to design the urban
land in terms of scaping, it also analyses what kind of cities we have today and what can be done in order to reorganise the cities without neglecting the historical background of a city or change in the paradigm of landscape
design. This paper criticizes the blurred lines through four similitude examples of Michel Foucault in between
architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, industrial design. It also gives an emphasise on what should be
done and what should be avoided during the design of a city. Last but not least, the paper includes the interpretation
of landscape and archiscape and through the conceptualization of the word through examples. It is important to
understand how to read a city and how to view it through another perspective.
Keywords:
Urban Archi-scapes, Bernard Tschumi, Rem Koolhaas, Scape, Event Cities , Parc de la Vilette, Architectural Urbanism
in Konsai-Kyoto and Lausanne, Tokyo Opera, Strasburg Country Hall, Karlsruhe Center for Art and Media, Glass Video
Gallery
Notes: This article was made under the consideration of Prof.Dr. Nur alar during the lecture M505 Urban Archiscapes in Tobb University, Department of Architecture
This paper is a part of ongoing thesis in Master of Architecture Program at TOBB University, Department of
Architecture
Acknowledgement: Sincerely thanks to Sn. Mge Cengizkan for her help during the process of writing.
Introduction
Throughout history cities have changed and evolved makin it harder and harder to read the cities of the 21 st century
with the existing urban concepts. Therefore, world-renowned architects have come up with different viewpoints in
order to get a better understanding of these changes. Until the emergence of the concept of Archi-scape emerged
there are a few books that an architect should read and know which are The image of the City by Kevin Lynch, City
Architecture by Aldo Rossi , Urban Space by Rob Krier and Learning from Las Vegas by Robert Venturi. With the
introduction of these books and the viewpoints that emerged within them, architects have maintained general
understanding of cities. Today these conditions have changed and it has become impossible to read cities solely as
an architect and there is a need of interdisciplinary work. This interdisciplinary work comes with its own problems.
The borders of the disciplines are blurred and in order to explain this blurred edges this paper discusses the four
similitudes of Michel Foucault. These similitudes are convenientia, aemulatio, analogy, and sympathies. These
similitudes also describe the cities of and the relations within these cities such as accessibility, legibility, and so on.
In oerder to deal with the issue of reading a city Ram Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi came up with the concepts
Scape and Archiscape.The term Scape is used to describe a wide view of a particular collections of visual
elements such as landscape, seascape, cityscape and townscape (Dictionary, Scape, 2013). On the other hand within
architectural context, according to Koolhaas, Scape implies a reading of urban territory as landscape, it indicates a
strategy of distancing oneself from traditions, is idiom for the edgeless city, in which the distinction between center
and periphery, between inside and outside, between figure and ground is erased last but not least, the city is
understood as a continuous, topologically formed field structure whose modulated surface covers vast extensions of
urban regions (Angelil et al., 2003, p.9-10). Another point of view from Bernard Tschumi is that the term scape
refers to an overall sight vision that modifies the object referring to land in its representation the landscape, these
new scapes indicate on the horizon a new way of seeing, designing and inhabiting space through the interpretation
of the work as a complex system of connections, interchanges and retro-actions, always open, flexible, modifiable
(Angelil et al., 2003, p.9-10). The consept of Archi-Scape refers to an interrelation between architecture and
landscape. It is impossible to think about the architecture without its surrounding and its also impossible to think
landscape without any architectural element within city. According to Bernard Tschumi, At Archi-scape our practice
of architecture endeavors to create memorable buildings and spaces that are at once an integral part of their
location(Bohrer, 2013) . Actually, it is interesting to note that within the book Event Cities 1 Tschumi came up
with the concept of Archi-scape, but it was not noticed until Koolhaas mentioned it again later on with small
changes. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the concepts of Scape and Archi-scape in terms of urban planning
and development, along with the changing societies and the changing needs of cities. Then the examples of Bernard
Tschumi will be discussed accordingly with the four topics he listed within his book Event Cities. These examples
will lead us in terms of their design processes and the interrelation between theory and praxis. The main problem is
understanding the conditions of todays cities and being able to make proposals on what should be done and what
should be avoided. The reality about architecture is that on the one hand it is impossible to imagine a city without
architecture, while on the other hand it is impossible to imagine architecture without a city. Last but not least, the
main idea of this paper is that the reading and designing of a city needs to be an interdisciplinary or paradisciplinary
process which covers architects, landscape architects and material engineering and that the rules of design should
be renovated and re-invented.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DESIGN FIELDS
The concept of design as a whole includes all the fields of art and architecture and is under the authority of one
person. When the fields of design started to split, their borders were also designed as landscape architecture,
architecture, city planning, interior design, industrial design and so on. Nowadays the borders of these design fields
are blurred and juxtaposed in order to understand the needs of city and the citizens. Moreover, the juxtaposition of
the fields of design should be reconsidered it is nevertheless warranted by that and, by that in, by that on whose
solidity provides proof of the possibility of juxtaposition (Foucault, pg. xvii). In addition to this, the labelling of the
design fields, or in other words the definitions of the fields have been made throughout history, a table, a tabula,
that enables thought to operate upon the entities of our world, to put them in order, to divide them into classes, to
group them according to names that designate their similarities and their differences the table upon which, since
the beginning of time, language has intersected space (Foucault, pg. xix). According to Foucault, the disorder in
which fragments of a large number of possible orders glitter separately in the dimension, without law or geometry,
of the heteroclite; and that word should be taken in its most literal, etymological sense: in such a state, things are
laid, placed, arranged in sites so very different from one another that it is impossible to find a place of residence
for them, to define a common locus beneath them all (Foucault, pg. xix). Furthermore, in terms of the specification
of design fields, no sooner have they been adumbrated than all these groupings dissolve again, for the field of identity
that sustains them, however limited it may be, is still too wide not to be unstable; and so the sick mind continues to
infinity, creating groups then dispersing them again, heaping up diverse similarities, destroying those that seem
clearest, splitting up things that are identical, superimposing different criteria, frenziedly beginning all over again,
becoming more and more disturbed, and teetering finally on the brink of anxiety (Foucault, pg,xx) . This anxiety might
lead the controllers of the city- architects, city planners, landscape architects to think of several concepts that can
make them understand the problems of cities and lead them to solve the problems through their respective
perspectives.
Another issue is the language, that we have been coded since we were born. Our perspective towards the language
of design depends on our education, culture, economical values, political views and etc, for a given culture, is both
dispersed and related, therefore to be distinguished by kinds and to be collected together into identities,
(Foucault,pg.24) These identities also refers to our policies, ways and perspectives towards design but it is impossible
to start over so we have to organize things by influencing from the past and projecting the conditions to future. As
though emancipating itself to some extent from its linguistic, perceptual, and practical grids, the culture superimposed
on them another kind of grid which neutralized them, which by this superimposition both revealed and excluded them
at the same time, so that the culture, by this very process, came face to face with order in its primary state. It is on
the basis of this newly perceived order that the codes of language, perception, and practice are criticized and rendered
partially invalid (Foucault, pg. xxii).
In order to explain the blurred edges of the design fields, Foucault has listed four similitude options in which one of
them or more than one might be fit to explain the paradisciplinary change of the design fields. The first of the
similitude is the convenientia . According to Foucault, This word really denotes the adjacency of places more strongly
than it does similitude. Those things are convenient which come sufficiently close to one another to be in
juxtaposition; their edges touch, their fringes intermingle, the extremity of the one also denotes the beginning of the
other. In this way, movement, influences, passions, and properties too, are communicated (Foucault, pg.20). This
type of relationship or so called similitude arise new resemblances; a common regimen becomes necessary; upon
the similitude that was the hidden reason for their propinquity is superimposed a resemblance that is the visible effect
of that proximity ( Foucault, pg.20). As an example to the similitude of convenientia , resemblance imposes
adjacencies that in their turn guarantee further resemblances. Place and similitude become entangled: we see mosses
growing on the outsides of shells, plants in the antlers of stags, a sort of grass on the faces of men; and the strange
zoophyte, by mingling together the properties that make it similar to the plants as well as to the animals, also
juxtaposes them (Foucault, pg.20). Moreover while defining the word convenientia at each point of contact there
begins and ends a link that resembles the one before it and the one after it; and from circle to circle, these similitudes
continue, holding the extremes apart (God and matter), yet bringing them together in such a way that the will of the
Almighty may penetrate into the most unawakened corners (Foucault, pg.21). The second type of similitude is
aemulatio which was rescued from the concept of place being able to function without motion and that the distance
has no significance at all. rather as though the spatial collusion the prose of the world of convenientia had been
broken, so that the links of the chain, no longer connected, reproduced their circles at a distance from one another in
accordance with a resemblance that needs no contact ( Foucault, pg.22). This type of relation enables things to
imitate one another from one end of the universe to the other without connection or proximity: by duplicating itself
in a mirror the world abolishes the distance proper to it; in this way it overcomes the place alloted to each
thing(Foucault, pg.22). In addition to all the listed definitions and examples for aemulatio ,who resemble one
another completely, without its being possible for anyone to say which of them brought its similitude to the
other(Foucault, pg.22), As a comparison, this type of similitude does not form a chain but it can be considered as a
series of concentric circles externalize and compete with one another unlike that of the similitude convenientia. The
third form of similitude is analogy was described as which it treats are not the visible, substantial ones between
things themselves; they need only be the more subtle resemblances of relations(Foucault, pg.24). The best example
of this type of similitude is given as such:
Crolliuss time, between apoplexy and tempests: the storm begins when the air becomes heavy and
agitated, the apo- plectic attack at the moment when our thoughts become heavy and disturbed; then the
clouds pile up, the belly swells, the thunder explodes and the bladder bursts; the lightning flashes and the
eyes glitter with a terrible brightness, the rain falls, the mouth foams, the thunderbolt is unleashed and the
spirits burst open breaches in the prose of skin; but then the sky becomes clear again, and in the sick man
reason regains ascendancy.The space occupied by analogies is really a space of radiation. Man is surrounded
by it on every side; but, inversely, he transmits these resemblances back into the world from which he receives
them. He is the great fulcrum of proportions the centre upon which relations are concentrated and from
which they are once again reflected (Foucault, pg.25-26).
Lastly, the fourth form of similitude is provided by the play of sympathies that can cross pass the enormous
spaces instantaneously. In other words it can be brought into being by a simple contact, its power that sympathy is
not content to spring from a single contact and speed through space; it excites the things of the world to movement
and can draw even the most distant of them together (Foucault, pg.26). In addition to these definitions of sympathy
this similitude is an instance of the Same so strong and so insistent that it will not rest content to be merely one of
the forms of likeness; it has the dangerous power of assimilating, of rendering things identical to one another, of
mingling them, of causing their individuality to disappear and thus of rendering them foreign to what they were
before( Foucault, pg.26).
Nowadays, the conditions of urban life and cities have been evolving and changing. These changes have the traces
of the past but they also refer to something else which can only be built by architects, landscape architects, city
planners, industrial designers, sociologists, psychologists and so on. These disciplines should collaborate and have
the responsibility to make projections for the future in order to create suitable environments. Looking through the
past and the language which comes from the past , Foucault states that up to the end of the sixteenth century,
resemblance played a constructive role in the knowledge of Western culture. It was resemblance that largely guided
exegesis and the interpretation of texts; it was resemblance that organised the play of symbols, made possible
knowledge of things visible and invisible, and controlled the art of representing them (Foucault, pg. 19). By using the
lessons of past, he also notes that the world remains identical; resemblances continue to be what they are, and to
resemble one another. The same remains the same, riveted onto itself (Foucault, pg. 28). All of the four similitudes,
explain the way of similarities and show the relationship between things. The relationship also defines the similarities
of design fields as they cross pass each others zones. The loss of boundaries creates infinite possibilities in terms of
the designing of cities and buildings or even in the creation of works of arts. Through the perspective of Foucault we
can most likely define the similarities between these paradisciplinary design fields described as convenientia.
Exploring the New Concept Through the Design Examples of Bernard Tschumi
First of all, it is important to understand the design approach of Bernard Tschumi in terms of architecture and
landscape architecture. He argues that architecture is as much about the events that take place in spaces as about
the spaces themselves. Moreover, the cause effect relationship sanctified by modernism by which form follows
function needs to be abandoned in favor of promiscuous collisions of programs and spaces (Tschumi, 1996,pg.3). In
order to understand his design approach, examining his book series titled Event Cities will be useful.
This book series is about composing the relationship between theory and the praxis within architecture, it aims at an
argumentation about several projects made by Tschumi which creates a great potential about the extensive and
accurate theoretical texts of recent years. The argumentation has three aspects; praxis that includes the details about
conceptual process composed with the actual making of architecture, cities which argues that all architecture should
have a relation with our urban condition and lastly, events that claims there is no architecture without action and
during creating careful agencing of spaces and events architecture speeds up the process of societys transformation.
In Event Cities, realism is what counts, but only the sense of something that is realizable: every praxis is an action
towards a result. If theory is only responsible to theory, a praxis can only project itself towards the constructed, social,
economic and political reality (Tschumi, 1996,pg.3).
In Event Cities, the important concepts are shown with the ideograms and construction drawings of projects and the
concept of form and style play an undeniably important role. The goals of these projects can both be abstract theories
or design, as it aims to establish several conditions for new urban events. These events also have a relationship with
the term archi-scape in terms of the interaction between human and nature, human and architecture and lastly it
creates its own scape within cities.
It is impossible to imagine a city without architecture and architecture without a city. Within this book there are four
types of projects which are discussed. The first type is related with urban planning and claims that the organization
of the territory is ahead of the definition of any specific program. The example of this type is the Parc de la Vilette
which emphasizes that the event dimension or the dimension of action, is what makes up a city. In Parc de la Vilette
in terms of form the park is designed as a series of three specific systems lines, points and surfaces that they are not
integrated to each other. Instead, they are superimposed onto the other which creates more opportunities as they
distort and clash with each other.
Figure 1:(Tschumi, 1993)

In terms of design this weakening of architecture, as Tschumi calls it, is an altered relationship between structure
and image and structure and skin(Tschumi,1993,pg 13) . There are three diagrams about this design process which
is shown below. Diagram 1 shows a simple representation on the proportions of territories which consist of the
building, the covered area and to open space. Diagram 2 shows three parts which have experienced several processes
such as explosion, fragmentation and deconstruction. Lastly, diagram 3 shows the re-composition of the element.
Figure 2: (Tschumi, 1993)

One of the layers of the park consist of lines that are composed of two major perpendicular axes that run
parallel to the orthogonal grid and form the steel and iron major walkways throughout the park.

The other layer of the park consists of points which are created by repetition, distortion, superimposition
and fragmentation.

The last layer of the park consist of the surfaces which are covered with earth and gravel and other free forms that
are made of metal and concrete. In the design of the park, the landscape was removed from the picture entirely and
according to Tschumi The landscape elements, formerly the most important aspects of any urban park, have become
the infill between the built structures that organize the project spatially and functionally (Tschumi, 1996) . The design
of the park is created as if it was a building, thus turning it into an architectural element.
Figure 5: (Tschumi Official Website)

The second type of project is related to city generators and architectural systems that are actual catalysts for every
kind of activity or function, independent of the form they take. In such city generators, functions and programs
combine and intersect in an endless disprogramming or crossprogramming (Tschumi,1996). The first example is
the city is Kansai, Japan with its linear airport. The aim of the airport was to create a new type of metropolis by
extending the airport into an event that includes exchange, business, commerce and culture. It was also designed to
become a counterpoint to city of Osaka just not only for the traveler but also for culture and recreation as it acts as
a new urban segment to the city. This airport has two districts which are the linear city and the deck. The first part is
the linear city which has three lines; double strip that contains all airport transfer functions, the wave that contains
a mile long entertainment, cultural and sports center and the slab includes two hotels with 1000 rooms and also an
office center.

The other example city is the railway station in the city of Kyoto that is suitable with the characteristics of hybrid
megaprojects during 20th century of Japan. While the project aims be coherent with the historic background of the
city, it also strives to be a leading project for future. Tschumi began by decomposing the overall program into its
main constituent elements and aligning them with the Kyoto grid which includes a block for cultural center, two for
the hotel and convention center, two for the department store and two for parking. After listing the necessities of
the station they subdivided the blocks into organizational strips respectively with a three meter gap between them
to allow natural light into the center of blocks (Tschumi Official Website)

On one level, the scale and unprecedented density of the new center station of Kyoto is enough to create an event.
However, it is in the montage of attractions, or programmatic collision, that the importance of the project
resides(Tschumi, 1996).
The last example of architectural systems is in the city of Lausanne and is particularly concerned with the
displacement of a typology that provides the conditions for a new urban act (Tschumi,1996).The project was designed
with the concept of The Bridge City which includes a series of bridges over the Flon Valley and a new transit station
that consists of two phases. The first phase was a light rail station characterized by red printed glass, a new
pedestrian bridge and connections to the valley at the place de lEurope. The second phase was to create a ticket
counter, excalators and a subway station as a part of transit hub complex (Tschumi Official Website).

The third type of project is related to the confrontation of specific programs which are defined in space and time.
This type of urban architecture suggests a new type of city in which the notion of the event that happens in them is
as important as that of the street or a square through their political and cultural ambition (Tschumi,1996). There are
four examples that are related this type of architecture which are: the Tokyo Opera, the Strasburg County Hall and
the Karlsruhe Center for Art and Media and National Library of France. The first project is the Tokyo Opera which is
constructed as an opera house and cultural center. There are several programmatic strips which begin with a glass
avenue that provides direct access from the subway, parking lot and buses. While on the other hand, its mezzanines
create a vertical spectacle, on the other hand, its ground floor creates a gathering place that makes use of different
public services. Within this Opera there are also coatrooms, box offices, bars or buffets, suspended gardens, VIP
rooms, lavatories and other services. A strip contains the backstage area, assembly hall, rehearsal and workshop
spaces which are provided with daylight. Last but not least, a final strip which contains the dressing rooms and
administrative offices, serves the artists and staff.

The second project is the Strasburg County Hall which is composed of fragments. The site where the county hall is
located lies between two types of urban planning. One symbolizes the traditional urban texture and the other reflects
the ideology of large postwar developments. Tschumi preferred not to imitate both of the textures but he tried to
create a new relationship between them and due to this he decided to create a meeting point between old and new
by clarifying the relationship of the historical fragments to today. Fragmentation is the most suitable way to design
this hall due to the fact that, it enables one to consider specific constraints of each element of the program, it gives
the elements autonomy while making it easier to perceive their relative importance, the varieties of the sizes of each
fragment creates a relative space of the historic town, and lastly, it enables free juxtapositions, a poetic dimension,
a spatial density and the new perception of site.

Another project which is related with the third type is the linear core of the Karlsruhe Media Center which reflects
the existence of new digital and electronic imagery in daily life. The project has four different parts which include a
public passageway that is linear and proposed as an alternative to the concentric Baroque texture of historical
Karlsruhe, a core that is a public place with maximum visibility and excitement which allows public mediatization
of specific research, two specialized compartment spaces that are located on the each side of the core that contains
all specialized functions and an electronic exterior that serves both as enclosure and as spectacle.

The last project of the third type is the circuits of the National Library of France which combine the pursuit of
modernity with the pursuit of knowledge. The whole building is about circuits and movement which causes the
architectural scheme to be developed around a constant dynamic. The building was planned to act like an urban
generator for a new part of the city through the internal circuits of library culture. Within the building there are multimedia circuits, circuits for the storage and retrieval of books. The upper level designed for exhibition and a running
track for athletes that are intellectual and the intellectuals who are athletes. Within the library, there are five circuits
which are the visitors, the administrators, the books, the electronic and the mechanical circuits which interact with
each other at strategic locations. The library was seen as an event rather than as a frozen monument (Tschumi
Official Website).The project did not win the competition because it encouraged to break away from earlier concepts
of libraries and library design.

In the fourth type of project, the transient architectures of the city, one particular reading of events is discussed
throughout the example of the Glass Video Gallery (Tschumi, 1996).The spatial definition changes constantly through
the following images and video displays. The building was designed on a small budget and the material which it is
made of is glass. Within this building, the concept primarily dealt with the envelope. The concept was about the
movement of body and how the building gives priority to that type of imagery. Last but not least, the glass video
gallery proposes parallels to urban space by both containing video objects that are on display as well as objects for
displaying them.

CONCLUSION
As a conclusion, design fields should collaborate and come up with different concepts that makes easier to read the
cities of today. It is obvious that old terminology could not help to deal with the problems of the cities. Within this
paper archi-scape was discussed as an example of this new terminology that can be used to better understand and
read the contemporary city. The interrelation between design disciplines was mentioned and evaluated in order to
understand the blurred edges of design fields through Michel Foucaults four similitudes which were listed as
convenientia, aemulatio, analogy and sympathies. The most suitable definition for these blurred edges is
convenientia, that is described as is a resemblance connected with space in the form of a graduated scale of
proximity (Foucault, pg.21). Last but not least , the design examples of Tschumi shows us the necessity of looking at
design projects with other perspectives and coming up with new concepts is vital for understanding the era of today.
REFERENCES
Angelil, Marc ,Killangman,Anna ,Siress Cary ,Gregory, Paola, 2003.New Scapes: Territories of Complexity.
Switzerland .Publishers of Architecture. pg.9-10.
Bohrer, Aeron Official website available at <http://www.archi-scape.com/vista-redondo-residence.php> [Accessed
Deceber 2013].
Foucault, Michel. 2005. Order of Things: An Archeologicy of Human Sciences. Taylor and Francis e-library.
Tschumi, Bernard. 1996. Event Cities. MIT Press.
Tschumi, B. 1993. Six Concepts in Contemporary Architecture. Theory and Experimentation. Pg.13-20.
Tschumi, Bernard Official Website Available at <http://www.tschumi.com/projects> [Accessed December 2013].
PERCEPTION AND MEANING OF CONTEMPORARY

GEOMETRIC ORNAMENT
DL ER KARABABA
dil er Karababa, Asst. Prof., Istanbul Bilgi University
Abstract
This paper is an attempt to understand the perception and meaning of ornamented skins of contemporary buildings
crafted through digital design and manufacturing technologies. It was inspired by the Material Systems Project given
as a final design problem to the students of Computation Based Basic Design Studio at Istanbul Bilgi University.
Material Systems can be defined as small-scale pavilions investigating the potentials of a material reevaluated
through contemporary design and manufacturing technologies. Over the years, a rather overlooked aspect of these
projects attracted my attention, since perhaps it is an unexpected end result. Even though these systems do not seek
to be ornamental, they often turn out to be ornamental as a result of their component based geometrical layouts.
When one thinks about geometry and ornament together, one cannot help but refer back to Islamic ornament. Gulru
Necipoglu in Topkap Scroll (1985, pp.185-231) refers to Ibn al-Haytham, a 10th century Muslim philosopher, on the
issue of perception of Islamic ornament. Ibn al-Haytham, categorizes vision as glancing and contemplative and claims
that a beautiful object evokes contemplative vision through its harmoniously, therefore proportionally, related
properties. Proportionality is required for beauty and that one can reach God through contemplation of such beauty.
Islamic ornamental designs, which are multilayered geometric patterns expanding with no single focal point or
hierarchical progression, can be thought of as willfully complicating vision and inviting contemplation. Because of the
intrinsic human need to perceive, organize and structure the world, anyone contemplating a geometrically complex
ornament, is instinctively geared towards establishing a repeating pattern within the complexity. According to
Gombrich (1984, pp.8-10), a simple pattern cannot continue to hold the attention on itself, and variation is a must
for continuous interest of the viewer. In Islamic patterns, there is not one repetition, but many intricately tied to
each other, and the eye is free to roam in these various relationships. It is this variety in repetition that establishes a
continuous interest of the viewer, therefore fosters contemplative vision.
It is tempting to think that the digitally crafted geometric facades of contemporary buildings establish the same kind
of catching relationship with the viewer because of their computational logic, which fosters complex geometrical
relationships. These facades also evoke contemplative vision through repetition and variation in their geometrical
complexity. Material Systems, designed at the Computation Based Basic Design Studio at Istanbul Bilgi University
provide me with accessible examples that explain my point.
Antoine Picon in his recent book Ornament: The Politics of Architecture and Subjectivity (2013, pp.133-135) can be
thought of as describing the nature of contemporary contemplative vision by means of Deleuzian concepts. He
resembles contemporary ornament with its complex geometric patterning to the Deleuzian subject, who is
permeable and connected, inherently manifold and complex, rhizomatic and network-like. Perception of such an
ornament occurs through the synthesis of an isolated subjective and connected universal processes.
Contemporary contemplative vision, and perhaps the Islamic one, does not only depend on the materiality of the
geometrically complex surfaces, but also on the complexity of the processes of perception of such a surface. Through
these processes the meaning of the ornament is revealed. This meaning not symbolic and static complies with the
spirit of the new age and offers new ways of understanding the contemporary world around us and dwelling in it.
Introduction
Without ornament and its capacity to generate dcor, the world would be impersonal and likely inhabitable. (Picon
2013, p.125)
Modernisms judgment of ornament as crime caused historians and theoreticians of the past century to largely
neglect ornamentation as a part of the architectural discourse. Modernism condemned ornament as a superficial
addition overladen with symbolic references that belonged to the past. In modernisms progressive mindset and its
quest for transparency of function, traditional ornament was abandoned as a thing of the past and as subsidiary to
the essence of architecture defined by space, structure and program. Post modernism, in reaction to this modernist
position, strived to revive ornament as dcor proposing a radical break between buildings as function and buildings
as representation (Moussavi and Kubo, 2008, p.7). However such an understanding of dcor loaded with a priori
cultural expressions was doomed to failure in the contemporary pluralist society, which keeps on transforming
rapidly. Recently, there is a renewed inquiry of ornament among architects, designers and theoreticians interested
in the new form making strategies by way of digital media. Contemporary computational design and manufacturing
technologies are enabling architects and designers to experiment with ornamental effects of materials, structure and
form.
I am not going to go into the architectural discourse on ornament within the confines of this paper. After this short
summary, I just want to add that diverse scholars from Gottfried Semper (1860-1863) to Mark Wigley (1995) and
more recently to Antoine Picon (2013) agree upon the idea that ornament is an indispensable part of architecture as
a communicator of meanings. So as with any inquiry of ornament, one is bound to enter the realm of perception and
meaning in order to understand the effects and affects of the ornamental surfaces produced by the computational
design and manufacturing tools. In this paper, I will investigate the perception and meaning of one kind of
contemporary ornament, i.e., geometric patterning.
Perception Geometrical Complexity and Contemplative Vision
When one thinks about geometry and ornament together, one cannot help but refer back to Islamic ornament. Early
Muslim treatises on geometry and beauty, which are largely influenced by classical Greek philosophy and NeoPlatonic thought, tell us that proportionality is required for beauty and that one can reach God through
contemplation of beauty (Necipoglu, 2005, pp.185-231). Ibn al-Haytham, a Muslim philosopher, who wrote Kitab almanazir, a treatise on perception, in the 10th century, categorizes perception as glancing and contemplative
(Necipoglu, 1995, pp.203). According to him a beautiful object evokes contemplative vision through its harmoniously,
therefore proportionally, related properties. Even though Ibn al-Haytham does not directly refer to geometric Islamic
ornamentation, a poem in the Hall of Two Sisters in Alhambra Palace prove that his words could also be associated
with ornamented surfaces of Islamic architecture: I am the garden appearing every morning with adorned beauty;
contemplate my beauty and you will be penetrated with understanding. (Necipoglu, 1995, pp.204)
Islamic ornamental designs, which are multilayered geometric patterns expanding with no single focal point or
hierarchical progression willfully complicate vision and invite contemplation. Because of the intrinsic human need to
perceive, organize and structure the world, anyone contemplating an ornament such as this is bound to find
him/herself trying to establish a repeating pattern within the complexity. Gombrich, in Sense of Order, which is one
of the rare books, which investigates the perception of ornament states:
I believe that in the struggle for existence organisms developed a sense of order not because their environment was
generally orderly but rather because perception requires a framework against which to plot deviations from
regularity. (Gombrich, 1984, pp.8-10)
According to Gombrich, a simple pattern cannot continue to hold the attention on itself, and variation is a must for
continuous interest of the viewer. In Islamic patterns, there is not one repetition but many intricately tied to each
other. It is this variety in repetition that establishes a continuous interest of the viewer, i.e., contemplative vision.
The contemplative vision of the repeating patterns works like a mantra on the way to reach God.
Figure 1. Square-based eight-point star tiling (drawn by Benay Grsoy Toyko).
In the square-based eight point star tiling in Figure 1, at first glance, the eye discerns two main repeating figures: the
eight pointed star and the octagon. The eye jumps from eight pointed stars, to arrows emanating from them making
up squares, to smaller squares making up the larger ones. In search for the repetition of this unit, the eyes are lead
to the octagons and again to the stars making up the corners of larger octagons. A grid system of arrows operating
at different layers relates the repeating small and large octagons and the stars to each other. These various layers of
repetition simultaneously and consecutively continue to hold the attention and demand contemplation of their
geometrical relationships, constantly relating parts to the overall system.
It is tempting to think that digitally crafted geometric facades of contemporary buildings, such as Lab Architecture
Studios Federation Square, Hajime Masubuchi and Thom Faulders Airspace Tokyo, establish the same kind of
catching relationship with the viewer because of their computational logic, which fosters complex geometrical
relationships. These facades also evoke contemplative vision through their non-focal order of repetition and variation
in their geometrical complexity. Material Systems, designed as final projects of the Computation Based Basic Design
Studio at Istanbul Bilgi University, provide me with accessible and rather simple examples that explain my point.
Material Systems can be defined as small-scale pavilions investigating the potentials of a material reevaluated
through contemporary design and manufacturing technologies. What is required of these systems is to span twelve
square meters and achieve a height of almost two meters. The basic aim of the project is to have the students
experiment with the material they are using, understand its potentials and build a structure meeting the size
requirements. Since the materials that are chosen cannot span the required distance one piece, generally component
based approach to the overall design is formulated. Geometry of both these components and the over all form, and
the details in attaching these components to each other therefore become important criteria of the problem. The
final evaluation of Material Systems is based on their structure-geometry and material-detail integration. Over the
years a rather overlooked aspect of these projects attracted my attention since perhaps it is an unexpected end
result. Even though these systems do not seek to be ornamental, they often turn out to be ornamental as a result of
their geometrical layouts.
In these projects, geometrical complexity was made possible through digital media, since in most of the projects
digital models were produced by Rhinoceros 3D to tile geometrically complex surfaces with repeating components.
During the development process of each design, digital models were tested in real-life models for material
performance and structural stability. In the two examples (Figures 2,3), which I chose to focus on, not one
component, making up the macroform, is the same with the others but all of the components transform themselves
to make up a 3-dimesional whole.
Figure 2. Materials System Example 1 by Faik Balkuv, Can Grgn, Ezgi Gnday, Deniz Ceren Hepylmaz, Batuhan
zbulut, Ceyda Pekta, Tuba Yaln, Mediha Toprakbast (photo by dil Karababa)
In the first example, a simple triangular grid adapts itself to cover an amorphous three-dimensional surface by
transforming the dimensions of the triangle, the angles of combination and its depth. Therefore the repeating triangle
is never the same, and the resultant pattern is three dimensionally complex. In such a system, one finds him/herself
constantly relating the varied parts to its neighboring parts and tracing linear continuities in order to establish the
relationship of parts to the overall system.
Figure 3. Material System Example 2 by Yamur Bursalolu, Bar Demirsoy, Irem Ican, Caan Izgi Gupse Korkmaz,
Ouz Kurtulu, Ceyda Pekta, Ayegl Tepe, Beyza Yaln (photo by dil Karababa)
In the second example, there are two levels of repetition with varying irregular tetrahedrons at one layer and varying
irregular hexagons at the other. These two surfaces are joined to each other by three-dimensional elements, which
define an irregular three-dimensional grid. This example, therefore, is made up of a more complex pattern, in which
the variation of the components is questioned not only with respect to the whole, but also with respect to two
distinguished but integrated layers. Simultaneous and separate viewing of these layers is ever present in the
perception.
As a result we can suggest that in both of these forms of geometric ornamentation, Islamic and contemporary, a
constant dialogue between variation and repetition and between the parts and the overall system is existent. In both
of these forms of geometric ornamentation, contemplative vision occurs within this dialogue, which strives to
unearth the complex order inherent but not apparent in the geometrical complexity of the patterned surfaces.
Meaning- Affect and Expression
In his writings Ibn al-Haytham makes a distinction between the pure sensation and inferential perception:
Not everything perceived by the sense of sight is perceived by pure sensation; rather, many visible properties are
perceived by judgment and inference in addition to sensing the visible objects form, and not by pure sensation alone.
(Necipolu 1995, p.201)
This statement points to the complexity of intellectual and perceptual processes at work in the act of perception.
This coming and going between intellectual and perceptual processes in perception is present also in the writings of
contemporary designers and theoreticians. The whole discourse on contemporary ornament, in fact, focuses on the
affect, which overpowers a singular symbolic meaning in contemporary ornament.
Peter Eisenman (1992, pp.42-45) distinguishes between the effect and affect:
Effect is something produced by an agent or a cause. In architecture it is the relationship between some object and
its function or meaning; it is an idea that has dominated Western architecture for the last 200 years. Affect is the
conscious subjective aspect of an emotion considered apart from bodily changes. Affect in architecture is simply the
sensate response to a physical environment.
By these words Eisenman points to two levels of perception present in the relation of the viewer with architecture.
One of these levels is intellectual related to the meaning and function of the object, and the other is perceptual
related to the individual subjective sensations. Kolarevic and Klinger (2008, p.20) referring to this distinction state
that the challenge of the contemporary ornament is to avoid creating a singular, outstanding image pattern, or form
(the effect), but a subtle, sensory, contextually responsive and responsible experience (an affect). By this staement,
they define the new parametric skins as adaptable and transformable interfaces in constant dialogue with their
context and the viewer.
Moussavi (2008 pp.4-9) argues that the main function of the contemporary ornament lies in the production of affect.
She rejects the universal symbolic value of contemporary ornament and argues that contemporary architecture
continues to communicate with subjects not by a preconceived meaning, but by creating sensations and affects. She
defines affect as the impressions made on the senses through interaction of the material, light, color, reflection and
pattern, and states At the best of times, ornament becomes an empty sign capable of generating an unlimited
number of resonances.
Moussavis reluctance in accepting symbolic value of contemporary ornament is based on the failure of postmodern
dcor. For the contemporary pluralist society without a common language or a system of understanding, the kind of
communication through symbols proposed by Postmodernism is not valid. Contemporary ornament frees individuals
from socially constructed regimes of the symbol by fostering subjective experience through affect.
In addition to the scholars, who tend to focus on the affects of contemporary facades in relation to their perception,
Levit (2008) and Zaera-Polo (2009) argue for the social and political expressions of the patterns covering the facades
of contemporary buildings. Levit focuses on morphogenesis as a contemporary form generating strategy.
Morphogenesis, as a strategy borrowed from life sciences by contemporary architects, introduces the notion of
responsive, performative and self-organizing systems modeled on natural systems (Hensel, Menges and Weinstock,
2006). Ball (1999, p.9) describes natural patterns as arrays of units that are not necessarily identical, but sharing
certain features that can be recognized as typical. In natural systems, variation overpowers uniformity, and the varied
cellular taxonomy produces an accumulation rather than definite figure. The flexible organic geometries that are
made possible by digital technologies, such as the voronoi and fractal, permit population of flexible frameworks with
cellular assemblies and modify themselves to ever-changing frames such as in PTWs Beijing Water Cube and in Tom
Wiscombes works. For Levit, these geometries have a different symbolic significance than the repeating bronzesurfaced steel members of the Seagram Building reflecting the modern world of mass production of uniform parts
and bureaucratic/hierarchical business organization. Levit (2008, p.4) argues that these systems suggest an analogy
to the contemporary social world: a world of endlessly diverse individuation marked by a declining willingness or
ability of diverse individuals to imagine themselves in relationship to a social whole except through sheer arbitrary
assembly. Zaera-Polo (2009, 23) also suggests that the allometric modularities and variable repetitions as generic
traits of new facades express new forms social and political organizations based on assemblages of divergent and
weighted subgroups.
From this perspective, the flexible organic geometries covering the contemporary facades could be thought of
expressing two attitudes that has always been present in architectural ornamentation seperately or together:
reflection of zeitgeist and imitation of nature. Kostas Terzidis (2006, pp.1-2) investigating the etymological roots of
the Greek verb design, , which was derived from the word , past tense of the word meaning to have,
hold or possess in English, argues that for Greeks design is about discovering something we already had. Inspired by
this way of thinking, I would like to propose here that by way of new digital technologies, we are now able to
regenerate new realities about the nature that were not visible to us in the past. Since these realities are meaningful
to and expressive of our contemporary world, and we are capable of regenerating them, we can be thought of as
reenacting them in shaping our built world. These forms borrowed from nature not only create ornamental skins for
new buildings, but also have performative qualities that serve sustainability concerns, which is one of the biggest
problems of todays world.
Picon (2013, pp.133-135) bridge the rift between individual and connected processes at work in perception of
contemporary geometrical ornament by refering Deleuzian concepts. He relates contemporary ornament with its
complex geometric patterning to the Deleuzian subject. Deleuzian subject can be defined as permeable and
connected, inherently manifold and complex, rhizomatic and network-like (Deleuze and Guattari, 1980, pp.3-25).
With these characteristics of a rhizome, again a concept borrowed from nature, Picon (2013, p.135) claims that
contemporary ornament no longer functions as a symbolic mask or a static dcor evoking a traditional visage, but as
a skin analogous to a permeable interface, an osmotic membrane.
This definition of contemporary ornament brings forth its perception again. In material systems above, visual
complexity demands not only contemplative vision of the viewers, but also their movement. Viewers move in and
around these structures trying to understand their underlying order. Movement brings with it a shift in the layering
of components and light and shade effect, introducing dynamism to the ornamentality of these systems
(Schumacher, 2009, p.36,41). Visual complexity stimulates tactile and haptic senses and evokes the need to move
and touch. Like babies who touch things to learn, we call our senses other than vision to help understand the
complexity. Multiplication of senses in perception of the ornament establishes a connected relationship of the viewer
with the complex patterns. This destabilizes the traditional distinction between subject and the object and makes
the viewer and the architectural work a part of a single continuum (Picon 2013, p.133).
In this continuum, Picon (2013, p.134) recognizes both an isolated subjective experience and a connected universal
one by evoking the Deleuzian notion of affect:
Affects are not attached to a subjects mind in the way personal feelings are. Of a much more physical nature, they
denote a change in intensity that concerns both the body and its surrounding space and time. From this perspective
affects represent a more primitive form of experience than emotions. Contrary to emotions that presuppose a
localized psychological interiority affects appear linked to a kind of generic superficial condition.
As a result of this definition Picon (2013, p.142) draws a parallel between perception of music and ornament
discussing that perception of music can be a pre-subjective experience that dissolves the self, while at the same time
heightening ones self-consciousness.
I think that Picon in explaining the processes of the perception of the contemporary ornament, in fact describes the
processes of contemplative vision at an abstract level. Contemporary contemplative vision, and perhaps the Islamic
one, does not only depend on the materiality of the geometrically complex surfaces. The viewer does not only go
back and forth between the the variety and repetition and/or parts and the whole of a geometric composition, but
also back and forth between an isolated subjective experience and a connected universal one. Through these
processes the meaning of the ornament is revealed. This meaning, which is not symbolic and static, complies with
the spirit of the age.
After modernisms white walls which created a tabula rasa getting rid of symbolic historical ornament and post
modernisms failure to revive it, new digital technologies are now offering ways to ornament complying with the new
age. The new zeitgeist is reflected through a contemporary dcor that can be defined by Deleuzian philosophy. This
new dcor, revealing its meaning in the act of its contemplation, offers new ways of understanding the contemporary
world around us and dwelling in it.
References
Ball, P., 1999. The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F., 1980. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by B. Massumi,
2007. University of Minnesota Press.
Eisenman, P., 1992. The Affects of Singularity. In: A. Papadakis ed. Theory and Experimentation, Architectural
Design. London: Academy Editions. pp. 42-45.
Gombrich, E.H., 1984. The Sense of Order: A Study in Psychology of Decorative Art. New York: Phaidon.
Hensel M., Menges, A. and Weinstock M. eds., 2006. Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design. John
Wiley & Sons.
Ibn al-Haytham. The Optics of Ibn al-Haytham: Books I-III, On Direct Vision. Translated by A. I. Sabra,1989. London:
Warburg Institute.
Kolarevic, B. and Klinger, K.R. eds., 2008. Manufacturing Material Effects: Rethinking Design and Making in
Architecture. New York: Routledge.
Levit, R., 2008. Contemporary Ornament: The Return of the Symbolic Repressed. Harvard Design Magazine, (28),
pp.1-8.
Moussavi, F. and Kubo, M. eds., 2008. The Function of Ornament. Barcelona: Actar, Harvard University Graduate
School of Design.
Necipoglu, G., 1995. The Topkap Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture. Santa Monica: The Getty
Center for the History of Art and Humanities.
Picon, A., 2013. Ornament: the Politics of Architecture and Subjectivity. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Schumacher, P., 2009. Parametric Patterns. In: M. Garcia ed., Patterns of Architecture. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 2841.
Semper, G., 1860-1863. Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts or Practical Aesthetics. Translated by H. F. Mallgrave
and M. Robinson, 2004. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute.
Terzidis, K., 2006. Algorithmic Architecture. Elsevier.
Wigley, M., 1995. White Walls, Designer Dresses: The Fashioning of Modern Architecture. Cambridge, Mass: MIT
Press.
Zaero-Polo, A., 2009. Patterns, Fabrics, Prototypes, Tessalations. In: M. Garcia ed., Patterns of Architecture. John
Wiley & Sons. pp. 18-27.
INDETERMINACY AS A CRITICAL DESIGN

APPROACH: CEDRIC PRICE'S FUN PALACE
ZEYNEP DNDAR, GKEEK SAVAIR
Zeynep Dndar, Res. Assist., DEU Dept. of Arch., Gkeiek Savar, Assoc. Prof. Dr., DEU Dept. of Arch.
Abstract
In order to eliminate contradiction and uncertainty in the social, architectural and urban realms, modernity leaned
to the ones universal and standard. Parallel to the technological developments after the Industrial Revolution,
modern architecture was influenced by the positive sciences and put forward rational and functional productions.
The reductionist linear approach and solutions in the positive sciences, brought by modernity and the Enlightenment
in the first half of the 20th century, were abandoned with the rapid social, cultural, political and technological
developments in the aftermath of the WWII. The studies on chaos and complexity were focused in order to
understand the complex structure behind the reality. They simultaneously affected different areas, such as music,
literature, art as well as architecture and urban studies. By the increase in the momentum of urban growth, crowding
and heterogenity, the concept of indeterminacy, as well as the multiplicity and complexity, have become important
design parameters for architecture and urban studies. As complex means uncertain, it reveals chance, coincidence,
ambiguity, intricacy, improvisation, as well as inexplicit, unpredictable, unexpected situations.
Demonstrated a critical stance against the mainstream forms of thinking and practices in architecture, Cedric Price
influenced many architects with his unconventional ideas and productions during the 1960s. He takes uncertainty
and unpredictability of possible future uses, as a design problem, and emphasizes the necessity of indeterminacy,
flexibility, adaptability, transformation and prediction in architectural design. According to Price, architecture reveals
situations for creating ways for interaction, in contrast to the formalist requests of designer. This study will dwell on
Cedric Price's Fun Palace (1961-1972), which is unbuilt but is still a source of inspiration for the next generations.
More specifically, different modes of indeterminacy in this project will be discussed in terms of program, function,
representation and future.
Determinateness of Indeterminacy
Basing on the principle of causality, determinism in philosophy explained all events taking place in universe through
some inevitable necessities. As opposed to determinism, indeterminism is related to chance and free will; events are
not caused deterministically by prior events. As the opposite of order, the word ambivalence connotes
discrepancy, inconsistency, incompatibility, illogicality, irrationality, ambivalence, confusion, and undecidability
(Bauman, 2014, p.19). Manolopoulou (2007) brings forth chance factor as a form of coincidence, synchronicity as
an integral part of space-time experience. She states that simultaneity by chance produces spatiality (Manolopoulou,
2007, p.64). Thus, unique spatial experiences occur through coincidental combinations in everyday life. Referring to
the related literature, it is seen that indeterminacy and uncertainty are interchangibly used for giving ideas about the
notions of chance, coincidence, accident, improvisation, contingency, unexpected, unpredictability and ambiguity.
With its associative meanings, indeterminacy has been a remarkable concept in various disciplines, such as music,
philosophy, science, art, and architecture. In all these areas, indeterminacy denotes open-endedness, flexibility and
probability.
At the turn of the century, Freudian theory of the unconscious, revealed by indeterminate circumstances, influenced
both the science and art world during the 20th century. Besides, Dada boldly introduced indeterminacy in art by
praising dualities, like consciousness-unconsciousness and rational-irrational. As the 20th century science
experienced a shift toward information and indeterminate systems theories; indeterminacy became an important
parameter for both architecture and urban studies. Modern Architecture was influenced by the technological
developments, rationalism and positivist sciences after the Industrial Revolution. It searched for the universal and
the standard responses to design problems. Especially after the WWI, the need for quick and inexpensive solutions
to social and economic problems leaded to diminish the possibility of indeterminacy in architectural production.
Contrary to this mainstream approach in the Modern Architecture, there have been some outsiders, such as Sigfried
Giedion who accepted time as the fourth dimension and emphasized transience and indeterminacy in architecture
(Heynen, 2011, p.64). Modern Architecture dealt with the concept of indeterminacy in terms of flexibility and
functionality of a building. Flexibility allows change and transformation throughout maximized options for almost
certain and defined solutions. Moreover, functional efficiency through technical arrangements defines the
possibilities to provide flexibility in buildings. The cities were getting more crowded, heterogeneous and complex;
hence uncertain environments that constantly change in terms of technological, social, physical, economic, and
cultural improvements caused shocking effects for architecture, which describes itself with the data taken from the
deterministic and positivist world.
Having been brought by modernity and the Enlightenment in the first half of the 20th century, the reductionist linear
approach and solutions in the positive sciences were abandoned with the rapid social, cultural, political and
technological developments in the aftermath of the WWII. Indeterminacy in music and art, indeterminate processes
in performance arts increased interaction, participation, chance, improvisation and creativity. In the 1950s,
coincidence and randomness were introduced in art by action painting. John Cages random elements in his avantgarde music, or unscripted and improvisational happenings by Alan Kaprow also blurred the boundaries between
artists and audiences. That is to say, spontaneity gained importance in art (Brger, 2004). By the 1960s, developments
in science and technology, such as different ideas by quantum mechanics, chaos theory, cybernetics theory, game
theory, probability theory and complex systems, gave rise to new focus on the issues of unpredictablity and
uncertainty within the Cartesian world. Grounded on probability, relativity, complexity, these new paradigms
boosted new studies on chaos, non-linear systems and irregularities. Thus, the focus was on open systems, operating
in unbalanced conditions for understanding complex structure of reality. It simultaneously affected different areas,
such as philosophy, science, music, literature, art, as well as architecture and urban studies. After the WWII, the
mainstream tendencies in Modern Architecture changed by means of postmodern approaches. Unlike modernism,
postmodernism welcomed temporary and multiple forms. It multiplied the meanings by blurring the boundaries and
diminishing the rules of modernism that had already ignored possibilities and indeterminacies. Thus, postmodernist
approaches in architecture praised differences and uncertain futures; whereas, a number of avant-garde groups
redefined the ideational and physical world of art and architecture. From the 1950s on, Team X, the Independent
Group, the Smithsons, CoBrA, and the Situationist International paved the ground with their unfamiliar approaches
for indeterminacy in art and architecture. During the 1960s and the 70s, Constant, Yona Friedman, the Japanese
Metabolists, Archigram, Superstudio, and Archizoom regarded the notions of ambiguity, randomness, and
uncertainty as significant concerns of architecture. Bernard Tschumi, Rem Koolhaas, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Peter
Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind, and Frank Gehry are some of the architects, who put emphasis to indeterminacy in their
productions during the 80s. Among them, Cedric Price (1934-2003) was the first one, who accentuated uncertainty
and proposed a new kind of architecture that would adapt itself to the ever-changing, unpredictable, indeterminate
conditions. Underlining the critical design approach of Cedric Price, this paper dwells on indeterminacies of his Fun
Palace project (1961-1972). Although it is an unbuilt project, it has been a source of inspiration for further ideas in
the architectural realm. This study intends to re-read this project through a conceptual framework on different forms
of indeterminacies in architectural design. Although an architect identifies the program, function, form, structure
and meaning of a building during its design, they are open to future transformations caused by indeterminacy,
ambiguity and inconsistency (Tanyeli, 2011). Therefore, this study, more specifically, offers a critique of the
indeterminacies of program, function, representation and future in the Fun Palace.
Fun Palace by Cedric Price
Cedric Price took a critical approach to the mainstream forms of thinking and practices in modern architecture.
Influenced by Buckminster Fuller, he was interested in technology, and its up-to-date forms as cybernetics,
computers and game theory, which could allow new possibilities for the architecture of a social transformation
through modeling and systematizing chance and indeterminacy (Mathews, 2006, p.41). He takes uncertainty and
unpredictability of possible future uses as a design problem, and emphasizes the necessity of indeterminacy,
flexibility, adaptability, transformation and prediction in architectural design. According to Price, architecture
reveals situations for creating ways for interaction, in contrast to the formalist requests of a designer.
Fun Palace (1961-72) is a project designed in London by Cedric Price in collaboration with the avant-garde theater
director Joan Littlewood, as well as an interdisciplinary group of cyberneticians, historians, artists, psychologists,
sociologists, engineers, computer programmers (Mathews, 2005, p.81). Despite its long and detailed design
process, the project was never constructed. "It would be constantly under construction: Users would re-arrange
wall panels to create new spaces from old spaces as the program changed and evolved (Mathews, 2006, p.40).
Dramatic transformations in the political, social, cultural and economic systems, as well as the new approaches in
art and science influenced the architectural ideas of the postwar period, when the Fun Palace was proposed
(Mathews, 2006, p.39). London was a place, where everything was changing and anything seemed possible and
Prices architecture reflected the changing character of British society, ()it also acted as a catalyst to expedite social
transformation; and to assemble learning and leisure environments for amusement, creativity, personal
development and motivating people with new productive events emerged as a major socio-political, economic, and
architectural issue (Mathews, 2006, p.39).
Inspired by the Brechtian philosophy influenced by the left-wing theater movements and mainly by the Russian
Constructivism, Joan Littlewood was dreaming a new form of theater format and space at that time. This new theater
would create new opportunities for learning and experiencing; as the required space for working, playing, wandering
and resting could allow coincidence (Mathews, 2005, p.78). Fun Arcade in London would be the pleasures of the
future and full of the psychological and electronic games that serve knowledge (Littlewood, 1968, p.130). This would
be a theater beyond anythingnot of stages, performers, and audiences but a theater of pure performativity, a space
of cultural bricolage where people could experience the transcendence and transformation of the theater not as
audience but as players (Littlewood, 1968, p.130). She states that it would afford therapy for everyone and the
essence of the place will be informality - nothing obligatory - anything goes. There will be no permanent structures.
Nothing is to last more than ten years, some things not even ten days: no concrete stadia, stained and cracking, no
legacy of noble contemporary architecture, quickly dating. ...With informality goes flexibility. The areas that have
been listed are not segregated enclosures. The whole plan is open, but on many levels. So the greatest pleasure of
traditional parks is preserved - the pleasure of strolling casually, looking at one or other of these areas or (if this is
preferred) settling down to several hours of workplay (Littlewood, 1968, p.130).
When Littlewood met the unconventional-minded architect Price in 1962, he had already been contemplating on
new ways of an improvisational architecture with an interactive and flexible program for responding the changing
needs of individuals. The social concept of the Fun Palace is primarily a peoples workshop or university of the
streets, the self-participatory element of the activities must extend to a degree of control by the users of their
physical environment (Price, 1984, p.56). For Price, the acceptance of uncertainty as a useful element in design
formulation has strengthened the clients acceptance of possibility of change and the value of rethink during the
life of the resultant product. ()The major Fun Palace project, overcame this by a very deep framework which could
manipulate all the required changes from above. Thus a richer, more valuable mix, requiring little long-term
planning, was available to the user (Price, 1984, p.54). Thus, overdetermined conventional practices of
architecture and planning counteract creativity that flourishes through a delight in the unknown (Mathews, 2005,
p.81).
Figure 1. Fun Palace poster, Cedric Price and Joan Littlewood. Source: Price, C.,Littlewood, J., 1968. The Fun Palace.
[pdf] Available at: <http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00125962%28 196821%2912%3A3%3C127%3 ATFP%3E2.0.C
O%3B2-8 > [Accessed 20 September 2016].
The Fun Palace was a non-plan, non-building and non-architecture (Popov, 2013, p.7); and "it's a kit of parts, not a
building" (Lobsinger, 2000, p.121). Similar to Price, in 1964 Banham states that the Fun Palace would not look like
anything on earth as the kit of service towers, lifting gantries and building components create special interior
environments, suitable for different needs of users and activities (Isozaki, 2003, p.29). Neither Price nor Littlewood
called the Fun Palace as a building; instead, they defined it as a facility service as a Giant Space Mobile (Shubert,
2005, p.6). With its infinitely flexible, multi-programmed, twenty-four hour entertainment center, the Fun Palace is
a like a machine that combines communications technologies and industrial building components, and thus adapt
itself to users needs (Lobsinger, 2000, p.120).
It is known that creative strategies for leisure in the Fun Palace grew from the common ideological and artistic
roots of the ideas brought forth by the Situationists International; that is to say, the Situationist strategies of
creatively aimless urban wanderings (drive) and the insertion of random events into ordinary situations
(dtournement) (Mathews, 2006, p.41). With its indeterminate program, function, form, structure and meaning,
the Fun Palace was an environment continually interacting and responding to people (Mathews, 2005, p.75). Its
users, materials, construction techniques were intentionally left uncertain. Hence the Fun Palace was designed for
an unspecified time with an open-ended representation technique.
Indeterminacies of the Fun Palace
Both Cedric Price and his Fun Palace Project have been a noteworthy issue for architecture. Cybernetics and the
technological structure of the Fun Palace (Lobsinger, 2000); sociopolitical influences of the project (Popov, 2013); the
social, political, technological and architectural contexts of the project (Mathews, 2005); the patterns of utopia
(zko, 2009); or playful activities of the Fun Palace (Gl, 2015) are some of the works grounded on the idea that
Prices Fun Palace has been a striking project for architecture. Besides, some concepts like anti-architecture,
hybridization and gaps of uncertainty, change, mobility, temporality, flexibility, non-plan, and non-program
become prominent. Among these concerns and through these concepts, indeterminacy should also be dwelled on
to understand the project comprehensively.
In the Fun Palace, it is possible to focus on different levels of indeterminacies that reveal according to different
aspects of the project, like its technological structure, or its transformative role in social and political contexts.
Through his idealization of architectural space, program, function, technique, material, representation, and time,
Price elaborated the notion of uncertainty and applied this concept as a critical design tool. For Price, architecture
deals with events rather than objects in space (Mathews, 2006, p.42); and should provide gaps of uncertainty, in
which an individual can participate (Price, 2003, p.13). Boundaries should be dissolved or blurred for the sake of gaps
of uncertainty; in-between spaces of concepts reveal spaces of transition, transformation, ambiguity and
ambivalence that indicate dangerous, risky, yet a moment of freedom for individuals. Betweenness creates
transitional space, defined as neither one place nor another, but a third space in-between (Smith, 2001). Thus, in
between conditions of the present is distorted by alternative architectural programs; whereas, alternative
experiences for users are offered by different programs generated through gaps of uncertainty (zko, 2009, p.56).
Programmatic and spatial indeterminacies were two modes of uncertainty in the Fun Palace. Designed as an
interactive, dynamic, adaptable, and flexible framework for indeterminate functions in simultaneous activities, the
Fun Palace was the generator of indeterminate program of temporal circumstances. Due to its programmatic
indeterminacy, the total space could be transformed. This transformation and continual change could result in
indeterminate and unexpected possibilities of different spaces varied in size and shape. Influenced by Calvinos
scenarios and the Situationist Internationals ideas, a list of provocative events were suggested together with the Fun
Palace project (Mathews, 2005, p.88). Entitled as 70 Projects for Fun Palace, this list included a variety of activities,
such as eating, ski practice, drinking, bowling, go-karting, dancing, music concerts, resting, dancing, drama, archery,
swimming, photography, voice patterns, finger painting, mutual admiration, and sex (Mathews, 2005, p.88). These
unspecified and random events offered a range of options for indeterminate leisure. Providing spaces for
simultaneous realization of very different actions, the Fun Palace was an unconventional theater that could evolve
into a new system. It could allow coexistence and crossbreeding of possibilities in its architectural program, which
would inevitably blurred programmatic boundaries. The irrelevant programs, which seemed as though unrelated,
might come together and lead to new spatiality and experiences in Fun Palace.
Figure 2. Diagram of flexible and fixed parts. Source: Stanley, M., 2007. From Agit-Prop to Free Space: The Architecture
of Cedric Price, London: Black Dog Publishing, p.76.
Indeterminacy of function can be understood as the uncertainties in the choices of materials and/or construction
techniques. Fun Palace was an architecture laboratory, where all spatial, material or technical possibilities were
tested and all results were documented via different modes of representation. Besides, possible uses and alternative
interactions were also described. Some mechanical details were also drawn for highlighting alternative possibilities
with the static parts. Representational indeterminacy was another mode of uncertainty emerged through both
conceptual and technical elaboration of the Fun Palace. More than 400 drawings in the Price Archive, including time
programs, movement diagrams, mechanical details and perspectives (Lobsinger, 2000, p.120) indicate that Price
came up with a number of representational products to illustrate his ideas on the Fun Palace. In his first drawings,
he expressed it through a three-dimensional matrix. The correlations of parts were also conveyed through diagrams.
Yet, the subsequent drawings also proved that the Fun Palace with its constantly changing architectural program and
function would never reach an absolute image of total completion (Mathews, 2005). Four-dimensional formation of
coexisting and undefined parts was represented by means of a number of diagrams, sketches and drawings. Thus,
indeterminacy of representation could provide open-ended meanings, potential interpretations, and alternative uses
of space. In that respect, the Fun Palace was constructed throughout these representations that dissolved the
boundaries of conventional techniques of architectural representation. Indeterminacy of representation made it
possible to re-read the Fun Palace in a different way over the years.
Figure 3. Inner perspective of Fun Palace. Source: Stanley, M., 2007. From Agit-Prop to Free Space: The Architecture
of Cedric Price, London: Black Dog Publishing, pp.90-91.
Indeterminacy is related with uncertainty of time and it involves future projections. During the 1950s, the search for
future turned into a search for the moment in architecture. Indeterminacy of time and projections for future define
and re-define the temporal configuration of architectural program and the alternatives of spatiality. According to
Price, time is the 4th dimension of design and the spatial formations change by time (Fernandez, 2012, p.53).
Occurred in the course of time, different events and diverse participants could continuously change the spaces in the
Fun Palace. Like a sentient organism, the Fun Palace could learn, anticipate and adapt behavioral patterns and
organize future activities by modelling them. His design for the Fun Palace would acknowledge the inevitability of
change, and indeterminacy by incorporating uncertainties as integral to a continuously evolving process modeled
after self-regulating organic processes and computer codes (Mathews, 2006, p.40). According to the cybernetician
Gordon Pask, providing interactive systems of human interaction, cybernetics was very essential for architectural
design; whereas, it could also control human behavior (Mathews, 2006, p.43). After a design committee, including
some cyberneticians, investigated all possible activities for the Fun Palace, the focus of the project shifted from an
experimental Brechtian theatre towards the issues of cybernetics, interactivity, and social control (Mathews, 2005,
p.83). It was not a mere theatre or building; yet, it could turn into be a project for social control. Then, the Fun Palace
was divided into six different zones for possible activities of indeterminacy: 1. teaching machines, 2. participation in
new forms of expression, 3. films and lectures, 4. scientific experiences, 5. painting and sculpture, and 6. Music
(Mathews, 2006, p.46). In this respect, Mathews (2005, p.82) relates these peculiarities of the Fun Palace with the
principles of cybernetics and the strategies of game theory; and states that it was one of the earliest examples of the
virtual reality in architecture. This experimental project could be interpreted regarding calculated indeterminacy of
cybernetics, and regular irregularity of chaos theory. As temporal indeterminacy was the backbone of this project,
Price accentuated it in each medium. In one of the draft sketches, entitled as "Do You Suffer From?", Price questioned
the concept of leisure in terms of temporal indeterminacy. Both for questioning the represented project and for
motivating people to think, he also noted down indeterminate statements, such as "toy, belongs to everyone, what
is this, the first giant mobile space." He also predicted the next usages of the building through another sketch entitled
as 5 Years From Now (Figure 4). Indeterminacy of future for the Fun Palace was underlined via the statements,
such as "to visit the Moon" or "twenty minutes to go to Moscow".
Figure 4. Cedric Price and Joan Littlewood, Draft of Promotional Literature, 1963. Source: Stanley, M., 2007. From
Agit-Prop to Free Space: The Architecture of Cedric Price, London: Black Dog Publishing, p.86.
Conclusion
Demonstrated a critical stance against the mainstream forms of thinking and practices in architecture, Cedric Price
influenced many architects with his unconventional ideas and productions during the 1960s. Though Fun Palace is as
an unbuilt project, a number of concepts and issues introduced by Cedric Price have been embraced by his followers.
Centre Pompidou by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano was the first and the well-known successor of the Fun Palace,
which seems as though one of the physical realizations of its possibilities. The concept of anti-architecture was the
origin of Tschumis Parc de la Villette; its focus was events, instead of buildings. Uncertainty and randomness of
program in city life was inspected by Koolhaas in his Delirious New York. Almost 50 years later than Cedric Prices
ideas, definiteness and limitations cannot help to offer adequate solutions to the design problems of today in
architectural and urban realms. On the slippery ground of these challenging realms, future changes and rapid
transformation should be considered as demarcating criteria of design process. Hence, architecture could simply
adapt itself to the ever-changing contexts of today; only if it would dwell more on indeterminant situations of
architectural design.
In this respect, Cedric Price searches for not only mechanical or physical flexibility, but also different meanings of
indeterminacy in different stages of his design process. In his Fun Palace, architectural program, function, form,
structure, as well as the meaning of a building and the definition of architecture, are re-defined. As indeterminacy,
ambiguity and inconsistency constitute the backbone of its design, the architecture revealed through the Fun Palace
project is open to future transformations by uncertain situations. Thus, it can be boldly stated that the Fun Palace
breaks the boundaries of conventional design approaches and it provides alternative spatial experiences through
uncertainty, which was applied as a critical design tool by Price. Coexistence of indeterminacies in this experimental
project provides possibilities of a program in a technology based structure, and also a new way of experiencing
architecture. As a complex system of indeterminacies, the Fun Palace allows different programmatic, functional and
representational and temporal possibilities. Above all, it is still a source of inspiration for the next generations in
terms of the ideas behind it.
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< http://www.anti-po-des-designjournal.org.nz/wpcontent/pdf/papers/vol2/Architectural%20Design%20as%20a%20Laboratory%20for%20Social%20Innovation_Popo
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Square Book. Chichester: Wiley-Academy, pp.53-54.
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Book. Chichester: Wiley-Academy, pp.56-58.
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REMODELLING CONCEPT OF REPETITION IN

CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE
ESMA EROLU, ADNAN AKSU
Esma Erolu, R.A., Gazi University Department of Architecture, Adnan Aksu, Assoc.Prof.Dr., Gazi University
Department of Architecture
Abstract
In the 19th and 20th centuries, developments in thinking and psychoanalysis have caused transformations that would
make themselves evident to architecture as in many other disciplines. In the historical process, thinking and creating
acts in architecture and arts have found expressions with various conceptual narratives. The concept of repetition is
one of those approaches. In this era when epistemology gained importance in architecture, various approaches such
as in intellectual, functional, formal, periodical, etc. perspectives are being developed on the concept of repetition in
architecture. The purpose of this study is to discuss the reflections of intellectual changes regarding the concept of
repetition on architecture and to state new perspectives that different approaches have brought into contemporary
architecture. Etymology and intellectual initiative of the concept of repetition will be tackled and the change in the
concept of repetition at the present day will be studied. Gilles Deleuze has been one of the most important
representatives of this change with his expressions on the concept of repetition, and his expressions will be the basis
for this study. The reason for this is that the Philosopher has approached the concept of repetition together with the
concept of differentiation. According to Deleuze, the truth is a perception that includes repetitions and produces
differences every time. While the classical model of repetition manifests no differences, the Deleuzian model of
repetition is a process that is based on the repetition of differences and a new initiative of the being. In other words,
while the classical model of repetition defines a certain pattern, the Deleuzian model of repetition points out to the
chaos and disorder. In order to express and show the changes in contemporary architecture stated in the light of
Deleuzian philosophy, a historical evaluation of the concept of repetition in architecture will be made.
Ratios developed by Plato doctrine or rational formations brought in by Euclidean geometry not allowing different
formations in early periods have generated a need for new scientific paradigms to be developed. In this way,
formations that are non-linear and their differences repeated break the taboo while classical repetition formation in
the mind brings order and creates an environment allowing the discovery of the geometry of disorder and chaos
which bring true order. The reason for that is that Euclidean geometry considered to be the scientific paradigm of
linear formations is insufficient to explain the scientific and universal basis of those formations. From this point of
view, thanks to the advancement of computer technology, digital architecture being developed and spread have
become a unique opportunity for contemporary architects to practice their creative ideas. With the geometries
suggested by new scientific paradigms, repetition and difference relationship of architectural models has been
rebuilt. By this means, the updated concept of repetition has taken its place among the design approaches brought
by contemporary architecture. By benefiting from this richness which is liberating/individuating the creativity from
every angle, contemporary architects have started to put forward their own building styles and have solidly displayed
the new meaning that the concept of repetition has taken on. In order to break the uniformity caused by clichs in
architecture, it is important to benefit from the rehabilitative power of disorder, chaos, and differences, to be scraped
from the present meaning of the concept of repetition and to reveal the difference within again. This study is an
examination on making visible this attitude affirming the approach of repetition of intellectual transformation,
innovative perspective brought into architecture by the said transformation and, actually, the real meaning of
contemporary architecture.
Introduction
With is concept, philosophy brings forth events. Art erects monuments
with its sensations. Science constructs states of affairs with its functions.
Gilles Deleuze&Felix Guattari
The forms of the interpretation of architecture have been debated throughout historical periods through the filters
of numerous disciplines. During the passage of time, developing technology and the transformation in thinking have
brought architecture to a different point today. Therefore, different approaches in architecture are also defined and
explained with various conceptual definitions. The concept of repetition is one of these concepts and its use in
architecture has changed and developed with various intellectual assessments.
The definition of repetition is described as a rhythmic movement or repetition which is similar, identical and the
same. Repetition and these concepts which are closely associated with it continue to be interpreted with a view
which is diversified by different disciplines. In the modern era philosophers such as Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich
Nietzsche, George Bataille, Jacques Derrida have carried out various intellectual discourse on the concept of
repetition. In addition psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan have manifested approaches about
repetition which are outside the classical domain. Therefore, the concept of repetition has integrated with initiatives
in an intellectual dimension and initiated a unique meaning. However, Gilles Deleuze who is renowned as a
philosopher of the era has updated repetition by gaining a different dimension for this concept.
Renewal in terms of approaches regarding the concept of repetition has opened the door to creative richness in
architecture as is the case with other disciplines. Before using the concept of repetition in the area of architecture in
the modern era it is necessary to summarize its use in the past eras. These eras have been addressed as the preclassical era, the Classical era, the Modern and Twenty-first century era (revival of modern thought). The basis for
the implementation of repetition in architecture in the pre-classical era was functionality, necessity manifested by
building technique and a formal approach which envisaged a given model. Towards the classical era significant
paradigms were developed in science, art and philosophy and various thoughts were manifested on what was ideal.
During this era the criteria of beauty was being closest to the one accepted as ideal. Nature was accepted as ideal
and the imitation of nature was perceived as the way to capture what was ideal. The golden ratio and the ratio
systems developed by Vitruvius have been applied in structures as a way to capture the ideal in architecture. (Roth,
2006) The columns sequenced one after the other in Greek temples, the arch arrangement sequenced in a given
order in Roman theaters have been executed with the classical repetition form generated by this ratio system.
Therefore, it is evident that the purpose of the concept of repetition is functional and that it is endeavoring to impose
a certain formal effort in terms of intellectual meaning rather than a necessity manifested by building technique.
During the classical era this effort manifested itself more distinctively and developed different ratio systems in
buildings and was crowned with the manifestation of perspective. The implementation of concepts which embody
repetition such as symmetry, harmony, balance, order continues to dominate in buildings. The order of repetition is
evident in the structured planes of the naves in a Byzantine church, the spiked arches of Gothic architecture, villas
with the strict symmetric order of the Renaissance, the successive curved planes of the Baroque era as well as the
ornamentation in Islam architecture. Nature has been copied and revived again with the repetition of elements or
wall surfaces and icons which embody symbolic meanings.
During the modern era in which major idea exchanges took place the repetition concept continued to take shape in
line with intellectual movements and technology. The new mobility brought by the industrial revolution pave the
way for mechanization and a form of repetition based on mass production established itself in architectural design.
To enable the success of a rational architecture in mass production it is necessary for the measurement and ratio
systems to act with a common language. The modular idea of Le Corbusier has endeavored to establish a universal
ratio system in modernist architecture to this end. According to Modular predetermined standards must be used in
design instead of the dimensional ratio necessitated by spaces. A visual supervision has been endeavored over venues
designed this way by the repetition of the given ratios in the structure. (Moussavi, 2009 p. 28) It is also possible to
observe stylistic repetition in structural organization built on an urban scale. Therefore in the Modern era repetition
has been manifested as a copy based on mass composition functions brought by the industrial revolution which have
been opened for mass production. Different approaches have also been encountered in the thought transformation
period in the years after the Second World War. In architecture, trends such as deconstructivism, neoavangard have
confronted the concept of repetition in a classic sense. In the years after the war architecture continued to go through
an experimental process. Concrete formations comprised by eclectism established by various styles of the era as
well as differences have been a forerunner for significant developments in architecture. These formations embody
not only the utilitarian approach embraced by modernism, they embody imagination, creativity and fictitiousness as
well. The city and the architectural structures establishing the city have become a show venue for imagination which
has been concretized. (Kumar, 2013 p. 130) Such a change in the thought process, creative imagination and rapid
development of computer technology has made everything possible in present day architecture. The manifestation
of the repetition form based on mass production which is imposed by modernism to the industrial society observed
in architecture can also be observed in the way the assimilation of cultural varieties of different schools of thought
are reflected in post-modern architecture. (Kumar, 2013 p.132) For example Venturi and Brown have established
designs with an eclectic attitude embodying symbolicity and periodical representation forms in their structures. This
is an eclectic form of repetition containing periodical and symbolical structures. Another form of repetition is the
concept of typology encountered in the design proposals delivered by Aldo Rossi and Venturi during this period. They
have defined the typology as a construction which has been repeated to establish the structured forms constituting
the design. However, fundamentally postmodernism has opened the path for the disruption of monotony, the
fragmentation of completeness and irregularities in architecture. (Kumar, 2013 p. 134) Postmodernist architects have
valued formations containing differences rather than classical repetition based on mass production. As indicated by
Kumar In response to the faith of the modern era in progress and reason, the post-modern era is characterized with
faith in irrationality, uncertainly, anarchy and their emotions. (Kumar, 2013, p. 132) This provocative stance in
thoughts has pioneered the transformation and evolvement of the repetition concept from its classical meaning.
Whereas in the 21st century it is necessary to review the forms of approach to the concept of repetition in architecture
with a view on the mentioned transformations. Architecture has taken form in line with the concept of modern in
this century. The concept of contemporary is still being debated and interpreted from all perspectives. There are
many definitions of the concept of contemporary such as "the death of modernism ", "contrary to the times ",
"resistance to the present ", "timeless time ", "current". The way of expressing the concept of repetition in
contemporary architecture has diversified in parallel with the differentiating thought forms. The transformation of
the concept of repetition from the perspective of Deleuze and its subsequent reflections on contemporary
architecture has been examined in detail in this study.
A Study of the Concept of Repetition over the Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze
Difference inhabits repetition Difference lies between two repetitions.
Gilles Deleuze
There are different opinions and acceptances in classical philosophy and modern philosophy about the intellectual
initiatives of the repetition concept. In his book Difference and Repetition (Diffrence et Rptition) (1968) Deleuze
has addressed the concept together with difference. Deleuze's philosophical perspective is on the development of
concepts. He indicates that life manifests various problems for all viable-non-viable entities while philosophy, science
and art are methods which develop these problems. Deleuze asserts that instead of organizing life with closed
structures life should be questioned and given the opportunity to create, transform, to become liberated. In other
words, it is an outlook which proclaims the manifestation of the problems of existence and their transformation
through the concept of query and philosophy rather than accepting the rational reality of existence. The fact is that
uncovering intellectual dynamism depends on these transformations and changes. This is what separates him from
classical philosophers. It reveals the transformation of concepts to us and recognizes a work of art as a formation and
not an imitation. Therefore the concepts of difference and becoming are important in the philosophy of Deleuze.
According to Deleuze; to become is not to attain a form (identification, imitation, Mimesis) but to find the zone of
proximity, indiscernibility or indifferentiation where one can no longer be distinguished from a woman, an animal or
molecule... (Deleuze, 1998 p. 13) Like an animal becoming, female becoming, male becoming Becoming
differentiate beings from one another and thus manifest the authenticity of a being. In any case another fundamental
point in Deleuzes philosophy is the association between concepts. Deleuze has indicated the concept of repetition
as a becoming which contains differences. It will be more appropriate to detail the concept over this discourse of
Deleuze.
Deleuze has studied the concept of difference with a view of the discourse of Bergson and generated a different
perspective. Primarily in order to understand a philosophy or subject its immanence must be accessed. Here Deleuze
refers to the Bergsons concept of intuition. Intuition is a path to reach the internal differences of a subject. At this
point the concept of difference is activated. (Deleuze , 2005 p. 42) Two aspects of difference are mentioned. These
are differences in nature and degrees. Differences in degrees have a dogmatic structure based on causality at a
scientific point. Differences in nature are internal differences of a being formed by trends of a given intensity which
are accessible through intuition. Therefore, philosophy provides science with intuition which it lacks (Deleuze, 2005
p. 47) and according to Deleuze the essential differences which separate beings from each other are differences in
nature. At this point it is beneficial to dwell slightly on the concept of difference.
In his book Difference and Repetition Deleuze embraces being as difference; difference is behind everything but
behind difference is nothing. (Deleuze , 1994 p. 57) At this point Deleuze manifests a new concept in order to
embrace the two dimensions of being which are differenciation/ differentiation. (Deleuze , 1994 p. 209) According
to Deleuze Whereas differentiation determines the virtual content of the Idea as problem, differenciation expresses
the actualisation of this virtual and the constitution of solutions (by local integrations). Differenciation is like the
second part of difference, and in order to designate the integrity or the integrality of the object we require the complex
notion of different/ciation. (Deleuze , 1994 p. 209) In other words the virtual dimension of a being is the convergence
of different multiplicities. However, this needs to be a creative process for what is actual. In other words if a
differenciation is sought in what is actual the actual must be subjected to a creation which establishes the difference.
(Deleuze, 1994 p.209,210) Hence natural differences are virtual.
The manifestation of natural differences in a being is achieved by the division of the multiplicities which bring it
together. Actually the Uniqueness of a being is comprised of the multiplicity of the internal differences which
establish it. Deleuze asserts that these differences which establish a being are a Uniqueness which is formed of
various differences and a cluster of multiplicities manifesting a continuous structure. This can also mean the entirety
of a being. Therefore, Multiplicity, which replaces the one no less than the multiple, is the true substantive,
substance itself. (Deleuze, 1994 p.182) While multiplicity is not an attribute of a being but the being itself multiple
becomes an attribute of the being. Furthermore, the multiplicity of a being is its absolute difference which is not a
secondary difference compared to identity. (Deleuze , 2005 p.41) In terms of natural differences their continuity is
manifested when the being is divided and the concept of repetition is generated.
According to Deleuze the only thing that recurs or returns in a divided subject is difference: two moments in life can
never be the same. Every event which recurs due to the flow of time is necessarily different. The force of life is
different and repetition or the eternal return of difference. Every event in life transforms the whole and keeps
repeating this. Therefore, all that is eternal and which will be eternal will always differ from itself; it will always be
available for formation, never stay the same. For example the repetition of a work of art or work of literature does
not mean the imitation or copying of that work but the repetition of the differences that produced the work.
(Colebrook, 2002 p. 121) This is strange theme of saving repetition that saves us first and foremost from repetitionIt
is no longer a matter of an identity of the same. True repetition addresses something singular unchangeable, and
different without identit. Instead of changing the similar and identifying the same, it authenticates the differentIt
is repetition on the contrary, which produces the only same of that which differs and the only resemblance of the
different. (Deleuze, 1990 p. 287,289) Actually, the repeated differences are new formations.
At this point Deleuze is not talking about repetition in the defined meaning of the word. According to Claire
Colebrook: Deleuze describes two ways of thinking about difference and repetition. On the representational model
we can imagine a repeated word that is basically the same, although there will be minor and unimportant differences.
This gives us the representational model of the concept. A concept enables us to see a class of things as the same,
despite differences. On this model, repeating art or literature would mean copying something as faithfully as possible,
trying to adhere to the model or origin. On a positive or Deleuzean model of difference and repetition, a repeated
word may look the same; but it is not sameness that produces repetition so much as difference. Each repetition of a
word is always a different inauguration of that word, transforming the words history and any context. (Colebrook,
2002 p.119-120)
Deleusian philosophy has removed the concept of repetition outside its known meaning. The essence of repetition
hosts a potential for creation which contains differences. Therefore, repetition gains another meaning with the
repetition of differences and is a creation. Repetition can also be considered an independent becoming with a
Deleusian perspective.
The reflection of the different perspective applied to the concept of repetition on architecture has also changed and
been influenced by this different outlook. In particular, the efforts to change philosophy and thinking in the modern
day have been the most obvious harbingers of change reflected in every walk of life. An overlook look at architecture
indicates that although a different thinking process has not been adopted initially with the order element brought by
the use of classical repetition in architecture, in time architecture has started to be shaped by the affirmation of
irregularity which is hosted within a different concept of repetition. The Deleusian repetition concept has suppressed
the negative discourse it has been burdened with by setting outside the existing meaning and been transformed and
gained on account of Deleuze. The concept of repetition in an architectural work manifested to ensure order is
assessed as a becoming which refers irregularity and a creation in which differences are internalized. Therefore,
according to Deleuze a work of art affirms concepts such as repetition and simulacrum. If a work of art is going to be
a unique creation it should be established with a repetition these which hosts differences.
When the concept of repetition is addressed with an intellectual approach it is explained over Deleusian philosophy.
Yet it is necessary to support the creation manifested by the concept of repetition in architecture by mentioning
other concepts manifested by Deleuze. Hence, explaining the difference in the repetition in architecture approach
is facilitated by explaining the chaos approach of Deleuze and manifesting the association between repetition and
chaos. The chaos theory defines a different intellectual approach form. That is why it is necessary to study the
intellectual approach form generated by the chaos theory before the different approach forms achieved by the
concept of repetition in architecture in terms of contemporary intellect are studied. Although initially chaos refers to
a negative meaning generating irregularity, conflict and uncertainty, it is possible to say that developing thought
processes and scientific approaches have become the main instruments for the world to review the chaos theory.
According to Deleuze, to escape and have protection from chaos we want to have an opinion. The fear generated by
the meaning referred by chaos establishes these opinions. However, Deleuze does not adopt the idea of trying to
protect order against chaos and considers that order will destroy ideas. He avoids rational forms of thought
developed in the name of ensuring order in science, art and philosophy. He views chaos as a refuge for science, art
and philosophy and advocates it as a significant basis for intellectual creation. Deleuze indicates that having intimate
knowledge of chaos is a good method for the establishment of order in the name of philosophy, science and art. He
presents this method as a form of approaching chaos by drawing platforms on each philosophy, science and art and
wants us to plunge directly into chaos. (Deleuze&Guttari, 1994 p.203-208) Chaos is a becoming for Deleuze. The
philosopher affirms chaos as an infinite form of creation which is active, different and divergent and opposes the
inertia of order. At this point the association with repetition is embraced and a chaos is defined with the emphasis
of the repetition of differences.
Differences in design approaches, disorder, discontinuity, complexity, chaos and repetition have now become a part
of the creative process. When an architectural creativity is the subject there are different disciplines in addition to
philosophy which must be referred to to explain the format of the indicated difference, disorder, discontinuity,
confusion or chaos. What kind of mathematics and geometry should be used to calculate uncertainties? At this point
Deleuze combines calculus with philosophy and gains a different dimension to the concept of difference. A new
problem area has been established for calculus which is a mathematical calculation method and philosophy.
(Deleuze, 1994 p. 43) therefore, this method to be used in architecture has externalized the creative problem. The
same situation is valid for fractal geometry which is the geometry of chaos. Deleuze and Guattari adopted fractal
geometry to explain the association between complex and irregular system. Fractal geometry which is the new
mathematical paradigm bringing order to the irregularity of the chaos theory has presented architecture with the
opportunity for free thinking and creativity. (Hayles, 2016 p. 62-84) Fractal geometry has improved the initial bad
connotations of chaos in architecture by consolidating with examples from nature that irregularity has an order and
presenting the structure within a design approach as a repetition phenomenon which changes its structure. It must
also be noted that this has not been resolved merely with an architectural perspective but a multidisciplinary
approach. This way the concept of repetition has gained a more comprehensive perspective in architecture. The
concept of repetition in these design approaches must be viewed as a reflection of a more profound form of thought
rather than ordinary randomness.
With the transition into information society which is a new beginning of Postmodernism and computer use
popularized by technology and the transformation of the way of thinking has opened discussion into different
approaches in architecture. Post-modern society endeavors to manifest a new world order with innovative ways of
thinking in architecture together with other disciplines. The creative potential deliverable by the concept of repetition
as well as new scientific paradigms such as the calculus method and fractal geometry are used by intellectual
invisibility to transform contemporary architecture into visible architecture.
A Contemporary Study of Architecture in the Context of the Concept of Repetition
Through the effect of timethe repetition of the past becomes a repetition in
appearance only; the permanent effectuality of change permits no true
repetition
Harold Rosenberg
In the definition of the forms of approaches to the concept of repetition in architecture in the twenty-first century it
is important to understand the thoughts about contemporary architecture. This century has taken shape in line with
the concept of contemporary. The first indications of contemporariness are evident in the works of Nietzsche.
Nietzsche found his thoughts to be incompatible with the work titled Timeless thoughts and contemporary thinking
and Roland Barthes summarized contemporary as timeless. According to Agemban, a significant representative of
contemporary thinking, a contemporary individual has a singular association with time to which the individual is
connected yet distanced at the same time and that this association is connected to time through a disassociation, an
anachronism. Therefore, individuals who have major conflicts with their eras, who converge with their eras perfectly
at every point are not contemporary because for that very reason they are unable to see it. (Agamben, 2014 p. 4143) Cuauhttemoc Medina who addresses a periodical approach asserts that contemporary is a terminology which
indicates the death of modernity. (Medina, 2014 p.7) An association is observed between the word contemporary
and the concept of time. However, viewing the concept of contemporary as specific to a temporal period is to reduce
the concept of contemporariness. The concept of contemporariness should be seen as a concept beyond time which
points to intellectual motion. In his article Comrades of Time, Borris Groys indicates that being contemporary is being
direct, here and now and in art provided that it is genuine in this sense, for example if it captures and expresses the
present without being impaired by past traditions and strategies which target success in the future then it is truly
contemporary. (Groys, 2014 p.54) He further indicates that contemporariness is comprised of doubt, hesitancy,
uncertainty, indecisiveness. We want to postpone our decisions regarding an action, thinking about it, questioning
and resolving it due to uncertainty. At this point he claims that this is exactly what contemporariness is, an indefinite
cycle of postponement. (Groys, 2014 p.56) With this postponement contemporary art can also be viewed as an art
which re-assesses modern designs. Deleuze, on the other hand, discourses about art works and eternal repetition.
He purports that eternal repetition has a radical form and is incompatible with everything that is natural, ethical
including law, living, changing and developing and that a work of art in which eternal repetition has been applied
creates an excess of time and instigates a severance in the continuity of life. At this point it is called contemporary
art. (Groys, 2014 p.62) With eternal repetition a contemporary work of art is transformed into a timeless creation
and the work manifests its difference during every era and refers itself to eternity. Groys asserts that being
contemporary means being with the times rather than being in the time. Yet he indicates that rather than consuming
art in its given time with no meaning in the present it is necessary to integrate with time and portray true art and
asserts that at this point art based on time is actually based on art. (Groys, 2014 p.63) Therefore, a contemporary
work of art is not a work of art depicting a periodical understanding of art but a present art work within every period.
Contemporary architecture must also be viewed with the present understanding of architecture during every period.
The context of the concept of repetition must be drawn within this framework. Intellectual differences in architecture
promulgate identities which transform into innovative tangible forms. It can be said that in modernist architecture
modern architects revise the architectural attitude which is depicted as international style while in contemporary
architecture contemporary architects revise Global Style. This architectural attitude is comprised of designs which
have adopted differences and variety, are technologically advanced, expand spatially, designs which have refined
from a stylistic angle and have an abstract fluidity which borders on cool objectivity. (Foster, 2013 p.69)
Contemporary architectural works are made visible by the reflection of intellectual differences which they host. In
addition, the global style following the modern has changed the formation of architecture with many concepts such
as use of technology, speed, movement, lightness and initiated an effort to create a difference within the whole.
These perspectives brought to contemporary architecture have become determining elements in the way
contemporary architects approach repetition in their designs.
John Hejduk assesses repetition over typology. He addresses repetition by comparing it with Micheal Hays Rossi.
Or Rossi. His city, we saw, has an afterward but also a before in possibility of being repeated. On this comparision,
Hejduk introduces a more radical dimension of heterogeneity into the construction of repetition. Rossi instructs us
that a type never presents itself only once; in order to be typological, an element must be recognizably the same over
time, must be comparable with earlier and later instances of itself. But there something in Hejduks repetitions that
cannot be wholly absorbed in to the identification of the same. There is something that stalls, arrests, something that
wont go through; it remains, it bothers, it haunts All that is differential to self-sameness. (Hays, 2009 p. 110,111)
Peter Eisenman builds the past and present of architecture, initially approaches repetition with a temporal
understanding and affirms a repetition theme in his designs which differ in form. According to Hays Eisenmans
approach After the end of the end, architectures iterability loops in on itself, redoubling to produce a temporality in
which architectural objects are dislocated and internally splint which Eisenman called architectures presentness
Eisenman understands our most elaborate imaginative efforts to conjure alternatives or to propose the next new as
little more than projections out of our own historical predicament... Le Corbusier s project is reduced to series of voids,
holes in ground, hollowed out so utterly that only an imprint of the material remains, calibrated and reiterated to
become a procedure of inscription and repetition rather than an identifiable figure. (Hays, 2009 p.59-62) Eisenman
generates a repetition theme in the sense demanded by Deleuze.
Let us address the Eisenmans form of approach to repetition with the design of House 11a. The location of the
project area is where Le Corbusiers hospital was drafted in Cannaregio. (Hays, 2009 p.73) The preliminary design of
House 11a project is positioned on the determined areas of the grid system plan. House 11a is a composition
comprised by dividing and emptying a cube into cubes within itself on a smaller scale. According to Hays the project
of House 11a is comprised of the complex repetitions of all the elements of the project containing singularities which
multiply and reflect each other, in fact each of the listed cubes differentiate within itself. (Hays 2011, p.73) The design
has created a repeating structural chaos in various scales on the grid system by differentiation. Therefore, Eisenmans
House 11a project is a suitable design for fractal geometry.
Figure 1.Peter Eisenman, Project of Cannaregio,1978. (Eisenman,1978)

Hays defines Tschumis architecture as having sharp outsets and a repetition generated from adequate conditions
on one hand and as the generation and performance of unique desires and experiences on the other. (Hays, 2011
p.149) Therefore, in the context of a model Tschumis architecture does not define repetition but a form of
architectural creativity which includes changes in an epistemological context, differences, and surprises. In another
sense Tschumi who is defined as a deconstructive architect does not only deconstruct architectural design but
architectural discourse as well. Tschumi has also subjected the concept of repetition in architecture to deconstruction
and centralized the concept of difference. It is possible to examine Tschumis approach to repetition in the Parc de
la Vilette project. La Villette project has been established by design different types of structures on a grid system on
an urban scale. The repetition of differentiating red cubes established on a grid system are observed. The red cubes
are fragmented within themselves, unite, vary and become chaotic. by a hypothetically infinite combinatorial logic
of frames, walls and floors, ramps stairs, bridges, and balconies. (Hays, 2009 p.162) Structures which undertake
different functions are transformed throughout the system. The red cubes designed in different scales evoke an
impact of chaos within the city organization.
Figure 2.Bernard Tschumi, Parc dela Vilette, Paris. (Tschumi, 1998)

In his book The Function of Form Farshid Moussavi indicates that the concept of repetition should be assessed
differently from its current meaning. Architects can embed the environment with difference in two ways: by
producing different kinds of ideas for built forms and by exploring different ways of actualizing ideas as built forms.
Current architectural investigations are mostly focused on internal geometrical variations of forms, rarely focused on
how the ideas they embed differ from other ideas or on how the built forms they produce differ from other built
forms. Yet two forms that actualize an idea differently but involve no internal variation can embed the environment
with a greater degree of difference, by affecting us in very different ways, than two forms that are internally
differentiated but actualize an idea in same way, thus transmitting identical affects. (Moussavi, 2009 p.32) When
approaches which differ in thought and impacts are transferred into tangible forms a new architectural form is
manifested. The concept of repetition is updated in architectural debates.
In his article titled Repetition-Compulsion: World-Historical Rhythms in Architecture (Wolfe, 2014 p.9-11) Ross Wolfe
has addressed the way Hadid and his partner Patrick Schumacher handled the concept of repetition in their approach
to design. Ross Wolfe explains the difference embodied by the concept of repetition by taking Schumachers
discourse into consideration. Schumacher manifests the parametric design method which established the difference
of the concept of repetition and asserts the following: Parametricism looks for continuous programmatic variations
rather than the repetition of strict function types, instead of juxtaposing discrete functional domains this style prefers
to offer all the in-between iterations that might be conceived between two function types.(Schumacher, 2011 p.259)
The master theoretician of Parametricism and Hadids partner Schumacher focuses on learning the philosophy of
Deleuze and concentrates on a repetition which differs this way. He explains it as follows: Instead of working with
rigid forms, set up all architectural elements as parametrically malleable; instead of repeating elements, set up
systems that continuously differentiate its elements. (Schumacher, 2011 p.297) Both Hadid and Schumacher have
been observed to repeat some expressionists in modern architecture. They prefer organic continuity and geometric
movement to rigid verticalities. (Schumacher, 2011 p.118- 407)
With the integration of different forms of thinking, computer technology and capitalism the architectural forms
demanded by the era are starting to take shape. The free use of technology and the search for popularity have
influenced many contemporary architects. (Foster, 2013 p. 24-25) Another noteworthy point is the enhanced
importance of digital design works in time with the development of computer technology. Therefore, the inadequacy
of Euclidean geometry in design and the need for other scientifically accepted means has lead to the establishment
of new scientific paradigms. The explicandum of the new paradigms which have emerged for new geometric
formations has facilitated digital opportunities. This has demolished a significant taboo in architecture and paved the
way to creative thinking. Architects have realized that in an intellectual meaning and the domain of applicability
contemporary architecture has the potential to generate its own time excess. New geometric designs developed
outside Euclidean geometry have been facilitated further with the opportunities presented by the digital setup.
Contemporary architects have established digital based design methods which have been transformed into
structures which manifest variety. Design methods such as parametric design, isomorphic design, metamorphic
design have been developed and architects have revealed forms which prioritize differences instead of repeating a
certain form as a model. In other words digital architecture has created an environment which is ready to experience
and discover contemporary architecture which expresses the repetition of differences. Contemporary architects have
established design approaches for architecture without a periodical style for the current period and oriented towards
structural designs which manifest their differences everywhere. Frank Gehry has used neo-Baroque folds to attract
attention to his buildings in mainly depressing environments while Koolhaas has used cubist like folds and Zaha Hadid
has applied futuristic vectors. (Foster, 2013, p. 70) Instead of the repetition of monotonous principles dictated by
modern architecture, structures repeating differences including design differences which are called the signatures of
contemporary architects have started to be seen everywhere in architecture. Therefore, on account of the
opportunities of digital architecture, concepts have been revised from the beginning.
Pilot Analysis of Repetition in Contemporary Architecture over Greg Lynn
To be con-temporary does not necessarily mean to be present,
to be here-and-now; it means to be with time rather than in
time.
Boris Groys
Lynn is among the contemporary architects who took advantage of the opportunities presented by digital
architecture and updated the concept of repetition in architecture. Lynn ignored the anxiety for ideal form during
and after the classical period and starting off with the thought that anxiety over designing the ideal form limited
creation and searched for a different understanding of architecture. Lynns approach to design cannot be defined
with ideal forms such as a sphere, cylinder, and cubes. (Rappolt, 2008 p. 144) Lynns approach to design was
influenced by William Bateson, a biologist who lived in the 19 th century. His starting point consisted of concepts
discovered by Bateson such as loss of generic, genetic and symmetry. Instead of studying the general rules in order
to discover rules and laws Bateson studied gene mutations which cause all freakiness, weirdness and ugliness, in
other words instead of studying an ideal species in nature he studied the differences caused by mutated genes.
Baterson explained gene mutations with the concept of the loss of symmetry. According to Lynn this means that we
return to symmetry whenever a loss of information incurs within the system. Therefore Lynn asserted that symmetry
was not a sign of order and organization, on the contrary it was an indicator of a lack of information. Hence Lynn
included the loss of symmetry into architecture and started to study it. Loss of symmetry had interrupted the
repetition of the ideal form and thus opened the door to its differentiation. Lynn mulled over how more complex
designs could be expressed in architecture instead of repeating ideal forms and used the calculus method in the
mathematics of non-linear geometry to establish a scientific basis. (Rappolt , 2008 p. 172-174) At this point the
association of Deleuze and Greg Lynn can easily be explained with the understanding which adopts the repetition of
differences and the calculus method which is frequently mentioned also by Deleuze. Lynn has built his different
approaches to architectural design on this and realized his designs by using digital software as an instrument.
Due to the computer and digital opportunities, forms which liberate creativity can be designed for architecture. These
designed forms can be converted, easily operated, deformed, processed, combined and mobilized. (Rappolt , 2008
p. 154) This way by virtue of digital technology the manifestation of the desired forms is facilitated further. Forms or
surfaces which are repeated and differentiated through calculus enable designing. Therefore the symmetry of the
form or surface is interrupted and differentiation becomes prominent. Lynns approach to design can be studied
through this perspective.
Initially lets address Korean Church. In building the church the shells built on the faade have converged and
repeated themselves. This repetition procedure has been carried out with the repetition of components in different
scales instead of the repetition of a fixed module. Each element in this building has a unique distance, dimension and
angle. According to Lynn there is only one way this can be designed a built and that is with the calculus method. The
altered repetition of the components on the building has created a rather dynamic impact on the structure. As we
progress around the building the same form is observed to open and close rather dynamically. The reason for this is
that the load bearing system also has a mobile structure. The same space which appears to be a kind of closed volume
transforms into an open panorama when viewed from the other side. There is a feeling as if there was a visual
movement in the gaps in the building. This is because each element moves within a motif and thus the eye of the
viewer is directed to the altar by the motif. This approach in church design presents a different understanding in
architecture without concern for ideal form. (Rappolt , 2008 p. 29-87)
Figure 3.Greg Lynn, Korean Presbyterian of NY, 1999, New York. (Lynn, 1999)
Another structure is the stone block in Amsterdam. The block has been fragmented into fifty independent sections
and these parts have been transformed. People are moved with escalators and elevators which circulate along the
external surface of the building and which support each other with 122 carrying beams. When escalators are used to
transport people all these beams undertake diagonal loads. A software which links the network of all components
with information stacks to each other is being developed. Thus when an element is changed, this change is not only
distributed to every single beam, this information is distributed to all facades of the building. Hence any additions to
any component of the building comprise a single calculation. Designing a link between one steel structures with
another steel structures requires tens of millions of calculations. Different elements acquired with different
calculations are repeated on the faade. The result is the synthesized harmony of these components in accord with
each other. (Rappolt , 2008 p. 100)
Figure 4.Greg Lynn, Transformation of Leiburg Housing Block, 2007, Amsterdam. (Lynn, 2007)
Ista Conference Hall has been designed as an annex to a historical building. It has been established with the
convergence of bubble models of different dimensions in a mass conglomeration. The building generates a chaos by
positioning curves surfaces on top of one another. The surfaces of each mass differentiate and converge. Different
mathematical calculations and the application of the calculus method are also evident on the surfaces of this building.
The differentiated repetitions on the building create a rather dynamic impact on the structure. Furthermore, the
repetition created by jointing also presents the impact of a fractal formation. With this fractal impact the building
hosts a dynamism which can extend forever. (Rappolt , 2008 p. 63)
Figure 5.Greg Lynn, Ista Lecture Hall Competition, 2009, Vienna. (Lynn, 2009)
Omv H2 House project has been designed by conglomerating masses lined in sequence which are repeated in
differentiating scales. The mass joints of the building have been made by repetition with certain gaps as is the case
in the Korean Church. The positioning of these masses has added mobility to the building with the shells in
differentiating scales. A differentiating repetition setup including the mass conglomeration and surface formations
has been achieved here also. The design shell has been designed by leaving different gaps on the side and top
surfaces. Thus light enters from different points. (Rappolt , 2008 p. 73) Here also there is a fractal formation which
creates the impact of infinity. Due to the formations hosting differences the design generates a dynamic impact as
is the case with Lynns other buildings.
Figure 6.Greg Lynn, Omv H2 House,1996, Vienna. (Lynn,1996)

Conclusion
We need to repeat difference and thinking; the minute we feel we have
grasped what thinking and difference are then we have lost the very power of
difference. Repetition is not the reoccurrence of the same old thing over and over
again; to repeat something is to begin again, to renew, to question, and to refuse
remaining the same.
Claire Colebrook
The concept of repetition which is the subject of most disciplines has been debated by many philosophers during the
historical process. In architecture the concept of repetition has been discussed periodically within different
understandings. It is evident that much intellectual and visual discourse has been established regarding the concept
of repetition for facilitation in terms of functionality, monotony in the structure or vice versa in terms of dynamicity,
the repetition of difference, eternity as an indication of order during periods. However, Deleuze differs from the
others in the discourse he brings to the association of repetition with difference. The basic point in the philosophy of
Deleuze which is the transformation of concepts has updated the concept of repetition and added different insights
outside the usual to this concept. The fundamental idea purported with repetition is the repetition of inherent
differences forming a being. According to the Deleuzian perspective the understanding of repetition which assumes
a model as a pioneer is a copy, imitation or external similarity indicating representation. This is the way Deleuze
separates the concept of repetition. The repetition of differences is a truly desired repetition. This repetition makes
the existential unique and real. A repetition in the other sense is a false repetition and is no more than a copy. The
concept of repetition becomes a creation which hosts the repetition of differences. At this point repetition is no
longer an indication of order but an indication of complexity and chaos. Chaos creates problem areas where
differences are repeated. In architecture these intellectual problem areas release creative potential. These problem
areas with a virtual reality are transformed into a virtual reality by architecture. A new architectural approach is
manifested when the ideal form construction in architecture is overturned with an understanding of repetition that
contains differences. Ideal forms have been replaced with forms which are convertible, different, complex and
deformable. Deleuze has generated problem areas which manifest the concept of difference within mathematics
such as calculus and fractal geometry to this design setup which pits philosophy against mathematics. Accordingly, it
would not be wrong to explain contemporary architecture with differences which are current in every period. The
conglomeration of creative thinking which assimilates differences and digital technology in contemporary
architecture has presented a unique opportunity for most architects. Contemporary architects have interpreted
repetition differently and displayed it in their buildings. Lynn is one of the contemporary architects who make the
best use of the opportunities presented by digital technology. Acting on the idea that the ideal design setup of the
classical period restricted creativity Lynn has pursued an understanding of architecture which adopts differences.
Lynn has repeated his designs with a repetition theme which adopts differences. He has used the calculus method
and established his buildings by converging masses or modules with different scale surfaces. The repetition of these
different designs has given Lynns designs a dynamic and eternal effect.
In conclusion Deleuze has opened a new perspective in architecture with a renewed interpretation of repetition. He
has transformed the customary meaning of repetition and presented it for use with a rich content including
differences. Contemporary architecture has made concrete use of this rich content. Deleuze has gained a new
dimension for contemporary architecture with the perspective brought by the concept of repetition.
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COLOUR AS JOIE DE VIVRE: BRUNO TAUT AND THE

ARTISTIC REASONS OF AN ARCHITECTURAL CHOICE
PAOLA ARDIZZOLA
Antalya International University
Abstract
During the crucial years of Modernisms achievements, Bruno Taut (1880-1938), like many coeval architects, is
working incessantly to a new architectural abacus which can best express not only the concept of modernity, but
could also satisfy the new social needs and demands, especially of the working class whose significant increase
becomes a determinant factor for the urban development of the city of Berlin as Grossstadt.
Taut does a choosing of a battlefield in regard the use of colour, which he considers as a real 'building material' to
defining the new building typology of the Gartenstadt first and the Siedlung afterwards. Also the new urban
morphology, which is carefully conceived by the architect of Knigsberg for each project, helps to define that
unmistakable Neues Bauen that distinguishes his design methodology.
In Taut's architectural choices related to the colour, there is yet an important artistic premise which deserves to be
analysed, in light of the chromatic applications that he uses on urban scale. This paper aims to examine how the lucid
and never random choice of the colours, which he performs in relation to a precise spatial evaluation, comes from
an uncommon artistic sensibility of the architect himself. The expressionist artistic component which is spotted in
the works of the painter Franz Marc, the dreaming one in the works of Marc Chagall, the architects activity as
draftsman during his juvenile years, the ancient tradition of painting the city typical of North-East Prussian Germany
are the main sources of inspiration that justify the use of colour in architecture as joie de vivre (joy of life), as Taut
himself loves to define the use of colour in architecture. A lesson he learned intimately, to have the use of it then in
an innovative manner, despite the homogenisation to the white that the ruling architectural Rationalism at the time
dictated. In this choice, it is significant to ascertain how Taut is an absolute outsider in the overview of the German
Modernism.
Keywords: colour as building material, Modernism, Berlin, Expressionism
In the words of Hermann Muthesius, the acute observer of the creative English experience and the co-founder in
1907 of the Deutscher Werkbund, innovations occur in a limited sphere and spread slowly. Such statement, though
real, has never been a hindrance for Bruno Taut (1880-1938), who puts in experimenting with new forms and colours
the hopes for the realization of his innovative concept of housing.
As many architects of his time, among them Erich Mendelsohn, Walther Gropius and Erwin Gutkind, he uses a new
architectural abacus not only in relation to the past but also to the closest present, without fearing the inevitable
ideological clashes that it involves. In the architectural choices of Taut related to the colour, yet there is an important
artistic premise that deserves to be analysed.
When a product of art is almost perfect, for the neophyte it is difficult to decompose it into several factors that make
it up, just because our perception grasps the harmony that appears simple, natural. The genius is made of harmony
of complex things, which leads the user to an immediate and instinctive approach. Wanting to decompose Tauts
architecture, the primary element that emerges above all and that makes thinking deeply, it is the use of colour.
Since the first years of his activity in Berlin, Taut dedicates himself to the study and the assertion of the use of colour
as the most important element, after the form, for the architectural composition. He carries out a proper historical
overview to find the roots of the use of colour that was used in abundance in the ancient German cities to paint not
only private homes, but also public buildings. Analysing the coeval society, he realizes that only the farmer has kept
in his home the taste for colour, or rather the 'joy of colours' while the rest of the city looks miserably assimilated to
grey. Thus, when in 1914 he is to build the Garden City of Magdeburg, the small houses become like brush strokes in
harmony with the colours of the gardens and orchards. Taut does not admire the folk tradition of colouring the
buildings just for deducing an artistic inspiration that gratifies his compositional skills, but rather is inspired by the
tradition that can be ascribed to the so-called 'colourmen'. The great Italian art historian Giulio Carlo Argan (1996)
defines the colourmen the only ones able to make of colours use a true hymn to joy:
Colours are not added adjectives to nouns, but means needed by men to express themselves in the reality of the world.
The real creators of colour are the colourmen (...). The colourmen produce the colours and pour them again liberally
in the world, which in their hands is like a forest in the hands of gardeners. For them, truly, the colours are not
previously connected to things, rather they precede them. The colourmen are those who perform the miracle to
physically manufacture the colour, materializing mental categories to give order, reason and beauty to the
environment of our life. (p. 36)
However it is not only through the historical review that the architect affirms the importance of the use of colour,
but also by symbolic values as well as physical: Taut is strongly influenced by the statements of the poet Paul
Scheerbart, who asserts that whoever escapes the colour can see nothing of the universe; thus for Taut the architect
is not only the artist of space, but has to be painter of light. Ewald Paul (1922), at that time director of the study
centre of Munich for the effects of light and colour, on Frhlicht, the magazine directed by Taut himself, says: 'light
and colour are physical and energy phenomena; the light, the source of colour, is force, matter, space' (p. 124). The
colour should not be designed and lived only in interiors but also and mainly externally: Taut claims that in the
freezing climate of the German cities the cold light should be reflected, amplified both in the green summer landscape
and in the white one of winter snow. The colour characterizes spatially the squares and the houses as well, marks
the individuality in the unity of the built and highlights the form, enhancing it. The colour is not as expensive as the
decorations and has the ability to protect the plaster.
The colour cannot be excluded from the building process because it has the great ability to optically decrease or
increase the distance between two buildings, thus creating a more dilated or narrower spatial dimension depending
on the needs; the true form is given by the colour whose distinctive feature is the great expressive power that can
make immediately receivable those sentimental features essential for Taut: liberation, union and above all joy of life.
They reveal the romantic essence of the architect and, together with his purest rationalism, provide a key to reading
this architecture so amazing just because the rational component and the romantic one play constantly chasing each
other. It is a dialectic spiral that is intended to express the basic concepts that guide the architect in dealing with the
social architecture and distinguish the new houses from the old, grey bourgeois city.
The compelling logic of Taut, who is accompanied by the sentiment, but is not overwhelmed by sentimentalism,
warns against excessive and disproportionate use of colour: it is true that it is part of the means of architecture such
as stone, wood and concrete, but its use must arise as logical consequence of the whole concept and not be arbitrary
outpouring of an 'uncontrolled brush'. Against the excesses of the use of colour Taut (1926) makes a statement that
wipes out all doubt:
To those who do not hear the music, but play gladly, one has to deprive of the musical instrument. The same is true
for the thousand tormentors brush that in today's colour fashion offend the eye just as the musician the ear. (p. 313)
The aptitude for the chromatic taste has to be found in Tauts training, in constant search of new elements in order
to 'break the straitjacket of the material', as he states. His travels to Gdansk and Lithuania had great influence on it.
In Gdansk the colours of the gothic cathedral, which presents the plaster pigmented of red and black and decorations
in green enamel, struck and fascinated him. Taut himself writes a travel report on his avant-garde magazine Frhlicht;
in the article Colours in outer space he underlines the chromatic finishes made by Gothic architects called 'the
greatest colourmen of all time' (p. 101). In Lithuania (Junghanns, 1978, p.47) the use of deep blue in the polychrome
popular architecture shocked him as an authentic revelation, so capable to give joy to the inhabitants and to urge
that emotional and spiritual dimension that he so much researches. In addition, the stories written by his friend
Scheerbart have affected him a lot; they describe shiny and polychrome buildings, symbols of purity and movement.
Taut was fascinated by the expressionist painting. Junghanns, in his monograph about the German architect,
demonstrates Tauts attention to the paintings of Franz Marc (1880 - 1916), the great expressionist painter
protagonist with Wassily Kandinsky in the wonderful Blaue Reiter season. Marc (1990) affirms the independent
expressive force of the colour which is tirelessly searched in his works:
I try to strengthen my ability to perceive the organic rhythm of all things, I try to immerse myself pantheistically in the
trembling and in the flow of the blood of nature, in trees, in animals, in air, I try to make a painting with new elements
and colours that make a mockery of our old painting art. (p. 125)
Importantly Taut has turned his attention not to the abstract or cubist painting, but precisely to the expressionist
one because only this latter is able to fully express the inner world of feelings related to the surrounding reality,
deforming up to the exasperation the data of the reality even through strong, almost violent colours. According to
this perspective, Marc is devoted to the painting of animals because each of them is the embodiment of the cosmic
rhythm, as for Taut every dwelling is.
The architect of Knigsberg too, in his early years at the beginning of the twentieth century, had turned his attention
to nature, drawing countless landscape compositions, to find the 'absolute value' of things. This cannot be
interpreted as an escape from society, but rather as a search for ideals to be placed as a base for a new humanity.
According to Tauts opinion indeed, the intimate wealth of a man is confronted dialectically with the nature as first
source of experience of reality. Aforementioned experience is a source of deep and living knowledge for the approach
to the new way of building which the modernist architect tirelessly pursues, as opposed to the empty old-fashioned
mechanisms of bourgeois life, which of course had an immediate repercussion on the obsolete nineteenth-century
building typology.
With Marc he shares the idea of the return to nature as a return to absolute simplicity, to the 'intimate truth of
things': the assumption is that any form is taken from nature, the primary element from which the reality comes.
Therefore, in order that man has a profound and truthful perception of what surrounds him, it is necessary to
approach the nature letting flow the feelings it brings, to acquire a consciousness able to channel them in the only
thing that is not completely natural, but rather its overcoming and its interpretation, or the art. The next step in this
awareness is the use of colour, which balances the organic rhythm of form and becomes a pure means of expression.
Marc (1990), by adhering strictly to the expressionist thought, in a first phase seeks to dominate the form but soon
after, with the same intensity, will decide the colour rules:
Blue is the male principle, austere and spiritual. Yellow is the female principle, gentle, cheerful and sensual. Red is
matter, brutal and heavy, the colour that the other two should oppose to for winning it! (...) If you mix red and yellow
to form the orange, yellow become passive and feminine in a fury, with a sensual force that makes again essential
cold and spiritual blue, man; and in fact the blue arises automatically and immediately next to orange, the two colours
love each other. The blue and the orange, a merry arrangement. (P. 128)
The coloristic vision of Marc is transposed by Taut in an urban dimension, that dimension perfectly described by the
sociologist Georg Simmel, who, at the turn between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, outlines the new face
of the metropolis in the era of technical rigidity, characterized by a 'rapid and uninterrupted change of external and
internal stimuli' that follows up to determine in the reason of man a new conception of reality, based on the transient,
the 'fascination of the moment' (Frisby, 1992). To seize this fragmentary and contradictory reality Simmel suggests
to focusing on forms of expression that capture the transient nature of the inner experiences. From this perspective
it can be argued that Taut manages to stop the incessant kinematic system of the metropolis Berlin, in continuous
and swirling growth, through the combination of strong and powerful colours. They capture the attention of the
walker and force him to make an evaluation that is unlikely to be forgotten because it is capable of stimulating in the
human the individual consciousness that the architect hopes for, to fight the formal homogenisation which leads to
the terrible stillness of the bourgeois city.
The sincere and passionate spirit with which Taut performs the indispensable attempt to give the man, even the
simplest, the consciousness of the self within a community where the joy of being an individual in the multitude is
expressed mainly by a own colourful house, it leads to find a common trait to another important artist, the Belarus
painter Marc Chagall (1887-1985). In his works he always wanted to bring out the concept of brotherhood, of
harmony; through colour, often the same Tauts colours, he accentuates the figurative and metaphorical meaning of
his paintings, which becomes expressions of good, of community and brotherhood. These are essential values that
the German architect had already expressed in 1920 through his book Die Auflsung der Stdte, oder: die Erde, eine
gute Wohnung (The dissolution of the city or the earth a good home), and that in his architectural production he will
never forget.
So they do not seem to be shared the statements of the majority of the classical historiography which hardly finds
continuity between the expressionist and rationalist component of Taut: for example, Siegfried Giedion (1956)
defines the utopian phase of German architect 'the symbol of extremely noble ideas, but non-existent' while rightly
Junghanns (1978) identifies in Tauts faith toward the 'cosmic communism' the central idea of a lifetime oeuvre.
In Tauts work it is possible to identify in the colour the trait d'union that combines the visionary issue and the
effective implementation, detectable since the early watercolours of the 10s, going through the experience of the
Siedlungen (social dwellings) up to the latest building productions in Japan and Turkey. In all his work, it is always
clearly readable the meaning of the colour, the essence of which is to give heart to the dream of a new community
as a cell of a more harmonious, sympathetic, solar, human future. The colour is the only true expressionist element
that gives lightness but also intensity, and above all joy of life. It is the link that connects the utopian ideas of his
imaginary vision of the city to the realization of the Siedlungen which are the reality as realized imaginary.
Thus, also in Chagalls paintings, the poetic sense lives in the interpenetration of reality and imaginary expressed by
these guide colours: cobalt blue, yellow ochre, lime green, crimson red and black. In the imaginary world represented
by Chagall the characters fluctuate in colourful atmosphere where land and objects represent the reality, while
fantastic characters such as men with animal heads or players suspended in the air are in contrast to the stability of
things, but thanks the strength of colour they are they masters of reality. The serious and the playful blend for
expressing the two faces of the things existence: reality and imaginary. Taut too, in order to exorcise the architectural
seriousness of the time, is guided by a childlike vision, letting prevail the desire to play with shapes and colours: the
houses of the Berlin-Falkenberg (1914) garden-city seem to be made as children buildings; the inner walls of the glass
house in Cologne (1914) seem interiors of a 'house of wonders while concerned the forms it is sufficient to recall the
Hufeisen Siedlung (1925-30) in Berlin Britz, whose characteristic is the huge horseshoe plan design, which evokes
that something playful, further confirmed by the use of colour.
For the Russian painter, the colour is the visual expression of the inner world, with its emotions, memories, nostalgia,
dreams; the mysterious vibration of the colour contributes to give a sense of great spiritual strength and deep
intensity to the subject, which turns into a violent expressive power. Colour is not used as goal in itself but is
subjugated to the dreamlike vision of reality, which is the inner man's response to the objective reality. Chagall's
paintings are masterpieces in which the acute sensitivity and fervid imagination are transformed into a kaleidoscope
of images, as in a fairy tale where everything is possible and where the chromatic space wrapped in magical light is
everything and metaphor of everything. As it was for Taut during his trip to those lands, he too was influenced from
the houses of his homeland and in 1917 he painted The blue house, the same blue that is found in the plaster of
coloured Berlin Siedlungen. In this painting the magical and symbolic significance is emphasized by the representation
of an extremely essential reality, of an archaic simplicity. The simplicity evokes the substance and the eternal soul of
the house itself, which appears so real and magical at the same time. Chagall loved bragging to revolutionize not the
physical form of reality, but the psychic one. Similarly, for Taut the ability to revolutionize the dwelling starts not by
a formal upheaval, rather mentally so that every man has the cognition of himself to live in a physical space no more
hostile, because at last wanted and created on the base of necessities. A house built on this premises will not be, for
the working class, just the place where to eat and sleep, but a home that goes far beyond the physical space, in which
it will be possible to play, study, get isolated ... in any case to interact with it, giving free reins to imagination lived in
the reality.
With his architecture, Taut pursues a new life-style which can be defined 'common good' that gives dignity to the
working class. That good which, in his early studies, he found in the text On the social contract of the French novelist
J.J. Rousseau, who asserted (Sini, 1979):
Finding a form of association which defends and protects, with all the common force, the person and goods of each
associate, and because of which everyone in being united to all therefore obeys only to himself and remains as free
as before. (p. 622)
With this statement, Rousseau criticizes the setting of the bourgeois society: the renewal of the society, the political
equality and freedom are not sufficient, but it is also necessary the free development of the personality of the
individual. It requires a 'social treaty', as he defines it; nobody has to renounce to personal freedom to be alienated
in the hands of absolute power, but everyone is committed to all other members of the community where everyone
does not obey all the others as individuals, but in which everybody renounces to own selfishness to regain the
freedom and the protection of the rights within the social totality. The French writer-philosopher states that as long
as the power remains on one side and the culture and wisdom alone on the other, the intellectuals will hardly think
great things and peoples will continue to be vile, corrupt and miserable. Such statements are forerunners to the
statute of workers' cooperatives for whom Taut designs the Siedlungen. According to the German architect, everyone
is entitled to have a dwelling on a human scale and Taut breaks the old rules of building to meet the needs of the
people, whose conscience he wants to awaken: he will never disdain the primary and elementary needs of his
customers, indeed they will be among the key principles of his Neues Bauen.
The Tauts obstinacy in using colour is also proved from the exemption he had in Stuttgart Weissenhofsiedlung (192527) by Mies van der Rohe: that is not to respect the strict rule that indicated the white as the type-colour of the
external plaster, preferring to it the dark red which - in its simple construction - fully expresses the architectural
potential of colour. This new and refined use of colour is intimately close to the inhabitants of Tauts houses; he
comes to designing the Siedlungen only, as claimed by Paolo Portoghesi (1980):
after having really put himself in their shoes and have them affectionately imagined in the middle of his streets, of
those spaces in human-scale which he considered outdoor stays, showing that he understood the structural lesson of
pre-industrial city and to know how to project it on the modern city without surrendering to the machines religion.
(p. 22)
His attention to the detail comes to decide even upon the colour of the pipes for heating: the colour exorcises and
makes a mockery of the strict planning rules, which still must be respected. The colour for Taut is the 'deus ex
machina that solves the seriousness with a brilliant lightness. Here is the new norm, freely chosen, which Taut
himself indicates, as noted by his son Heinrich: 'Playing with fire! Hurray for Mozart!!! ... Dancing and building; one
thing is serious only if pronouncing it becomes playful'. (p. 26)
As for Mozart, absolute genius of music, what brings the most intense joy is the silent applause in the exciting
awareness to have disclosed to the hearts of listeners the deep meaning of life, for Taut it is the positive outcome of
his colourful Siedlungen just as he had dreamed in his juvenile years of utopia.
References
Argan, G. C., 1996. Introduction to the Italian edition of Goethes essay La teoria dei colori (Theory of Colours), in De
Angelis, A., Progettare il colore. Modo-Rivista internazionale di cultura del progetto, 1996/XII
Frisby, D., 1985. Fragments of Modernity. Theories of modernity in the work of Simmel, Kracauer and Benjamin.
Cambridge: Polity Press. It. (1992) Frammenti di Modernita. Simmel, Kracauer, Benjamin. Bologna: Il Mulino
Marc, F., 1990. in Dube, W.D., Espressionismo, Milan: Rusconi
Paul, E., 1922. Lazione del colore sul sitema nervoso, in Taut, B., 1922. Frhlicht. Berlin: Ullstein. It. ed. 1974.
Frhlicht, gli anni dellavanguardia dellarchitettura in Germania 1920/22. Milan: Mazzotta
Portoghesi, P., 1980, in Pitz, H., Brenne, W., Die Bauwerke und Kunstdenkmler von Berlin. Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag
Sini, C., 1979. J.J.Rousseau, Sul contratto sociale, in I filosofi e le opere. Milan: Principato
Taut, B., 1922. Frhlicht. Berlin: Ullstein. It. ed. 1974. Colori nello spazio esterno (Colours in outer space), in Frhlicht,
gli anni dellavanguardia dellarchitettura in Germania 1920/22. Milan: Mazzotta
Taut, B., 1926. Farbenunfug (Excesses of colours), in Soziale Bauwirtschaft, 1926. Quoted in Salotti, G.D., ed., 1990,
Bruno Taut la figura e lopera, Milan: Franco Angeli
Taut, H., 1990. Lartista Bruno Taut, mio padre e mio amico, in Salotti, G.D., ed., 1990, Bruno Taut la figura e lopera,
Milan: Franco Angeli
Junghanns, K., 1978. Bruno Taut 1880-1938, Milan: Franco Angeli
Fig. 1: Franz Marc, Blue Horses, 1913.
Fig. 2: March Chagall, The blue house, 1917.
Fig. 3: Bruno Taut, Siedlung Hufeisen (1925-30), Berlin Britz.

Photo by author
Fig. 4: Bruno Taut, Siedlung Hufeisen (1925-30), Berlin Britz.
Photo by author
Fig. 5: Bruno Taut, Siedlung Onkels Tom Htte (1926-31),

Berlin Zehlendorf. Photo by author
Fig. 6: Bruno Taut, Siedlung Onkels Tom Htte (1926-31),

Berlin Zehlendorf. Photo by author
POPULATION EXCHANGES ARCHITECTURAL

WITNESSES: NGDE YESLBURC (TENEI) VILLAGE
HISTORICAL BUILDINGS
LKNUR ACAR ATA, MEHMET EMN BAAR
lknur Acar Ata, Research Assistant, Selcuk University, Mehmet Emin Baar, Associate Professor Dr., Selcuk University
Abstract
Greek-Turkish population exchange that had been taken place between the years 1923- 1924 was in the results at
architectural plane as well as demographic, sociological, cultural plane. After the exchange, the example of civil
architecture of housing, religious buildings (mosques, churches, monasteries), fountains and baths that survivor in
both countries are witnesses which are still standing of this period.
Throughout Nigde especially large-scale religious buildings remaining after the Exchange were re-functionalized and
ensured the continuity of the structure. Owing to settlement of the emigrants from Thessaloniki to center of Nigde
and its villages, a portion of the remainder of the Greek mansion have survived until today. In today's conditions, due
to increased comfort and Standard facing the city life many historical mansions were abandoned and in consequence
of this; they have become dilapidated or destroyed.
In this study, Yesilburc Nigde (Tenei) Village where there are structures having especially the Greek emigrants' unique
work 19th century residence will be examined. Yesilburc Mosque (Church) and Yesilburc Bath of these structures
were registered but many other mansions of the examples of civil architecture remaining after the Exchange
Population period havent been put under protection. The protection requirements of these architectural values;
within the framework of discipline protection, conservation methods and techniques, legal aspects will be taken up
again with spatial analysis, it will be revealed. Protection discipline must make suggestion a model covering not the
only scale at structure but also all historic fabric at Yesilburc Village; at the same time social, economic and cultural
values of village must demonstrate an approach not be ignored.
1. Introduction
The remaining architectural structures after the Greece-Turkey exchange took place between the years 1923-1924
are provided as witnesses of that period for the two countries. Sociological, cultural, demographical studies about
this period have been conducted but the change at these buildings of this period and struggle of these existence
haven't been studied in terms of architectural significance. At this point, especially the protection requirements of
civil structures remaining after the exchange must be addressed within the framework of many disciplines.
Architectural structures are social, cultural and economic characteristics mirror at dating the period. Architectural
differences are diversified with the identity of user at the same country in the same period properties. Immigration
of people at a different culture from the country where they live to another country due to the policy of forced
migration provides further increase of this wealth. When Turkish descent who migrated from Krifa region at
Thessaloniki in Greece to Nigde Central district Yesilburc (Tenei) Village in Turkey came, they settled in stone mansion
was left by Greeks and used the church into a mosque function for worship. During this period they made deletions,
additions appropriate to the culture in some places, especially mansions and tried to adapt by making new functions.
In this study, particularly historical buildings which lived before, during and after exchange period in Yesilburc (Tenei)
Village connected to the central province of Nigde in Turkey has been examined in the context of architectural
conservation disciplines. After the examination, the stone mansion which is outside of registered buildings in the
village and other civil structures need to be protection by taking demonstrated protection with a tissue.
2. Exchange of the History and Impact in Nigde Province in the Turkey

The borders of the Cappadocia Region was described as a very large area surrounded by Taurus Mountains in the
south, Aksaray in the west, Malatya in the east and all the way up to the Black Sea coast in the north.(Strabon)Today
Cappadocia is the area covered by the city provinces of Nevsehir, Aksaray, Nigde, Kayseri and Kirsehir. The smaller
rocky region of Cappadocia is the area around Uchisar, Goreme, Avanos, Urgup, Derinkuyu, Kaymakli and
Ihlara.(Cappadociaonline) Nigde is at Cappadocia Region today and also have many historical places and values dated
between primeval era and present day.
Figure 7: Nigde and Cappadocia Region

http://www.cappadociaonline.com
2.1. Exchange of the History between Turkey and Greece
After the exchange between Greece and Turkey took place between the years 1923-1924 the remaining architectural
structures are provided as witnesses of that period for the two countries. Studies of sociological, cultural,
demographic fields belonging to this era have been conducted, but the structures changes undergone and the
struggle for existence haven't examined by architectural significance. At this point, especially the protection
requirements of civil structures remaining after the exchange must be considered within the framework of many
disciplines.
The population exchange between Greece and Turkey held, after the War of Independence and Mudanya Agreement,
the Lausanne Peace Conference, held in Lausanne, Switzerland is one of the decisions taken. The decision on January
30, 1923 signed the "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish people and Protocol" was clarified.
Exchange of the course, which will be mandatory character of the people and exchange with people who are not in
extent of exchange, is indicated in the first two terms of the contract:
Article 1.
Greek Orthodox religion established in Turkish territory from Turkish nationals resident in Greek territory with the
Muslim religion from Greek nationals, starting from May 1, 1923 will be embarking on compulsory exchange. None
of these persons without the permission of the Turkish Government or Greek government will not be returned to
Greece or Turkey and settled there.
Article 2.
Stipulated in first article of exchange:
a) Greeks residents Istanbul (Rums population of Istanbul),
b) Muslims residents Western Thrace (the Muslim population of Western Thrace) will not be covered.
As specified by the 1912 Law, Istanbul Sehremaneti in the apartment, all Greek who settled before October 30, 1918
(ETABLIS) will be considered Greeks living in Istanbul.1913 Bucharest Treaty that has put the eastern boundary line
of settled all Muslims will be considered Muslims living in Western Thrace. (Soysal, 2000)
Figure 8: Greek-Turkish populations transfer after 1923

http://migrationeducation.de/fileadmin/uploads/NM_griech-turk-Bewegung_192_01.gif
As an attached to the Lausanne Peace Treaty was signed between Turkey and Greece "Greek and Turkish
Convention and Protocol relating to the Exchange of Population" in both countries revealed important results in the
demographic structure. (Soysal, 1989)
2.2. Before and After the Exchange Situation Nigde Province in the Turkey
According to the State Statistics Institute's data, as a result of decisions of the exchange between 1927 and 1923,
456 720 Muslims came from Greece to Turkey and the majority of them placed in predetermined villages and towns
by Exchange Settlement Ministry of Development and Housing.
Looking at the results of the settlement activities, the places where the most intensive settlement of the emigrants
in Turkey generally is seen that the old Greek settlements. Considering terms of the village settlement, the exchange
Turkish people were placed mostly empty villages abandoned by Greek population while pre-exchange or exchange
period. Therefore, the exchange has been the most settlement in Western Anatolia and Thrace. Other exchange the
villages where indigenous peoples live or have been resettled refugees who have been resettled in their villages
before them. The population of Nigde, immediately before the exchange is approximately 45.0002. In addition to
15,750 people in 3969 households have only come within the scope of this population exchange. (Aanolu, 2001).
The population movement occurred in general Turkey seems to be reflected in Nigde a greater proportion. According
to 1914 census data; 30% of Greek and 2% of Armenian total 32% non-Muslims population lived in Nigde, after
migration is no longer any non-Muslim population, census has become 100% Muslim. Turkey in general like it, hence
the war years as well as the exchange of population decline again in Nigde is more relative to many other. One of
resettlement of immigrants from areas where the population is most affected Nigde. An increase over much of the
increase occurring across the country between the 1923 and 1930 has been made in Nigde by settlement for
exchange. This increase can be said to be about 30%.(zkan, 2007)
3. Historical Buildings of Yesilburc (Tenei) Village in the Central District Central Province of Nigde in Turkey
Nigde city center is south of the Yeilbur Village at about 15 km away from it. Tepekoy and Kirkpinar Village are
located north of Yeilbur Village. Also Gulluce and Taslca Village are closer to Yesilburc Village. The village is built
along the cliff and slopes of a valley is green, because of garden and trees. The land is flat with a wavy
structure.(Kuzucu, 2008)
Table 1:Nigde Province of Central Village settlement / Village View from Google Earth (GoogleEarth, 2014)/(Nidel
zel daresi, 2014-2015)
The population of the village consist of Thessaloniki immigrants who are placed after the exchange between 19231924 population exchanges. The population of the village is 618 people according to the 2000 census. The vast
majority of the population earn a living from agriculture, has provided the fruit.
3.1. The Historical Development of Yesilburc (Tenei) Village
According to official documents, Yesilburc Village is a town where most of the Greeks lived until 1924. At that time
the name of the village was Tenei. Sula Bozis was born at Tyana (Kemerhisar) wrote that 4000 Greek had lived until
1924 at this village whose former name was Tenei
Yesilburc Village which had 320 domiciles at that time was the richest in the village of Nigde region.(Kuzucu, 2008)
Due to the village's rich many mansions which have historical value was built in the 19th century. A part of the
mansion are still standing and using as a home.
While all 600 domiciles population of Kivotos in Greece were settled at Yesilburc Village in Nigde at Turkey,
Orthodox Greeks living in Yesilburc were settled in Corfu (Kerkira) Island in Greece.(Kuzucu, 2008)
Only 4 domiciles 4 male and 7 female emigrants are also a total of 11 who were settled in Yesilburc Village came from
Kastoria and Cocoon of migrants. (Mdrl; Aanolu, 2001).
3.2. The Historical Buildings of Yesilburc (Tenei) Village
The tissue of the village is comprise of structures that overlooks the Yesilburc Valley and settled with taking advantage
of the slope of the land. These structures are a large scale church, a monastery, bath, mansions. In fact, a Greek
Orthodox settlement of the village construction techniques, stonework, many architectural elements of the
decorative features still exist today. Among these landscape elements with pool, garden and courtyard wall niches,
arches can be indicated.
Figure 9:Yesilburc Village from Google Earth

Figure 10: Aerial photograph with buildings marks of
Yesilburc Village
3.2.1. Yesilburc Village Church
Greek Orthodox Church belonging to the pre-exchange period's inscription indicated that the structure was built in
1805. Church facing as Yesilburc Valley is situated in the center of the village. It is entered through a gate with stone
masonry of the church yard. A characteristic bell tower is located in south-east of the church yard. This bell tower
tapering upwards profiles outgoing dome 4 column on a square plan and two floors.
Considering the background plane, church is a basilica with three naves and three abscissa in the plan and main space
of churchs ceiling is vaulted. Inside there are 4 columns in two rows. In the western side of the narthex, there are
three arches and cross vaulted ceilings. Inside there is a section in the narthex from the top part and it has half crossvaulted ceiling.(TC Kltr Bakanl; Trkiye Kltr Portal)
Table 2: General view of the Yesilburc Church, 2016

3.2.2. Yesilburc Village Bath
Outwardly about the dimensions 9.30 x 28.00 mm. structure is composed of undressing, warmth, heat occurs from
boiler room with the temperature adjacent water tank that placed on the same axis.(zkarc, 2013) The first two
sections are square plan. The passage above the dome is provided with wall and relieving arches. It is available
photocell on the dome light. The walls are covered with a smooth cut on the rubble stone.
View of Yesilburc Village Bath
Interior view of Yesilburc Village Bath,2016
The plan of Yesilburc

Village Bath (Courtesy of
M. zkarc)
Table 3: Yesilburc Village Bath

3.2.3. Yesilburc Village Mansions
The mansions were designed in terraced gardens facing to valley, because the main source of livelihood is agriculture.
One of the mansions found in the courtyard even constitute the entire street skyline.
Table 4: The streets of tissue samples, Yesilburc Village, 2016

Historical mansions settled on a sloping terrain is generally two-storey. The bay windows with stone console enrich
front facade at general street view at village. Wood-slatted windows are usually used for all mansions. The roofs like
Nigde traditional houses are flat earth with wood-beamed (hezen). As a result of the interviews of Zihni Ger; the
first arrivals after the exchange said roofing tiles on a wooden hipped roof in the two mansions.
Table 5: The samples of mansions, Yesilburc Village, 2016

There are often mansion' courtyard with the monumental characteristics of stonework and Greek Orthodox cross
symbol is treated the courtyard door. Courtyards of the mansion plays an important role in relations with each other
and the road.
According to information received from Adile Soylu who is 2. Generation of emigrant came from Greece; owners of
the mansion before the exchange emigrants were rich Greek merchant in Istanbul and they remained Yesilburc
(Tenei) Village only during the summer period. From this point of view and the when village's many mansions
examined the courtyard of stone flooring, niches where the candle holder made from stone courtyard walls, benches
to sit on, semi-open arches facing the valley in terms of air circulation of the portico is an indication here that the
passing of time for which this venue is cool in the evening.
When the two-story the mansion of the interior features are achieved as well as the data that each user needs to
examine the mansion and the unique design of public space fiction. For example, there are bathing cubicles in the
village near the bath but the mansion away from bath haven't got them it is understood that bathing cubicles are
original because of the gargoyles at period with drain connection.
Table 6: Stone courtyard entrances, Yesilburc Village, 2016

In all the mansion common spaces are often carved from the rock cellar as storage and cellar are of courtyard or
backyard opened ventilation ducts.
Common spaces are kitchen in the courtyard outside the mansion, living area, bedroom, living room in the mansion.
The space is described as the kitchen located near some of the smaller rooms in the mansion used as servants' room
for cooking, while others are related to the cellar and pantry next to a small area, especially for small parts in the
mansion consists of two parts. The eating habits of the Greeks kept separate cooking resemblance to that of the
Turks, eating area that is elevation difference higher than cooking area with the niche vault can be qualify.
Table 7: Courtyard of mansion, Yesilburc Village, 2016
The spaces in Yesilburc mansions can be grouped in 3 layer including the ground floor, the upstairs floor and
basement.
Table 8: Fatma-brahim Oral Mansion Plan Schemes, Yesilburc Village, 2016

If the thought of an organization on the ground floor for all areas with the same level from the gate entrance to the
courtyard; cooking in this field around the yard, shed, wc, a half-open gate to the mansion with arched porches.
Stone vaulted living units inside the mansion; 20 cm bed height to lay on some benches, custom wood cabinets for
stacking beds that we can conclude that there is used as a bedroom.
Table 9: The samples of bedroom in mansion, Yesilburc Village, 2016

Places that can be considered as the halls are the upper floors usually supported by stone consoles with front bay
window to the main road and larger spaces compared with other rooms. There are wooden ceilings with the same
ceiling rose work in several mansions. In these units stone candle holders, niches for oil lamps, high benches shows
that these areas used to welcome guests.
Table 10: The sample of wineries (pressing room), cellars, barn in mansions, Yesilburc Village, 2016
Bottom elevations are spaces which contain mansions sitting on the slope Cappadocia Region carved repository,
cellar that is cooler than the mansion of the ground level and the pressing room. Sensitivity on storage and
preservation of Greeks living Yesilburc Village before exchange are reflected in the mansion on spaces. Pressing room
is an area where was a special stone that grapes, apples grown in Yesilburc were removed. These sections were fixed
locations which provide long-term temperature required for wine and fruit juice. Furthermore, there are available
cube spaces for excess harvested products in this area. Metal hooks attached to wooden beams to hang meat in the
cellar and also has 3 divisions wood grain warehouse.
Table 11: Vaulted rooms in mansions, Yesilburc Village, 2016

Stone and wood are used as a structural sense as well as decorative elements in Yesilburc Mansions. Stone columns,
arches and vaults used as support elements are characteristic property for mansions. In the courtyard gate, the
interior niches in the walls, the stone steps, courtyards and ground floor slabs of stone indigenous yellow trachyte,
granite were used. In addition, woodwork is seen at pomegranate rose motifs carved wooden decorative figures into
the in carved, ornamental ceilings, stairs and stair railings, benches for sitting, window sill.
Table 12: Stonework and woodwork at mansions, Yesilburc Village, 2016
3.3. The effects of Population Exchange at Yesilburc (Tenei) Village

The first generation emigrants told that hospital, maternity hospital, fountains, bath, mill were village when they
came to Yesilburc. Some of these structures have survived to the present day.
Table 13: Some of the mansions were destroyed, Yesilburc Village, 2016
Tenei Village had been empty for about a year before emigrants came, the church was used as a military depot in the
village during the war. After the exchange, Turkish Muslims from Krifa of Thessaloniki the space need to worship
have provided by the church into a mosque function. Yesilburc Church was taken under protection in 1992 the
initiative of Nigde Provincial Culture Department by the Board of Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage. The
church converted into a mosque was made some additions. First, the main entrance with arched portion facing to
the valley was built. Abscissa part were divided into an internal wall. A window was built at the southern abscissa,
mosque gates were opened to the middle of the abscissa. The work carried out by the Nigde Administration which
will be held again on the church restoration is underway.
Yesilburc Bath was registered with the decision No. 764 dated 04.07.2006 by Nevsehir Cultural and Natural Heritage
Conservation District Board. The building one example of Ottoman structures stones in the floor were removed for
house building material at a period. .(zkarci, 2013) Today in the devastated bath collapse continues.
The monastery that is the south of church and fountain that is next to it are structure before the exchange. The
monastery is in ruins, cover coat has collapsed for fire and several reasons. The foundation is bad situation lack of
maintenance.
The Monastery
The Foundation
The Church
Table 14: The situation of the buildings were destroyed, Yesilburc Village, 2016
After the exchange, the mansions were confronted with a different culture and demographic change with
Turkish family who migrated from Krifa. After the exchange, the impact of vacant at 1 year and period of financial
difficulties many mansions were dilapidated. Mansions were used as a summer residence by the Greeks, emigrants
who lived there after exchange using for both in summer and winter made additions, used new functions and
removed some areas of mansions. Overall, the two families shared courtyard of the mansion consists of two parts
divided, stone masonry patio doors destroyed or location was changed. In addition to cooking outside the mansion
used only for cooking purposes as giving Turks a place in the kitchen functions in ground level; here the concrete
benches, shelves for storage and cabinets were made.
Table 15: The new functions of space and additions at mansions, Yesilburc Village, 2016
It is used as a winter mansion for the stove pipe particular locations opened the window pane, some windows were
closed. Bay windows were destroyed in some mansion facade. Secret passageways of the places connected with each
other before the exchange were closed on the grounds because of cold. Some cellars were filled with soil over the
years by neglect.
4. Conclusion
Nigde Yesilburc (Tenei) historical buildings that witnessed the exchange between Turkey and Greece; had the traces
of what happened before and after the exchange, with the culture of in the village were examined. In this study as
well as Yesilburc Church and Bath that were taken under protection, mansions built by the Greeks are discussed by
evaluating the use of before and after the exchange.
Yesilburc Village with church, bath, Greek Mansions, street tissue, fountains and historic period testimony, traces the
migration of another culture and aesthetic value is worth preserving as a whole. The consequences of only registered
church and bath and not made studies about whole village tissue has emerged more clearly over time. With
dilapidated mansions, fountains, monastery, mills, disappeared maternity; traces of pre-exchanged and after the
events in the village are deleted.
At the same time being cultural bridge between the two countries maintaining the quality Yesilburc village instead
of being a witness to only one term, and should continue to exist and to preserve the culture. Taking into account
the history of exchange and the effects of the two countries' culture Yesilburc (Tenei) protection and sustenance
through integrated interdisciplinary model must be created on the village.
References
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Cappadociaonline, http://www.cappadociaonline.com/location.html: [19.08.2016 ].
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zkarci, M., 2013. Nidede Osmanllar Dnemine Ait ki Hamam, Sanat Tarihi Dergisi, XXII (2), 45-60.
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Strabon, Antik Anadolu Corafyas (Geographika XII, XIII, XIV, stanbul, Arkeoloji ve Sanat Yaynlar, p.
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http://www.kulturportali.gov.tr/turkiye/nigde/kulturenvanteri/yeslburc-klses: [04.09.2016].
Yeilbur Nfus Kayt Defteri. Nide l Nfus ve Vatandalk Mdrl Arivi p.
CONSTRUCTIONS OF SHIRVANSHAH'S PALACE

ENSEMBLE IN BAKU
RAYIHA AMENZADE
Doctor of Architecture, prof.
Shirvanshah's palace ensemble - is a brilliant sample of highly developed urban planning of V-VI centuries, surviving
almost in its entirety, and where the creative methods and techniques of prominent architects were embodied. Here,
the best architectural achievements of its time, which gave in turn a powerful impetus for further ongoing process,
are concentrated.
The ensemble has a broken configuration of extended - to the east and west - planning structure in the area with
extremely intense relief. Its architectural integrity is contributed with unitary immensity of the whole composition,
organically interconnected with urban silhouette, the overall color of the stone-built limestone with a wide range of
warm colors. The group of buildings is rationalized and compact with everywhere visible volumes, which defined the
altitude and volume silhouette of the medieval city. They are oriented to the cardinal directions, always following
the precision of the breakdown and organization of plan, subordinate to the unified architectural design, and focused
on a few yards. On a relatively small area (about 1 hectare), typologically different, compositionally not repeated
monumental buildings are located and harmoniously interconnected - the palace itself, divankhana, the palace
mosque, mausoleum of Sheikh Seyid Yahya Bakuvi (Shirvani), Key-Kubad Mosque (lost), "Eastern" portal - gate,
hammam (bath house).
The large-scale tasks faced by the architects contributed to the progress of construction equipment, the expansion
of the arsenal of the architectural solutions of buildings, the emergence of innovatively smart designs that have
developed in the way of rationalization, efficiency and durability. Leading constructive ideas got bright expression in
the buildings architecture, and it is they which again demonstrate the unlimited possibilities for creative expression
of architects.
The whole compositional development of the building is characterized by the consolidation of traditional
architectural forms and building techniques. Continuity of traditional developments was embodied in threedimensional compositions, their concise articulations, silhouette's emboss, was due to, in particular, constructive
structure system, was consistent with its architectural and artistic image. The advanced developments of
construction equipment, innovative techniques and technical findings were carried out by the architects, guided by
the initially selected compositional structure design and its function, in the development of buildings and
constructions. However, the improvement of the time-tested designs - the most appropriate ones should be noted.
The spatial development of structures acquires a dominant role, architectonic of interiors changes radically,
determined primarily by the state of construction machinery, its level of development. Constructive - technological
developments of vaulted - domical systems lead to new discoveries in the field of archy (curvilineal) coverings. The
spectacular architectural compositions appear in which artfully tiled domes are used of spheroconical and ribbed
(corrugated, "sectoral") forms on the dome drum which get notable height and slenderness in bulk compositions of
ceremonial buildings.
The bold engineering developments and ingenious solutions are embodied also in the under-dome structures, the
important component, which strength and reliability of the entire structure also depend on. They have several lines
of construct, including - trumpet arcs, stalactite structures, shield-like and spherical pendentives of different kinds
and shapes. Interestingly, the idea of transition to the dome in the mausoleum of Sheikh Bakuvi (Shirvani) was
created with the pictorial means - by means of colored plaster, close to "sgraffito ". Of course, not perceiving the
gravity of the dome, its visual illusion is created, once again confirming the effect of the descriptive start in the
architecture. Domes of the structures and conchoidal niches of spatially developed portal compositions (divankhana,
turbe (tomb), "Eastern" gate) are complicated with the net of structural "reinforcement ribs", peculiar ribs converging
in a "bun" at the zenith of the dome.
In the development of the buildings ensemble coverings the arches, widespread in the Shirvan-Absheron
architectural school, get an important significance here, they cover the "sleeves" of the main hall space (turbe (tomb),
mosque), the premises of the palace itself, the vaults often have so-called "mirror". The vaulted oblong spaces are
enhanced usually with reinforcing arches.
In an article in the light of the problem the author subjects each building of the ensemble to the architectural analysis.
GOLDEN RATIO IN GREEK AND ROMAN

ARCHITECTURE
ELF MERVE YILMAZ, MNE ULUSOY
Research Assistant, Selcuk University, Mine Ulusoy, Associate Professor Dr., Selcuk University
Abstract
Mankind has advocated for centuries that there is a relation between existence of universe and mathematics.
Scientics analysing harmony and conformity in universe via mathematics determined a common ratio which is
situated in nature, art, human body and daily life. This ratios number is 1,618 and it is called golden ratio in literature.
It is also called golden number, golden section, divine proportion etc. There are a lot of scientific researches about
golden ratio which is determined in almost fine arts. It is absolutely clear that its existence cant be ignored. And,
utilization of ratios systems in architecture dates back to ancient times. Among these systems, the most intriguing
one is the golden ratio. We can see that almost in every architectural period, there are plenty of buildings which take
into account golden ratio. After discovery of this number, it was detected in Egypt pyramid for the first time. So,
there is a close relationship between golden ratio and architecture.
In this article, buildings which are designed with golden ratio will be explained by their facades. It is clear that Roman
and Greek Architects known by their good architectural works obviously designed their projects with golden ratio.
Existence of golden ratio in many buildings visited by a lot of people indicates connection between golden section
and architecture in Roman and Greek architectural period.
Key Words: architectural design, design and ratio, golden ratio in architecture, golden section in Roman and Greek
Architecture
Golden Ratio
Geometry has two great treasures; one is the Theorem of Pythagoras; the other, the division of a line into extreme
and mean ratio. The first we may compare to a measure of gold; the second we may name a precious jewel.
-Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
Golden ratio, firstly, was discovered by Euclid around B.C. 300s. Euclid said: A straight line is said to have been cut
in extreme and mean ratio when, as the whole line is to the grater segment, so is the greater to the lesser. These
words were searched by a lot of researchers. No matter lenght of line, when this transaction is done, the ratio is 1,618.
Euclid called this ratio as extreme and mean ratio. (Livio,2002, p.3) So, this number is not a random number. And,
it is called golden rectangle whose side lenghts are in the golden ratio.
Figure 1. Formulation of Golden Section

The name of first book which was about golden ratio is Divine Proportion and written by Luca Palcioli (1445-1519).
It was pictured by Leonardo da Vinci and published in 1509 (Dunlap, 2011). This ratio was called as divine proportion
until 1830. Then, German Mathematician Georg Simon Ohm entitled this ratio as goldene schnitt. Afterwards, it was
entitled as golden ratio and increased its popularity. (Livio, 2002 p.7) Artists, scientists and designers have been
using this number while making design and researchs. In English, there are many names of 1,618; golden section,
golden ratio, golden number, golden mean, divine proportion, divine section, golden cut etc.
For getting this ratio, there are three ways. First, as we mention about divining of a straight line. Second, when we
start a square, if processes which are below are applied, we can get the golden rectangle.
Figure 2. Getting Golden Rectangle with a Square

Third, an Italian Mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci discovered a number serie which is called Fibonacci serie. This
numbers give us golden ratio. Fibonacci Serie: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597,
2584, ... The serie starts zero and each number is the sum of preceding two. And suprisingly, after the number of 89,
ratio of numbers which are in succession is 1,618. Also, others ratios are vey close this number.
89/55=1,618
144/89=1,618
233/144=1,618
A golden spiral (Figure 3) is gotten by golden rectangle and is a logarithmic spiral whose growth factor is ,
the golden ratio spiral gets wider by a factor of (symbol of golden number) for every quarter turn it makes. (Akal,
2005 p6)
Figure 3. Golden Spiral

This ratio can be seen in nature; some of flowers, plants and animals. Because of being a common ratio, 1,618 is
familiar to people. They want to see this proportion in fine arts.
Figure 4. Golden Section in Nature

Golden Ratio in Architecture
Because of the intriguing features, golden ratio has taken attention every period of arts. Architecture is one of them.
The golden section was used in pyramids. Pyramids, especially Cheops pyramid where golden ratio was determined,
was built B.C. 2560s. It was very old building. Thus, it is thought that golden section was seen in architecture first.
Figure 5. Golden Ratio in Great Pyramid of Giza

Moreover, Vitrivius (B.C. 80-15) who was very important for architecture wrote Ten Boks About Architecture and
draw a man for determining standart dimensions for architectural design. This man had been used since 1492. In the
Figure 4, ratio of same numbers is golden ratio. This drawing has been exhibited in Venice and mentioned as law of
proportion.
Figure 6. Golden Section in Vitrivius Man (erimsever.com)

During the 1416th century, the aesthetics (a branch of philosophy of art known as value theory) of golden ratio
progressed. Consequently, book designers, artists and architects were encouraged to adopt the golden ratio in the
dimensional relationships of their works providing pleasing harmonious proportions. The golden ratio is occasionaly
used in modern artifacts such as stairs, buildings and woodworks. (Sen and Agarwal, 2007 p 490)
Le Corbusier is just one name over the past, who had spent countless hours over this simple yet amazing number,
the golden ratio and its features. He wrote a serie of book named Modulor. The ratio of the height of the man (183
cm) to the height of his navel (at the midpoint of 113 cm) was taken to be precisely in a Golden Ratio. The total height
(from the feet to the raised arm) was also divided in a Golden Ratio (into 140 cm and 86 cm) at the level of the wrist
of a downward-hanging arm. The two ratios (113/70) and (140/86) were further subdivided into smaller dimensions
according to the Fibonacci series. (Livio, 2002 p.173) Le Corbusier definitely was a important name, who combined
golden ratio and architecture.
Figure 7. Measures Determined by Le Corbusier

Greek Architecture and Golden Ratio
The architecture of ancient Greece is the architecture which was produced by the Greek speaking (Hellenic) people
whose culture flourished on the Greek mainland, the Aegean Islands, the Peloponnese and in colonies in Anatolia and
Italy for a period from about 900 BC until the 1st century AD, with the earliest remaining architectural works dating
from around 600 BC. (Boardman, Dorig, Fuchs, 1967)
Ancient Greek architecture is individuated by its highly formalised characteristics, both of structure and decoration.
This is particularly in the temples where each building appears to have been conceived as a sculptural entity within
the landscape, most often raised on high ground so that the elegance of its proportions and the effects of light on its
surfaces might be viewed from all angles. (Gardner, 1948)
Symbol of golden ratio is phi. This name comes from Phidias who was Greek famous sculptor and design temple of
Parthenon.
The photo below shows a Golden Spiral overlay to the entire face of the Parthenon. This shows that the height and
width of the Parthenon conform closely to golden ratio proportions. This construction requires a assumption though,
that the bottom of the golden rectangle should align with the bottom of the second step into the structure and that
the top should align with a peak of the roof projected by the remaining sections. Given that assumption, the top of
the columns and base of the roof line are in a close golden ratio proportion to the height of the Parthenon. (Meisner,
2013)
The front structure of the Parthenon depicts golden rectangles in its proportions. It is probably not that the architect
consciously made the design keeping golden rectangles in mind. It is possibly because of other consideration such as
the stability and the aesthetic sense. Archeologists have found that the Acropolis (edge of a high city) of Athens
including the Parthenon that several of its geometrical proportions are golden ratio approximately. (Sen, Agarwal,
2007 p 490)
Figure 8. Golden Spiral in Face of the Parthenon

The width of the columns is in a golden ratio proportion formed by the distance from the center line of the columns
to the outside of the columns. (Meisner, 2013)
Figure 9. Golden Rectangles in the Face of Parthenon

The structural beam which is on top of the columns has a horizontal dividing line that is in golden ratio proportion to
the height of the support beam. (Meisner, 2013)
Figure 10. Golden Spiral in Root Support Beams

One of the symbol of the Greek architecture is pillars orders. In Doric order, there is an analyze maken by Mssel.
This drawing was presented in Bergils book which was published in 1988.
Figure 11. Proportioning Based on Phi in Doric Order (Analyzed by Mssel)

Roman Architecture and Golden Ratio
Roman architecture continued the legacy left by the earlier architects of the Greek world, and
the Roman deferenced for this tradition and their particular reverence for the established architectural orders,
especially the Corinthian, is evident in many of their large public buildings. However, the Romans were also great
reformists and they quickly adopted new construction techniques, used new materials, and uniquely combined
available techniques with creative design to produce a whole range of new architectural structures such as the
basilica, triumphal arch, monumental aqueduct, amphitheatre, granary building, and residential housing block.
(Cartwright, 2013)
A drawing which could shed light to Roman art traditions was found in a work of A.N.Didron, who was a famous
historian in nineteen century. A sarcophagus which was belong to a Roman architect was seen. Some figures which
were worked in this sarcophagus were being observed. These drawing include a square and a ruler which was divided
into four sections and these sections were comfort to phi ratio. It is a clue that golden section was used by architects.
Besides this, there are some dones that analyses which are about to golden ratio and building of Roman were done.
Among these analyses, a work about to Pantheon which is one of the most impressive building with its dome is given
Figure 12. This analysis was maken by an Austrian painter D.Wiener. (Bergil, 1988 p.129)
Figure 12. Golden Section Analysing of Pantheons Plan (Analyzed by Winner)

Moreover, there are also golden ratio in Pantheons facades. In Fgure 12 and 13 ratio of same colour lines are closely
by 1,618. So, hierarchy of this building was thought perfectly. Stripes in main part of Pantheon arent ordinary, these
stripes divide into three parts and height of big part to small parts is 1,6. Though it has circular plan, entrance of
building is pillared which is similar to Parthenon. And location of these pillars isnt random. Width of Pantheon to
width of entrance is 1,618. And, dome of Pantheon is very famous with its magnitude. Hierarchy of this dome and
ratio of the widest to the most narrow are in harmony with golden section.
Figure 13. Golden Ratio in Pantheons Front Facade
Figure 14. Golden Ratio in Pantheons Left Facede

The Colloseum, also known as Flavian Amphitheatre, places in Rome. Although it is partially ruined, it is still an symbol
of Roman period. Its windows order is quite regular. Gaps in upper of this amphitheatre are golden rectangles.
Besides, other gaps in this building are closely golden rectangles.
Figure 15. Golden Rectangles in Colloseums Gaps

Arches one of the symbols of Roman architecture take place many cities related to Roman period. Among them, Titus
and Constantine are familiar to people. These arches carry golden section in their height of the archways. Ratio of
same colour lines are closely by 1,618.
Figure 16. Golden Ratio in the Arch of Constantine
Figure 17. Golden Ratio in the Arch of Titus

Conclusion
Since golden number is in the World, nature and human body, it bocemes inevitable to have it in architectural design.
Architecture is a discipline which design with harmony of the world. It has to be considered about ergonomocis which
is about to measures of human. And so, golden number helps architecture for measurement. Besides, golden ratio
allows aesthetics aspect in fine arts. Thus, many analyses about to golden ratio have been done with face of design,
in architecture with facades of buildings.
Designers, no matter which fine artists, give importance to golden number, especially in the Western World. Two
periods, Greek and Roman architectural period, are also very important for architecture. Design methods in these
periods still have been used by many architect. Mathematic and geometry are useful and provide various shapes in
architecture. Buildings analyzed in this paper are visited by millions of people in each year. They are attractive and
appreciated by most of people. It can be said that existing golden ratio in their design is effective for their fineness
and stability. However, it is unknown that architects in these periods designed conscious with golden ratio or not.
This attitude could be done bu considering an aesthetichal concern. The answer has not been found so far, and it is
diffucult to say for sure.
Res. Assist. Elif Merve YILMAZ, Seluk University and Associate Assoc.Prof.Dr. Mine ULUSOY, Seluk University
References
Akal, ., 2005, Fibonacci Saylar ve Altn Oran, Master Thesis, Balkesir University, Balkesir
Bergil, M.S., 1988, Doada Bilimde Sanatta Altn Oran, Arkeoloji ve Sanat Yaynlar, stanbul
Boardman, J., Dorig J., Fuchs W., 1967, Greek Art and Architecture, Hardcover
Cartwright, M., 2013, Roman Architecture, http://www.ancient.eu/Roman_Architecture/
Deviren, D., 2010, Altn Oran ve Grafik Sanatlarda Kullanm, Master Thesis , Hali University, stanbul
Dunlap, R.A., 2011, The Golden Ratio and Fibonacci Numbers, Tbitak Popler Bilim Kitaplar, Ankara
Gardner, H., 1948, Art Through the Ages, New York, 3rd Edition
Livio, M., 2002, The Golden Ratio, Broadway Books, U.S.A.
Meisner, G., 2013, The Parthenon and Phi, the Golden Ratio, http://www.goldennumber.net/parthenon-phi-goldenratio/
Sen, S.K., Agarwal R.P., 2007, Golden ratio in science, as random sequence source, its computation and beyond, An
nternational Journal Computer&Mathematics with applications, 56(2008), p 469-498
Tekkanat, N., 2006, Altn Orann Kaynaklar ve Sanata Yansmas, Master Thesis , Akdeniz University, Antalya
http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/GoldenSpiral/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_architecture
SPATIAL EXPRESSIONS OF SOCIAL LIFE AND

CULTURE DURING EARLY REPUBLICAN PERIOD IN
TURKEY, THE CASE OF ALPULLU SUGAR FACTORY
AYSE KOPUZ
Abstract
At the beginning of 1920s in Turkey, one of the most spatial strategy as regards the foundation of the Republic was
the development of industrialization. This spatial strategy as well as administrative standpoint, based on economic
concerns. Even though it was an outcome of the spatial strategy of The War of Independence, development of
Anatolia would be provided with new industrial buildings or by constructing new work places. At first glance, this
action was an economic development decision, which produced new working areas and new products. Even though
building new factories had no economic benefit only, they also express the modernity project by their usage and
periphery. For this reason the creation of new factories should be perceived as a Modern movement after all.
The building of modern industrial buildings is a neglected episode in the history of twentieth-century urbanism. The
establishment of these buildings in Turkey was driven by the modernizing and industrializing ethos of the modernity
Project of Turkish republic. The buildings were not only belong to production but also to social and cultural
development of people. This essay addresses industrial buildings as sugar factories built in 20s and 30s. Focusing on
the visual representations produced by foreign architects, the present case study investigates how the social life have
been changed by the new building types. These new buildings are; workers houses, cinema hall, mini-golf area,
basketball-football area, swimming pool, casino, shopping centers, hospital and etc. The local people have first time
witnessed these type of buildings and events.
So, this study focuses on exploring social buildings of Alpullu Sugar Factry which was built in 1926 for not only
economic development of country but also for the formation of modernized people in Turkey. An extensive literature
review and on site observations were conducted to investigate peoples perceptions about these buildings. This
comprehensive urban and spatial analysis simplifies to understand the modernity project in Turkey as well.
SOME FORMS AND DIMENSIONS OF WALKING IN

THE CITY
EMINE KOSEOGLU
Emine Koseoglu, Assistant Professor, PhD, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Waqf University, Faculty of Architecture and
Design, Istanbul.
Abstract
Walking in the city seems a simple action that requires body and movement. However it also needs some motivating
factors and forces such as aims, targets, and intentions. The contrary may be thought where the aim is spontaneous
and unplanned walking. In this case, the subject or the walker is called wanderer, flaneur, flaneuse, etc. The spatial
needs of a walker having a certain target differ from the needs of a wanderer. A standard walker may require a legible
and a walkable, sometimes the shortest route in the city whereas a wanderer may enjoy getting lost in the urban
environment. Every time a person walks in the city is a re-written journey, as it is a subjective experience shaped by
human body and mind and also influenced by spatial dimensions. This dual relationship is mentioned in
psychogeography literature, by the researchers such as Kevin Lynch, Guy Debord, Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe.
Body, Movement and Urban Space
Walking may be considered a miraclea biomechanical marvel. Most of us take it for grantedits pedestrian. Its
a symphony of moving parts involving our highly developed nervous, skeletal, and muscular systems and both the
balance and the strength to hold ourselves upright on two relatively small feet, all while moving one foot in front of
the other for miles on end, over varied terrain, without falling, and doing so with little conscious thought. Our bodies
have collaboration with our movements. Spaces fold and flow with the simple movements of our bodies. Especially,
focused and intended walks engage and direct our senses actively to the surrounding environment. This kind of bodily
movement advocates an engagement with the environment in which the emphasis lies not solely on visual and
aesthetic, but also on a high level experience of other sensory forces or elements (Hallsten, 2014).
Figure 1. Body, movement and walking (Photo: Emine Koseoglu).
Basically, like breathing, walking is an unconscious act that we accomplish without consideration we feel our muscles
only when we are tired or in case of problem; otherwise we just advance one foot after the other, reflexively. The
act of walking is also universal; humans have walked and learned to walk in much the same way since they become
erect. Yet, researchers have revealed how this kind of movement has meanings and functions that change across
space and time (Vivo, 2016). Research shows that architectural and urban atmospheres contribute to the choice of
walking when the quality of urban design is available to the pedestrian. Decision to walk, over and above personal
motives and needs; depends on the ability of a built environment to embody multiple forms of spatiality. It also refers
to built environments capacity to prompt attachment or aversion; pleasure or fear (Thomas, 2010).
Back to the Walking
Like a new discovery, it is noted in guardian.com that walking reduces stress, anxiety and depression (1). Actually it
is the new need of modern human who lives especially in cities today. Perry (1) conveys the experiential expresses
of city walkers:
Walking reveals layers of history
Urban walking for me is therapy (1):
The paving stones echo my heartbeats (1)
You never step in the same city twice (1)
Its a human experience thats getting rarer (1)
The best things can happen when you get lost in cities (1)
Walking gives me a sense of connection and makes me less afraid (1)
Walking makes cities human (1)
Figure 2. Gustave Caillebotte - Paris Street; Rainy Day (2).
Walking was quite dangerous in the cities of 17th century Europe which are surrounded with medieval streets that
are small, muddy, littered. Late medieval city streets gradually improved and urban life was marked by markets,
processions, and carnivals that progressively introduced city walking as a meaningful social activity. The social uses
of walking advanced when the upper classes took up walking practices, from promenade and strolling to the Grand
Tour around Europe. Such walks were done by choice, revealed a ritualized pattern, and they are not realized by a
need or necessity. Fusing recreation and sociability, the walking upper class had the opportunity to display their
participation in the latest fashion and their mastery of distinguished steps. In that sense, footwear become an
important part of such occasions, and not designed for long-distant travels. By the 18th century started to emerge a
new stop-and-go promenading for the elites in major cities: window-shopping (3).
Figure 3. Gustave Caillebotte, Le Pont de l'Europe, oil on canvas, 1876. Muse du Petit Palais, Geneva (4).
In the 19th century urban environment, while the mundane walkers were learning to window-shop idly, commute to
work hastily, and walk as well-disciplined regulated crowds (while street infrastructures were being gradually
improved), another form of social criticism on foot emerged, besides Romanticism: the flneur of Parisian bohme,
identified by Charles Baudelaire as walking the city to experience it, from a critical perspective. A self-aware,
ambiguous, half-emotional figure, the flneur constitutes the type of an urban stroller. Later, in the early 20th
century, collective walking was increasingly loaded with collective sentiment and bid ideas. In urban settings too,
walking became clearly an organized social-political act (3).
Figure 4. Rosler-LeFlaneur (5).

There has been a long and productive association between walking and thinking. Some scholars believe that
relationship can even be traced to human evolution. It is suggested that bipedalism freed the hands of protohumans
for toolmaking and other advantages, and that the brain expanded exponentially to meet that opportunity. Walking
and thinking are defining characteristics of what makes us human (6). Today, walking deeply changed its significance.
For many people walking has become an activity of choice, rather than just a purely ordinary everyday routine (3).
Walker versus Wanderer
We may distinguish two assumption related walking: Walker is who has a target and who has to or prefers to walk
for a target. On the other hand, wanderer cares priorly walking itself. Moreover, wanderers walking is generally
unplanned and has no certain or pre-defined target.
Actually, in urban places one finds orchestrations of various types walking: purposeful ways walking in contrast with
more rethoric ways of walking, and more conceptual/reflexive ways of walking. The first type is the one of constant
and rapid pace along and in competition with the rushing crowd. It dissolves into rushing through, shopping,
eating, talking on the mobile phone, etc. The second type has varying paces, which synchronise with the body
internal (biological and psychological) rhythms, and at the same time it is sensible to external paces and temporalities
in urban space, experiencing and swinging along with places moving rhythms. It dissolves into wandering,
meandering, rambling, strolling, at last flaneuring. The last mode of walking is a reflexive, reactionary and
even experimental mode walking as way of critically building awareness and inciting creative responses to urban
places. Walking gives place to the deambulations, the detours, the derive of the Surrealist and Situationists
groups, respectively; wanderings of land, or to the Italian Stalkers experimental practices as well as
psychogeographical expeditions of literary writers, and of other art groups (Matos, 2005).
Walking and wandering are two very different things. Walking is functional; it is merely the act of getting from A to
B on our own two legs. But when we wander, it is the journeynot the destinationthat matters. Somewhere between
these two, there has to be a happy medium. In many of todays sprawling cities, traveling on foot can be difficult, if
not impossible. Even when sidewalks and crosswalks are available, many suburban and urban landscapes are so
debased that they provide little inspiration for wandering. To get lost on foot in Paris is a pastime; in Phoenix, its a
headache (7).
Figure 5. Todays wanderer (8).

To each of these types of walking relate specific paces as well as distinct levels of elastic and flexible temporal
engagement in urban space. It is through more rethoric and conceptual modes of walking habitual, informal and
critical ways of engaging urban space that consciousness and awareness on place rhythms and temporalities
emerge. It is rather through habitual and informal walking practices that one critically engages with urban places
temporal cultural and social milieus. Informal and critical modes of walking offer an intense form of engagement with
urban places temporalities place rhythms (Matos, 2005).
Over time, while walking through everyday urban space, one becomes familiar with places own rhythms, its social,
spatial, natural and other sensory - auditory and olfactory, temporal patterns. In this way, one constructs individual
lifeworlds and shares collective feelings and images for place. Walking, in itself a temporal spatial-social activity,
assists internally in the growing of intersubjectivity in urban space (Matos, 2005).
Rhythmicity in urban space is only fully and intimately perceived and engaged with while walking through the city.
Walking is in itself a dominant urban rhythm, as much spatial as social, and per se a unique situation which incites
the emergence of intersubjectivity in urban space. Both walking as a privileged condition of perception and
rhythmicity as key characteristic of urban places, the latter dependent from the former, have a significant role on
how one personally and socially relates to and remembers place (Matos, 2005).
Spaces of Walking
Several ways are noted in cognitive research literature which people use in order to obtain necessary information
from the spatial environment. People need this information to know the environment, to find their ways in it, to
reach a target, to circulate around, or even to get used to spatial environment. A real experience is one the ways to
acquire knowledge about the environment (Cubukcu and Nasar, 2005). Researchers suggest that people know the
environment hierarchically. First, they recognize some landmarks, and then they walk the routes. As the number of
the routes known increase, they form the whole mental image of the environment which is called survey knowledge
(Cubukcu and Nasar, 2005). Such hierarchical mental formation of environmental knowledge is practical for a user
who intends to know the environment systematically. However, wanderers may like to have fragmental mental
knowledge.
The Naked City is composed of nineteen cut-out sections of a map of Paris, printed in black ink, which are linked by
directional arrows printed in red. Its subtitle describes the map as an "illustration of the hypothesis of
psychogeographical turntables." Appropriated by Debord, the term "plaque tournante," which usually denotes a
railway turntable (a circular revolving platform with a track running along its diameter, used for turning locomotives),
here describes the function of the arrows linking the segments of the psychogeographical map. Each segment has a
different "unity of atmosphere." The arrows describe "the spontaneous turns of direction taken by a subject moving
through these surroundings in disregard of the useful connections that ordinarily govern his conduct." Thus these
"spontaneous inclinations of orientation" that link various "unities of atmosphere" and dictate the path taken by the
given subject correspond to the action of the turntable, which links various segments of track and dictates the
orientation of the locomotive (9).
Figure 6. Debords psychogeographical map The Naked City (1957) (10).

In a related situationist study, Chombart de Lauwe in 1952 mapped out all of the movements of a student in Pariss
16th Arrondissement. The spaces she visits through a year are surprisingly limited, and center on her house, her
piano teacher, and her School of Political Sciences. The goal of this study was to reveal the narrowness of the real
Paris in which each individual lives within a geographical area whose radius is extremely small. (11). It can be
considered an experiential map of one person.
Figure 7. Chombart de Lauwes map. (12).
In 1960, Kevin Lynch published his book titled The Image of the City, describing the concept of spatial legibility and
the urban elements that form legibility in a city. Lynch considered legibility a concept that eases wayfinding thus
walking in the city. For Lynch, walking or walkability is closely related to imageability of the built environment (Lynch,
1960).
Figure 8. Image map of the city (13).

In the end, it is that lifethat thrum of human interactionthat is at the heart of true walkability. When we choose to
walkor even wanderthrough areas that are more Phoenix than Paris, we make the statement: people should be
here. Barring physical impairment, we all have the ability to walk; it is within our power to create a better city simply
by being present. Head outside and walk around a bit. See for yourself (7). With environmental concerns the focus
of much debate, walking is becoming increasingly popular again in France and all over Europe. In the ideological
battle with cars, urban walking has several obvious advantages: it consumes little energy and occupies less space; it
is healthy; and it sustains social links. Despite this favourable context, the number of urban journeys made on foot is
far smaller than those made in motor vehicles. We need to ask why but we also need to understand what makes us
walk in town (Thomas, 2010).
Conclusions
Walking as one the bodily human experiences has an important role in portraying a deeper understanding and
conception of urban environments. On one hand, walking is a social, sensory and plastic act. Walking in town brings
pedestrians into contact with others, requires them to deal with bodies in movement and their proximity, anticipate
eye-to-eye contact and so on. All these constraints implicit in walking, apart from those imposed by urban design,
demand, on the part of the pedestrian, a number of navigation techniques and body techniques. When we glance
forwards to anticipate the presence of the crowd, slide a foot across the ground to gauge the slope, or even dodge
slightly to one side to avoid the crowd, we are indulging in forms of movement that make travel on foot possible and
operational. On the other hand, we assume that urban and architectural atmospheres impinge on modal choices and
the way we walk in public spaces. With its tightly packed or empty places, and the activities they accommodate, and
its materials, a town maps out spaces of visibility, listening, touching and so on, that may be plural, constrasting and
changing. These urban and architectural atmospheres shape and modulate the way we walk, much as urban
morphology or spatial design (Thomas, 2010).
References
Cubukcu, E. and Nasar, J., 2005. Relation of physical form to spatial knowledge in largescale virtual environments,
Environment and Behavior, May 2005, 37, pp.397-417.
De Vivo, F., 2016. Walking in sixteenth-century Venice: mobilizing the early modern city. Tatti Studies in the Italian
Renaissance, 19 (1), pp. 115-141.
Hallsten, J., 2014. Sonic movements spatial reflexivity. Somatechnics, 4.1, pp.133148.
Lynch, K., 1960. The image of the city, MIT Press.
Matos, F., 2005. Walking & Rhythmicity: sensing urban space, Walk21-VI Everyday Walking Culture, The 6th
International Conference on Walking in the 21st Century, September 22-23 2005, Zurich, Switzerland.
Thomas, R., 2010. Architectural and urban atmospheres: shaping the way we walk in town. In Pedestrians quality
needs final report : Part C : Executive Summary, Walk21, pp.54-68.
Online References
(1)https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/aug/06/a-good-wander-unveils-the-wonder-of-a-city-readers-onurban-walking
(2) http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/20684
(3)http://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Forschungseinrichtungen/isko/files/Walking_edKagan_2010.pdf
(4) http://www.npr.org/2011/06/03/136592986/gustave-caillebotte-impressions-of-a-changing-paris
(5) https://www.e-flux.com/journal/21/67676/culture-class-art-creativity-urbanism-part-i/
(6) https://www.uvm.edu/parkstudieslaboratory/publications/Manning_Long_Walks_%20Deep_Thoughts.pdf
(7) http://www.pps.org/blog/between-walking-and-wandering-power-in-presence/
(8) http://www.savoteur.com/world/the-importance-of-taking-a-walk
(9) http://www.danieljewesbury.org/situationistspace.pdf
(10) http://www.inenart.eu/?tag=psychogeographic-maps
(13) https://ahbelab.com/tag/kevin-lynch/
STUDENTS OF ARCHITECTURE DEVELOP COUNTERSTRATEGIES FOR SPATIAL TRANSFORMATION

THROUGH WALKING AND MAPPING
STELLA SOFIA PAPANICOLAOU
Stella Sofia Papanicolaou BAS (UCT), BArch (UCT), MPhil (UCT), Lecturer, University of Cape Town
Abstract
This paper describes a method devised for students of architecture to explore the city through walking and mapping.
The method aims to encourage students to explore space in the city not only as a geometric reality, but also as space
that has symbolic significance in the memories of people and as space that is created through how people
appropriate the city in their everyday lives. It was developed over a number of years in collaboration with the thirdyear students of the architectural design studio at the school of architecture in the University of Cape Town (UCT).
Ideas on different ways of understanding space were borrowed from the philosopher Henri Lefebvre and the
affordances of walking as a tool from De Certeau. The idea to use mapping in a creative process of understanding the
city was inspired by Corner (1999) and later expanded through the work of Graafland (2012).
One of the challenges the students faced was to find ways in which to capture information about space seen through
this range of theoretical lenses in a way that would render visible the aspects of the city that otherwise would remain
invisible to a designer. For this the students were encouraged to experiment with their graphic skills, through the use
of notations (Allen, 2000) and graphic techniques of wayfinding.
The students were provided with a matrix developed from the spatial triad offered by Lefebvre (1991b) in The
Production of Space and made more accessible by commentators on Lefebvre in particular Schmid (2008).
The process begins by offering the students advice from the philosopher and sociologist, de Certeau, who continued
the work of Lefebvre, to go down below as opposed to mapping from above, and to walk the city to discover its
everyday reality. Students were introduced to the idea that walking can be seen as a tool for architects and readings
on theories about walking were encouraged. Another concept borrowed from de Certeau was that of strategies and
tactics. This provided a lens that would bring into focus conflicting rationalities (Watson, 2003), the tensions that
exist between governing powers and the agency of people in their day-to-day lives that play out specifically in cities
of the global south. The students were tasked to identify aspects of the urban fabric that represented power and
those that were indicators of how people survived or appropriated these mechanisms of control in their daily lives.
In order to ensure the exercise was relevant to architecture, the matrix based on the spatial triad was overlaid with
another triad, one that captures what architects do implicitly when drawing, that is record, understand and project.
The walking and mapping project was therefore structured into three phases: recording the urban fabric with a focus
on the aspects related to urban governance; understanding, focussed on uncovering the invisible qualites of space
as experienced by the users; and projecting an imagined world into the future that would improve on at least one of
the aspects of lived realities uncovered through walking and mapping.
The paper concludes by showcasing an examples of student projects that were the result of this process of discovery
of the urban reality of their project site and a built work that achieved he desired transformation in question. These
examples illustrate how, by engaging with space as understood by its users, students and architects alike, are able to
imagine a future world in a way that is topical and resonates with the everyday challenges of people living in the city.
Introduction
This paper describes a method devised for students of architecture to explore the city through walking and mapping.
It was developed over a number of years, from 2007 to 2013, in collaboration with the third-year students of the
Bachelor of Architectural Studies (BAS) programme at the University of Cape Town (UCT).
The method came as a response to the call by Iain Low (2003), for a counter strategy to the spatial strategy that
reinforced the South African apartheid agenda.
The urban fabric of South African cities is still characterised by spatial devices used to enforce the agenda of
apartheid. The Group Areas Act of 1950 was used to remove people forcibly from racially mixed areas close to
economic centres, to racially segregated areas on the perifery. Green belts, roadways and railway lines were set up
as buffer zones (Figure 1) between the different racially defined areas of the city. Although dismantled in 1993, the
effects of the Group Areas Act played, and continue to play a significant role in racial polarisation and in the growing
gap between rich and poor.
Urban design and architecture played, and continue to play, a significant role in reinforcing the apartheid agenda.
Gated communities and high security walls emerge out of fear and a search for safety resulting in cities that do not
encourage or facilitate chance meetings between citizens from different racial and economic groups. (Figure 2)
Different space standards for different race groups (Figure 3), and separate entrances for whites and non-whites,
the latter often being relegated to the back, are just two examples of how architecture was complicit in the political
agenda of the past.
In order to establishing a counter strategy to the apartheid strategy, students must first undertand the existing
strategies that govern the city and that determine its built form. Among these they may come across regulations that
originate in the apartheid regime and that were instrumental in the implementation of apartheid. They are asked to
identify in which way architecture contributed and continues to contribute to the marginalisation, exclusion and
oppresion of the poor. Three examples are illutrated in fugures 1 to 3.
Once these strategies have been identified and documented, students are tasked to uncover the lived realities of the
city. In other words, they are challenged to investigate and record ways in which people in the city make do, how
they appropriate the city, how they survive it. In the process, it may be useful to explore other ways of understanding
space that do not belong to the discipline of architecture, that are not determined through geometry and material
qualities alone. With these two sets of documents the students are encouraged to understand and interpret the
frictions or tensions that are set up between the strategies and the everyday lives that inhabit the city. With an
understanding of the underlying tensions between these two often conflicting forms of action, they will be better
armed to offer a counter-strategy that will contribute to a more just environment that has the potential to facilitate
social transformation as opposed to promoting oppression.
In the global south theories developed in the north generally tend to cause the local conditions to appear as
exceptions to the rule. Working through case studies to develop theories is becoming a more acceptable way of
understanding local urban conditions. (Watson, 2003)
Some theoretical concepts however are useful in the post-rationalisation process of the methods explored and in
improving the methods over time and through the iterations. In order to break out of the restrictive modernist
theories of the discipline of architecture, and in an attempt to broaden its scope, the studio looked at theories from
philosophy and the social sciences that have been more critical of modern concepts but that also provide practical
alternatives for action.
Figure 1. Buffer zones continue to separate people into categories defined by race and economic class. [photograph
by author]
Figure 2. High walls and gated communities turn streets into hostile environments. Image by Dawin Meckel
[http://www.dawinmeckel.de]
Figure 3. Each bunk bed is a home for a hostel dweller and his family, not only defying the national building
regulations minimum standards for habitable spaces but also general principles of human dignity. [image taken from
cover page of A Bed called Home. Life in the migrant labour hostels of Cape Town by Mamphela Rhamphele.]
Theoretical framework: space, time and the everyday
A critique of modern architectural space points to the need to introduce a better understanding of the everyday into
the discipline. For theoretical ideas, we look outside of the discipline of architecture to theories about the everyday
for active means through which the design of space may become more responsive to the changing needs of everyday
life. Ideas on different ways of understanding space through a spatial triad were borrowed from Henri Lefebvre
(1991), while understanding the city as two forms of action, and the affordances of walking as a tool to get to know
the city, were appropriated from Michel De Certeau (1984). Instead of starting with these theories, the studio
adopted them in the later years of exploration. The theories were chosen for their ability to help articulate and
expland on the processes already underway in the studio based on hunches, and on student responses to the local
urban conditions and challenges.
Lefebvres theories on the everyday offer a form of analysis on ways of life brought on by modernism, in our case by
apartheid, modernism in its most negative form. De Certeau took Lefebvres work further by focusing on the practice
of everyday life to reveal the creative ways in which people are able to make do and appropriate given situations
and found objects. Both theorists acknowledged the situatedness of their studies and that their theories would
need to undergo constant re-evaluation and adjustments as situations changed. This research does not intend to
apply these theories uncritically to the South African condition, rather it pays attention to how Lefebvres work might
offer a way to open up the debate on architecture and the plurality of space in the city in the South African context.
The everyday serves as critique of modern rationalism, it is not static but continually renewing itself and as such
encourages modes of operation that are not discipline-specific and are a potential for transformation (Highmore,
2002). For Lefebvre transformation is achieved through the simultaneous preservation and negation of
contradictions.
Both Lefebvre and de Certeau used a dialectical approach to explore the contradictions of the everyday, and to
discover the potential in them. Dialectics involves the search for truth through rational discussion, and works on the
contradictions within an argument. It assumes that everything contains contradictions and is in constant change due
to the conflict of opposites. In recent years, dialectics has been used to overcome dualism. Dualism in Cartesian
thinking considers opposites to be mutually exclusive (truth versus falsehood, good versus bad, centre versus
periphery, formal versus informal) while dialectics seeks to understand the integral relationship between opposites
and understands them to be inherent in each other. (Hubbard, Kitchin and Valentine, 2004 p.345)
Lefebvre offered his schema through which to analyse the processes of transformation in many fields, including
music, language and space, to enable the discovery of possibilities and meanings within these moments and their
contradictions. In music the three moments that contradict and preserve each other are melody-harmony-rhythm
and in language, form-structure-function. The three moments through which space is transformed are livedconceived-perceived referred to as the Spatial Triad. (Schmid, 2008 p.27-45)
PRODUCED, CONCEPTUALISED AND REPRESENTED (LANGUAGE)
THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE
SPATIAL PRACTICE
REPRESENTATION OF SPACE
SPACES OF REPRESENTATION
Image & defines a space
Evokes social values & norms
Material dimension
Paradigmatic dimension
Symbolic dimension
Social interaction
Descriptions & definitions
Refers to material symbol
Of networks & exchange
Emerges through discourse
Emerges on the ground
EXPERIENCED THROUGH COGNITIVE MODES (PHENOMENOLOGY)

Perceived space
Conceived space
Lived space
Grasped by all the senses

Integral to social practice
Required for space

perceived
An act of thought
Elements of space
Elements together form a whole
to
be
Located in everyday life

Impossible to analyse fully
Experience of space
Relates to materiality of space Production of knowledge

Production of art
Table 1. The Production of Space by Henri Lefebvre according to Schmid (2008)
RHYTHMANALYSIS
Exceptional time
Cyclical time
PAST
PRESENT
Protests, celebrations, festivals
Natural rhythms, creativity
THE BODY
Table 2. Rhythmanalysis locates the body in time
Linear time
FUTURE
Labour, monotony
Henri Lefebvre offers an alternative method of recording space in Rhythmanalysis (2004). Instead of geometry he
suggests we take note of the rhythms and the pace of the city. Space and time come to be understood as one through
rhythm. Through Rhythmanalysis Lefebvre offers a way of surfacing the invisible aspects of the city. Immovable
objects like buildings move even if very slowly. The message here is not necessarily to replace geometry with rhythm,
but to think of other ways of capturing information about the city that will make it possible to reveal what our
conventional manner of recording has been concealing, to find another lens another frame of reference. It is a
practical guide on how to bring together his three spatial categories. This marks a shift from understanding
architecture as a passive, static object to understanding it as an active participant in the life of the city. Time and
space, and the relationship between them, become important to observe.
De Certeau too relied on the dialectic process but he chose instead to work with asymmetrical binaries that are nonoppositional meaning they do not negate each other. These are binaries such as spaceplace, spokenwritten,
and productionconsumption as opposed to on-off. What de Certeau contributes to this study is a set of theoretical
questions, and forms of action that aim to make it possible to discuss and therefore represent what is otherwise
the elusive nature of the everyday (1984 p.xi). He is of interest to architecture and planning specifically for
encouraging planners to walk as an alternative to mapping when getting to know the city. De Certeau understood
the study of the everyday as unfinished business, a project of becoming rather than of being. The idea of becoming
in a context of continual change is of particular interest to this research.
Through the non-oppositional binary strategytactics de Certeau offers a way of understanding the series of actions
through which people resist and subvert the status quo to find relief from a highly regulated and controlled daily life.
He looked for how people imagined differently from the way their daily lives were governed. De Certeau was
interested in the relationship between the making of objects and their use. Resistance was measured through the
difference between the logic of its making and the logic of its use. Resistance can be expressed through non-action,
such as responding slowly to an urgent call at work or through action such as inventive use. An example of inventive
use is the appropriation of a found object for a use entirely different to what it was intended. The re-use of shopping
trollies as home and the underside of freeways as markets, typical in the South African landscape, are two such
examples.
De Certeau focused on the innovative activity of use and re-use of products and set out to identify and describe the
methods or forms of action through which these were achieved. The non-oppositional binary, strategy and
tactics are the two forms of action of the everyday. Strategy operates within the logic of norms and regulations. It
is the form of action of any governing body, be it state, industrial management, or institution. It is located in place,
and thus associated with ownership and property; location, or home base, provides a position of strength through
which it is possible to establish and enforce proper conventions. Tactics on the other hand are mobile, nomadic and
lack a proper location; they take advantage of opportunities and must seize the moment as soon as it presents itself.
Tactics use the potential presented in a strategic circumstance in a creative way in order to get by. Tactics need
strategy to exist. To quote de Certeau, tactics escape strategy without leaving. Without strategy there are no
tactics. (1984 p.xiii)
This process can be likened to Freuds idea of the unconscious surfacing in the conscious mind. The tactical leaves
traces of its existence through subversion, a slip of a tongue, an insinuation, trickery or other creative ways of
operating that defy the intention of the regulating (strategic) logic without being noticed. De Certeau wished to
foreground the everyday to reveal its peculiar logic.
Strategy gains control over time through the establishment of a place of its own, a proper place. It marks out borders,
or frontiers, that delimit this place, excluding what does not fit its logic. It masters place through sight. Through sight,
strategy sets up a distance (a space) between itself and its other and thus establishes control of its other. These
ideas are reminiscent of Foucaults theories on power and the panopticon. But unlike Foucault, instead of focussing
on the forms of action of the powerful, de Certeau was more interested in the forms of action of the weak how
they resist and survive in a world that imposes on them an alien logic.
STRATEGY
Dominant logic
Represented
Conscious
Place
Sight
Production
TACTICS
Resistance
Repressed
Subconscious
Time
Wit
Consumption
Table 3. The non-oppositional binary: strategy and tactics, according to Michel de Certeau (1984).
Reading and writing is another example of a non-oppositional binary. In a strategic way, writing relies on the grammar
of a language to establish structure. The reader travels across the place of the book in a tactical manner. Readers are
not loyal to the intentions of the writer, but pick up opportunities to feed their imagination, memories and desires.
The reader is as responsible for the production of meaning (as secondary production) in the text as the writer. In fact,
without the reader, the writers work has no purpose and cannot be communicated.
The dialectic relationship between these binaries can be explained through de Certeaus idea of the metaphor: the
metaphor transports ideas from one context to another. Stories or narratives are similar to metaphors; they travel
across frontiers and tactically re-organise places. The frontier that contains and delimits a place has the potential
to become a crossing. The bridge at the frontier can divide and connect. It is ambiguous as it identifies division as
much as it threatens it. The bridge facilitates departure from the strategically demarcated place; it allows departure
from a specific logic. This departure affords an objective perspective and allows the traveller to understand what is
exterior, what lies beyond the frontier. For de Certeau, it is on returning from the exterior that the traveller is able
to recognise the exteriority that resides within the borders. The benefit of the bridge and the frontier for de Certeau
is that it is through marking out place and defining the rules of ones logic that it becomes possible to see the
resistance to that logic, to see the tactical within the strategic. It becomes possible to represent it. Once represented,
the tactical can serve in the production of a counter-strategy.
Stories, or narratives, as metaphors move around organising places, crossing boundaries, setting up and transforming
relationships. They move ideas across from one context to another transforming them as they go. For de Certeau,
stories are spatial trajectories; through movement in a specific place over time they spatialise place. For de Certeau
space is practiced place. Practiced place includes in it the invisible aspects of space that involve relationships and
experiences, in other words, the actions of people. (1984 p.115)
MAPPING
map
writing
establishes boundaries
frozen in time
place
WALKING
itinerary
reading
crosses boundaries
movement
space
Figure 4. The non-oppositional binary: walking and mapping, according to Michel de Certeau (1984).
Walking metaphorically allows us to be tactical, to cross the frontiers established through the strategic action of
mapping. De Certeau introduces the idea of walking to emphasise the experiential aspects of the city in opposition
to the distance achieved from strategically observing the city from above. He equates representation to seeing from
a distance from where reading and deciphering can take place.
The word theory implies this meaning of representation as described by de Certeau. It signifies looking from a
distance, as a spectator looking at a distant view. This elevation turns us into a viewpoint or voyeurs; it makes us
god-like. It is an abstraction of what goes on down below. This is the method of the city planner or cartographer
who must keep aloof from the messy entanglement of the everyday in order to produce a visual representation of
the city. Walking on the other hand is presented as experience and non-visual. As de Certeau puts it, the walker
writes the city without reading it.
The ordinary practitioners of the city live down below they are walkers whose bodies follow the thicks and thins
of an urban text they write without being able to read it. These practitioners make use of spaces that cannot be seen.
The networks of these moving and intersecting writings compose a manifold story that has neither author nor
spectator, shaped out of fragments of trajectories and alterations of spaces: in relation to representations, it remains
daily and indefinitely other. (de Certeau, 1984 p.93)
Unlike the city planner or cartographer, the ordinary people of the city, who live down below experience the city as
walkers. As walkers they write the city without being able to read it. They each generate narratives that intersect
and are in continuous motion producing the spaces of the city.
De Certeau juxtaposes the clear legible representation of the planner, defined through geometry and visual
constructs, against what he calls another spatiality, a poetic and mythic experience of the bustling city. This other
spatiality slips into the clear text of the planned city. The dialectic interaction between mapping and walking offers
an opportunity for the tactical forms of action of the city to be explored and represented.
In the studio we expand on ideas about space and time through Lefebvres spatial triad and rhythmanalysis, which
provide a matrix for a layered approach that permits multiple and contradictory conditions of space to exist
simultaneously. Using de Certeaus dialectical understanding of strategy and tactics it is possible to foreground the
tactical: to make it visible so it can influence design more overtly. The dialectical relationship between mapping and
walking allows legibility to infiltrate the act of walking, so that walking itself shifts between being a strategic form of
action and being tactical.
Methodology: from strategies and tactics to counter-strategies towards transformation
The methodology proposed in this dissertation for students to explore is a work in progress. It is a possible approach
to the challenge of understanding the city in its multiplicity in the form of a matrix of actions to be taken. It is not a
definitive solution and has undergone a number of iterations with more iterations planned. Each iteration has
provided opportunity for adjustment in response to connections and clashes that emerged between theory and its
application. It approaches the challenge as a wicked problem that needs to be reconsidered every time a solution
is applied. (Rittel and Webber, 1973) This dissertation attempts to freeze a moment in the life of this investigation to
explore its implications and links across the various practical and theoretical aspects and activities it has entailed.
The emphasis does not lie on the students findings but rather on the methods used. The students role has been to
help clarify the matrix by testing it; therefore student work is presented only where it serves to make a point about
the development of the methodology.
The proposed methodology is divided into three stages of work summarised in Table 5 below. Each stage is
characterised by a specific focus and set of requirements. The concepts and methods required for each stage are
presented to students in a series of lectures and handouts. These are illustrated through work produced by scholars
from various fields, as well as by UCT BAS students from previous years of exploration. Because students leave each
year and do not have the opportunity to repeat the process, they are briefed through the presentation of work
produced in previous years, and in this way can indirectly experience the iterative process to build on past experience.
This three-tiered mapping process assumes characteristics of architectural drawing: when sketching and drawing
architects tacitly perform the triple action of recording, questioning and projecting all in one (Bordeleau and
Bresler, 2010 pp.45-58). Each mapping builds on the previous. The first layer concerns recording what is through
mapping existing realities and establishing the political and economic strategies that define the built fabric. It
constructs a set of base maps on which to work. The second poses a question to uncover what exists but has not yet
been recorded. It needs the first mapping through which to recover the potential of the site and to reveal the tactics
used to appropriate space through its lived realities. The final stage of work builds on the first two and responds with
a projection into the future, a counter-strategy.
STAGE ONE
STAGE TWO
STAGE THREE
The Strategies of the City

recording
Surfacing the Tactics

recording . understanding
Counter-Strategies
recording . understanding . projecting
descriptive
cognitive
normative / prescriptive
Follow Task Cards to map Follow the issues that emerge Respond to conflicting rationalities
ownership,
zoning from walking and talking to user between strategies and tactics, to
regulations,
spatial groups, and your curiosity to transform the strategies of the city to
systems,
geometric surface the invisible
support social and spatial justice
Table
5. Summary of the three-tiered methodology proposal for student-collaborators to follow
mappings
The emphasis in Stage One mapping is on precision, continuity of categorisation and collaboration. This stage aims
to interpret the nature of the strategic forms of action that regulate the city; it involves the articualtion of boundaries
(frontiers) and is captured predominanlty through geometric and visual methods.
Stage Two requires curiosity about the city to guide the process of discovery of aspects of the city that are not obvious
or immediately visible; it relies on the first stage as base material. This is the space in which the students are
encouraged and expected to take note of their periferal vision while walking, to follow hunches, to explore and to
take risks. They are encouraged to observe patterns, proximites, repetitions, absences, anomalies and co-incedences
as part of the process of discovery. This stage aims to foreground the tactical forms of action that have been
obscured by the dominant logic of the legislated city and by the multiplicity of the urban fabric.
Stage Three is about synthesising the information gathered and discovered in the first two stages. It entails imagining
scenarios for the future and projecting interventions by working through the layered palimpsest of information and
identifying the areas that suggest potential for improvement. These scenarios and their modifications establish an
approach and a framework for the context of the individual interventions that entail the design of a building. This
stage aims to imagine a project of urban design in a way that challenges the masterplan. It looks for interventions
that respond to the everyday reality of its users and that will be able to deal with unpredictable changes into the
future.It is presented as a counter-strategy for transformation.
There are a number of different ways in which mappings can be represented. Through this process three groupings
or kinds of mappings are identified for students to consider. The first prioritises geometric accuracy and represents
distances between elements of the map as precisely as possible, thus referring closely to the territory in a geometric
sense. A second kind of mapping attempts to highlight perceived relationships through distortion of distances but
clarity of connections between elements. A third kind of mapping is one that disconnects or abstracts elements
entirely from the territory and lists them on a matrix of images, either photographic or sketches.
The geometrically accurate map includes the contour map, the erf diagram, the figure ground and the Nolli map. It
is loyal to the geometric interpretation of space or Lefebvres conceived space. These maps are useful when
identification of property ownership is important, orientation between elements and the relationship of the body to
open space is being considered. Mappings of open space systems, ownership and thresholds should use this approach
to mapping.
The map that distorts distance is useful to capture movement systems and how these are perceived in relation to
each other. This mapping is loyal to the idea of space as a set of relations or Lefebvres perceived space. Transport
systems particularly work well depicted in this way, but any topic where movement or relationships between
elements are a priority will benefit from this kind of map. An example is the map of the London underground designed
in 1931 by Harry Beck (19021974).
The third mapping type is loyal to Lefebvres idea of lived space. It is a process of mapping out ideas as opposed to
the production of a territorial map, in order to see elements together for comparison, to notice similarities and
identify repetitions and types. In this study, the emphasis is on mapping for the purpose of visualisation (as a verb)
and not the production of maps (a noun). For this, graphs and accompanying diagrams are further tools that need to
be considered when mapping.
Most of the mappings in Stage One are macro-narratives that articulate the strategies of governing systems, of state
and capital. Shifting from looking at macro-narratives, therefore, this stage of the proposal focuses on the micronarratives of the site. It aims to uncover the way people make do with the systems that control and order them.
While in Stage One students rely on Task Cards for methods and modes of representation, in stage two they must
use their curiosity and the clues found in the city to decide what and how to map. The question will determine the
appropriate methods. The broad underlying theme of this stage of work has been the relationship between
architecture and the city in the context of transformation in South Africa and in the context of a fluid and everchanging globalised world. The proposition of this studio is that the city offers itself not only as context for building
designs, but also as a resource of appropriate ideas for design.
James Corner explains how mapping can be more than a reductive and authoritarian instrument. It can be an
instrument of visualisation; it can be used to understand spatial relationships and to store information. It has the
potential to be a research tool through which we can understand relationships and recognise patterns and
tendencies. If seen in this light, mapping, like architecture can bring together scientific accuracy with cultural and
creative expression. (Corner, 1999)
It is precisely because maps are not a true reflection of reality that they have the power to create an alternative
reality, one that is underpinned by whatever agenda the mapmaker wishes to pursue. This implies that the map can
also be seen as a means for discovery and a means for change. (Harley, 1989; Graafland, 2012) For mapping to be
useful in a creative process we must consider maps not purely as forms of representation, measurements or
depictions of what exists. Instead we should also consider what maps can enable. Maps have the potential to
enable the reformulation of what already exists; they can facilitate the transformation of the world we live in. What
already exists is not only made up of what is visible but also of ideas that are invisible. If we wish to reformulate or
transform our environment, we must consider both its visible and invisible aspects.
The creative potential of mapping lies in the two sets of operations essential to its process: the operation of finding
and revealing, and the operation of relating and connecting. James Corner refers to these as the abstract and
analogue characteristics of maps. (Corner, 1999)
Visualisation helps us to see facts more clearly. Mapping is a technique for visualisation and requires detective work.
It brings together the language of the eye and the language of the mind. In order to make sense of what we are
looking at we need to present information in a relative way. (McCandless, 2010)
In a TEDTalk about listening, Julian Treasure provides some valuable advice that can be applied to mapping as a
means of discovery. He urges us to listen with intention; to filter or separate out information into types; to savour
and enjoy the mundane; and to look out for the hidden choir. He suggests a listening position, which he describes
as RASA (Receive Appreciate Summarise Ask). This listening position can be used in this mapping process. This advice
is reminiscent of the ideas we encountered through de Certeau on how to foreground the aspects of the city that
resist its dominant logic and that resist representation. That is, to look for what has been omitted, the absence.
(Treasure, 2011) In order to map effectively in this way we must necessarily walk the city, to engage it and the people
that live in it.
Significance seen through student work
Probably the clearest example of effective mapping this exercise has produced was one from 2011 that exposed the
role that UCT-owned buildings play in the social life of Main Road Mowbray. This group overlaid a map of public
activity on the street with a map of property ownership. The students overlayed mappings of UCT owned buildings,
fences, hair salons and other retail activity and their own observations on where people socialise along the streets
edge. This juxtaposition of maps revealed that UCT ownership on Main Road was responsible for the dead spaces
along that strip. This project had a considerable influence on the class and many of the design projects that followed
addressed this issue by designing university functions that were more porous and inclusive of everyday activities on
Main Road.
Figure 4. student group mappings that reveal relationships between accisible spaces and property ownership
The students project in 2011 (Image below) was a direct response to the findings of her peers mappings that the
university created dead space along Main Road Mowbray. She designed the brief for her building around a
hypothetical agenda of the university willing to become more accessible to the public. Her urban proposal sets up a
pedestrian route from the station to the Jammie Shuttle that takes students to Upper Campus. En route she designed
a building to capture people from the street and offer services provided by student volunteers for extra tuition to
high school children and affordable legal advice to families. The pedestrian route enters the building, becoming a
vertical social hub and ends on the roof in a lecture theatre with a view of the campus on the mountain and the Cape
Flats where the majority of Cape Towns marginalised citizens reside.
Figure 5. student design of 2011 showing an inclusive approach to the design of a campus building in the city.
In conclusion I would like to present here an example of a built project that achieves the desired kind of
transformation alluded to in this paper. It involves the transformation of an existing building that forms part of the
Constitutional Hill heritage precinct in Johannesburg. No 3 Kotze Street formed part of the Native Section of the
old Johannesburg General Hospital. The building functioned as a native compound (hostel) for the non-white
staff of the Hospital. From the toilet facilities provided it appears that it was a single sex hostel for male workers.
Situated directly opposite Womens Goal and Constitutional Hill, No 3 Kotze forms part of valuable heritage building
stock of Johannesburg. Whilst its architectural form is functional, its significance lies in its physcial documentation of
Johannesburgs social history. The dormitory accommodation with its concrete platforms and prison-like cubicles,
bears testimony to the harsh conditions experienced during the onset of Apartheid. Most revealing is the lack of a
front door, which highlighted the indignity of the Apartheid experience of the Black person as a second-rate citizen.
Figure 6. Transformation of 3 Kotze Street Johannesburg by Lemon Pebble architects and Kate Otten architects
The design objective was to directly confront and reverse this physcial manifestion of inequality through the
modification of the toilets providing privacy where there was none, and through the creation of an exaggerated
public access by breaking through the front of the building and creating a new visible public access. The legible
architectural intervention reflects clearly what was previously lacking in the original design, diginity through presence
on the public street.
It is hoped that future designers of the built environment will take on the challenge to change the practice of our
discipline to assume multiple ways of understanding space in the city, and to include the effort to transform the
modern apartheid city into a more inclusive and caring environment for those currently on the periphery and in
poverty. The proposal to develop counter-strategies to the spatial strategies that characterise the modern and
apartheid city, through the understanding of the strategic and tactical forms of action is just one offering that hopes
to facilitate architects to contribute in more meaningful ways to the social and spatial transformations of our cities.
References
Allen, S., 2000. Mapping the Unmappable: On Notation. Stan Allen Essays: Practice, Architecture, Technique, and
Representation, pp.29-45.
Bordeleau, A. and Bresler L., 2010. Drawing the Map: Siting Architecture. FOOTPRINT 4 (2), pp.45-58.
Corner, J., 1999. The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention. Mappings, edited by Denis E. Cosgrove:
Reaktion Books.
de Certeau, M., 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall. Berkley: University of California
Press.
Graafland, A. ed., 2012. Architecture Technology & Design. Urbanism Readings: Digital Studio for Research in Design,
Visualization and Communication.
Harley, J. B., 1989. Deconstructing the Map. Cartographica 26 (2), p.1.
Highmore, B., 2002. Everyday Life and Cultural Theory: An Introduction. Routledge.
Hubbard, P., Kitchin, R. and Valentine, G., 2004. Key Thinkers on Space and Place. London: SAGE.
Lefebvre, H., 1991a. Foreward to the Second Edition. Critique of Everyday Life Volume One. Translated by John Moore.
Second ed., pp.1-99. London, New York: Verso.
McCandless, D., July 2010. The beauty of data visualisation. TEDGlobal. Retrieved from
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization
, 1991b. The Production of Space. Wiley-Blackwell.
, 2004. Rhythmanalysis: Space, time and everyday life. A&C Black.
Low, I., 2003. Space and Transformation: Architecture and Identity. Digest of South African Architecture 2002
Emerging Identities,
Rittel, H.W.J. and Webber M.M., 1973. Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences, 4 (2), pp.155-169.
Schmid, C., 2008. Henri Lefebvres Theory of the Production of Space: Towards a Three-Dimensional Dialectic. Space,
Difference, Everyday Life: Reading Henri Lefebvre, pp.27-45.
Treasure,
J.,
July
2011.
5
ways
to
listen
better.
TEDGlobal.
Retrieved
from
http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_5_ways_to_listen_better?language=en
Watson, V., 2003. Conflicting Rationalities: Implications for Planning Theory and Ethics. Planning Theory & Practice,
4 (4), pp. 395-407.
I would like to acknowledge the team at the Engaged Scholarship Workshop of UCT, and Ermien van Pletzen from
CHED UCT, for the support and advice they have provided, and my students for all the energy they have put into this
project over the years and without whom this research could not exist.
DANCE AND SPACE: A BODILY PRESENCE

HANI ZGHEIB
Hani Zgheib, Assistant Professor, Notre Dame University, Lebanon
Abstract
This paper is a case study analysis of a Contemporary Dance district designed in an abandoned site in Mar Mikhael,
a traditional neighborhood in Beirut, Lebanon, which has been going through a drastic transformation due to the
emergence of street activities and artistic manifestations. The old neighborhood is occupied by youngsters during
the day and, especially, at night. The architectural approach of this project is inspired by the neighborhoods selftransformation and the human Body movement. A thorough study is conducted on two levels: the neighborhood and
contemporary dance. The first is transformed rapidly and the second being a natural and free expression of the young
society. The integration of the project in its site takes into consideration the animated street life along with artistic
and commercial activities. The conceptual approach to architecture uses the movement of the Body as a main
inspiration. A City (which is also a Body) has parts of it that are inactive; through architecture we can re-animate
them. Architecture is able to animate a dead place, like dance animates the Body, and the space created is filled with
the Body movement of the dancers. The outcome is a building free of constrains, integrated into its site, while giving
freedom to its users.
Introduction
This experimental case study was the subject of the Final Year Project in Architecture of Miss Tatiana Geagea under
the supervision of her main Advisor, Dr. Hani Zgheib, at the Faculty of Architecture, Art and Design at Notre Dame
University, Lebanon. Its title is Contemporary Dance District in Mar Mikhael. Contemporary Dance is an art that
involves the experimentation of dance, disciplining and learning about the bodys potential, where there are neither
rules nor boundaries, even in the space subjected to the moving body. This project does not only cater to the
professional dancers, but also to the public of all ages, educational or cultured background, and socio-economical
level. The site location will enhance the cultural activities on Armenia Street, the main street of the area and, at the
same time, provide a space portraying the earthly conditions that a dancing body may invoke. It is an architectural
statement to allow one to experience what the dancer is experiencing.
Problematic
In Lebanon, dance is considered as only a means for entertainment, and not demonstrated on an artistic level. In
contrast, Contemporary Dance is gaining popularity among youths due to their exposure to foreign media and trends.
However, there is not enough spread of scientific and practical awareness on the subject and the effect of dance on
nurturing the body and soul, which is beneficial to society as a whole. There is a need to cater to this art and allow a
diverse public to be engaged and show their talents, express themselves, and develop innovative ideas and liberal
thoughts.
The lack of venues on both academic and public levels is contributing to this problematic; large theatres are damaged
due to the civil war, closed or abandoned for economic reasons, or turned into restaurants and other more lucrative
commercial facilities. The available theatres, which are many, provide confined spaces for small, though important,
theatrical plays. They do not cater for the Contemporary Dance performances facilities such as technical installations
or flexible spaces that allow free movement and innovations.
Context and Socio-Economical Realms
Mar Mikhael (Saint Michael) is an area in the Eastern part of Beirut. It is a mixed-use, quiet neighborhood, with a mix
of residential buildings, some dating back to the late 1920s, and commercial spaces on the street level, mainly retail
and small industrial workshops. Lately, some of the buildings identity have been changed with the establishment of
new functions such as boutique hotels, pubs and restaurants, artistic venues, galleries, arts crafts shops, design
workshops, etc. This transformation made the area popular among the young generation, where they find a way to
express their creativity within a typical, traditional neighborhood.
Today Mar Mikhael is unrecognizable from its former self, with a plethora of eateries, pubs and art spaces amidst
the mechanics and industrial venues which are still in operation during the day. Though some applaud this as modern
urbanization and progress, others warn that it could be in danger of being another Gemmayze (West of Mar Mikhael),
which saw a significant drop in footfall after it had been a nightlife destination, or worse yet, a gentrified area
(Rahhal, 2014). Gentrification, previously simply understood as upper income folks moving into lower income areas,
is now broadened to reflect commercial and real estate investments in an area, leading to displacement at times,
though not always (Sareen, 2016).
While gentrification provides employment and investment opportunities in many cases, it could equally cause serious
problems within the urban tissue resulting in incompatible uses, the invasion of alien activities within residential
areas or the abandonment of buildings leading to the emergence of derelict sites. In our case, although the project
intervention might seem invasive to the area, it actually encourages the current life style by, first, using an abandoned
site that belongs to the railway company, second, by providing a non-commercial space and, third, by inviting to free
expression of all classes of society, which means the whole city. All this should help attracting people to the
neighborhood and energize it instead of pushing them out.
The selected site is surrounded by, to the North, the abandoned train station and the Charles Helou Beirut-North
highway, which represent a clear edge and an interruption of the urban fabric; to the South, Armenia street, the main
artery of the area, a very active street day and night; to the East, the Borj Hammoud area, a low income mixed-use
neighborhood; to the West, an intricate array of stairs and narrow alleys, an area extending to the high-end Beirut
Central District. We can notice that the site choice represents a focal point for all surrounding areas of all classes and
backgrounds.
Figure 1. The Site and its urban context, showing the connectivity of different areas.
Body and Space
Dance is an art which involves the expression of feelings, emotions and opinions through the manipulation of the
body; it is the connection between the mind, body and soul. Movement heals, gives freedom, confidence and a
means of expression. Dance helps with decreasing stress levels, increasing ones immunity, growth, wisdom, selfrespect, self-confidence, strength and relaxation. All these dimensions help for a healthier life.
Architecture is able to animate a dead place, like dance animates the body. Space is created through architecture,
and this space is filled with movement, which is a stable reality of our existence. A city (which could be assimilated
to a body) has parts of it that are inactive, like abandoned or derelict properties. Through architecture we can reanimate the static part of the city from dead to alive. Doing so will also allow people to re-animate their bodies
through the suggested dance program. The suggested site in Mar Mikhael is a place where small industries were once
present, and a place where the emergence of arts, technology and human expressions are taking place, which are
primarily the basis of contemporary performances.
Modern dance developed from the technique of Dance Your Way to Communication 10 ballet, but gave dancers the
ability to add emotions and personal expressions to movement, which, in turn, made the artwork meaningful, giving
the audience a feeling of emotional catharsis. Modern dance gives dancers a unique opportunity to feel comfortable
in their own skin while participating in a nonjudgmental, safe environment. There is stress to develop ones own
movement style and emphasis on personal expression through improvisational movement. (Levy, 1998).
Highly interpretive in its choreography, Contemporary Dance often includes an innate focus on alignment,
oppositional movement, raw emotions and systematic breathing. While many dance genres, including jazz and lyrical,
focus on flexibility and the mastery of various structured steps, the technique in contemporary dance is focused
much more upon unconventional choreographic moves that were devised in the first 60 years of the 20th century by
various masters of the craft. The techniques were unconventional because they moved away from the lyrical
movements of ballet and other classical dance forms. In addition, they took influences from non-western dance
cultures, such as the down-to-earth bent knees of African style dancing. Using these elements and more, the earliest
contemporary dancers were revolutionary in breaking away from classical, traditional dance forms. (Hanson, 2015)
Martha Graham is often credited as the founding mother of contemporary and modern dance. As a dancer and
choreographer for over seven decades, she brought modern dance into the mainstream. Ironically, she hated the
terms Modern and Contemporary, as she believed dance styles were constantly evolving and changing according to
the times. She didn't want her choreography or her ideals boxed in, and this has continued to be a running mindset
among Contemporary Dance choreographers who have followed in her footsteps. Martha Graham's insistence that
Contemporary Dance is always evolving to incorporate new music, new movement styles, and new philosophies
encompasses the defining characteristic of Contemporary Dance, since each dancer's influences vary according to
time and place, not to mention the inner voice of the artist that guides his art.
With the current age of technology, Contemporary Dance is still breaking the boundaries by using the available
media, projections, installations, etc. Contemporary Dance helps to focus on the perception of the body on stage and
of the body in life in general. It is the diversity of dance, the structure starting from the body, what the needs of the
body are, and how they are present in life.
Architectural Interpretation
According to Rosenberg (2010), it is crucial to study spaces and connection through spaces when discussing a dancing
body within an architectural context. The Haptic (tactile muscular) and the Optic (strained) are terms which allowed
us to move further with the analysis of the urban context. Haptic indicates all the elements that one can feel with
the five senses, whereas the Optic is the visual perception which includes backgrounds and contour observation. This
led to further investigation of the masses and voids present in the morphology of the neighborhood (figure/ground)
and noticed the presence of three types of voids: transversal, open, and enclosed, all of which will be a starting point
for the design strategy.
Figure 2. The three types of voids: transversal, open, and enclosed.
Continuing the analysis of space connections, such as passages and links within the fabric, and the context
connectivity where pedestrians, events, commercial and entertainment connectivity are present within the
immediate surroundings of the site.
The study of mass and void, connectivity, haptic and optic, led to the logical use of the Japanese concept of MA,
which means Interval. Nitschke (1993) defines MA as a sense of Place and Japanese architecture has been shown to
reveal a progress towards consciousness of space in breadth rather than in depth. The consciousness of MA (place
making), combining the dualities object/space, time/space, objective-outer world/subjective-inner-world, was the
basis of their traditional architecture. It stemmed from an even deeper consciousness of the Great Void
experienced through aesthetics.
MA will be used in parallel with the theoretical approaches of different types of experimental dance. Such approaches
include Space, Time, Weight, Flow and the relationship between architecture and dancing through the Haptic and
Optic sense, where the haptic is everything one may experience through the five senses and the optic where people
will perceive all means of contours and backgrounds revealed to the human eye. After carefully studying the latter,
a site analysis is conducted along with a synthesis, where the massing will start appearing as a result of both concept
and contextual analysis.
Studying the area further, in terms of network mobility, the site happens to be in between both linear and spatial
types of mobility. Linear, for example, is the Charles Helou highway, Armenia Street, the railway and the staircases.
The spatial is the connection of different areas through space. The site itself happens to be an interval in between
different types of network systems. The project will ensure the continuity of this kind of movement.
Project Outcome
Figure 3. The plans do not only cater to the needs of the public, but allows for the direct interaction with the dancers.
The different spaces allow one to feel the capacity of their body. For instance, the sequence of spaces allows moving
from a wide into a very tight space, with body sculpture exhibition on both sides. Here the MA is the movement in
between stillness. Or, for example, the dance platform where the MA is the void in which light determines the dance
spot.
Figure 4. Sections show the relation of the public zone to the experimental, and how one can access the dance roof
and become a part of the dancing environment.
Figure 5. This is where the dancers and public collide. This performance venue is not like a theatre. There is no stage,
only space, and that space is filled up with both audience and dancers.
Figure 6. This perspective is the project placed within its context. The busy activities of Armenia Street are spreading
into the project and allowing non-dancers to interact, or even try to dance.
Figure 7. The project offering a free realm for the body, space, and street activities to collide in a liberated form of
architecture, not confined to any time or style, reflecting the concepts of Contemporary Dance.
References
Lepecki, A., 2006. Exhausting Dance: Performance and the Politics of Movement. London and New York: Routledge
Levy, F., 1988. Dance Movement Therapy: A Healing Art. Virginia: National Dance Association
Nitschke, G., 1993. From Shinto to Ando. UK: Academy Editions.
Rahhal, N., 2014. Mar Mikhael: Still peaking or overheating?. Beirut: Executive Magazine. http://www.executivemagazine.com/business-finance/society/mar-mkhayel-beirut
Rosenberg, S., 2010. On Architecture and the Dancing Body: Changing Visuality. Connecticut: Wesleyan University.
Sareen, V., 2016. ULI Washington 2016 Trends: Rethinking Gentrification: An Opportunity for All to Share in Economic
Success. Washington: Urban Land Institute. http://washington.uli.org/trends-conference-2016/uli-washington2016-trends-rethinking-gentrification-opportunity-share-economic-success
EXPERIENCING THE PLACE, EXPERIMENTAL

LEARNING AT ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 4
ZLEM DEMRKAN, AL AHN
zlem Demirkan, Instructor, KTO Karatay University Faculty of Fine Arts and Design, Department of Architecture
Ali ahin, Research Assistant, KTO Karatay University Faculty of Fine Arts and Design, Department of Architecture
Abstract
This study aims at presenting the study of experiencing place conducted with undergraduates studying architecture
within the scope of the course of Architecture Studio 4. The undergraduates were asked to design a culture street in
their campus. They were assigned to design 40 rooms for faculty members, 10 rooms for student clubs and societies,
book selling space and seminar hall for 50 people. Before the design, an experiential study with design area and users
was set up with undergraduates. The undergraduates were separated into two groups. They were given 45 minutes.
They moved as groups in given time and tried to fulfill the 15 duties. The duties were determinant in making the
participants communicate with users and determining the shortcomings of the place. It was targeted to examine the
participants experiences with place-human and the relationship of final product. Within this context, this study was
organized under the title of architect-design-user relation. It was tried to reveal the connections between findingsexperience and product.
Keywords: Architecture, experience, experiment, everyday life
Introduction
According to Lefebvre, three moments effect the process of place production. Perceived, designed and experienced
(Lefebvre, 1974, pp. 68,231). Our experiences play a major role in making connections with the place. Therefore, the
architects try to connect with the place they are designing, experience it and discover the clues about that place
before they actualize their designs. The first input of design is the subject of project. Experiencing the design in
everyday life is an important start for the designer to obtain the project inputs at the start-up stage. It is necessary
to ask some questions about the users and place while starting the design. Who will use the designed places? What
are their beliefs, habits and cultural characteristics? What are the climatic and topographical characteristics of the
place? Etc . Sri Nammuni developed an alternative architecture education approach for the undergraduates to
realize themselves and have used it since 1981. This method can relieve the undergraduates from cloning approach
according to Sri Nammuni. It aims at raising architects thinking in their own ways rather than their teachers. This
method is called as Moratuwa Experiment (Dayaratne, 2013, p. 317). As an educator taking place in this program in
his study years, Ranjith Dayarathne conducted an experiment in Bahrain inspiring from Moratuwa experiment. He
thinks that architecture is a place enabling acts (Dayaratne, 2013, p. 317).
Table-1 Dayaratnes design sequence (Dayaratne, 2013)

Dayaratne uses the results obtained from the sources by developing strategies for space-place connections.
According to Bader, most people arent aware of the architectural objects around them in everyday life. The
integration of everyday life and architecture becomes possible through cultural studies and philosophical
perspectives. Bader proposes a model for the architectural experience in everyday life (perception, attention,
awareness). The model uses the terminology of Aran Gurwitsch (theme, thematic field and marginal consciousness).
Bader designed a everyday life workshop for the model. Each participant reported their experiences in four different
areas (street, faculty building, an area neighboring the campus, and the way back to home). They focused on
especially the architecture and defined their experiences. Within this context, experience related part of everyday
life was listed and grouped (Bader, 2015, pp. 244-267).
Rice problematizes the Federation Square experience. According to Rice, Tafuris just doing architecture and Allans
position allow us to engage with the concept of experience as a way of discussing the renewed status of the built
work (Rice, 2005, p. 324).
In architecture education, workshops conducted through methods such as experience of visual perception
(Kornienkoa, et al., 2015) and mimesis are used (Yldrm, et al., 2012). Published under the editorship of Karina Van
Herck and moderated by Lieven De Cauter, in a session participated by Judy Attfield, Mary McLeod, Bart Verschaffel,
Hilde Heynen, Glsm Baydar, Irene Cieraad and Eric De Kuyper, the relationship between the woman and home was
discussed through meaning and experience. According to the article, the relationship between woman and home is
based on experience (Herck, 2002).
Used in the experience study of visual perception, Bee (Built environment education) model presents three basic
approaches. Exploration /Sensation, Sketch/Design, Presentation /Discussion (Uttkea, 2012, p. 7) . The first part of
the model, exploration /sensation, should involve experience. Experience is the only way to develop the relationship
between the architect and the area that will be designed. Within this context, the study of place experience
recommends and conducts a game that will enable students to develop bounds with the place based on Sri
Nammunis Moratuwo Experiment, Ranjith Dayarathnes design sequance, Baders experience study, and Uttkeas
Built environment education model.
Place Experience Study/ Experience Game: Aim, Method

Place experience study was conducted with undergraduates taking the course of Studio 4 at KTO Karatay University,
Faculty of Fine Arts and Design, Department of Architecture. They were asked to design a culture street in KTO
Karatay University campus. They were assigned to design 40 rooms for faculty members, 10 rooms for student clubs
and societies, book selling space and seminar hall for 50 people.
Figure 1. Layout plan of the area to be designed

Before the design, a game that would enable undergraduates to establish a bound with the place. The
undergraduates were separated into two groups. They were given task lists to be completed in 45 minutes. The
first group to complete the list would become the winner. The tasks are listed below:
1. Count the number of steps on the stairs in the school.
2. Take a selfie with Asst. Prof. Ayegl Tereci.
3. Write a song involving architecture, project and culture street lasting two and a half minutes, and sing it with a
chorus composed of 5 individuals. Also, record it.
4. Order tea for 5 friends in tea house. Drink your tea there and obtain information about the workers of tea house.
5. Take a photo of a designed object in the building. Get information about the designer.
6. Make a list of the books about architecture in one shelf of the library.
7. Count how many trees there are in the campus.
8. List where the teachers in the department are from.
9. Walk around the campus and determine how many worship place there are.
10. Find Mr. Ahmet in IT department. Learn the question and answer it.
11. How many white stools are there in the Department of Architecture?
13. Find where the previous janitor now works.
14. How many meals are there in the menu of Lavazza (caf in the campus)?
15. What is the name of secretary of Faculty of Social Sciences?
16. Submit a petition to the Deanery about the difficulties of architecture education.
The undergraduates completed the tasks in 45 minutes. Within this context, this game aimed at: increasing their
awareness about the place, making them realize the roles while designing the environment, making them realize
their rights and responsibilities, making them realize the relationship between the building and its surroundings,
making them research how to make the place a social space, making them work in groups, making them realize that
architecture is a branch designing the social life, making them determine the needs of users, and making them
communicate with the actors of the place. This study aimed at examining the relationship between the place
experience and the objectives.
The Relationship between Architect, Design, and User
When the relationship between the architect and the design is examined, it can be seen that experience has an
important place. When a project subject is given, the architect imagines himself/herself in that place and develops
empathy. This process steers the concept and project process. Therefore, the gains of the architect obtained through
presence in the place are the indicator of a metaphysical dimension in design education. Considering three basic
approaches (Exploration /Sensation, Sketch/Design, Presentation /Discussion) proposed by Uttkea in Bee (Built
Environment Education) (Uttkea, 2012), Exploration and sensation involve an active experience of the place.
Awareness of architectural elements such as smells, surface structures, shapes, textures and materials is increased.
The project process was started with exploration and sensation as in Built Environment Education program. With the
place experience study, the green texture, building surfaces, smells, surrounding worship places, social facilities, caf,
and ground texture were tried to be discovered. At the same time, the undergraduates faced with the user profile
and needs by interacting with the actors of the place. They especially had a chance to meet the people who use the
university as a place during their working hours. They learned about their cultural codes, and become sensitive about
the necessity of designing a place in accordance with the needs. (The workers in tea house spent 9 hours a day in a
space of 2 m2. This situation worried them. Moreover, they told about the difficulties in reaching Mr. Ahmet in IT
department.)
Set up for the undergraduates to comprehend the social dimension of architecture, place experience study led
students to assess the program during the beginning process of design. After learning that the tea house workers
had to spend their days in a space of 2 m2, they wanted to add a more comfortable space for those workers. The
undergraduates were both the users and the designers. After the place experience study, they indicated their own
needs by proposing some places such as reading area, exhibition area, and movie theater (Table 1). Along with the
technical information, the undergraduates added photos that indicate bounds with the place on the environmental
analysis sheets.
Program
Rooms for Faculty Members (40)
Program Suggestions
Terrace for Faculty Members
Seminar Hall (50)

Bookstore
Tea House
Reading Area
Movie Theater
Exhibition Area
Outdoor Studios
Cafe
Library
Snack Bars
Concert Area
Table 1. Current Program and Program Suggestions

STRATEGIC TASKS
1. Count the number of steps on the stairs in

the school.
SCENARIO
OBJECTIVE
Examination of
the current
vertical
Counting the steps of a circulation
total of 13 vertical axels, solution in the
2 vertical circulations
building, design
and 2 fire-escape stairs of vertical
in three buildings of the circulation for
studio campus.
the program.
2. Take a selfie with Asst. Prof. Ayegl

Tereci.
3. Write a song involving architecture, project
and culture street lasting two and a half
minutes, and sing it with a chorus composed
of 5 individuals. Also, record it.
Firstly, the
undergraduates should
find out which courses
Asst. Prof. Ayegl
Tereci instructs. Then
they will find the studio
and ask permission for a
selfie. They will find a
suitable place for selfie.
Inquiring music using a

mobile phone and
writing lyrics.
Giving tea house a place
in plan plane.
4. Order tea for 5 friends in tea house. Drink Observation of the
your tea there and obtain information about conditions of tea house
the workers of tea house.
workers.
Table 2 Strategic Tasks, Scenario, and Objectives (1)
The relationship
between the
vertical
circulation and
studio in the
current building.
Musicalization of
experience
Awareness of
needs of place
users from
different cultures
STRATEGIC TASKS
SCENARIO
OBJECTIVE
5. Take a photo of a designed object in

the building. Get information about the
designer.
Finding a designed
object in the Faculty of
Fine Arts, and getting
information about its
designer.
Evaluation of the
relationship
between object
and place
6. Make a list of the books about

architecture in one shelf of the library.
Journey to the books in

the library
7. Count how many trees there are in the

campus.
Counting all of the trees
in the campus
8. List where the teachers in the

department are from.
Making a list of all the

teachers in the
department through
internet.
9. Walk around the campus and

determine how many worship place
there are.
Experiencing the
campus by walking
Awareness of
architecture
books
The relationship
between the
green and the
current building
Determination of
the user profile
The relationship
between the
environment and
the campus. Bus
stops,
intersections,
roads, streets.

STRATEGIC TASKS
SCENARIO
OBJECTIVE
10. Find Mr. Ahmet in IT department.

Learn the question and answer it.
Finding Mr. Ahmet in IT,

and asking him what the
question is. The
question is how many
parts there are in a
computer. Looking up
the answer online. Mr.
Ahmet will tell the
answer and where he is
from to the first group
to find him.
Experiencing the
place through
the IT
department

STRATEGIC TASKS
SCENARIO
OBJECTIVE
11. How many white stools are there in

the Department of Architecture?
Finding the janitor in the

Faculty of Fine Arts, and
learning how many
white stools there are in
the Department of
Architecture. White
stools are used as a base
for models during jury
process.
Experiencing the
relationship
between object,
user and the
place
13. Find where the previous janitor now

works.
Learning where the

previous janitor works
now. Finding the
Personnel office, and
find it out. If one of the
students met him
before, he/she would
already know it.
14. How many meals are there in the

menu of Lavazza (caf in the campus)?
Counting the meals in

the menu of Lavazza
15. What is the name of secretary of

Faculty of Social Sciences?
16. Submit a petition to the Deanery

about the difficulties of architecture
education.
Looking up the name of

the secretary of Social
Sciences Faculty online.
Writing an appropriate
petition, and delivering
it to the Deanery of
Faculty of Fine Arts and
Design
User awareness
Realizing the
different 102
meals in the
menu
User awareness
Awareness of
scale in place

Strategic tasks, scenarios and objectives of place experience study are summarized in Tables 2, 3, 4, and 5. The tables
are the lists of possible scenarios of strategic tasks and the objectives to be achieved.
Beginning the design is a difficult process for architects. After the preliminary examinations and environment
analysis, the first idea and concept predestinate the design. Along with the technical work, adding its essence to a
design makes designing both a scientific and an artistic field. The place experience study is also considered to help
students develop concepts.
Conclusion
Conducted before designing a culture street within the scope of Studio 4 course in the department of Architecture,
Faculty of Fine Arts and Design, KTO Karatay University, the study of place experience is much like an experimental
and experiential study rather than making definite judgments. The undergraduates were taught that they could
obtain necessary clues for the design by experiencing the place. Within this context, place-object, place-scale, placeuser, and place-program relations were assessed through experiencing. Moreover, the relation with the place was
strengthened through an entertaining game.
References
Bader, A. P., 2015. A model for everyday experience of the built environment: the embodied perception of
architecture. The Journal of Architecture, Issue 20:2, pp. 244-267.
Dayaratne, R., 2013. Environment-Behaviour Research and the Teaching of Architecture in the Design Studio: An
experiment in Bahrain. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Issue 105, pp. 314-324.
Herck, K. V., 2002. Epilogue: on meaning and experience (or images versus practices). The Journal of Architecture,
Issue 7-3.
Kornienkoa, M., Kukhtaa, M. & Oleg Fofanova, E. K., 2015. Experience of Visual Perception in the Design Education.
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Issue 206, pp. 365-368.
Lefebvre, H., 1974. Mekann retimi. s.l.:Sel Yaynclk.
Rice, C., 2005. Experience and criticality: Returning to Federation Square. The Journal of Architecture, Issue 10:3, pp.
323-333.
Uttkea, A., 2012. Towards the Future Design and Development of Cities with Built Enviroment Education. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, Issue 45, pp. 3-13.
Yldrm, T., Yavuz, A. . & Krc, N., 2012. Experiencing of traditional teaching methods in architectural design
education. Procedia and Behavioral Sciences, Issue 51, pp. 234-238.
URBAN IDENTITY USING THE SIX DIMENSIONS OF

URBANITY
MOHAMMED EZZAT, TAMER EL-KHORAZATY, HOSSAM SALAMA.
Mohammed Ezzat, Architect, German University in Cairo, Tamer El-Khorazaty, Professor,
German University in Cairo, Hossam Salama, Professor, German University in Cairo.
Abstract
The papers main goal is to define the urban identity of any group of people using the six dimensions of urbanity.
Different people are assumed to appreciate these dimensions differently except for the perceptual dimension, which
depends on some peoples characteristics. The introduced abstract form of urban identity could be applied to the
scale of cities. Public- seclusion and rational-emotional are the two main criteria used to elevate and to relate the six
dimensions. We design a questionnaire and conduct a professional assessment to evaluate these two criteria. Then,
we build the identity model. Early studies to define identity were interested in analyzing different architectural or
urban products. This analysis yielded some limited visual or characteristic features that defined the identity. The
successive efforts of phenomenologists to understand space as a human experience was a breakthrough. For more
than two decades, the values set by phenomenologists were just personal remarks and appreciations. In this thesis,
we introduced a novel model which is more general and has all the positives found in the other efforts of defining
identity. The model closes the gap between analysis and design. It blends naturally with the design process. The
benefits of the model are huge as it produces an abstract and high-level statement about any group, which helps to
define any project and to narrow the possibilities to the architect or the urban designer for reaching a successful
product. One of the presumed benefits of the proposed model is understanding the evolution of different groups of
people by applying the model to different earlier times of these groups, this may give us the opportunity to predict
fashions and future variations of any group.
1.0 introduction:
We started this research based on a simple principle which states that if we have a theory that describes all the facets
of Urbanism then surely peoples versatile ever-changing urban identity can be analyzed using that theory. After
doing a theoretical investigation for such a theory, we were satisfied that the six dimensions of Urbanism introduced
by Carmona, et al. (2003, 2010) and by Carmona & Tiesdell (2007) could be the most inclusive, clear, and general
theory compared to the other ones, such as the model introduced in Cuthbert (2011). These dimensions are Visual,
Morphological, Functional, Social, Perceptual, and Temporal. Therefore, peoples different urban identities can be
discovered by assigning different prioritization of these dimensions to different groups, but it turned out that such a
procedure, though it seems logically viable, may produce more questionable than asserted conclusions. After revising
our researchs agenda and procedures it becomes clear that we are in need for a comprehensive model of Urbanism
that is capable of describing all the variations of any urban dimension in a cohesive way. This comprehensive model
is considered one of the main contributions of this paper.
We argue that Urbanism could be comprehensively understood using only the three perspectives of Urbanism
labelled Visual, Rational, and Emotional (Figure 1). This three perspectives-based model is inspired by the six
dimensions of Urbanism. To prove this comprehensiveness of the model, we need to prove that the introduced model
is an inclusive and a relational model. Both of these qualities would guaranty the models ability in comprehensively
understanding Urbanism. The inclusive property means that the model is capable of describing all the odds related
to any urban dimension. The relational property means that the model defines a linkage between those discovered
odds. The subjects of place and design would be analyzed theoretically, and then compared to the models intuitive
perception of both of the subjects. Based on this comparison, the two argued inclusion and relation properties of the
model would be asserted.
The model will be used then to describe the ever-changing versatile urban identity. These versatilities mean that
there should be a way to spot all the differences found in urban identity. The models inclusiveness property will
guaranty that all the odds found in urban identity can be spotted by the model. The relational property of the model
may help in having a basic understanding of the complex subject of urban identity. The model could be helpful in
Figure 11 the three perspectives that can comprehensively perceive Urbanism. This is the
base layer for the rest of the model to be built on.
investigating the identitys property of belonging, which is known in other sources as Sameness. The identity
investigated by the model could be very general but based on finer detailed analysis by the model.
2.0 Literature Review:
Urbanism describes the world as it is, and all its alternatives (D'Hooghe, 2010). Discovering and managing this
versatility is crucial for producing complex, sophisticated, and successful designs (Venturi, I992). A model that is
capable of dealing with the diversity and plurality approach is a general model that can handle the other less
complicated approaches, like the unity approach of modernism. Spatial complexity have been initially introduced by
the Henry Lefebvres spatial trilogy of Designed, Perceived, and Used (LEFEBVRE, 1974, 1984, translated 1991). David
Kolb introduced his general theory of Urbanism that specifies three dimensions needed for any complex place (Kolb,
2008). Patrik Schumacher introduced his unifying theory of architecture called Autopoiesis of Architecture that
describes the architectural systems as self-deduced systems from the contextual social systems (Schumacher, 2011).
Complexity on urban-scale was addressed by the CTC theory (Complexity Theory of Cities) which cares about the
simulation of the complex interactions between spatial systems and the urban-scale systems.
The distinction between our proposed model and the other comprehensive models is based on our models ability
to enlist all the possibilities of any urban dimension in a cohesive way. This feature of the model will be proven to be
of vital importance to subjects like urban identity, and urban fashions design.
3.0 Model Definition (Research Question):
We would first describe the empirical method used to formalize the model, then we would focus on proving the
models comprehensiveness argument. The model claims that Urbanism can be fully comprehended using the three
perspectives labelled Visual, Rational, and Emotional. These three perspectives are mainly inspired by the six
dimensions of Urbanism (Carmona, et al., 2003, 2010; Carmona & Tiesdell, 2007) (Figure 7). This inspiration yielded
initial narrated keywords for each perspective as follows:
Emotional (Perceptual): Meaning, Virtue, Trace, Forgiveness, Altruism, Cooperation, Ambience, Value,
Essence, authenticity, and Respect etc...
Rational (Functional, Logic): Useful, Sharp, Accurate, Logical, Productive, Control, Energetic, Practical,
Dominant etc...
Visual (Art, Temporal): Attractive, Amusing, Sculpture, Leisure, Subject, Music, Poet etc...
These narrated keywords should initially help in appointing the proper aspect of any urban dimension to the proper
perspective exhaustively. The more dimensions that are perceived by the perspectives the better understanding of
these perspectives we have and the more sophistication and maturity the model gets, and during this process the
narrated keywords would get revised and developed.
To prove the comprehensiveness of the model we need to prove that the model is inclusive and relational. The
inclusive property means that the model can exhaustively describe all the variations of any urban dimension. The
relational property means that the model can relate all these discovered variations. In the coming two sections, the
two important urban dimensions of place and design will be examined theoretically against the models intuitive
interpretations as a methodology for proving the models claim.
3.1 The Place Dimension:
The models intuitive interpretation of place is as the following (Figure 2):
The Visual perception: Place is mainly a space phenomenon. It is a sculpture designed by an artist, a
musician, or a poet. There is a high philosophy that affects each corner of that figurative representation.
Form and functionality follow this philosophy.
The Emotional perception: Place is mainly an activity phenomenon. It has a harmony with the contextual
social tissue. Space is full of signs that are in conversation with the societys norms. Space is perceived by its
activities and gets its identity from it, and it would mostly cease to exist without these activities. Space as a
shelter could be an exemplary interpretation of these criteria.
The Rational perception appreciates the values of truth and integrity. Actions always conform to Reasons.
Form follows function is a consequent of this paradigm. Truth and functionality are always considered as
the guaranteed source of beauty.
Figure 12 the model's interpreted Place dimension.

In our consequent efforts, we would be theoretically briefly investigating most of the architectural and urban
movements to prove that places possible variations could be exhaustively described using these three intuitive
perceptions and the possible combination of them.
3.1.1 It is Space (the Visual perspective):
Le Corbusier described architecture as Architecture is the play of forms wise, correct, magnificentthe play of
forms in the light. cited in Goldberger (2009). Current architecture mostly praises the slogan that, it is not only
function and form that follows design, but it is all the aspects of the design that are born of a designs philosophy
(Jodidio, 2007). The German Bauhaus shared that dream once before. The dream of a philosophy that derives all the
aspects of the design. The design is a complete work of art. The Bauhaus wanted to unify all the disciplines of practical
art of sculpture, painting, handicrafts, and the crafts as inseparable components of a new architecture. Although The
Bauhaus led to the rational international style, the movements of Deconstructionism and Postmodernism that rose
during the fall of the international style in the seventies are art driven too, and both of them support the complexity
and multiplicity of designs. Both of these movements defied the unified compositional principles of modernism.
Deconstructionism supports the fragmentary forms of architecture based on the notion that there are always
conflicting conceptions or representations of meaning inherent in any text. Postmodernism praises referential
plurality and multiplicity, though the references related mostly to reflections of the past. After the phasing out of
these two movements, movements that may be considered as variations of the two or anew came to existence.
These movements unanimously support exploration. Behind this new wave of exploration is the new digital software
and technologies. All of that would assure the uniqueness and the individuality of any architectural product, and that
is one of the most important characteristics of visual artistic designs.
3.1.2 It is Activity (the Emotional perspective):
Place is a social phenomenon rather than a spatial one. Buildings can be seen in many different ways. They can, for
example, be viewed as works of art, as technical achievements, as the wallpaper of urban space, or as behavioral and
cultural phenomena. Lawson (2001) considers buildings as behavioral and cultural phenomena and as the social art.
Architectural and urban spaces are containers of human spatial behaviors. These Social behavioral spaces can be
viewed as psychological, social and partly cultural phenomena. Before professionalism, the design and the creation
of space was a more social and vernacular process seamlessly integrated with the all other aspects of culture (Day,
2002). Emotionally driven places have the tasks of Accommodating, Separating between, Structuring and organizing,
facilitating, and even celebrating those human spatial behaviors. If we to formalize such spaces, we may find them
fragmented and gain their identity by adaptability to the social activities, just a shelter, and full of signs that
communicate with the hosted variable activities. These places are vibrant and alive. Current urban movements, The
New Urbanism movement, are interested in creating urban places that mimic the Emotional places.
3.1.3 It is Space and Activity (the Rational perspective):
In philosophy, rationality is defined as rational people are disposed to intend to do what they believe they
ought to do (Broome, 2013). Therefore, in rationality actions conform to reasons. This can be translated as truth,
which is the direct consequence of that statement. Truth and integrity are what guided rationalism in architecture
since it was introduced in the eighteenth century. It started by questioning the importance of ornaments which
caused decreasing, later even eliminating, their use. Form adhered to the buildings proposed utilization. Function
became the main determiner of the form. Functionality is clarified using the Biological, the Mechanical, the
Gastronomic, or the Linguistic analogies (Colins, 1998.). Truth invalidated concealment in any way. The structure, the
mechanical services, and the materials realities are exposed. The truthfulness of functionality and constituting
elements exposition are the guaranteed sources of beauty, there is no need for any special aesthetical treatment.
Its beauty slogan is nothing is beautiful but what is true. The international style, without its Unitarian and
contextual independence notions, could be considered as an exercise of this perspective.
3.1.4 Discussion (inclusiveness of the Place dimension):
The aforementioned different types of places exhausted a fair amount of known place types, But are these all the
possible variations of place? In (Figure 6) the other variations of place can be discovered by rephrasing any of the
three perspectives interpretations using the other ones. This rephrasing is guaranteed to enlist all the variations of
place. But then, are designs that simple to classify them into only these three perspectives or their combinations? Is
there a thinning in meaning by describing the places using only these perspectives? This thinning of knowledge is a
characteristic of any general comprehensive model (Schumacher, 2011), but one of the important prosperities of the
model is its ability to extend vertically by interpreting more urban dimensions. This vertical extensibility means a
better in-depth understanding of all the related diversities of Urbanism, as it will be illustrated in the coming section
of the design dimensions interpretation.
3.2 The Design Dimension:

Three aspects of the design dimension would be explored. Scale (Figure 4) and Product/Process (Figure 3) notions
are the two main aspects that would be linked to the third design aspect of People/Professional (Figures 3& 4). The
models intuitive interpretations of the Designs aspects are as the following:
The Visual perspective perceived the design as a macro-scale product. It is always a top-down product. The
granular social activity is considered as a consequent of a higher philosophy.
The Emotional perspective perceived the design as a micro-scale process. Harmony with the existing social
and environmental tissue is the highest value that derives all the facets of the design. It is always a downup process. It is a complex evolving process that keeps going over time. Peoples complex designs integrate
well with this ongoing process.
The Rational perspective perceived the design as a mesoscale design, a mechanism. Usefulness, Practicality,
and Integrity are amongst the dominant notions that derive all the facets of the design. Peoples complex
designs may be integrated using simulation techniques.
We will prove, theoretically, the inclusiveness of and the linking between the place and the design dimensions via
selecting the topics of some notable urban design movements and of peoples design.
Figure 3 the model's interpreted Process/Product aspect of the Design dimension.
Figure 4 the model's interpreted Scale aspect of the Design dimension
3.2.A. Notable Urban Design Movements (the Visual perspective):

While surveying urban design movements to prove the validity of the models Visual perspective interpretations, we
were interested in the following notable ones:
3.2.A.1. Urbanism and Dictatorship:
The dictatorial urban design prevailed in the first half of the twentieth century. The dictatorship regimes share the
same values of the eradication of any oppositional movements and the degradation of the social the ethical norms
(Beese, 2015), but they are also in need for Urbanism to emphasize on their socio-political programs and to reflect
their image of strength, power, efficiency, and superiority (Bodenschatz, 2015). They employed Urbanism, which
drove all the facets of art (including architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, furniture, and landscape design),
to emphasize on their imageability. All of this turned the city into a public product of art. This art driven urban design
was signified by the huge stone castings, the axial public spaces bounded by colossal buildings, symmetry, the
abundance of columns and pillars, and the pervasive squares. This visually driven urban design was detached from
the social and the environmental contexts. For example, both of the Via Imperiale in Rome and the World Capital
Germania in Berlin were axially designed on demolished substantial residential and monumental areas. The Via
Imperiale, currently named Via Cristoforo Colombo, is a 1.0-mile length and is the lengthiest in Rome. The street
was designed in 1937, under the ruling time of Mussolini, as a part of a bigger Mussolinis Third Rome plan. The
projects thoughtlessness of the existing social and urban tissue caused the demolishing of a large sector of the heart
of the historical Rome that included the removal of over 80% of the Imperial Forums of Julius Caesar, Augustus,
Nerva, Vespasian and Trajan. More than 40,000 square meters of a highly populated residential area were
demolished and 5,000 of their residents were allocated to the periphery of Rome. The case is similar to the World
Capital Germania, and to the plenty of other dictatorial Urbanism prevailed during that time, that had two axes of
the East-west axis and the North-South Axis. The two axes had roughly the same length of 3 miles. The two axes
were planned to dissect berlin and to impose a new pictorial effect on the city that would reflect the Nazis ideals.
3.2.A.2. The Liberal Monument:
Given that more than half of the residents of northern America now lives in an urbanized condition, and the other
half is about to join them in the next two decades, The liberal monument movement proposes a resolution to the
current status of sprawl by intervening in just a few dispersed spots. It initiates the effort of re-phrasing the current
chaotic sprawls urban design by allocating different formalized centers that contradict that massive urban anarchy
spread in America as sprawl, this will give the public the opportunity to see their reflection on that tangible whole.
This discrete intervention is not bottom-up but top-down, not fabric but figure, not every day but elite, and not object
but assembled complex. That figurative, visual, and top-down product that mostly discards any social or
environmental context is a support for the models visual perspectives interpretations.
3.2.A.3. Classical Historical Urbanism:
We will examine two different models of historical cities. The first model, the Romanian and Renaissance cities,
supports the visual perspectives interpretations, while the second model, the Sumerian and Islamic cities, supports
the emotional perspectives interpretations (Oliveira, 2016). The Roman cities had a remarkable picturesque and
symbolic evidence that was depicted by the demarcation of the citys perimeter, and by the accentuation of the two
main fundamental axes that formed the whole city. The first of these axes was named Decumanus Maximus
(running in an eastwest direction) and the second was named Cardus Maximus (in a northsouth direction). The
two axes meet at the city center that contained the forum (for example the city of Pompeii). This perspectival and
symbolic design persists in the Renaissance cities, but in a more crystalline form. The Renaissance cities were guided
mainly by aesthetic motivations that pictured the city as an architectural whole. If we to analyze renaissance cities
like Palma Nova and Neuf-Brisach, we would observe the common features between them of strictly gridded
streets, fully detailed architectural elevations, and purely shaped citys outline.
On the other hand, the Sumerian and the Islamic cities are created and developed by ongoing organic processes.
Diverse and rich agents, the residents, interact over the time of the citys development. If we to analyze the formative
features of both of the cities of Ur, the Sumerian, and of Al-Kazimiyah, the Islamic, we will notice the organic irregular
hierarchical streets patterns. The visual effects were only maintained in the governmental or worshipping buildings
and in the roads leading to them. These cities are to support the models emotional perspectives interpretations.
3.2.A.4. Discussion (the Visual perspective):

All the introduced aforementioned urban design schemes are visually driven. They share the common features of
visual designs. A philosophy defines the formal specifications of the visual products. This philosophy is mostly
unrelated to daily processes or to contextual realities, it represents high notions that defy time. That is why visual
designs are top-down (Macro) products that are professionally designed. This conclusive theoretical interpretation
matches the models visual perspectives interpretation of the three Design dimension aspects. The similarity
between the two interpretations proves the seamless adherence of the model to the knowledge base of Urbanism.
During our previous discourse, it may be hard to set aside the interpretations of the model from that of the
theoretical investigation.
3.2.B. Peoples Design (the Emotional perspective):
We will analyze two contradictory products evolved by peoples design. The first of which would be the informal
settlements, which are featured by the high intensity of the built-up areas. The second would be the sprawls, which
are featured by the low intensity of the built-up areas. We will try to deduce the commonalities between these two
extremes designed by people to prove the validity of the models Emotional perspectives interpretations.
3.2.B.1. The Informal Spontaneous Settlements Design:
Shantytowns have obvious negative sides and positive economical sides, but we would care mostly about the secrets
of their beauty. A slum is an area that is densely populated by poor workers and rural immigrants. It is featured by
lacking proper infrastructure and services, high crime rates, and general negligence of their societies (gottdiener &
budd, 2005). They are spread in the developing countries (as high as 60% of their population). Economically wise, the
dwellers are mostly employed either in the near enterprises or in the informal small-to-medium scale projects housed
in the slums. These rental cheap houses boosted the economic accessibility of the poor and integrated them with
the societys economy. They lessened the mobility within the city because people can reside closer to their works.
Jaguaribe (2006) describes their beauty as the shock of the real. The Aesthetics of Realism are what signifying their
beauty. For example, Favelas of Brazil are affecting the international image of the country. They are present in their
most influential and successful movies, even famous Hollywood movies are filmed there. Touristic activities are
flourishing there like the new touristic cable cars projects, hotels and hostels projects, and touristic site visits.
3.2.B.2. Sprawl Design:
On other continents, Northern America and Europe, other peoples design model is spreading vastly. Sprawl is usually
defined as 'haphazard growth' of relatively low density over an extended region, with residential units dominated by
single family homes. It implies a lack of planning, the duplication of public services, high automobile dependency that
caused global warming, Extinction of wildlife, and Flooding and erosion due to the massive pavement (gottdiener &
budd, 2005). On the other hand, there is another facet of the sprawl. People favor living in suburbia over living in the
city center. For over a century half of the people, especially in America, Canada, and Europe, have chosen suburbia
living and it is expected that the other half will follow their steps in the coming century. David Kolbs (2008) general
theory of Urbanism that defines complex places would help us analyzing sprawl. According to the theory, sprawls are
inherently complex places. They have plenty of agents that interact and affect their evolution. These rich interactions
are reasons of the complexity of the Suburbs. These complexity potentials should guide any developing policies of
the sprawls.
3.2.B.3. Discussion (the Emotional perspective):
Both of the Realism beauty of Favelas (Jaguaribe, 2006) and the complexity beauty of sprawls (Kolb, 2008) are two
facets of the same coin. Their explanations of peoples designs beauty are the same. Both of them recognize the
plurality and the diversity of both of the designs as their source of beauty. Both of the designs are about the
interactions between the diverse agents involved in the process of their development. These smaller scale ingredients
procedurally interact for the creation of the whole. The emotional designs are micro-scale processes that can
reconcile with peoples designs. Natural designs are real and complex, and that is why most of the peoples designs
blend seamlessly with nature. All of that is a support of the interpretations of the models emotional perspective of
the activity based places as micro-scaled processes that can reconcile with peoples designs.
3.3 Conclusion about the Relational and the Inclusive Properties:

The visual perspective is optimized to produce Serene, timeless, and pure designs. These designs are guided by a
higher notion, ideal, or dream (this can be called philosophy). They are mostly detached from their social and
environmental contexts unless they are part of the philosophy. On the other hand, the emotional perspective
produces aliveness. Its designs are guaranteed to be sophisticated and alive. The hairline that distinguishes its designs
from being chaotic or sophisticated depends on how intelligent and informed the agents involved in the creation
process are, most of the vernacular designs are sophisticated based on that criteria. The rational perspective is the
least mature perspective, it was introduced just recently immaturely in architecture, and it is expected for the model
to make a better understanding of that perspective. This perspective appreciated truth and integrity. Both of these
characters depicted the specific features of rational designs like form follow function, exposed structural systems
and their clear involvement in the final designs, and the truthful expression of the buildings mechanical services and
materials.
The three aspects of the Design dimension that are perceived by the model gave us a better understanding of the
merits of the three perspectives Place dimensions interpretations. It may firstly seem that using only the two
dimensions of Place and design to prove the models comprehensiveness argument is not enough, it is actually all
that is needed to prove the models claim. The Urbanism trilogy of Place, People, and Design are sufficiently
represented by the two dimensions. Other urban dimensions are expected to belong to one of the Urbanism trilogy
and consequently, it can be exhaustively discovered by our comprehensive model.
We are in need for reflecting other urban dimensions on the model as a clarification of some vague points that
appeared in the previous discourse. The vertical layers of Individuality, Expressive Generality, Complexity, typology,
and Lefebvres Triad, and the horizontal layers of Rationality, Society, and Aesthetics are expected to be of primal
importance for having a basic clear understanding of the three perspectives. The mixing of the interpretations of the
three perspectives, by the technique of rephrasing, will enlist all the odds of any urban dimension (Figure 6).
As it is becoming clear right now that Urbanism can be exhaustively and cohesively described using only the
interpretations of these three perspectives and any viable combination between them. The interpretations of the
model blend seamlessly with the knowledge base of Urbanism. The thing is that we didnt build the model out of
these aforementioned experiences but rather it was built depending on an empirical analytical process of the six
dimensions of urbanity (Figure 7). When we revise the process used to interpret the aforementioned layers, we could
then assure the constructability of a mature form of the model. The keywords are not expected to interpret the
proper variations of all urban dimensions, but they did that well for the Place dimension which then facilitated adding
the further three design aspects layers. The keywords are not expected to work in isolation from the discovered
layers. Both the keywords and the discovered layers would collaborate in interpreting the new layers. The models
construction is an iterative process. The initial keywords would grow and get more sophisticated during that iterative
process, for example, the truth keyword of rationality is not included clearly in the initial narrated keywords.
Figure 13 the interpreted values by the three perspectives rephrased as a mixing

technique to discocer the rest of the variations.
The proposed comprehensive model is believed to be a cornerstone for defining peoples urban identity. The
comprehensive model can be used to analyze the belongings Reflecting ones values and beliefs category (Figure
7) of the Urban Identity model, which would be presented briefly in the coming section.
4.0 Urban Identity:
Previous efforts to define people urban identity was conducted solely using their products. The research considers
the inferences made by these efforts as less accurate and less reliable. We believe that there is more to conclude
about any group of people beyond their products. We need to detach this sole people/place relation from our
understanding of peoples identity and reconsider it as a single criterion of a general higher abstract conception. This
is a possibility this research tries to find and study. People are the more important source of information, used to
derive their identity, than their architectural and urban products. This can be achieved by designing a universal
questionnaire. Because of our proposed comprehensive model (Figure 5), the design of such a questionnaire can be
viable, and its results will be reliable (Figure 7).
The word identity means two things: sameness (continuity) and distinctiveness (uniqueness) and therefore the
term place identity should incorporate both aspects (Lewicka, 2008). We gathered and analyzed the theories
related to place identity, we concluded this process by classifying the unique, but related, theories under the two
main subjects of Belonging (Sameness) and Uniqueness (Distinctiveness). This classification will produce a pool of
indices and questions that will construct a universal peoples identity questionnaire (Figure 7).
4.1.
Belonging (sameness and continuity):
This part signifies the criteria that constitute or shape any individuals identity. They are as the following:
4.1.1. Reflecting ones values and beliefs:
Belonging means reflecting ones values or believes in architectural and urban products. We can easily assert that
people belong to groups that have the same values and beliefs as theirs (Lewicka, 2008). This can be evaluated using
the proposed comprehensive model (Figure 7).
4.1.2. Identity theory:
The identity theory, as it is found in Social Psychology (DeLamater & Ward, 2006, 2013), states that individuals have
three different identities. These identities are role identity, group identity, and unique from others identity. We
propose the ethics index. The index measures the extents to which a person is willing to sacrifice any of his three
identities in favor of the other two identities.
4.1.3. Memories (visual traces, Place attachment):

Memories are either manmade or natural. It represents the context that we lived in and experienced during periods
of our lives (Watson & Bentley, 2007; Lewicka, 2008). Based on that criterion, we may emphasize the importance of
rephrasing these memories into other affecting impressions. This subject is widely recognized as place attachment.
4.2.
Uniqueness (distinctiveness):
Identity is commonly defined as the individuals or groups uniqueness amongst the others. Uniqueness is
approached in the paper in an abstract manner. So from our abstract interpretation, Uniqueness defines the relations
and the extents between us and the others (Turner, 2010a; Turner, 2010b) . For example, us might be defined
as emotional and others might be defined and Rational. The uniqueness would be included in the questionnaire to
define the extents and the nature of this us/others relationship.
Based on these introduced four identity criteria a standardized universal questionnaire can be designed, though the
finishing details for such questionnaire are adjusted according to different groups of people (Figure 7). Each of these
four criteria can have a single or multiple indices that represent that criterion. Additionally, for each of these indices,
there will be a single or multiple questions that can fully represent that index. This pool of questions is the
standardized universal questionnaire that can be used, in collaboration with professional assessments, to define any
groups urban identity.
5.0 Conclusion:
We started our effort to discover peoples urban identity based on the six dimensions of Urbanism. These six
dimensions represent all the facets of Urbanism. This hints out that by prioritizing these six dimensions differently,
we would be able to have a general statement about different peoples urban identity. After exhaustive research for
defining such general statements, we were faced with another fact, which is a goal of this paper, that we need a
model that can help us to conclude that abstract general identity out of the finer detailed analysis of peoples urban
identity. For such a fine detailed model to exist, it needs to be a comprehensive model. This comprehensive model is
inspired by the six dimensions of Urbanism. It argues that Urbanism can be fully comprehended using only three
perspectives labeled Visual, Rational, and Emotional. It is important to note here that these three foundations of our
model are a match of our earlier technique, as mentioned in the abstract of the paper, to rank the six dimensions
based on the two criteria of Public- Seclusion and Rational-Emotional. The two criteria seem similar to the three
perspectives of the comprehensive model, though the three perspectives are envisioned differently and for different
utilization. We examined two influential dimensions of Urbanism, Place and Design, using the comprehensive model.
This examination proved the inclusiveness and relatedness of the model. The three perspectives and the
combinations between them are capable of describing all the variations of any urban dimension cohesively.
As a matter of fact, after doing our intense models formation efforts we may accept the earlier notion that relates
peoples different urban identities to their different prioritization of the six dimensions, but we would be resting on
a solid ground when reaching such a conclusion. Urban identity is a complex subject, but as an exemplary of that
general urban identity statements, we may presume the belonging of a group of people to a specific perspective of
the three ones while another group would belong to another and so on. The thing that matters the most is that such
general abstract conclusive urban identity is produced out of the sophisticated models finer detailed analysis.
Although it may seem like a long shot to define peoples urban identity by discovering a comprehensive model of
Urbanism, we could assure that this is the most reliable way to do so. In our future efforts, we would build a nucleus
form of the model then use it to define a template of queries that can be used universally to acquire peoples identity.
This template would be based on the collaboration between our introduced understanding of urban identity and our
proposed comprehensive model. This universal template, the final questionnaire that is based on that template
would be adjusted specifically for different groups of people, is the crowning of our efforts to discover peoples urban
identity. If we to discover any groups identity, using the same technique, over different times, we would have an indepth understanding of the evolution of that group and even better, a prediction of the future fashionable identities.
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THE DOMESTICATION OF THE TELEVISION IN

FLANDERS
ELS DE VOS
Els De Vos, Prof.dr., Dept. of Design Sciences, University of Antwerp.
Abstract
The entry of the television set in the home of 1960s Flanders went hand in hand with a lot of emotions and
ambivalences, especially for the socio-cultural organizations. While most of the lower to middle class families
championed the television indiscriminately and bought one as soon as possible, that unconditional enthusiasm was
not shared by organizations such as the Socialist Visionary Women, the pluralist League of Large Families and the
three Flemish organizations of Christian persuasion: the Christian Workers Movement, the Christian Bourgeois and
Middle Class Women and the Farmers Association including its female branch the Association of Farming Women.
Those organizations enthusiastically embraced domestic appliances, central heating and bathrooms with running
water, but looked with vigilance at other technologies, such as the television and the telephone. They invited
specialists, including (interior)architects to caution their readers and to advise them of the risks of these new
commodities.
On the one hand, the organizations were delighted about the wonder of television, as it brought the broader world
(even the first moon landing) into the living room. On the other hand, they raised reservations. They believed the
box to be a threat to family life, for instance their periodicals discussed several issues: social aspects, health care,
gender divisions, the shaping of the Flemish identity and practical issues related to its material culture. Interior
architect and guest speaker for the Christian Worker Womens Guilds, Lutgard dHellem-De Vloed, branded the
search for an appropriate place for the TV the problem of the day. Installing the box is, in fact, not an arbitrary act,
as TV-use is contingent with cultural and ideological aspects and the moral economy of the household (Morley). The
rivalry between the fireside and the television set in the living room was for example a dilemma to be addressed by
the organizations and (interior) architects.
In examining the discourses surrounding the entry of television in the home, the first aim of this paper is to investigate
how the television was perceived and represented by several, socio-cultural organizations. I will show how the
intermediaries guided their members in the domestication process of the television. Issues of gender and class will
be tackled, as well as the manner in which the concept of domesticity was transformed. Secondly, drawn on
retrospective interviews with both home occupants and key figures of the organizations, I will enlighten how the
television was used and made sense in everyday life. Special attention will be given to the manner in which the
television mediated the boundary between private and public. Finally, I will reveal some interactions and tensions
between the opinion of some organizations and architects, the architecture of the building, and the living practices
and experiences of the inhabitants.
Introduction
The entry of the television set in the home of 1960s Flanders went hand in hand with a lot of emotions and
ambivalences, especially for the socio-cultural organizations. While most of the lower to middle class families
championed the television indiscriminately and bought one as soon as possible, that unconditional enthusiasm was
not shared by organizations such as the Socialist Visionary Women, the pluralist League of Large Families and the
three Flemish organizations of Christian persuasion: the Christian Workers Movement, the Christian Bourgeois and
Middle Class Women and the Farmers Association including its female branch the Association of Farming Women.
Those organizations enthusiastically embraced domestic appliances, central heating and bathrooms with running
water, but looked with vigilance at other technologies, such as the television and the telephone. They invited
specialists to caution their readers and to advise them of the risks of these new commodities.
In examining the discourses surrounding the entry of television in the home, the first aim of this paper is to investigate
how the television was perceived and represented by several, socio-cultural organizations. I will show how the
intermediaries guided their members in the domestication process of the television. Issues of gender and class will
be tackled, as well as the manner in which the concept of domesticity was transformed. Secondly, drawn on
retrospective interviews with some home occupants, I will enlighten how the television was used and made sense in
everyday life. Finally, I will reveal some interactions and tensions between the opinion of some organizations and
architects, the architecture of the building, and the living practices and experiences of the inhabitants. Therefore, I
will draw upon a large study on the home education of several socio-cultural organizations in 1960s-1970s Flanders
(De Vos, 2012).
Ambivalence towards the television
In the postwar ages the Belgian welfare state established itself just like elsewhere in Western-Europe (Berend, 2006
p. 191; Vanhaecke, 1991, p 153). From the middle of the 60s onwards the standard of living increased swiftly in all
layers of society. A parallel evolution was the rising supply of commodities, as domestic appliances and furniture
from abroad invaded the Belgian market since the establishment of the European Economic Community in 1957 (De
Grazia, 2005, p. 366). The number of television sets increased from 615 000 in 1960 to 2 100 000 in 1970, which
implies that an average of 61% of the Belgian families obtained one in 1970 (Hooghe, Joris, 1999, 30; N.I.S., 1986,
13). This evolution didnt pass unnoticed by the most important socio-cultural organizations in Flanders.
Flanders counted several voluntary intermediary organizations, as well as some commercial magazines, which
provided guidance and instructions about home culture and domestic appliances. Their communication media were
journals, home culture contests, lectures, workshops, show houses and courses on home economics and interior
design. Some had a special service, such as the Home Service of the Association of Farming Women (established in
1962) or the Home Culture Service of the KAV (established in 1961), which were staffed by home economists or
teachers who occasionally worked together with external architects, to conduct a lecture or to give advice. With the
exception of the CMBV (Bourgeois and Middle Class Women), which was established in 1950, these organizations
had already been educating in home economics, home culture, hygiene and health care since the interwar period
(De Caigny, 2010).
Predictably, the intermediaries and commercial magazines enthusiastically embraced domestic appliances, such as
automatic washing machines, spin dryers, fridges and central heating. Whole pages were devoted to the use of these
novelties. Household appliances, equipped kitchens and modern bathrooms unmistakably improved the hygienic,
the working and the living conditions of the members. It were instruments of household rationalization. The merit of
the television was not that obvious, however. Some home economists, policy makers and architects even complained
that people had more televisions than bathrooms or showers, and wondered if this was an indication of the hygienic
situation in Belgium (Crappe, 1970 p. 70; Van Cauwenberghe, 1970).7 Consequently, the intermediaries showed a
more complex attitude towards the television compared to other novelties. They invited sociologists and
communication experts to write about that complex new medium.
On the one hand, the organizations were delighted about the wonder of television (Miette, 1976, p. 23; X, 1962, p.
14). Shortly after the emission of the first broadcast on October 31, 1953, the KAV, Christian Worker Womens Guilds,
reported very excited about the television, which it expected a very fast evolution of (X, 1953, p. 4-5). Furthermore,
the TV remained to enthuse the intermediaries, as it brought the broader world and even the space (the first moon
landing) into the living room (Pigmans, 1962 p. 42; Verhaegen, 1961 p. 17). The Flemish television which at that time
contained only one public channel, was credited with important educational benefits, as it contributed to the
development and distribution of the Dutch (Flemish) language, an important aspect in a region that stood up for the
emancipation of its own tongue. Secondly, the imagination would be exercised, knowledge improved, insights
deepened, the mind stimulated and inner life developed (Pauly, 1970 p. 12-13). Finally, it brought a pleasant, cheap,
and, according to some voices, also healthy entertainment in a world, in which increasingly few people find
pleasure in their work.
On the other hand, there were also a lot of reservations against this wonder. As good as all organizations, Christian
as well as socialist, female as well as male, were tremendously concerned about the televisions dangers. They
believed the box to be a threat to family life, for instance their periodicals discussed several issues: social aspects,
health care, gender divisions, the shaping of the Flemish identity and practical issues related to its material culture.
A deluge of warning articles in their magazines in the beginning of the 1960s shows particularly a concern about risks
for young children (Uw visie, 1961, p. 24; Wie, wat, hoe, 1961, p. 3; TV-ogen, 1960, p. 16; Mertens, 1964, p. 1617; Televisie is formidabel, 1962, p. 42-43, Frantzen- De Leye, 1961, p. 15; Televisie thuis, 1962, p. 6-7; De Mot,
7
In 1970 for example, 61 % of the Belgian families had a TV and only 49,1 % a bathroom or shower.
1965, p. 42-43). It was believed that the television could destroy the eyes of young people and overburden the nerves.
Their homework would get into a corner. The father could get obsessed by the television, especially during the Tours
de France. The television stars would get more intimacy than his own wife. The chores at home would have be
handed over and, moreover, his family and friends would be neglected. A 1964 educative role play between Theo
and his wife Lea, in the journal of the workers league Raak, illustrates this clearly (H.N., 1960, p. 14). Lea blamed her
husband for lousing up family live already forteen days through watching television every day. Her argument of his
neglect of his sun brought Theo into action: he left his seat and finally repaired the already for some time broken
hallstand.
Strikingly enough, father and the children could get addicted to the television, but mother not, as she was
repeatedly ascribed a warning and supervising role in the journals of women as well as men. The well-being of her
children and husband was invariably taken to be as her responsibility as women were responsible for the (female
connoted) homes. She had to prevent the other members from watching too much and was insisted upon to draw
up a family television planning for the upcoming week. Interestingly, this role contrasts with the role that the father
will take up (later) in reality. As some studies have shown, father became the one who dominates the use of the
remote control, although women remained the keepers of domestic responsibility (Hirsch, 1992 p. 226).
In the gendering of the television an explanation for this gender roles can be found. The tube was gendered female,
as the following quote illustrates:
Nowadays, this lady of our times has obtained civil rights at our places too. She gains access at all homes and receives
there, according to anyones taste, an own place, sometimes hired in antique cupboards, sometimes in fact almost
always - in center stage. (Le Brun, 1959, p. 33).
As such, father and children could get addicted to this glorious lady who was a center of interest, while for mother
she was rather a rival, a substitute mother or substitute husband. Possibly, this also contributes to the explanation
why only one article paid attention to (housekeeping) women watching television. Only Maria Van Cleemput, the
head of the Home Culture Service of the Association of Farming Women, advised to place the box in a serving hatch
between the kitchen and dining room so that mother at work could easily include a program (Van Cleemput, 1969
p. 49). In the evening, when the whole family was sitting in the living room, the TV could be turned into that direction.
As such, she gave a very sophisticated location for the appliance.
Figure 1: the television in the serving hatch which allowed women at work to include a program. (Van Cleemput,
1969 p 49).
Problem of the day
Giving the television set an appropriate place in the home is not an easy task. It is not an arbitrary act, as TV-use is
contingent with cultural and ideological aspects and the moral economy of the household (Morley). It is even so
complicated that interior architect Lutgard dHellem-De Vloed branded the search for a good place the problem of
the day (Lucas, 1960 p. 57-58).
Figure 2: To find a good place for the TV was not that easy. Initially a rolling TV table with wheels was chosen. (image
of Jos De Mey in De Mey, 1962 p. 39)
The organizations were struggling in finding a good place for the television. Some periodicals treated it as a common
object that did not differ from other temporarily used apparatus such as a radio, iron or coffee mill (Suggesties,
1967 p. 267). Mostly, it was classified as a piece of furniture, comparable with a bookshelf, desk or radio (Van
Cleemput, 1969, p. 49; Lebrun, 1959, p. 33). However, in the positioning advice the singularity of the medium was
recognized. The instructions balanced between a following of the theater principles, who guaranteed optimal audiovisual comfort and a slowing down of the dominance of a playing TV on the living room (Televisie is formidabel,
1962 p. 42-43). Recommendations about the height of the TV, the suitable distance between spectators and the TV
(between 2,5 and 4 meter) and an appropriate lighting belonged to the former category, measurements to split the
spectators from the non-spectators in order to prevent that they disturb each other to the latter (De Mot, 1965 p.
42; De Vloed, 1960, p. 10-11; Lucas, 1970 p. 32-33; Mertens, 1964 p. 16-17). Almost all organizations, such as the
League of Large Families and the Christian Worker Womens Guilds, advised a separate room to watch television:
preferably a TV-room by American model (the den), but also the former best room, also called parlor, could serve
for that purpose. That well-furnished room to receive higher ranked visitors, regained as such a new destination.
When a separate room was lacking, the television could be placed in a corner or along a wall of the living room.
However, the TV was not allowed, according to the organizations, to be placed in a too showy place A pontifical
position was fundamentally wrong, because as such, the box would completely dominate social life, so it was
believed. Neither was it suitable that the visual lines of the spectators were cut by the running lines of the passing
inmates in the living room, as this disturbed comfortably watching television (Lucas, V., 1960 p. 32).
Figure 3: televisions were preferably integrated into a wall unit ( Vindt u?, 1966 p. 12-13).
All organizations, as well as (interior) architects at that time, preferred a cupboard to house the TV behind doors
when not in use. At night, the big eye was very visible, while during the day, the ugly, convex, mirroring glass was
kept away (Suggesties, 1967 p. 266-267). For example, the Association of Farming women promoted a comparable
solution in which a TV-niche was recessed into the mantelshelf of the fireplace which could be closed by shutters
(Interview De Vriendt, Interview De Kimpe).
Figure 3: A mantelshelf with a closed shutter that hides the television (Katholiek Vormingswerk voor Landelijke
Vrouwen, 1976. p. 48)
The preference to hide the irregular shaped TV in a tight cupboard was in line with the modernist ideology that
prescribed against its own rhetoric about transparency and constructive truth - a strict, geometric order, purity
and tight lines. It went hand in hand with a fear for the cultural dominance of the TV that mainly lived amongst the
cultural upper classes which the (modernist) architects and organizations staff belonged to. As interviews,
complemented with other research has shown, professors, engineers, etcetera kept the television as long as possible
outside the home, because they feared a negative impact on their children and found it not appropriate for
themselves. A professor for example narrated:
The old Rombouts [an old professor] had a television, but he was ashamed about it. He had bought one, but
didnt pass that on. In those times, a professor wasnt expected to watch television, as he had something
betters to do, they found (Interview Vereecke).
While the cultural upper classes envisaged the TV as soul-destroying, the lower classes didnt share those ideas.
They were very proud on their apparatus and placed it centrally in the room. Initially, they dealt with practical issues
such as how to find a place where reflected light in the screen was avoided. Others did not have enough space to
place the telly and the seats. As such they transformed their sitting area at night (Interview Goossens). Through
placing the TV on a cupboard on rollers, it was easy to do so. After some time, the television gained a central place
on a fixed cupboard. It became an element of social standing (See also in the US: Riggins, 1994 p. 101-148). Not only
the TV, but also the TV antenna on the roof indicated social status. While nowadays in Belgium dish antennas are
mostly a sign of migrant inhabitants who want to stay connected with their home country through satellite television,
in the sixties the antenna was a sign of social status. A 1962 article in the journal of the Christian Worker Womens
Guilds, entitled We only have to look to the roofs , illustrates this very well: There are already plenty of antennas,
not only in our home town but everywhere, even on the roof of the smallest houses where one never would have
expected it. This is in the first place a sign of well-being. (Televisie is formidabel, 1962 p. 42-43; De Ruyck1962, p.
6)
The TV in the domestic heart of the home
Thus, in most of the cases, the television found its place in the living room which embodied from the end of the sixties
the heart or the soul of the home. It was billed as the most intimate room where also guests were welcomed.
The fireplace symbolized the domestic heart, especially for the catholic organizations. They attributed much value to
the fireplace, not only because it was supposed to support family life the cornerstone of the catholic society , but
also because its mantelpiece carried the crucifix.
However, the two most noticeable novelties in the living room of the seventies, the television and the fireplace
competed with each other as both were located centrally in the living room. Both worked only part-time, mostly at
night, when all members of the family were united in the sitting area and the two were associated with family life
and coziness. Indeed, although many organizations worried that the TV would destroy family life, the opposite
occurred. In reality the television kept the family members together and kept the fathers out of the pub. As a 1960
enquiry in the journal of the National Society for Small Properties and also a research from 1972 showed: the
television succeeded in that which the household reformers failed in (Lucas, 1961 p. 455-456, Cammaer, Sonneville,
Verboven, 1972 p. 57-59). Neither a clean and tidy home, nor a cheerful wife could keep the husband away from the
pub, but the television!
Figure 6. Both, the television and the fireplace, fought for attention. (Photo of 150th exemplary dwelling of the
Association of Farming Women, private collection).
However, despite the similarities, there were some important differences. Even when the fireside did not burn, it
was the altar of domesticity, religion and family life, at least according to the home culture education of the
(Christian) intermediaries. It connected the Christian inhabitants symbolically with God. But also according to the
tradition, it was an important connection with the outside world. For example, the children had to place the 6th of
December their shoe in front of the fireside. Black Peter, one of Saint Nicholas (comparable with Santa-Claus)
attendants, entered at night the house through the chimney in order to give the well-behaved children toys and
sweets.
Also the television brought, when playing, the outside world into the living room. However, that window on the
world did not carry the (vertical) spiritual world into the home, but the horizontal world of entertainment and the
news of the day. On the one hand it connected the home with the public sphere; on the other hand it reinforced the
domestic atmosphere, the domestic sphere that women had to safeguard. The TV shifted the boundary between the
public and the private sphere, which were connected as two communicating vessels as both spheres evolved together
with the industrialization during the nineteenth century. Because the TV bridged the private and the public, it was
perceived as dangerous and attractive at the same time. Exactly its duality, the homely and un-homely, the parochial
and the worldly, the public and private character, made of the location of the television such a vexed question.
As the TV was metaphorically less important in comparison with the fireside, it often stood somewhat lost near the
fireplace. Architects definitely struggled in reconciling the two. In the most successful realizations, a TV niche was
carefully integrated in the fireside or in an all-embracing cupboard that housed fireplace, the TV, other audio-visual
appliances and in catholic families also a statue of the Virgin Mary. In those cases the TV became literally part of the
symbolic heart of the home, enacting as Pandoras box. As it introduced the same programs into the homes of the
urban and rural areas, it had a leveling effect between the two areas and it contributed to the urbanization of the
countryside. The discourses on the TV also had an implicit leveling effect between the pillarized organizations, as
they all agreed with each other in their advice on this subject
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Riggins, H.S., 1994. Fieldwork in the living room: An auto ethnographic essay, Riggins, H.S., 1994. The Socialness
of Things. Essays on the Socio-Semiotics of Objects, Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, p. 101-148
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Tentoonstelling naar aanleiding van 40 jaar koningschap Boudewijn I, Brussel, p. 153.
Cammaer, Sonneville, Verboven, Televisiejeugd?, Antwerpen, Utrecht: Uitgeverij De Nederlandsche Boekhandel
(1972), p. 57-59.
Verhaegen, K., 1961. Kind en televisie, De Boer, 29/04, p. 17.
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<http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/mtw9401.html>, accessed 26.06.2012.
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1960. TV-ogen, Het probleem TV en de kinderen. Hoe kan je ermee omgaan?, Vrouw in middenstand en burgerij,
(Febr.) 16, 17.
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Interviews with inhabitants of houses built in the 1960s and 1970s

Interview De Vriendt, Lokeren, 27/10/2003.
Interview Roels, Lokeren, 21/10/2003.
Interview De Kimpe, Adegem,23/12/ 2003.
Interview Vereecke, Pellenberg, 28/10/2005.
THE UTILITY AND LIMITS OF SPATIAL PARADIGMS

JOSEPH GODLEWSKI
Joseph Godlewski, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Syracuse University
Abstract
Spatial paradigms are historically situated organizations of space and power that are used to typify specific moments
in history. Theyve been used by philosophers and cultural critics to analyze certain milieus, particularly at moments
of cultural transition. Like Thomas Kuhns (2012) renowned formulation of paradigm shifts representing
fundamental changes in scientific understanding, spatial paradigms represent organizational arrangements typical in
particular places in time. Different than architectural precedents and mere building types, paradigmatic spaces
diagrammatically map a set of socio-spatial relationships. Paradigmatic spaces are useful analytical tools to help
clarify and visualize a historical setting and elegantly distill a complex amount of archival information into a single
spatial image. This paper surveys a number of paradigmatic spaces, situating them historically, and analyzing their
conceptual utility and limits. What are the conceptual weaknesses and omissions of spatial paradigms? What insights
do a postcolonial reading of these spaces offer? While seductive, in the end, do these paradigms give too much
agency to architecture and space rather than the social relations which constitute them? The paper contemplates
what the paradigmatic spaces of the contemporary moment are and questions if its possible to distill todays global
complexity into a single frame. This paper contemplates this question, but also critically examines the utility of spatial
paradigms in the twenty-first century. Ultimately, this paper argues that paradigmatic spaces can be productive tools
though their shortcomings must be examined and recalibrated in order to substantively contribute to contemporary
spatial discourse.
Introduction
Michels Foucaults (1977) Discipline and Punish vividly traces the transition from a public torture system of
punishment in the seventeenth century to a panoptic disciplinary society in the eighteenth century. Central to his
argument is the architectural configuration of the Panopticon which serves as a metaphor and diagram of the new
technologies of power which had emerged (Figure 1). The paradigmatic space of the Panopticon was therefore used
by Foucault to comment, in a general sense, on a series of spatial designations and power relations that had
developed as a result of particular socio-historical forces. Different than architectural precedents and mere building
types, paradigmatic spaces diagrammatically map a set of socio-spatial relationships that are exemplary during a
given time period. Paradigmatic spaces are useful analytical tools to help clarify and visualize a historical setting and
elegantly distill a complex amount of archival information into a single spatial image.
Spatial paradigms have long figured in the works of philosophers and cultural critics grappling with the experiences
of modernity. The cultural theorist Siegfried Kracauer (1997) interpreted the hotel lobby (Figure 2) and the
unemployment office of Berlin while Walter Benjamin studied Parisian arcades (Huyssen, 2012) (Figure 3). Kracauer
famously remarked, Spatial images are the dreams of society. Wherever the hieroglyphics of society any spatial
image are deciphered, there the basis of social reality presents itself (1997, p. 60).
Writing decades later, cultural critic Fredric Jamesons (1991, pp. 39-42) analyzes the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in
Los Angeles (Figure 4). This hotel spatial analysis can be said to mark a paradigm shift from the modern urban
anonymity depicted in Kracauers hotel lobby to the disorienting effects of postmodern space in late capitalist
America. Jameson vividly describes the fragmented, de-centered spaces of the interior arguing that devloper John
Portmans people-movers had become new relexive signs of movement rather than the physical stroll associated
with movement in the modern city. In both cases, the hotel becomes the paradigmatic space neatly summarizing the
cultural climate and guiding the experience of the viewer. In each case the spatial paradigm forms a distinct and
striking mental image to diffrent ends.
More recently, Giorgio Agamben has controversially claimed that the concentration camp is the biopolitical
paradigm of the modern age (1998, p. xx). Agamben writes of a shift from the city to the camp as the paradigmatic
modern space (Figure 5). He writes of this thesis, it throws a sinister light on the models by which the social sciences,
sociology, urban studies, and architecture today are trying to conceive and organize the public space of the worlds
cities without any clear awareness that at their very center lies the same bare life (even if it has been transformed
and rendered apparently more human) that defined the biopolitics of the great totalitarian states of the twentieth
century (p. 181-182). For Agamben, the contemorary moment is typified by the state of exception where, like the
camp, the fate of life and death is in the hands of the sovereign. Agamben uses the image of the Auschwitz
concentration camp to make his larger biopolitical argument. The plan he uses depicts the cells for inmates at the
camp as well as the shops and hotel at the center of the town. In each of these cases a philospher deployed powerful
imagery to convey the societal changes they observed transpiring.
Contestations from the Periphery
While the vivid descriptions of spatial paradigms briefly described at the start of this paper have often been cited by
historians and architects, they commonly overlook the participation of colonial contexts in their contexts
development. A postcolonial perspective of some of these paradigmatic spaces reveals a fundamentally different
picture. Derek Gregory sees postcolonialism as a critical politico-intellectual formation that is centrally concerned
with the impact of colonialism and its contestation on the cultures of both the colonizing and colonized peoples in
the past, and the reproduction and transformation of colonial relations, representations and practices in the present
(200, p. 612). Analyzing this political-intellectual formation in the spatialized arena of the city may seem like a
straightforward enough endeavor, however the tendency to view these spaces as containers of social activity existing
peripherally from the core of imperial power persists.
In The Archaeology of Knowledge, Michel Foucault argues against reading the site of the archive as a passive
repository of historical truths, but as the active and controlling system of its enunciability (1972, p. 129). He writes,
The archive is first the law of what can be said, the system that governs the appearance of statements as unique
events (Ibid., p. 129). Given this definition, one can see the difficulty of the task of studying these environments lies
not in retrieving obscure evidence from a bureaucratized massa process of mining for treasures but one of
locating limits. As Gayatri Spivak (1988) reminds us, there exist silences in the archive which cannot be resuscitated.
Especially in the context of studying social inequality in the postcolonial city, to proceed as though one will be
speaking for subjects whose history has not been written is naive. Spivaks description of measuring these silences
is apt in that it doesnt foreclose the possibility of studying a subject, but makes manifest its unavoidable ethical and
political limitations. Anthropologist Ann Stoler, in acknowledging the epistemic anxieties that come with an
understanding of these structural limitations offers some methodological advice. Instead of treating archives as a
historical ballast to ethnography she calls for moving away from treating archives as an exercise of extracting truth
to one which cordon[s] off fiction from authorized truth (2009, p. 47).
This said, and with Foucault and Spivak looking over our shoulders, its interesting that the first paradigmatic space
discussed in the paper involves both of their insights. Foucaults groundbreaking work on the spatial inscription of
power in Discipline and Punish, arguably shifted architectural discourse after its publication in 1975. Central to the
argument was a description of Jeremy Benthams concept of the Panopticon. The modern system of surveillance
administered from a single centralized point has the effect of which is to induce in the inmate a state of
consciousness and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. (1977, p. 201). Foucault
has suggested the geometry and discipline of the Panopticon can serve as an emblem to the micro-physical forms
of power that have proliferated in the last two centuries and formed the experience of capitalist modernity. There
seem to be at least two problems with this contention. First, is the point that Timothy Mitchell (1989, p. ix-x) astutely
points out in Colonising Egypt: that the invention of this mechanism was not wholly a Western creation, and that the
forms of power it described were colonizing in method. Benthams panoptic principle, in fact, was devised in factories
run by his brother on land colonized by Russia after the defeat of the Ottomans. Though Foucaults analyses are
focused on France and northern Europe, the system was applied in various colonial settings (1989, p. ix-x). This
doesnt necessarily discredit the scholarship, though it does serve to question the claim of naissance in the title.
Foucaults examination of the Panopticon can be regarded as an example of what Spivak has termed the sanctioned
ignorance of Western academics blind to the historical realities of imperialism (1988, p. 291).
A second problem with the claims regards Foucaults research methodology. Its remarkable, perhaps ironic, that a
work as influential as this relies so heavily on archival material such as drawings and treatises without checking them
through other means. As architects know, plans have a tendency to lie, to misrepresent, to not tell the whole story,
or be completely wrong. Architectural plans are two-dimensional representations of space often made for a
particular purpose which isnt readily evident in its lines and hatchings. A complex social relationship exists between
people and space which is impossible to capture in singular representations of it. The experience of a plan is often
quite different from a drawing. Spiro Kostof (1995, p. 3-7) describes the difficulties of relying on pictoral and literary
evidence when trying to evince the social meaning of a space. Its striking that a scholar honed into of the enunciative
limits of the archive would base so much of his work on the seeming truth revealed from these documents. The
example obviously isnt meant to put Foucaults entire oeuvre into disrepute, but to illustrate the epistemic
limitations such documents have and highlight methodological concerns regarding the archive.
Reflecting on Benjamins Arcades Project and his paradigmatic of the Parisian Arcade, Susan Buck-Morss develops a
picture book of philosophy, and manages to accomplish at least three interrelated objectives. The first is to boldly
reconstruct Walter Benjamins never-completed Passagen-Werk (proceeding mimetically) about nineteenthcentury industrial culture from a series of notes, fragments, and archival images into a comprehensible and
instructive text. Secondly, Buck-Morss places this ambitious project and its object of analysis in their historical context
of the nineteenth century and Benjamins life, but also the contemporary moment. Similar to Benjamins interest in
the everyday and the profane in One-Way Street, Buck-Morss attempts to ground the theoretical ideas of ideas in
the material of the seemingly banal products of industrial capitalism. Third, and perhaps most instructively, she
attempts to perform Benjamins philosophy of history which is explicitly interpretive and image-based. Visuality,
often ignored in Marxist analysis, becomes central to the project. She successfully employs a montage-like use of
images and text which attempts to get at Benjamins concept of the dialectical image, recognizing the importance
of display and visuality in the constitution of modernity. In Buck-Morss words, Benjamin was counting on the shock
of (the recognition of the past) to jolt the dreaming collective into a political awakening (1991, p. 219) Further, the
presentation of the historical object within a charged force field of past and present, which produces political
electricity in a lighting flash of truth. Though the optimistic language of the dreaming collective, emancipation,
and awakening consciousness is a bit much at times, Buck-Morss text is largely successful in conveying what
Benjamin was getting at methodologically. The experimental structure of the book, based loosely on the invisible
coordinates intonated by the project, manages to hold together rather than dissipating into aleatory associationism
(the worry of Harvey). Creatively constructed, some images are more successful than others, however, theres
enough which achieve their stated aim that the reader can begin to understand how this method could be employed
to debunk what Benjamin refers to as mythic theories of history.
Similar to Harveys work in The Condition of Postmodernity (1990), this book is a Marxist engagement with aesthetics
and culture guided by a concern for politics. As Buck-Morss points out, Benjamin makes us aware that the
transmission of culture (high and low) is a political act of the highest import. She locates the commodity and the
null point of a system of conceptual coordinates (1991, p. 211), but this is not the commodity in the traditional
Marxist sense. Benjamin inflects our understanding of the commodity from a purely economic one to something
acknowledging its spectacular display-like nature. The difference is that Benjamin, while engaging the language of
Marxs historical materialism developed in Capital, is suspicious of its explanatory meta-narrative which Harvey
draws his authority. Instead Benjamin, in Theses on the Philosophy of History, characterizes this philosophy as a
puppet which is to win all the time. Rather than a teleological (forward-looking) understanding of progress,
Benjamins orientation to history is backward looking and in search of origins. This is clearly described in the
discussion of Klees Angelus Novus. The Arcades project then is Benjamins explicit effort to engage with both the
concrete-ness of historical materialism and its political consciousness, but disrupting its mythic notions of progress.
Like Marx, he understands that it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social
existence that determines their existence (Marx). As Buck Morss is keen to point out though, Benjamins point of
departure was a philosophy of historical experience rather than an economic analysis of capital. Moreover, the
centrality of the commodity in Marxs analysis is inflected in Benjamins account where the concern is not so much
about the commodity-in-the-market as the commodity-on-display. Thus, the importance of purely
representational value comes to the fore.
For a work that looks at industrial culture and modernity in the nineteenth century the omission of colonialism
(despite a few passing references to Western imperial domination) is conspicuous and disappointing. Though it
doesnt necessarily discredit the rest of the work, it seems more like a missed opportunity. Buck-Morss may have
been restricted in the sense that imperialism may not have been a central focus of Benjamins analysis, however, her
explicit attempt to engage the origins of the present- perhaps Gregorys colonial present could have been
strengthened if the work of postcolonial theorists were engaged at least somewhat. If Saids insight of the necessity
of the other for the functioning of the center of modernity, one could imagine an entirely different project
altogether.
Lastly, Achille Mbemebe provides a critical and necessary reading of Agambens paradigmatic camp. Achille Mbembe,
extends Agambens argument and further historicizes his claim that the camp, a space in which the normal order is
de facto suspended is where exception becomes a permanent spatial arrangement. Mbembe considers the spaces
of the plantation and the colony as repressed topographies of cruelty. He writes:
Colonial occupation itself was a matter of seizing, delimiting, and asserting control over a
physical geographical areaof writing on the ground a new set of social and spatial relations.
The writing of new spatial relations (territorialization) was, ultimately, tantamount to the
production of boundaries and hierarchies, zones and enclaves; the subversion of existing
property arrangements; the classification of people according to different categories;
resource extraction; and, finally, the manufacturing of a large reservoir of cultural
imaginaries. These imaginaries gave meaning to the enactment of differential rights to
differing categories of people for different purposes within the same space; in brief, the
exercise of sovereignty. Space was therefore the raw material of sovereignty and the
violence it carried with it. Sovereignty meant occupation, and occupation meant relegating
the colonized into a third zone between subjecthood and objecthood. (2003, pp. 25-26).
The violence and differential rights enacted in the constitution of these spaces is easily overlooked in seductive spatial
images. Understanding this friction between spaces is necessary to fully grasp the socio-political forces animated
paradigmatic spaces.
Contemporary Paradigmatic Spaces and Conclusions
What are the paradigmatic spaces of contemporary society? It is difficult to say. Perhaps theyre the vast hyperreal
environments of shopping malls or the gated enclaves protecting elites worldwide. Perhaps theyre the slums and
informal settlements that house a billion of the globes urban poor or the enormous data centers which store the
circuitry connecting todays network society. In any case, as the preceding examples have shown, they must consider
the spaces seemingly peripheral to them in order to get a sharper understanding of their inner workings. This paper
examines the utility of spatial paradigms in the twenty-first century and questions them from a number of vantage
points. Are precise moments of rupture or paradigm shifts the way historical change actually occurs? Does the clarity
of spatial paradigms belie their inherent complexity and necessarily porous nature? Why do spatial paradigms so
often seem to emanate from Euro-American contexts and philosophers? Are they not constituted by a more diverse
network of agents and geographies? Lastly, it could be argued these spatial paradigms have a tendency to obscure
critical temporal dimensions in the interest of reifying space, or that we have moved on to a postparadigmatic
diaspora altogether (Caputo, 1987). Ultimately, this paper argues that paradigmatic spaces can be productive tools
though theyre limits must be examined and recalibrated in order to substantively contribute to contemporary spatial
discourse.
I have argued that spatial paradigms are useful mechanisms for tracing transformations in society. They have served
as mental constructs for understanding the socio-political dynamics of particular milieus. Like to Benjamins arcade
or Foucaults Panopticon, they serve as diagrams of power and the spatial intersection of particular socio-historical
forces. They demand that space is central to societal change. Like architectural models placed on a desk, they give
texture and form to spatial relationships, crystalize organizational hierarchies, and provide scale. They distill an
incredible amount of information and complexity, much of it contradictory, into a single image. Conceived by thinkers
reflecting on primarily Euro-American contexts, theyve served to clarify the forces at work at particular moments in
space and time. It is perhaps their seductive efficiency and obstinate parochialism which ultimately demands they be
qualified and recalibrated to contribute to contemporary architectural and urban discourse.
As with all models, these spatial images are fictions. They run the risk of being read as smoothly operating, discrete,
bound entities. As abstractions theyre incapable of expressing the unbound and destabilizing qualities of space. How
does one represent the conflicting values, invisible forces, connections to imagined futures, or beliefs that catalyze
the construction of these models? As models, they objectify and oversimplify the inescapably social quality of space.
They cannot account for the friction that occurs in the contested spaces existing between them. While spatial
paradigms reveal the active role space plays in society, some question if this results in a spatial fallacy, or even a form
of environmental determinism. Reflecting on the relationship between people, urban space, and action, planner John
Friedmann (2002, p. 26) ultimately places agency in the hands of people suggesting cities are merely sites where
interests and ideologies are politically contested.
To conclude, its necessary to collide these models into one another, disassemble them and reveal theyre not
autonomous containers at all, but composed of heterogeneous and conflicting fragments, processes, and meanings.
The spaces they seemingly enclose are charged with competing values. Like novels or films, paradigmatic spaces are
fictive formations containing the conceptual hopes and aspirations of their creators, but also their own prejudices,
distortions, and oversights. People are entangled in these constructed spaces. To not expose these paradigms as
necessarily incomplete spatial literary devices would mean succumbing to the danger of constructing s singular,
unyielding narrative under which all things must fit. The paradigmatic spaces sketched out here were both material
realities and rhetorical constructions necessary to tell a particular architectural and urban story. They contain both
true and untrue elements. Like the spaces we inhabit, the boundaries of these spatial paradigms are porous,
constantly negotiated, recalibrated, and exceeded. While paradigmatic spaces project an image of autonomy and
clear distinctions between inside and outside, this study suggests that massive amounts of active agents, material
resources, energy, and elaborate narratives are necessary to maintain these fictions past and present.
Figure 1. Penitentairy Prison Plan https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Penetentiary_Panopticon_Plan.jpg

[Accessed 7 October 2016].
Figure 2. Hotel Lobby, Edward Hopper, 1943. https://www.flickr.com/photos/clairity/14269515074 [Accessed 7

October 2016].
Figure 3. Passage Choiseul, Paris, 1829

https://studiosparis.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/passage_choiseul_paris_admin_460x460.jpg
October 2016].
[Accessed
Figure 4. Auschwitz Master Plan, 1942.

https://geographicalimaginations.com/2013/05/01/the-camp-and-geographical-imaginations/
[Accessed 7 October 2016].
Figure 5. Westin Bonaventure Hotel, John Portman, Los Angeles, 1974-1975.

http://postmodernruptures.wikia.com/wiki/File:Bonaventure_Hotel_Interior.jpg [Accessed 7 October 2016].
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URBAN COLLECTIVES: A NEW PERCEPTION ON

SPACE/PLACE
LUCIANA BOSCO E SILVA, TATIANE FERNANDES MATIAS PEREIRA, BIANCA MAYARA
Luciana Bosco e Silva, DSc., Professor at Federal University of Viosa; Tatiane Fernandes Matias Pereira, master
student at Federal University of Viosa; Bianca Mayara, undergraduate student at Federal University of Viosa
Abstract
This paper is a discussion of the performance of urban collective within cities. The goal is to see how these collectives
are able to provoke or incite changes in the perceptions of individuals in relation to urban areas, from the prominent
features that interfere with the ownership and the use of the city by their passers. This research is based on the study
of artistic actions and interventions of urban collectives, analyzing their impacts and potential solutions to urban
problems both major centers, as also the small towns. Such actions seek mostly to make visible the obstacles that
inhibit the experience and experience in the city, making use of propositional devices, that intentionally question the
users' relations with the space / place, aiming to instigate reflection about the city itself, those who have or no right
of action and expression and finally that instigates an artist or group to perform actions within the city. The
interventions proposed by these collectives, became our interest because they present art as a form of interactivity,
involving citizens and posing them as potential responsible, from a critical and personal analysis of the city, to
encourage awareness interpretation of space as a tool of social expression, artistic, cultural and also political.
Author keywords: Urban collectives, Space, Place, Contemporary cities
Collective Urban and Perceptual Proces
The current urban way of life, marked by urgency and the lack of time, often filter the user perception regarding the
expertise and experience of urban space, taking from the individual the notion of contact with the environment and,
consequently, inhibiting the full performance of its role as an active transformer of the city - living organism in a
constant process of change, renewal and development.
On this regard, the new studies on public policy, welfare and new possibilities for transformation of the urban
environment are the main topic. The search is for new strategies for improvement of public spaces, where priority
should be given the opportunities offered in these areas as well as social activities that take place in it.
One of the significant characteristics of the urban public space are the experiences,
physical and symbolic connections created at the user level. These connections emerge
in various ways - through personal experiences that that space evokes by its
characteristics or by a tradition of use or special opportunities (events) that occur there
(CARR et al. apud PEREIRA & NAOUMOVA, 2015, p.2).
Thus, successful places are those that offer interaction opportunity with the environment itself and also allow points
of meetings and exchanges of experience among users. The individual should meet in public spaces, from their
experiences and interactions, the chance to have different perceptions of the same sites every day and so rebuild
their spatial awareness, a continuous process of that location.
However, the most common is to observe cities facing problems that prevent social relationships between individuals
and between them and the space itself. As Lobo e Silva (2015) say:
The current way of life in the city is reduced to the cultivation of a segregated
culture where create walls and barriers, selling a false security to a population already
consumed by violence, where the subject lives in automatic mode through the city, no
more standing, but inside your car or in a crowded bus, a subject who cannot reflect on
the experiences in the city, which has no opportunities to build an emotional relationship
with the spaces where it walks. (LOBO; SILVA, 2015, p.5)
Therefore, a lot of people go through a place more than once and if asked, do not know how to describe the
peculiarities of the places where they were, becoming mere wayfarer in favorable areas to stay.
In this sense, the need of contemporary cities to have elements that reveal and allow an escape from routine,
instigated the formation of groups of people who have a common goal to foster engagement and sense of belonging
of citizens before the city. Such groups are commonly named urban collectives, which, among other numerous
performances, organize and through simple actions of kindness aimed at city without necessarily refer to the
government for its development. Thus, improve and revitalize public spaces, prompting reflections related to culture,
and the right to use city.
Featuring the importance of their existence and study the actions guided by urban movements and urban collectives
emerge as an art that offers interactivity, involving citizens and putting him/her in charge for local development from
a critical and personal analysis of the city, to stimulate the perception and interpretation of space, since the dynamics
of the city is pertinent to all who live with the consequences of their transformation.
According to Henri Lefebvre, the right to the city is the "right to urban life, transformed, renewed," repudiating the
alienating character of the vision which reduces urban problems to purely technical and scientific issues, taking off
the citizen his managing role of the urban and social space.
The urban collectives become new managers of public spaces, are modes of organization able to develop defensive
cultures on problem situations experienced in a specific urban space. They invest in actions of awareness, sometimes
recreate the urban landscape and seek with it to change the routine and perceptions of users in relation to those
sites.
Thus, it creates conditions for the public spaces be also recognized as support in the development process of society
and the elimination of essential maintenance problems to urban public spaces. They seek to create situations within
these as a way to stimulate new ways of enjoyment and reflection within the city through artistic interventions.
Urban Collectives and the Art in the Streets
Contemporary art can be recognized for its strong defense of questioning of the reality. Many urban collectives found
in the gap of urban problems, vast opportunities of artistic actions, especially when it involves the relationship of
individuals with their cities, enabling creating new solutions through its interventions. The major problems that affect
cities and their specific cultural identity, suffocated by the hegemony of global culture, can be seen from the
perspective of engagement to interpret, propose solutions and individual responses or group.
At the same time, contemporary art, by its characteristic of conforming several languages was able to extend its
traditional support for an urban scale. The aseptic gallery space, known as 'white cube', a place pure and
"decontaminated", was replaced by real-life space with antagonistic characteristics of this. And so, in an attempt to
reassess the institutional spaces, conceived to protect the artistic production, there are alternative spaces for art:
the streets, hospitals, traffic intersections, markets, cinemas, the abandoned buildings that make contact between
pedestrians and users of space with artistic elements and the form of expression of the artist themselves is much
more democratic, where individuals can have free access to artistic elements and in some cases, to interact with the
work itself.
However, there are authors who question the work of art status to those installed in urban space. According to Buren
(2001), for example, since this type of object extrapolates the limits of the galleries, it loses its protective radome
and begins to be influenced from the place where it is installed, and while the first space has the attention of a more
educated public and in the second if, as in the streets of a city, the target audience, although much larger, can analyze
and absorb the messages inserted in the works, indiscriminately, without distinction and the mere taste of each one.
But on the contrary, there are also those who argue that art becomes more relevant when exposed on the public
space, because it creates new possibilities of dialogue with the public, since in the urban chaos, any new element
becomes intriguing and modifies somehow the relationship between citizens and the public space.
Public art will have an important role in this process (reconnecting the subject and the
world), with a view to their integration in the city (now place reality) and its direct and
immediate relationship with passers (now the public art). These manifestations works do
not have their aesthetic value adhering to the form, but their condition of ephemeral
events, where public participation is often relevant and simultaneously imperceptible.
Public art interacts in such a way with the reality of the city and its flows that is not
perceived as such. The art of dematerialization is the result of contemporary reflections

on the role and place. The city as a place of daily life, the collective flow of actions, events
and temporality and historical accumulation, offers aesthetic reflection to convert in part
of the works of public art demonstrations. (CARTAXO, 2009, p.3)
Thus, the artistic interventions have characteristics that facilitate different sensations, making urban environments
carefully arranged and attractive to use by people, make a difference in the development process and restructuring
of degraded urban areas. Therefore, they represent within the city, as well as a change in people's perception of
urban spaces the possible expansion of the possibilities of artistic creation. Pereira and Naoumova (2015) write that
is meant by art installation, any object or set of objects with artistic value (formal or relational) that transform
somehow the space in which they are inserted.
With Artistic interventions the presence of art and the artist in urban life in the search for a wider audience, has been
more evident. Such artist works analyzing thoroughly the conditions of the (scale, context, users) once the
acceptability of the work depends on the observer's perception and therefore started to use the new reference
sources, like fashion, science, construction, establishing a proximity to architecture, regarding the design of the space
respecting the environmental psychology of the space. And as well exposes Cartaxo (2009), the boundaries between
art and architecture become thus diffuse as both the one and the other, inspired by the physical experience of the
subject determined by the nature of the place.
Every artistic intervention establishes relationship with the place in which it is inserted, and, as well as interferes in
space, also receives influences of it. In this case, it can be said that art is inspired by the architecture and replaces the
contemplation of the objects in the creation of environments galleries to be experienced in public spaces - the city.
The main issue to be highlighted in this case is the growing trend of a sensory perception of space and the emphasis
on the observer's role. This is the moment where the art has moved away from the museum to the public space,
moved away from the independent and self-referential works to installations that has the dimensions of the physical
space and are related to specific place, which requires public participation. Hence, it is so important that the artist
involved in the elaboration of the interventions be inserted in the place of action, on everyday basis, and also that
his work take into account issues relating to the study of environmental perception and even the perceptual and
cognitive process site.
For better understanding of what would be the process, Pereira and Naoumova (2015) write that the environmental
awareness process is a continuous action consisting of three steps: perceive, understand and evaluate.
It is from the senses and the experiences of the urban environment, that intervention objects become meaningful
picture, acquiring certain value, for its recognition and its binding to other experiences by individuals who make use
of that space. Cognition serves, in this process, to explain reactions to the wider urban environment based on the
senses and values, as well as knowledge, memories and the personality of the users of that space.
Perception and environmental behavior
Many studies point the perception as a result restricted to stimuli captured by the basic human senses (smell, taste,
sight, touch, hearing) and deriving from the interaction between space and the individual, while others still relate
these senses to other interfering factors, filters, as memory, culture, personality. It is what Machado (2002) explains:
(...)All kinds of experiences, from the most closely linked with our everyday world to
those who seem remotely distanced come together to compose our individual picture of
reality. The Earth's surface is drawn up for each person by refraction through cultural and
personal lenses, of customs and costumes. We are all artists and architects of the
scenery, creating order and organizing space, time and causality, according to our
perceptions and predilections. (MACHADO, 2002, p.99)
Amorim (2013) quotes Marleau-Ponty, which in turn, argues that the perception integrates both the sensory
processes, as the mental, psychological, differentiating the feeling, which is connected only with the senses. The
philosopher argues further that the human perception incorporated the meanings of the senses that make up the
experience of the world lived and is nothing more than a daily relationship of the body to the world. In his words, "it
is the body and its movement that provide the perception of the world, and unites the world to my body experience"
(Marleau-Ponty cited AMORIM, 2013, p.48). Also, "I find things like left and right, high and small, all based on my
direction in which my body occupies the zero point" (MORAN cited AMORIM, 2013, p.48). To clarify his own opinion,
Marleau-Ponty works with the example of a cube, which to be understood as an object of six equal sides requires to
the viewer to move around, so having a successive stage of experience, that in the end, when these are connected
and interpreted we have an idea of a whole object.
Man receives stimuli from the resulting environment through their senses of the body and from its movement, that
is replaced therefore, the consciousness of reality, knowing the environment and the events that happens in it. To
Okamoto (2002), in addition to the five senses and interface with reality, there are the mental inner senses, which
he listed in six categories, as an enlarged view of the perceptual process.
The first category refers to the perceptual sense, represented by the five human senses. The second category refers
to the spatial sense, the kinesthetic movement, the need to move within the space, to have notions such as balance
and gravity. The third direction is the proxemic establishing the relationship between the private / public, the
personal space of individuals in a social environment; it is an example of proxemic the fact that an individual who
finds a park bench already occupied by someone else at one end tends to sit at the opposite end, preserving a space
between two individuals. The fourth category is named sense-thought, which allows the individual to have an
understanding of what the author calls the sense of abduction, symbol, myth, metaphor, aesthetics, poetry, plot
linked to certain physical element; or even in the same category, understand from the sense of completeness, within
the law of polarity, color, geometry, proportion, rhythm, scale, balance, shape, light weight, texture. The fifth
category refers to the meaning of language, non-verbal, related to gestures and body language. And the last is the
sense of pleasure, ability to arouse any emotional connection.
Okamoto (2002) argues that reality is perceived both by objectivity, as well as the subjectivity and the human being
comes to realize these values from one of these senses and / or a combination between them.
Thus, the physical space is constructed by both as subjective elements, for example, scale, balance, lightness, rhythm,
as for objective values as form, function, color, texture, aeration, environmental temperature, lighting, sound. As
places Okamoto (2002, p.106), "each of these objectives values results in the dimensioned space, functional, sound,
colorful, meaningful, and the sum of them results in the communication space of architecture.
A space unverbalized, but full of signifiers that give "evidence" for a behavior within that environment. Reis and Lay
(2006) cite Rapoport to confirm:
(...)physical and spatial property of the built environment can carry meanings that serve
as communicators, encoded, in the built form and decoded by the user, giving clues with
respect to expected or adapted behavioral patterns, facilitating or inhibiting their uses.
(RAPOPORT apud REIS; LAY, 2006, p.25)
Thus, it can be stated that a space, due to its physical characteristics, can facilitate or inhibit, for example, the
integration of its users, although it cannot determine the certainty of occurrence of it, as this would also depend on
the capacity of interaction of the users.
Physical and spatial properties of the built environment and their meanings
Jan Gehl (2015), renowned architect and urban planner and advocate of the importance of thinking about the cities
from the human scale, lectures that at the time, "We found that people's behavior depends on what you invite them
to do [.. .] the more there are streets, the more traffic. A more attractive public environment will be used by more
people. " Still for the same author, contemporary urban planning models neglect the public living spaces, giving little
importance to what he calls ground floor - the ground floor, street level - because, according to him, is among the
buildings that we all live and this space should be the priority.
As also stated by Jan Gehl (2015), the behavior of people will be in short conditioned to what it is offered. A city
dominated by policies to encourage the purchase and use of cars will notice a gradual way - and sometimes
uncontrolled - that the streets are taken by cars and motorcycles, reflecting a set of ideas and interests. However,
this problem is not limited to chaos in urban mobility, its consequences also step into the sphere of quality of life,
noticeably increasing noise pollution, poor air quality and stress.
Technological change and the widespread use of motor vehicles accounted for a change that transformed spatial
values in temporal values, translating measurements of space in measurements of time, even causing new forms of
apprehension and perception of space. The dispersed city, relativized to the extent of the territory to be covered,
and measures are now in terms of distance and time. In addition, the intensive use of cars to get around in cities,
transforms the body use interface for spatial understanding, sensitive contact becomes restricted and the speed of
moving in space changes the whole perception process.
So Paulo, the largest and most populous city in Brazil, is known by the chaotic traffic witnessed in much of its streets
and avenues, problem rooted in the history of So Paulo. However, following the examples of success observed in
several cities abroad, the city has proven to be more open to solve this old problem. Prioritization of cyclist and
pedestrian are already notable landmarks in the current guidelines that guide the development of the metropolis.
It is up to the city management its spaces to meet the needs from the society, guaranteeing quality of life and access
to basic rights and services. But still, not all solutions need be from an initiative of governmental power, social
activism can and should intervene in their midst also according to common interests and pro community. This
protagonism is a developer of community empowerment and historically fundamental to the supply of unmet needs
by active government. As championed by Jane Jacobs (2004), "a real urban renewal is one that liberates ingenuity of
the people, allowing them to try new things to solve their own problems.
In this context, emerge practices related to what it is call tactical urbanism, a term used to describe the microscale
actions (re)qualify the urban environment allowing the population itself intervene in the public space. The act of
(re)create new cities focused increasingly on a human scale and methodology guided by the practice of "doing
collective" is a global trend in large and small urban centers, after all, no matter which region of the world, the city
will always be a common means and all.
Architects, geographers, students, sociologists, journalists, domestic workers, psychologists, artists, residents - city
users - form thus a group capable of pointing out different looks and from that drive their actions, varying according
to the desired purpose; in order to rethink the neighborhood policy, bring new uses for a particular urban void,
claiming rights of citizens, to recast the structure and use of a public square, fight the action of real estate speculation
or create urban gardens, urban collectives can act in different and local scales, but once (re)imagining the space,
proposing solutions to a given problem inserted in the atmosphere of the city, often associated with artistic actions.
Today, scattered throughout the world, many urban collectives won recognition through the changes take effect in
the urban environment. In January 2014, in So Paulo, a group of about ten people began to propose a new use for
the known Square Largo da Batata in Pinheiros. Marked by dramatic changes and highly targeted by real estate
speculation, the square - before performing vibrant social manifestations of the occupied groups - was gradually
losing its relevance as a living space, becoming mere environment of passage for the regulars of the neighborhood.
It was in this context that the collective was appointed Batata Needs You, and, guided by the right to the city, are the
instigators agents of the occupation of public space for civil society.
Imagem 1 Occupation of Largo da Batata, Pinheiros, So Paulo. Available at: <http://misturaurbana.com/2014/10/a-batataprecisa-de-voce-a-ocupacao-regular-colaborativa-do-largo-da-batata/>. Accessed on 11-07-2016.
Routine meetings took place every Friday, the aim was to occupy. Simply put, the group went on to propose several
debates, from questions about the use of public space for spontaneous cultural events. Before long, the movement
began to gain more supporters. Local residents and workers as well as people who came from other areas of the city,
all joined to participate and closely monitor the (re) formulation of this space.
The urban collective, Batata Needs You, is a clear example of the application of tactical urbanism, which, according
to the collective itself, is based on quick projects, compact and temporary and aims to demonstrate the
environmental potential of that place, exposing forms of immediate action with impact direct the built space and
thus transforming the way its users perceive it, understand it and finally evaluate it.
Immersed in this debate, the group also proposes questioning and reflection on the role of the architect and urban
planner to the process of (re) usual formulation, leaving aside the project closed and previously established and
delivering to society the role of idealization of the design and its guidelines. However, it was noted that it was not
enough only foment the regular use of the space, it was necessary offer to the users a comfortable and inviting
atmosphere to their stay.
It began to emerge the first street furnitures in the square, which in addition to offering greater convenience to
society, also served to bring the reflection to another social agenda as important as the use of space: the cruel
existence of a "gentrification architecture" restrictive and aimed away from the 'unwanted' occupants in the public
environment - benches in the squares can attract homeless, and shaded areas can favor the action of street vendors.
The square was purposely kept simple as a place of passage. More, at accepting this challenge, the group employed
the use of temporary architecture by creating prototypes later used as street furniture to achieve the goal of bringing
all the experience of living the city.
We believe that building a space with quality street furniture is suitable for people that
do activities outside their homes, such as reading, playing sports, relax and meet friends.
Thus, the use of good street furniture results in more security, because from the moment
a use for the space is created and its attained end, there is a constant flow of people; and
the squares, streets and surroundings will have their " vigilant "in the form of public space
liveliness. (A Batata Precisa de Voc, 2015)
Imagem 2 Primer Ocupe Largo da Batata Como Fazer Ocupaes Regulares no Espao Pblico Available at: <
https://issuu.com/laurasobral/docs/publicacaobatata-final-web>. Accessed: 17-07-2016
In more than two years of proposal and collective development, the active group Largo da Batata records several
achievements, be they related to the use of space, the creation of temporary architectures and green areas or closer
look of the society to the surrounding environment. Seeking support in cultural edicts and support of artists and
activists defenders of the "city to the people," Batata Need You enables your projects and transforms the urban space
in a more pleasant environment to its users. Today the main square of the Pinheiros neighborhood is a place that
exudes vivacity and (re)invent constantly, a diverse and jointly. Moreover, extrapolating the local level and from the
experience gained in activities in Largo da Batata, emerged the Institute The City Needs You, nonprofit organization
that seeks to promote the improvement, coordination and activation of public spaces incubating social projects and
discussing the city.
Imagem 3 Urban furniture and green reas at Largo da Batata, Pinheiros, So Paulo. Available at:
<http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/2014/08/1502076-largo-da-batata-ganha-area-verde-do-dia-para-a-noite.shtml>.
Accessed: 17-07-2016.
The collective method of solving issues and problems in public places revives the sense of belonging and individual
obligation to "urban look". It is necessary that all stakeholders, both civil and political, understand their role, acting
in pro quality of life in the city.
When an action aimed at urban kindness reaches its goal, the results often inspired to spread the ideas and
achievements to other areas of the city and the world. It is common to observe artistic and urban interventions that
are easily adaptable to different spatial contexts, enabling the analysis of their impacts and results. Collectives begin
offering small acts of change of the urban context and soon reach an unimaginable number of people.
Conclusion
The demonstrations in urban areas highlight the interaction of society with the city. Whether it is artistic or it is
questioning of the space, activism is a brand historically recorded during the development of public policies,
contributing to the public and urban space to reformulate, thus influencing the way people see and live the city.
The protagonism of the citizen is exercised when there is an environment that fosters this free relationship. Create a
more lively city and that can prioritize the human scale is a role initially of the government, since they fit the
implementation of large scale and scope changes. However, this task permeates all forming agents of society and
does not exempt anyone from responsibility for managing this common good: the city.
The urban actions and urban artistic practices go beyond the purely visual sense, establishing new meanings and
serving as strategies of space transformation, in order to reduce the existing gap between the social will and
governmental acts, serving as a bridge of communication and facilitator of this process. "In the contemporary
context, the plurality of voices demand not only that urbanism is linked to materials aspects, normative and legal
aspects, but to incorporate into your project structure and planning the nuances revealed by the various movements
that echo from the city.. (LIMA, 2015)
With the aid of technology and methodology, urban managers should approximate the society to the reflections
about the rights and use of the city, taking into account that the quality of urban life is directly related to the diversity
of uses and people that wander in urban public spaces. Connect common interests, open new horizons and share
experience has shown the best way for the recognition of the actions of social movements.
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ARCHITECTURE AND CAPITALISM IN SKOPJE

LILJANA DIMEVSKA, SHUKRAN QAZIMI
M.Sc. in Architecture LILJANA DIMEVSKA, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University Skopje/ Macedonia,
Assistant Professor at FON University Skopje- Department of Architecture
B.Sc. in Architecture SHUKRAN QAZIMI, Epoka University Tirana/ Albania, Professor at
professional high school Zdravko Cvetkovski Skopje- Department of Interior Design
Abstract
`The purpose of this research is to explore, analyze and give critical thinking of the impact that capitalism has on
the architecture of the capital city of Macedonia. Skopje is a modern city, phoenix - a city that after the catastrophic
earthquake in 1963, for a short period of time manages to get back to life and become a city dressed in the style of
modernism, current across Europe and the world, whose holders were architectural icons, such as: Le Corbusier,
Gropius, Mies, Wright, etc. As part of Yugoslavia, Macedonia, in the postwar period, had its revival in architecture,
where architecture of traditional hand sculpted by the hands of Macedonian masters; nevertheless, influenced by
the yoke of Ottoman rule, communism painted in the colors of the modern.
Then, the modern communist, brutal, cosmic era of architecture began. New modern architectural revival appeared
in the wake of socialism, where both political and aesthetic visually perceptible difference in the two extreme
opposite social ideologies; socialism versus capitalism. Capitalism again after the separation of Macedonia from
Yugoslavia in the 90's lightened fast and achieved to bring the architectural scene new, dramatically different
architectural image of the city. Brutalist modern buildings of communist architecture whose investments were run
by the state were lost in the numerous undefined bulky overall dynamic buildings that sprouted invested great
capitalists crave square meters.
Questions to visualize about: Does capitalism leave a positive impact on the architectural production, as it can
certainly be said about socialism? What is the difference? How has capitalism shaped the architecture of the 21st
century? How can todays architects contribute to qualitative and healthy life? Comparison between socialist and
capitalist architecture in Skopje.
Additionally, the paper will bring together both theories; socialism defined by communism, modernism and brutalism
and on the other hand capitalism which is characterized by novelties in investment opportunities through drawings,
photos, real examples of the existing architecture in Skopje.
The final section will describe how to make an architectural decision, as to contribute and meanwhile to improve the
current image of the city of Skopje. By developing the city it is creating an impact to the citizens as well. Consequently
it is affecting the emotional state and behavior of community.
Key words/ Key phrases: Architecture/ Skopje / Capitalism / Socialism/ Brutalism/ Modernism/ New investment
facilities/ Private investors/
Methodology
The research for this study consists of literature analysis, on- site inspections and gathering of archived
documentation. Knowing that the chosen method affected the results of the following topic, the comparison data
between socialist and capitalist city, the accumulated information about the actual city situation was taken and the
development of the consciousness of the architecture influence in the human behavior. Besides the results which led
to a stronger argument of the issue, we, as researchers, faced problems in terms of choosing the right objectivism
and subjectivism for the evaluation of the topic context. Therefore, it was important to provide sufficient information
such as pictures of the post earthquake conditions and the existing situation in order to allow others think from a
different perspective of living and conduct resolution.
Introduction
_Capitalism as a term
The term capitalism emerged from the Latin word capitalis, which means head of cattle.Capitalis originates
from caput, the Latin word for head. During middle ages transactions and trades involving huge numbers of cattle,
this is how the affiliation of capitalis with economics and trade begin. The phrase capitalism was first put to use
by the English novelist William Thackeray during 1855, in his novel called The Newcomes, it was used in the sense
of concern regarding chattels and money in general. In French the Latin word capitali is equal to capitalisme
meaning the condition of one who is rich.
It begins with The wealth of Nations 1776 by Adam Smith, the point of the book was to create a contemporary
understanding of economics. He writes greatly against trade system that existed at the time of writing, at the same
time he gives a complex, but brilliant account of an economic system based on behavior traits of humankind and
social dynamics. The books focus on developing the idea of the division of labor, and illustrating how it adds to the
opulence of a particular society by creating large surpluses, which can be exchanged between members. The division
of labor also flues technological change, by giving intense focus to certain endeavors, and giving workers an
opportunity to brainstorm ways to make these tasks more sedulous, as a result this grows surpluses and higher
efficiency. He also considers Great Britain in the context of the social evolution of society in general, which begins,
according to Smith, with hunting and gathering societies and progresses through agricultural stages to arrive at a
state of international commerce. According to Smith, the fall of Rome and the rise of feudalism retarded this
progression by creating a system of decreased efficiency.
Another philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill published a book called Principles of Political
Economy, 1848, Political Economy is the term that writers of nineteenth century refer to the study of what we today
call macroeconomics, though its practitioners, such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx and including John
Stuart Mill were more philosophical than empirical in their methods comparing to modern economists. Principles
of Political Economy examines the fundamental economic movement in which society is based: production,
exchange, the distribution of goods, the role of government in economic affairs and the effect of social progress on
manufacturing and transportation.
Karl Marx in his book Das Kapital elaborates on the connection among commoditys value and its social dimension
in the section on the Commodity Fetishism. Commodities are significant in two ways; first, and most transparent
as objects of exchange with a determined monetary value. The second, which is not so obvious and concealed by the
first, is that commodities reflect not only the labor, also the social relations of production in which the labor was
performed. The labor theory of value is not Karl Marxs innovation, the classical economist David Ricardo who
developed a labor theory of price, which claims that the prices commodities perform the labor that went into
making them.
_Architecture as a term
The word architecture originates from Latin architectus and from Greek arkhitekton , from arkhi
chief and tekton builder, carpenter. Architecture is the art of designing and creating buildings. Architecture
developed step by step, as a need of humanity. Early humans are thought of as dwelling in caves, it all started with
the need for a shelter to get protected from sun and rain. After a period of time most things begin to change for good
- from tents to round houses, because peoples needs were growing day by day. And as a result forms and shapes
developed.
Construction works have started before the prehistoric times, with the construction of settlements for protection,
irrigation channels and crossings over streams.
The first buildings are observed some 500 years before our era in Mesopotamia. Then, Cheops pyramid with a height
of 147 m. Years later, great success in the construction industry have had the old Greeks and Romans. Greece is the
cradle of European civilization, built residential buildings, squares, sports arenas and stadiums during V and VI
centuries before our era, which exist and testify the skills of old builders.
Etrusci and Romans were also prominent builders after them have remained more mansions, theaters, baths, roads,
bridges, aqueducts, etc, that still exist.
With the introduction of reinforced concrete and steel began to construct objects with different shapes and sizes.
After a period of time new ideas and innovations about how to make something great evolved.
There has been great designers who transformed the world to a better place by designing buildings and structures
which does not only affect people physically but also emotionally. Some designers like Frank Lloyd Wright, Le
Corbusier, Eugene Viollet le Duc, designed buildings that did not only serve its main purpose for building but also
helped development of those areas as well as generating income for the countries.
In the past architects used to build gothic buildings, which were composed of concrete and stone- the buildings were
made of enormous columns and their material was not optimized effectively, the external views were invented of
ornaments, forms and shapes which today is hardly to produce, not because of the fact that technology does not
allow that to happen, but because it does not correspond with the time and modern era. In modern architecture
builders try to minimize and optimize building materials. Architecture of the above mentioned architects ensured
that minimization and optimization of the buildings as well as the materials. Forms and shapes of these buildings
really improved architecture and the way of living.
In Macedonia, especially Skopje used to have the very same theory; putting citizens first, there was an identity in
each building. Because during socialism everything was meant to help the city grow in total in order to make sense,
by the time passing, everything started to take a different shape as a result of capitalism.
_Relationship between Capitalism and Architecture
The question rises; what is the relationship between these two terms? Construction is an economic branch, which
deals with designing, building, recording and review of terrain. For building, manufacturing and materials review.
Nowadays, industry and progress construction take special place, construction appears as the main economic branch,
in it are invested nearly 50% of the entire investment for the development of the country.
According to Ayn Rend Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property
rights, in which all property is privately owned. As a result of the capitalization of the city, do architecture and
construction agree to each other? This question will be elaborated further in the upcoming sections.
Main part
_Socialism as a theory and its influences on architecture; A brief historical overview of the pre- socialistic period
in Skopje
Macedonias 19th century architecture began its revival. Some say that this is the countrys late renaissance.
Gradually pulling out from the yoke of the Ottoman Empire whose residential architecture kept the splendor hidden
inside the high walls of the Muslim house, the Macedonian house, in contrary. began to open to the street, to the
market, to public life. Skopje neighborhoods were developed, beautiful houses with large yards, each with a story in
itself, but together an amazing architectural unity. On the left side of the Vardar river bank the first urbanized
neighborhood, called Madzir maalo, popped up. The Macedonian house defined its national characteristics, chose
its identity.
Skopje Turkish bazaar, as the main pillar of all events, has always been and remains a living organism which pulsates
through numerous narrow winding streets studded with the colorful architecture of Skopje stores, providing the
products of old artisans. During the entire 19th century, the bazaar was the heart and its streets - the veins of the
city.
During the socialism era in Macedonia, the bazaar remained the same, untouched, pure, unadulterated with new
objects of various dimensions, which would have suffocated the beauty of the small hospitality architecture of the
old bazaar. All around it, communist architecture was created, new railways, new high-rise buildings covered in bton
brut or raw concrete, at the height of modernism.
Nonetheless, everything of value, with the new urban plan of Skopje, after the tragic earthquake, was recognized as
invaluable by contemporary architects, the city planners, the creators of the city. Actually, the entire plan was
designed to protect the cultural monuments and traditional architecture of Skopje.
Skopje in the 20th century was converted into a new, urban, cultural and administrative center that was the target
of all social, economic and cultural events in the heart of Macedonia, and a major link between crucial roads leading
to the greatest cities of the neighboring countries.
_Socialist period in Skopje (post earthquake conditions), socialism as theory and its impact on the architecture of
Skopje
The devastating earthquake (1963) in the early morning hours caught Skopje by surprise and unprepared; mercilessly
took the lives of thousands of citizens, subverting the architecture of the city to unrecognizable point, is definitely
the biggest disaster that has ever happened to the city. Only the memory was what remained of the old Skopje,
Skopje before the earthquake; the image of the former city, as well as the pain and the suffering of old Skopje citizens
about it. There is no doubt that the earthquake changed Skopje forever.
For some, during the period that follows, Skopje gets a new color, modern architecture and makes great strides in
terms of architecture, bureaucracy, culture. Whereas according to others, it is a period of devastating change and
establishing a new political regime, which is reflected in all spheres, especially in architecture, this so-called
Communist architecture , they experience it as gray, monotonous and gloomy.
The period from 1963 to 1990 is known as the Socialist period in Macedonia, it was a period when Macedonia was
part of SFRY. What does socialism promote? Equality, equal opportunities, balance'' of social disparities, etc. This
communist ideology is manifested in every respect, the cultural change where people wore work uniforms or similar
outfits, they rode vehicles of the same value to the identical houses residential units which lead to precise, simple
and minimalist architecture. Architecture, compared to all other domains of society, is directly tied to the social and
political systems and changes, because every era in history firstly influences the architecture of cities, which then
bears testimony to that particular time period.
A country fresh out of wars, which continuously over the years of its past have torn its cities and architecture,
including both World and Balkan wars in the early 20th century. It began to reconstruct the style of modern
architecture, which already made a revolution in the western world. Skopje had no chance to be build into a modern
town during the period of 1963, because of the fatal earthquake and floods that occurred.
The earthquake in Skopje was short, it lasted about 20 seconds, but it was cruel and fatal. An earthquake of 6.9
degrees managed to move the structural systems of buildings about 7cm, which could not resist the great power, as
a result, they collapsed to the ground. During this disaster, 2000 died and more than 3000 were injured. Around 150
000 left homeless. It is a fact that the earthquake is one of the greatest evils that can happen to a city. Skopje, due
to the fatal earthquake, experienced a rebirth and booming. Many believe that the earthquake had a positive impact
on the development of the city, especially in terms of urban and architectural point of view, because of the fact that
it started to build from the beginning. Immediately after the earthquake, the Yugoslavian government convened an
international competition to design a conceptual solution for the citys urban plan.
Obviously, during that period of time, Skopje was blessed, due to the fact that had a socialist system of government
in place. All assets were nationalized and all the land belonged to the state. The state called a fair competition where
the aim was to choose the best project that would solve the situation of shattered Skopje, and would give the best
possible solution and plan for the future. Skopje grew as a modern, urban and dynamic city, not as it once was, but
a lot better. Perhaps, if it was a capitalistic society, the unfortunate earthquake would really be fatal.
However, when we touch upon communist or socialist architecture in Skopje, it automatically signifies the plan of
Skopje after the earthquake, as well as facilities build under this plan during the 60 year rule of the socialist regime
in the region. In this time interval in Skopje are designed and constructed such fascinating objects, which are a rare
example of good modern architecture, from domestic and foreign architects. Particularly, they used natur beton
concrete as the main construction material, so this architecture, which we refer to as communist architecture, it is
actually known worldwide as brutalist, modern, cosmic, expressionist modern architecture. Skopje has clearly
become a rare example of a city that abounds with so many brutalism. Due to the participation of many countries,
whose ambassadors were architects from all over the world, Skopje experienced a new spirit and light - known as
the city of solidarity .
Skopje has a sad history, maybe this is the reason that makes this city remarkable and distinctive. In the period from
518 to 1505, in the memory of the city many natural disasters, such as earthquakes and floods have left traces of
sadness in the lives of many people. Finally, after the rule of Ottoman Empire, Skopje achieved to come by as chief
administrative and industrial center. Then the city was counting population that consistently ranged from early 30s
to the devastating earthquake with 68,000 to 171,000.
Skopje is a phoenix city, a reawaked city and a city of solidarity. A city which after the tragic earthquake at fast pace
achieves to become a better city. Thanks to the Yugoslav government and United Nations Foundation (UNESCO),
which responded quickly to the disaster, and the Association of Yugoslavian architects and planners as well as the
International Association of architects and urban planners. For a short period, the restructuring plan of the city was
prepared. The competition was attended by companies composed of a tram of architects and urban planners from
Macedonia and four participants from other countries worldwide, including Italy, Netherlands, Japan and US. The
competition did not have a winner but the award was 60:40 divisions, of which 60% received a well-known Japanese
architect Kenzo Tange from Tokyo and his team, while 40% were awarded to the Croatian architects; Radovan
Miscevic and Fedor Wenzler, from Croatian Institute of City Planning in Zagreb.
The competitions concept was based exactly on the ideology of the former social political system in Yugoslavia,
socialism. Although architecture derived as a product of that contest, Skopjes urban plan and earthquake
architecture, in the literature are known as ,, communist architecture, this architecture is a pure architectural work
of art, which has no political interests. Finally, the Kenzo Tange, who is considered the father of contemporary and
modern Skopje has never been a communist. This architecture is produced in the period of socialism in Skopje, but
its message is primarily modern, the contemporary and developed Skopje, in the colors of the current period.
For some, the gray uniform buildings and the rough texture of natur beton, as well as the dimensions of the spaces
inside the socialist buildings (rooms in the dormitory of Goce Delchev, or corridors and offices in social facilities),
seem to be cheap, social architecture, made by philosophy socialism, equality for all, this kind of architecture has
a great importance for culture, identity and above all for the development of the city of Skopje.
The idea of the competition was not to make a detailed urban plan for the city center and the surrounding area. The
main concept was to gather the greatest minds of the world, the best teams of architects and planners, who in a
teamwork will make a study and a research for the center of Skopje, its conversion to other cities, how to intervene
along the banks of the Vardar River in such a dynamic land of earthquakes and floods, in order to protect the center
and cultural monuments in it, which survived the quake struck, as they remained from the historic past of
Macedonia. For this purpose, about the ,, fragile '' theme for Skopje, the special fund of the United Nations for the
first time, is committed to be the sponsor of such a large and important grant program, a project made for a new
city, a city from nothing to something.
Master Plan for Skopje after the earthquake, socialist architecture
The international jury set its criteria, according to which led participants in a contest for the Master Plan of Skopje.
Principles of the city planning were as follows:
1. Skopje to develop according to a dispersed model of a city where the element unifying the city, will be the Vardar
River, and the city will spread to the left and right bank of the Vardar River, and the most important connections will
flow along the river - street that will unite the east to the west of the city.
2. Along the Vardar, the zone to remain unurbanized in order to protect this part of further natural disasters, as
frequent floods and earthquakes. This region is provided as an area for recreation, the Vardar quay operational
wholesale promenade with bicycles and pedestrians tracks, green spaces for children and recreational sports.
3. Again, the main pillar is the old bazaar, which should remain the way it is in order to reactivate as a major trade catering and administrative center, which will be integrated through the rocky Vardar with the main square,
according to the project it will serve as a new commercial, administrative center of the city. The Bazaar is not allowed
to remain a tourist museum of the past only, it should be integrated with the right bank of the river, along with the
square and the new envisaged urban shopping center, along with part of the quay of the Vardar and the square will
be the heart of the citys center. A place of all cultural events, trade, catering, sightseeing and recreation.
Throughout the old bazaar is prohibited the construction of tall and large buildings that would disrupt its function,
identity, and culture. According to the plan, the decision was made to restore and maintain the labyrinth streets with
multiple shops that were made by the mens hands, even though they were not of great architectural significance.
4. The downtown area, turkish bazaar with the large outdoor market is a notable characteristic of the Macedonia
region, known as the Bit Bazaar, on the left bank of the river, integrated with new urban shopping center square.
According to the master plan it is envisaged to be protected by a belt of sustainable houses around the center, known
as the City wall. Which would restrict the average net population density in the central part of the city of 350-400
citizens per hectare, respectively 20m2 gross floor area per person.
6. Toward the prioritization of pedestrian movement in the downtown area, and separate pedestrian traffic from
schooling as possible, although no severe restrictions in the definition of streets that define the central part of town.
Certainly, there was a need of a new place for a train station, whilst the Old Railway Station is a testimony to the
terrible earthquake, which later became a city museum.
7. The key elements that were highlighted in the master plan of Skopje are society and public buildings, in the area
of culture, public administration, public institutions. Such as museums, libraries, university buildings, cinema, theater,
banks, post offices, shopping malls and schools .Before seen to be allocated, therefore that would create a dispersed
model of city building. It would have activated the city in all its parts to the smallest cell, but most of them, to be
concentrated in the central area of the city, especially on the left bank of Vardar in the center would be the most
attractive and well-defined area.
8. The historical buildings that survived the earthquake completely or partially, were recognized as cultural and
historical monuments of the city. According to the plan, were planned to be restored and reconstructed in the same
picture as in the past, but some of them retained their original function but were revitalized with a newer and more
attractive program. For example, the old Turkish facility Kurshumli An and the old Macedonian church called the
church of Holy Saviour, known for incredible hand wood carvings, it was envisaged to become a museum, while the
old Turkish bath with incredible Ottoman architecture from numerous domes, get new attractive feature as a coffee
bar and a restaurant. Facilities such as the Citadel, the Stone bridge and Mustafa Pasha known as the most famous
muslim religious building, were planned to keep its function and to be restored and testify as the main reference
points in the city center, as a cultural historical monuments, characteristic of different time periods as part of the
country's cultural heritage.
The above criteria for the master plan, were respected to a large extend, in both, winning solutions despite the fact
that their projects drastically differ from one another. Kenzo Tange and his team defined the center plainly in order
to protect the old bazaar and to close it in one integral unit urban core. They have laid the concept of a closed city,
which was based on two ideas: the idea of the CITY WALL and the CITY PORTA. The City Wall presented a series of
residential buildings that surround the city, and the urban porta has been an accession entrance point in Skopje,
which had its monumental nature.
In terms of the citys traffic solution Tange's plan was quite revolutionary, the plan provided rail and car transport,
as well as pedestrian areas that are encompassed in transition point of intercity and urban lines, that plan was known
as the City Gate. In was located in the down part of the city, on the subway on several levels and it was supplemented
by key facilities at the center such as administrations, banks, libraries, cafes.
City Wall is a positive attempt to highlight and protect the city center, including monuments like the Citadel and Old
Town, by placing it residentially - business belt all over around, from which sprung up in places high modernist towers
housing and lower structures of white cubic apartment blocks. The plan of the second prize, Venzler and Miscevic,
was not very impressive and revolutionary, nonetheless very restrained, sustainable and realistic for implementation,
the committee did not give any negative comments, and they elected it as the best second project.
Image 14. The classes of use according to Kenzo Tanges plan in the central zone of the city.
Angelov, C. (2013) Skopje na Kenzo Tange - Skopje 2014 Available at:
http://okno.mk/node/27852 (Accessed: 15 September 2016).
As a conclusion of this brief study where it is outlined the key criteria for the selection of the best design solution
that will grow into a master plan of the city of Skopje, whose winners shared the award, is the fact that the
competition was announced in order to assist and support the city in order to bring it to life again and grow into a
world metropolis or capital of a country, which will be in the style of the current contemporary period and architect
-ure. The idea was not to have a detailed plan, but a conceptual plan which later will be completed by Macedonian
and Yugoslav architectural studios. To a certain extant, the role of creating a new and qualitative life as an
endowment for humanity, especially for the local architects it was a great opportunity to get involved in the creation
of their own city, by creating their own architectural works, creating teams with inspiration, admiration, pleasure,
passion and love. Here, is seen the impact of the social and political ideals of socialism, the idea of collectivity,
togetherness, unity and equality. Skopje was blessed to upgrade ideas translated into projects in MacedonianYugoslav and foreign architectural minds and rebuilt from the hands of his own nation.
Many architects during the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s of the 20th century got inspired by Kenzo Tange's plan, although it
was never fully realized in the upcoming years. Perhaps, it is a result of the change of Macedonia's new social system,
the transition to capitalistic society parallel with the release of the state of Yugoslavia and its independence. The
collapse of socialism and the advent of capitalist society, and how it would affect not only the social, political and
economic development of the country, but it directly changed the character of the city again beyond recognition plan
of Kenzo Tange, which is actually the subject of this work.
In the illustrations are presented parts of the plan of Tange and the idea of post earthquake Skopje, in the era of
socialism, and images from high price brutalistic architecture in Skopje, inspired by Tange, which remains the
hallmark of Skopjes architectural work during the socialist period.
Architecture in Skopje, during the socialist society, is considered valuable and quality architecture, judging by its
shape, the relationship with the context in which it is set, materials and function. Socialist architecture built in Skopje
during 60s and 90s is the highlight of the Macedonian architecture.
Based on the opinion of many architects, professors of architecture and architectural theorists in Skopje, the socialist
architecture is a symbol of a new modern Skopje, as a well as a symbol of the contemporary brutalist architecture
which belonged to socialist period, mostly the Balkan region. Macedonian architectural professions evaluate this
architecture as a higher quality compared to today's architecture of the city, the architecture of the 21st century is
the architecture of capitalist society. Why it is considered like that? Does this case happens everywhere in the world
as well as in Skopje? Through a series of images the architecture of Skopje until the 90s is presented. In a more
detailed manner will be elaborated its idea and structure.
Image 16. A part from the city wall- a residential block. , . (2013) - 2014. Available
at: http://okno.mk/node/27852 (Accessed: 15 September 2016).
Image 15.The view from the east of the city gate to the center. , . (2013) - 2014.
Available at: http://okno.mk/node/27852 (Accessed: 15 September 2016).
Image 4. Brutal Students Dormitory Buildings "Goce Delcev" in

Skopje. Communist architecture of Skopje, Macedonia - A brutal,
modern, cosmic, era (2013) Available at:
http://yomadic.com/communist-architecture-skopje-kenzo-tange/
Image 6. Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Communist

architecture of Skopje, Macedonia - A brutal, modern, cosmic,
era (2013) Available at: http://yomadic.com/communistarchitecture-skopje-kenzo-tange/
Image 8. The Brutal Home of the Skopje State Hydro

meteorological Institute.
Communist architecture of Skopje, Macedonia - A brutal, modern,
cosmic, era (2013) Available at: http://yomadic.com/communistarchitecture-skopje-kenzo-tange/
Image 5. Saint Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje.

cosmic, era (2013) Available at: http://yomadic.com/communistarchitecture-skopje-kenzo-tange/
Image 7. National Bank of Macedonia. Communist architecture of

Skopje, Macedonia - A brutal, modern, cosmic, era (2013) Available
at: http://yomadic.com/communist-architecture-skopje-kenzotange/
Image 9. Macedonian National Radio and Television

Buildings, in Skopje.
cosmic, era (2013) Available at: http://yomadic.com/communistarchitecture-skopje-kenzo-tange/ (Accessed: 1 October 2016).
The transition from one social system to another, perhaps, is the most traumatic period which a state experiences.
Especially when it comes to a drastically different social and economic order, as in the late of 20th century. The
transition from socialism to capitalism set the scene for a long and painful process that has been lasting for years
,known as the transitional period.Multiple things have changed during the transition period, including architecture.
The architecture is a domain in which the transition period, period of change of social order is most strongly
expressive, unlike all other areas, artistic or scientific domains. Because it is in direct interaction with all that we call
society.Unfortunately, capitalism in Skopje resulted revolutionary in terms of the architecture of the city, but in a
negative direction. The brutalist architecture which is known as a period of cultural, historical and artistic values was
quickly forgotten due to the new era which spontaneously began to sprout the cheap, commercialized and capitalist
architecture buildings everywhere.
Private capitalists investors and landowners who with the speed of light lift buildings in the city, do not think of
architecture, but only techture! The word architecture in his first important archaic meaning, means arch something more, techture - construction, or literally architecture is more than just a building.
The facilities that were built in the post modernist style after the large earthquake that occurred in Skopje, were
financed from the state budget, because during that time everything that was built - was run by the state. They
announced public competitions, where maximum effort advocated the Macedonian-Yugoslav and foreign architects
and deservedly received the award. The best architect won the competition, with the best solution and project, as a
result of it, was created a logical, valuable and real architecture, in the style of the present context during that period.
Today, something different is going on.
As the most rigorous example will be taken the old neighborhood in Skopje Madzir Maalo.
The long transition dragged and neglected this cultural and historical pearl, overgrown neighborhood in the city
center, which dates back to the 19th century and to this day remains the frozen picture of the past. In 1965, with the
revolutionary plan of the Japan architect in this attractive part of the city center was established a modernist
contemporary concept of urban design for Madzir maalo called The city gate.
The advanced and the powerful solution of Tange for this very attractive part, does not appear as it is planned,
whether due to the sudden change in the social political system and social structure in the state, or the transition
period and the lack of sufficient resources for the performance of such a revolutionary move, which will be the fatal
significance of architecture in this part of the city. Capitalist society maximally will use the regulations in the law on
urban planning and construction under the new detailed urban plan Madzir neighborhood, which has nothing to do
with the previous design solution of Tange.
Tactics invasion of maximum built plots, in cubic buildings with faceless facades of inexpensive materials, and
mansard roofs for maximum utilization of the attic, which pop up everyday on the old fabric of the neighborhood of
tiny alleyways and small houses. There is nothing of the character of the old Macedonia neighborhood, nor it has a
potential to be reborn into a successful and modern architecture.
Capitalism works on the principle the strongest wins, particularly the one with the most funds the one that owns
the parcel. Not a single thing works according to the regulation of the open competitions which aim is to invest for a
better and a more modern architecture, instead of investing on a large, maximum and less expensive construction
that can be arranged to include a larger number of flats, without considering the fact that architecture should be
developed according to some laws and design regulations. Residential building flats for capitalists are money for
future investments. In Skopje construction is booming, inhabitants are placing pillars everywhere and anywhere,
in a rapid way and unconsciously. Any kind of object is getting built, not architecture. Nowadays, in Skopje
architecture cannot be considered art at all.
Figure 10. A detailed urban plan of todays Skopje & Tanges Conceptual Plan of Skopje. Retrieved from: http://marh.mk/
Urban planning and architecture lessons of recent developments in our society have created a
plan that really brings nothing attractive in the center of Skopje, nearly comparative to this idea
from the 60s of the last century.
Image 11. Madzir Maalo, Construction of facilities,

according to the new urban plan. Retrieved from:
http://marh.mk/
Image 12. Madzir Maalo, Construction of facilities, between

the low structure of houses. Retrieved from:
http://marh.mk/
Image 13. The street in the neighborhood of Madzir Maalo.

Retrieved from: http://marh.mk/
Image14. The view from the train station to Madzir Maalo.

Retrieved from: http://marh.mk/
Does that mean that capitalism as the most widespread social system in the world, can be connected with the current
state of postmodern architecture, which is built today in the 21st century? This is a very complicated question, to
which the answer is relative, because of the fact that the concept of capitalism is not the same in every country. The
connection between capitalism in the countries of the world and the architecture are primary fundamentals on
historical development and previous social systems of the country. However, the link between capitalism and
architecture is more obvious, since the architecture is such a field in society, which is perhaps most directly infected
with social political and economic changes of a country.
The purpose of this research is the architecture of the city of Skopje,more precisely the current situation, as a city in
a capitalist society, manifested through this paper, through theoretical criticism and images of illustrating the today's
modern architecture of the city, which is built on a daily basis, starting from the early 90s until today.
Image 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20. describe the existing situation of Capitalist city.
Architecture in the city of Skopje in the last 20 years is a product of the capitalist social system, in which Macedonia
passed after the collapse of the socialist society in the early 90s. Today the Skopjes architecture is experienced
through bulky, drab buildings, which have no special form, except cubic shapes, with a same arrangement of
windows, balconies and essential mansard roof. This critical review of architecture through the prism of capitalism,
does not apply to worlds metropolitan capitals.
In this situation, the revolutionary, fast and ruthless capitalism suddenly come into the country, and the country was
not in a suitable state for an action! The lifes way, economy and the architecture of the city affected the city of
Skopje in a negative way, and it is a fact that there is a huge difference between the quality of architecture built
during socialism and the capitalism of the city of Skopje.
Comparative analysis
Socialist architecture is responsible toward inhabitants, environment, nature and in relation to the city, while creates
eco - friendly cities , social spaces, wide and huge roads. All the above mentioned characteristics contribute to the
crucial points of todays architecture, prominence given to the relationship between man and architecture.
Comfortable living room,bedroom, kitchen and terrace. Front yard, greenery, playground, benches, fountain, shades,
sun and fresh air. In the city, wide streets, parks, waterways, A city of wide streets, open visions, parks, waterways,
large pedestrian roads etc. These are the rules that the socialist architect integrated into their projects for private
villa, building, public space and urban plan which unfortunately with the advent of capitalism, and the transfer of
title from the state to the individual, have changed as request of private investors and in the account of every
resident of the city.
Nowadays the living room, kitchen and dining room belong to the same volume space of 15 m2, terrace of 2m2 which
serves only for smoking, in the front yard of the building there is one more building and parking space which is not
sufficient, greenery is hardly seen because the trees probably are hidden somewhere between the two buildings.
Sidewalks serve as terraces for caf bars during summer and parking lots turned into construction sites The same
approach over time is inevitable for a city, because if that happens, automatically means that a city is not growing or
developing in terms of economy, architectural perspective and so on, what needs to be respected in each epoch is
the man and the satisfaction to enjoy the city.
Image 21,22, 23 and 24. represent the current situation of the capitalist city of 21st century.
Image 25.Commercial City Center, (1973) the social

direction of socialism. , . (2013)
- 2014. Available at:
http://okno.mk/node/27852
Image 26.. Skopje City Mall, (2010) the social direction of

capitalism. Available at:
http://www.torus.mk/projects_member
Conclusion
The transition process which is ongoing in Macedonia, namely the transition from one social system to another, is
the de facto traumatic period for the country, unfortunately, is particularly manifested by the architecture of the
City, while the world is exploring and building energy efficient and sustainable architecture. The capital of the city of
Skopje is maximally exploited in the lightning-fast building drab and undefined architectural buildings, without any
particular architectural merit and justification. Capitalism has brought many reforms in the architectural scene,
unfortunately, unluckily, in this young country in constant transition period, architectural capitalist evolution gives
the impression that everything turn wrong.
From the previous examples throughout this paper, a difference could be made and realize the qualities of
architectural works made at the time of socialism in Skopje, when the major investments were in state hands and
the present situation, where the powerful capital, every piece of land is converting to offer maximum developments,
schematically designed architecture that is quickly built, economically made by investors, with the aim to a better
and faster sale of residential, commercial and administrative areas, without any previous analysis, affection and
appreciation to the historical context and the surrounding environment.
This papers aim is not to criticize capitalism as unfavorable for architecture in global level, because each country has
a different policy and autonomy in respect to the social system and in each state the connection between
architecture with the social system is unique. The current situation in the city of Skopje, at the era of capitalist society
is not capable to offer quality, reasonable, sustainable and legitimate architecture. There exists architecture
according to legal regulations, rules and standards, built under urban laws and regulations, not more than that.
According to our comprehension architecture is not just a building, it is more than construction. It is a tribute to the
historical context of the city, appreciation towards environment, the tribute to nature, to the form and size of the
urban fabric. It is aesthetics in space, architecture is an art, not a typical construction.
Architecture is much more than a plain space of four walls and a roof. Capitalists should comprehend that sometimes
is better to have five quality apartments with happy and satisfied families , rather than ten apartments which are
inappropriate and do not fill the necessary criteria for life. Lower is better, justified architectural form that respects
the building next to it, than bulky cube protruding into the space and is divided from the nearby surroundings. To
long-term perspective of things, to imagine the city in the future and to discern what will be left for future
generations. The question rises, till where and until what period capitalist society will lead us? This remains one of
the greatest popular topics of the future.
References
1. , ., (2013) - 2014. Available at: http://okno.mk/node/27852
(Accessed: 15 September 2016).
2. , ., (2016) ( ),.
3. Communist architecture of Skopje, Macedonia - A brutal, modern, cosmic, era (2013) Available at:
http://yomadic.com/communist-architecture-skopje-kenzo-tange/ (Accessed: 1 September 2016).
4. Deamer, P., (2013) Architecture and capitalism: 1845 to the present.
Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Capitalism-Present-Peggy-Deamer/dp/0415534887
5. Kim, K., (2010) Aldo Rossi: The architecture of the city (1966). Available at:
http://architectureandurbanism.blogspot.mk/2012/06/aldo-rossi-architecture-of-city-1966.html
(Accessed: 5 September 2016).
6. . Available at: http://marh.mk (Accessed: 5 September 2016).
7. Ramsey, S. (2014) (GRADSKI TRGOVSKI CENTAR) SHOPPING CENTER. Available
at: http://www.postwarconcretepostscript.com/2014/09/24/gtc-shopping-center-skopje/ (Accessed: 10
July 2016).
8. Rossi, A., (1984) The architecture of the city (Oppositions books). Available at:
https://www.amazon.com/Architecture-City-Oppositions-Books/dp/0262680432 (Accessed: 3 October
2016).
9. Skopje resurgent. Story of a U.N. Special fund town planning project (1970) Available at:
https://books.google.mk/books/about/Skopje_Resurgent_Story_of_a_U_N_Special.html?id=9JfRYgEACAA
J&redir_esc=y (Accessed: 1 October 2016).
10. Tolic, I.,(2009) Kenzo Tange Volume 2 of Larchitettura. I protagonisti La biblioteca di Repubblica-LEspresso
Minimum. Bibl. essenziale di architettura. Motta architettura,.
11. Tokarev, M., (2004) 100 godini moderna arhitektura: Golemite dvienja i majstori na modernata. Kn. 1,
Book 1. M. Tokarev,.
12. United Nations Development Programme, Skopje resurgent. Available at: http://pdfdirectory.org/ebook.php?id=irBNAAAAMAAJ (Accessed: 1 October 2016).
13. Home, R., (2007) The master plan forty years on. Available at: http://www.mirkovski.com/im/skopjeanglia-ruskin-univ-paper.pdf (Accessed: 5 October 2016).
THE LIMINAL QUALITY OF SPACE IN LVARO SIZAS

WORK A CASE STUDY OF ALEMO RESIDENCE:
PERCEIVING THE INTERACTION BETWEEN THE
FORMAL OPERATION AND PERCEPTUAL
EXPERIENCE
WENYING SONG, JINXIU WU
Wenying Song, Master student of architecture, School of Architecture, Southeast University, China
Jinxiu Wu, Associate professor, School of Architecture, Southeast University, China
Abstract
As Juhani Pallasmaa positions, the artistic dimension of an architectural work does not lie in the actual physical
forms; it exists only in the consciousness of the person experiencing it, and the meaning of an architecture lies not in
its forms, but in the images transmitted by the forms and the emotional force that they carry. 1 (Pallasmaa, 1995
p.449)This compels us to contemplate how the form affects our feelings through what it represents.
In turning to the architectural works of the Portuguese architect lvaro Siza, we perceive that through the accurate
control of the form, he integrates a wide spectrum of reality while recognizing the conflicts, generating the
architectural space possessed with contingency, multiplicity and ambivalence, which at the same time arouse images
open to interpretations subjected to the exact place. From this perspective, space as the intermediate world seaming
the physical and mind is endowed with the liminal qualities in Sizas architectural works. The paper therefore aims to
explore the interaction between the formal operation and perceptual experience in Sizas architectures, or in other
words, the interaction between the physical and the phenomenal.
Alemo Residence which was designed and constructed between 20022007 in Portugal can be described as an
assemblage of the simplest and archetypal forms frequently applied in Sizas works. The analysis in this paper thus
gets unfolded from this case but is not limited to it. From three aspects: arrangements of the lineas the frame and
interwoven path, the surfaceas starting boundary, and the volumeas the converging of the artificial and natural,
the paper seeks not only to clarify a set of typical formal operation methods which is hidden behind the unspeakable
complexity and uncertainty of the perceptual experience in Sizas works, but also to explore how forms arouse our
deepest consciousness to the place through what they represent. The landscape, context and fabric as the inducing
factors of form are included in the analysis.
Keywords
Formal operation; visual experience; body; volume; surface; boundary; line; path
The masterstroke of Sizas architectural works can be comprehended neither merely from the formal complexities
nor simply from the spatial experience. As transformations of the reality, his works render us an intermediate world
seaming the physical and the phenomenal. There is instable balance and irreducible tensions between the outside
and the inside of Sizas works. Conflicts from divergent aspects of the sitenatural or urban, peripheral or centric
can always be transformed into accurate operation on formal complexities. Adapted to the reality of the site, his
works in the meantime possess the autonomy of expressing and the integrity of revealing origins of the architecture.
Motion of the body is always set in a thinking process in Sizas architectural works. When people are promenading in
his works where natural and artificial fragments are inwoven, they always encounter those contingency, multiplicity
and ambivalence, which arouse images open to interpretations subjected to the exact place. Thus in this physical and
mental process, sensation, memory and imagination play a role to manifest the perceptible interaction among
environment, architecture and human beings. As Rafael Moneo recognized: with Sizas work, we discover what is
most essential, what most forcefully characterizes the architectural phenomenon. Architecture at its purest. 2
(Moneo,2004 p.200)
As Siza once referred, it is only marginal worksa residence in a quiet place or a holiday home far away from
everythingthat have been realized as they were originally designed.3 (Frampton,2000 p.71) Therefore, the analysis
mainly resorts to the anatomy of some of Sizas residential works to explore the interaction between the formal
operation and perceptual experience. Designed and constructed between 20022007 in Portugal, Alemo
Residence can be regarded as a proper entry point, which synthesizes many of the themes and techniques developed
in Sizas previous works and proposes a conception of space that is both topographic and phenomenological. The
analysis of this residence includes three aspects: arrangements of the lineas the frame and interwoven path; the
surfaceas starting boundary; and the volumeas the converging of the artificial and natural. It seeks not only to
clarify a set of typical formal operation methods which is hidden behind the unspeakable complex uncertainty of the
tactile experience in Sizas works, but also to explore how the forms arouse our deepest consciousness to the place
through what it represents.
1.The Line: as the frame and interwoven path
This can be discussed from two aspectslines of regulation, and lines of sight and route.
Sizas works are inseparable from the topographic and construction condition of Portugal to the influences of Cubism
and those pioneers of modern architecturesuch as Fernando Tvora, Adolf Loos, Alvar Aalto and Frank Lloyd
Wright.
Limited within Portuguese geographical conditions, which are featured with hilly and mountainous terrain, the
puritanical rationalism of orthodox modernism in Sizas vernacular works rarely take place. Instead, there are more
flexible combinations of geometry forms intensifying the natural situation, which meanwhile provides his works with
possibilities of compact spatial experience and multiple interpretations. Also, the construction process was
compelled to be in accurate control, which required to some extent the compact and straightforward connection
between the site and the construction, constrained by economic limitations in the postwar Portugal. Therefore,
regulating lines play an important role of expressively but economically shaping and fabricating some of his early
works. From another aspect, Siza not only seeks to reinterpret the vernacular characteristics in the light of modern
aesthetic, but is also evoked by Tvora and Wright for their Orientalism concern. No matter it is about the timber
boarding and wooden fenestration in Alves Santos House, the suspended wooden ceiling in the Boa Nova Tea House,
or other exotic image rising from the ornamental materials and construction. Furthermore, what is more subtle about
this Orientalism concern is his attention paying to the sinuous traveling path and rich visual experience, and that
constitutes the basis of perceptual experience in his works. Besides, in his works we can read the influences of cubist
paintings. From four-dimensional space to two-dimensional painting space, the transformation sheds a light on the
mystery of the congruence, continuity and complexity in Sizas flowing space.These features aforementioned are also
evident in a series of Sizas other works, such as in the Ocean Swimming Pool of Leca da Palmeira, the Beires House,
the Antonio Carlos Siza House and the Galician Center of Contemporary Art.
In Alemo Residence, Siza challenged the potential of lines.
The house lies on a sea-facing slope with a north-northwest orientation and resembles branches stretching all around
to capture magnificent views over Praia das Macas and Praia Grande. Descending along stairs from the parking
platform to the foyer, one comes to the main stem of the house, from which branches spread over four different
levels. As the regulating lines leading to the aggregation of volumes used for kitchen, study, living room and
bedrooms, the spatial experience gets unfolded.
In terms with the regulating lines (Fig.1), we could see the application of parallels, intersections of points and
different Cartesian coordinates. Subjected to topographical features, the primal geometric elements frame a delicate
but easy-to-operate system open to the continuous interchange of the inside and outside.
The lines of route and sight was also elaborately designed to explore the potential of the interstitial space. As one
promenades along the stem, which is lit by direct openings that trigger a sequence of special stopping points along
the way, the interaction between the body and the mind starts. Series dynamic images of the fragments of inside
and outside get extended along the path. Even the slightest moving of the body would instigate changes of view. At
a fixed point of the path, one is able to see the stretches of the spatial depth, but unable to understand what it is
indeed and how it works, since the same thing might turn to the reverse effect at another viewpoint or in an opposite
direction. (Fig.2) What is more, set of walls and openings are always not perpendicular to the sight path, which
challenges the habitual spatial experience of the orthogonal architecture. Besides, inclined planes also generate
illusions of intangible perspectives.
Figure 1. The regulating lines of Alemo Residence.

In Alemo house, we could perceive invisible lines through carefully positioned openings threading together different
views oriented to the internal or external space. Wandering in the ingenious sight line net, a tiny movement will shift
a string of views to another. (Fig.3)The interstitial space full of contingency and ambiguity thus becomes a
containment which captures the fugitive time. Through the obliqueness, opacity and transparency, the indissoluble
bond between images and sensations of the the passing of time get intensified. As Siza once recognized, each of my
designs seek to capture a single concrete moment of fleeting image in all its nuances. To the extent to which one
manages to capture the fleeting quality of reality, the design will emerge more or less clearly... 3 (Frampton,2000
p.71)
The exploration of the potential of lines emerged in Sizas many early architectural works.
Pinto & Sotto Mayor Bank, constructed in 1971-1974, which is regarded as a manifesto of Sizas maturity, not only
achieved a high level of integration of the architecture and the surrounding area but also addressed the expressing
autonomy of the building itself.All those starting points, bisectors of angle and resultant arcs directly from the
surroundingsa 17th century house, courthouse and corner building to the eastelucidates the referential relations
of the construction process to the site. (Fig.4)And the spiral shrunken volumes are intended to insure sufficient
sunlight into the courthouse the bank buys together. On the other hand, from the inside the ascending curves define
the various internal spaces and floor levels. The regulating lines orient the building to the exact place and articulate
the autonomy of the building itself.
Figure 2. Changes of location and direction trigger different views.

And as for the design of the Ocean Swimming Pool of Leca da Palmeira built in 1961-1966, all the gestures, including
the sinuous path, the spatial compression and expansion, the subtle way of merging into the nature, the attention
to the borrowed scenery, suggest an oriental reference, rather than just a reminiscence of Frank Lloyd Wright
Taliesin West. In this building, people are pressed gradually from the land to the sea along those horizontal walls
which confine a labyrinthic path. Here, the human body is treated as a great intelligence again.
Figure 3. Invisible sight lines converging at the door to the study room thread various rooms and natural surroundings
together and instigate the spatial complexity.
Figure 4. Regulating lines of Pinto & Sotto Mayor Bank.
Features aforementioned in the Ocean Swimming Pool of Leca da Palmeira are also evident in Alves Santos House
and Antonio Carlos Siza House constructed in 1964-1968 and 1976-1978 respectively. Both of the plans reveal clear
references to site boundaries and the topographical features. In both of them, we could see the similar inflectional
promenade sequence and the elaborate design on sight lines. In Alves Santos House, starting from the entry along
the west side, passing through an ascending ramp which reoccurs in many of Sizas works, one comes to the entrance
platform defined by an oblique wall extending to the garage , after two turns across the foyer, then comes to the
living space open to the garden. A beam hints the dividing of the two trapezoid volumes of the main living space.
Standing at the protuberant entrance door to the living room, apart from view open to the living space and the
garden, one captures three main sight lines extending from the inside to the outside: one sight line stablish a direct
connection between the internal living room and the external ramp and entrance platform through the nearest giant
fenestration on the wall; and the other two thread the extension of rooms along both wings of the L-shaped plan,
ending up with an oblique wall respectively. Thus once again through the obliqueness, opacity and transparency, the
interstitial space acts as a spatial installation bonding the inside and outside together, and the spatial unity and
tightness get intensified. (Fig.5,6)
Figure 5. Three main sight lines in Carlos Siza House
Figure 6. Paths and sight lines in Alves Santos House; the entrance door to the living room hints the structure of the
roof and the space composition.
In Antonio Carlos Siza House, we could also see the conscious exploration of the line potential on formal operations
and perceptible spatial experiences. We can regard the regulating linesthe courtyard wall topologically stemming
from the irregular corner lot, two axes and the controlling line of the trapezoidal patio as the beginning of the
formal dissection. Intersections of these regulating lines activate exact cuts of wall, rotations of column, openings
and protuberances of the fenestration, and generate those sight lines threading together disparate elements and the
interstitial space in the house. There are three main corresponding sight lines: one crossing the living room, two
rotated columns, the patio and childrens bedrooms; another connecting the flabelliform bedroom, different parts
of the yard and the protuberant part of the service room; and the last one bonding the yard and the patio together,
which arises ones feeling of wandering in a miniaturization of Portuguese alley. This self-contained introverted house
features a series of rooms seen as a whole, and acts as a medium that can accommodate our sentiments 2.
(Moneo,2004 p.231)
The complex and dynamic assemblage of geometry in Sizas works is not only generated from the spontaneity of
merging into the place, but also activated by the ambition of self-expression. Thus tensions between the outside and
inside pervade in Sizas work but present an elegant serenity. In Siza, there is no viewpoint which supplies an ultimate
and thorough view of the whole space, but are only captured instants implying the complexity and contingency. The
overlapping events in the moment and possibilities activated by the imagination and conjecture of the next instant
compose the basis of perceptual experience, and compel people to rethink the relationships between the body, self,
architecture, and nature.
2. The surface: as the starting boundary
In Siza, the boundary is not only a two-dimensional surface, but the medium to anchor architecture into the exact
place. Space in Sizas works possesses a freedom which are implicitly induced by the precisely controlled
boundariesopenings, walls and ceilings. Such a freedom of space does not mean the disappearance of visual limits,
but the spatial ambiguity open to multiple interpretations. What one wandering in such organic space feels is usually
the constant presence of an interaction between the body or mind, architecture or nature. As Martin Heidegger puts
it, a boundary is not the point at which something stops but, as the Greeks recognized, the boundary is that from
which something begins its presenting.4
The openings, light and materials
In Sizas work, the elaborately designed openings not only construct the visual connections, but also suggest the
origins of themselves. There are clear relations of what they are and what they present. As for materials, there is an
evident preference of white painted surfaces in his early works, which can be largely attributed to the construction
limits in Portugal during that period and the desire of expressing the existence of architecture in a sculptural way.
Meanwhile, the application of timbers, marble veneers, and glazed transparencies give material presence to the
abstract gestures and impart an intimate feel to the space. Also, the application of material in Siza is not rigidly limited
to the constructing expression of architecture, but involve in the consideration of perceptual experience. And as for
lighting, Siza is methodical and intentional in integrating natural and artificial light to add complexity to his interior.
He bonds light to function and perceptionwhether it is about focusing light to highlight the material textures and
the abstract white, or providing an ambient environment or make a suggestion on the spatial sequence. Sizas
interiors are nuanced and complex. While the fenestration and material applying construct the basic perceptual
experience, lighting enhances it.
In Alemo Residence, the first thing to say is that Siza explores how openings and flexible surfaces operate on spatial
experience. Apart from the visual connection constructed by the delicate openings of series of rooms as mentioned
above, those openings manifest plain relationships between the body and space, the architecture and the natural or
urban surroundings.
Figure 7. The door set in the corner in Alemo House

Figure 8. A door set in the intersection of two walls in the exhibition halls of Serralves Foundation Museum of
Contemporary Art suggests its intrinsic directional character, and contributes to the spatial ambiguities and
perceptual tensions at the same time.
There is no windows in this house but only doors, which may suggest a more direct connection of people living inside
and the pleasant natural surroundings outside. Besides, one corner of the study is cut off to set the door open to the
stem gallery and a trapezoidal courtyard. Meanwhile, the void in the corner provides more hints to the following
triangular space through this breach. Here, the door is not just a two-dimensional plane but a connection with a
directional character. Rendering the openings these features is not incidental, in Sizas many other works, we can
also read such an attention to the intrinsic property of openings, which contributes to interlocking the internal space
and the surroundings as a synthetic system.(Fig.7,8) Just as William Curtis recognized, A single wall or ceiling plane
may resonate with several orders internal to the building or with features to be found in the context, such as
roadways, facades, or facts of geology and topography. 5
Figure 9. The depth of field when the door is closed.
Figure 10. The visual experience when the surface between two parts of the living room is constructed/removed.
Secondly, Siza emphasizes the embrace feeling generated from enclosures. In Alemo Residence, this feature is
evident as we come to the relation between the gallery and the living room. As Fig. 9 shows, when the mobile wooden
plane is moved to build the interface between two parts of the living room, what people may feel is the congruence
of several continuous triangular space of similar spatial scales and surfaces. There is no hierarchy in such consecutive
rooms but only a homogeneous space distribution which intrigues the ambivalent positioning of the body. Material
differences on horizontal planes in Sizas works is conducive to an ambiguity of spatial definition. In this case the
mere distinction is the placement of floor materials, while the gaps of material color is blurred by the reflection. The
dividing of the living room and gallery is amphibolous. On the other hand, when the wooden plane is pushed out to
the gallery, the border between the two parts of living room disappears, thus the mobile wall exists as a guidance to
the dominant presence of the living room. (Fig.10) Attention to the material application to define a specific zone as
the guidance to certain space reappears in many Sizas works, such as in the cortile of Serralves Foundation Museum
and the entrance of the Galician Center of Contemporary Art (1988-1994). (Fig.11,12) Dual interpretation and
experience of space is achieved through the mobility of the surface.
Last but not least, in Alemo Residence the nuances of lighting render expressions to the white abstract interior walls,
which suggests ones travel directions in the stem gallery and those entrances to private zones. Descending along the
last steps to the illuminous volume at the end of the path, there is the skylight projected to the semi-private zone
connected to the main bedroom, which implies a hierarchy of the four bedrooms. However, this volume is of the
same illuminance of other entrance volumes which are lightened by artificial lights. Experience between the main
and secondary space gets blurred again. (Fig.13) In Sizas works, light fixtures are frequently set along curves of a
ceiling or hidden at the back, leaving us with a purified illuminous floating plane or a volume penetrating the upper
and lower space. Even the form of lighting is accurately controlled in Sizas work. Therefore, lighting is not only
functional or stylistic gestures for Siza, but also fundamental to his method of constructing space.
Figure 11. In Serralves Foundation Museum, the shape of the floor together with the
cantilevered volume defines a specific volume oriented towards the cortile and the landscape in the distance.
Figure 12. In Galician Centre of Contemporary Art, the existence of material come to be realized, as the break of the
wooden floor of the entrance introduce ambiguous visiting directions.
Figure 13. Skylight and the artificial light along the path in Alemo House.
In short, in Sizas work through those animate operations in the surface, architecture is rendered accessible by means
of coming into conversation with people wandering in it, and by a way of tactilely manifesting the uniqueness and
the consistency of the pre-exist thing rooted in a certain place at a certain time.
3. The volumeas the converging of the artificial and natural

Formal operations from the volume aspect in Alemo Residence reflect two principal approaches to the transforming
landscape of cities: one is to work on the interstitial space to thread the internal space and the external surroundings
together; the other is to insert void volumes to form the social space within the open landscape. Upon retrospection
and closer examination, both of these characteristics can be found in Sizas many previous works of genealogical
relations.
The intermediate space
As it is with Alemo house, in Siza stripe volumes are frequently folded to meandering complexities as the connection
between a set of components, and it is also implanted into wider working fields of complex affiliations and relations.
Drawing lessons from the rural vernacular of Portugal and Wrights preference to horizontal extension, the
arrangement of stripe volumes is usually featured with a horizontal meandering path with low walls, extending
ramps, platforms or atriums. Such a characteristic can be read in all those aforementioned residential buildings, and
is also evident in Sizas some comprehensive projects of larger scale. Take the Galician Centre of Contemporary Art
in Santiago de Compostela (1988-1993) as an example. In this case Siza showed his mastery again in merging a
building into its environment. The museum can be considered as an inclusive work which gathers all those features
mentioned in above parts. Although there are a lot deserving to be celebrated in terms of other aspects: the
incorporation with the site, archaeological and geological manner, material selection and so on, we might simply
resort to one partthe trapezoidal atrium acting as a soldering point of different interior parts and the outside
environmentas a reference to understand the interaction between formal operations and perceptual experience.
The atrium can be seen as a stack of three stripe volumes of different characters following a tread of another three
volumes: a stripe ramp volume parallel to the parallel Valle-Inclan street, the following entrance volume constructed
on a pre-existed slope connecting the street and the convent of Santo Domingo de Bonaval, and the foyer volume
introducing two exhibition routes. (Fig.14)From a section of the atrium we could see the different spatial inclinations
of the outer, intermediate and triangular inner volumes. The outer stripe holds a reasonable closer tie with the
outside streetscape. There are only two white columns and a continuous window with gracile frames separating the
outer volumes and the ramp space that meanwhile enhances the depth of field. On the other hand, the inner
triangular possesses a propensity to exist as an independent exhibition room but tied to the transportation spine
with the skylight and sight connection out of two split windows. Its triangular shape which reoccurs continually in
Sizas works promotes the drama of spatial experience. The intermediate stripe is defined by a declining ceiling
disguised as a dilated beam and a single column without a load-bearing role. The complexity of experience in this
space thereby is enhanced, not only because of Sizas dexterous play on tectonic and atectonic but also the
ambiguous spatial orientations of this area: when one heads towards the inner volume, he encounters the sudden
upward stretch of the space; however, when he walks towards the opposite direction, he encounters the tranquilly
horizontal and outward extension to the urban landscape. This volume acts as the intermediate zone as the declining
ceiling exerts pressure on the body to move outside or inside, and the movement endows the whole space with the
dichotomy both for the spatial interpretation and experience. Meanwhile, in the pack of volumes, fragments of
architecture and of urban landscape are set into active interaction.
Figure 14. The arrangement of volumes in Galician Centre of Contemporary Art

The Void
In Alemo house, intersections of those semi-independent rooms with the interior gallery define several external
spaces of irregular configuration: semi-private courtyards that orient the openings to the landscape. As Frampton
refers, there is Loos influence on Siza which compels him to speak to the void. However, apparently Siza does not
restrict himself to Loos mere paradigm application, but exploits more adaptable transformation inspired by
topographic and other historical features embedded in the site itself. In retrospect, it becomes clear that Siza explores
the reoccurring cortile type for its representational and normative attributes.
In some small residential works, the open courtyard acts as somewhat the space installation, which triggers an
interwoven spatial experience of the inside and outside. For example, both in Beires house and Carlos Siza House,
courtyards are treated as the other rooms of the house but without a roof. Rooms gravitate towards courtyards,
which implies that there are no distances to be established between the natural world that is still present in the
garden and the manipulated, artificial world of the construction. They are brought together by the architecture, and
made one.2 (Moneo,2004 p.222)The U-shaped courtyards in Alemo house also keep reminiscent of those cortiles
in some of his next projects, such as in Carlos Ramos Pavilion and School of Architecture in Porto constructed in 19851986, School of Education in Setbal in 1986-1994, and even the recent Mimesis Museum in Paju Book City in 20072009. There are the same formal mechanism in those projects, where the voids as an intermediate volume construct
a wide range of social space within the open landscape.
Conclusion
Meaning in architecture depends on its ability to symbolize human existence, and on the spatial experience of the
work. Forms themselves are meaningless, but can convey meaning via images enriched by imagination and
association. Space in Sizas architectural works as Peter Testa once recognized is not closed, univocal, or conceptual
but open and responsive to re-definition subjected to the exact place.6 (Testa,1996 p.11)There are perceivable
spatial experiences in Sizas architectural works, where the memory, imagination and unconscious are activated.
Sizas syncretic design approach cannot be reduced to any uniform dogma or the accumulation of some fragments,
but the analysis of how and why those fragments are constructed and threaded together suggests a clue of reading
those hybrids, synergistic combinations, in which the whole spontaneously becomes more than the accumulation of
its parts, and in which the mental and physical, the collective and individual are seamed together.
References
1 Pallasmaa, J. (1965). The geometry of feeling: A look at the phenomenology of architecture. Theorizing a new
agenda for architecture: An anthology of architectural theory, 1995, 448-453.
2 Moneo, R., & Cario, G. (2004). Theoretical anxiety and design strategies in the work of eight contemporary
architects. Cambridge: MIT Press.
3 Frampton, K. (2000). Alvaro Siza.. Complete works. London: Phaidon.
4 Heidegger, M. (1952). Building, Dwelling, Thinking in Poetry, Language and Thought,(trans. A HofStadter) New York.
5 CROQUIS, E. (2000). lvaro Siza: 1958-2000. Madri: Croquis Editorial, 68, 69.
6 Testa, P. (1996). Alvaro Siza. Princeton Architectural Press.
URBAN HOUSING FOR THE MASSES IN EAST ASIA:

STRUCTURING THE CONTEMPORARY CITIES IN
JAPAN, CHINA AND SOUTH KOREA
RAFFAELE PERNICE
1 Xian Jiaotong Liverpool University, Suzhou, China
Raffaele.Pernice@xjtlu.edu.cn
Abstract: Asia Pacific cities are constantly transforming and redesigning their urban environment to adapt to the
great challenges of a global economy in 21st century, effortless are trying to balance their ancient history with the
needs of a modern society driven by a spectacular economic growth.
Whilst the Japanese archipelago has been virtually transformed into a super-conurbation called Megalopolis of
Tokaido originated in the 1960s, an extensive and hyper-connected territory of high-density residential urban tissues
and heterogeneous industrial zones developed in a sort of continuous and decentralized multi-polar urban entity,
South Korea population live mostly in a sort of Republic of Apartments, whose modern smart cities are formed
mostly by clusters of dense residential compounds.
More recently China has planned and operated on a much larger scale the construction of new towns and many vast
and dense new residential and business districts in the suburban areas around the major cities, in order to promote
a modern urban lifestyle by supporting a gigantic industrial development and fuel an unprecedented economic
growth and epochal process of urbanization.
This paper intends to present an outline of the processes and forces which led to the development of current massresidential models in Japan, China and South Korea in order to provide their growing middle class with adequate and
modern housing. In doing so it looks at which urban forms, typologies, and design solutions have been implemented
to satisfy this demand, underlining similar and different conditions, and the general outcomes related to each specific
process of urbanization.
Keywords: Mass housing; Japan; China; South Korea; Urban growth; Asian cities.
1. Introduction
In the previous 50 years and especially during the last decades the regions of East Asia have seen an impressive socioeconomic and urban development. This phase of enormous growth of the Asia Pacific region has been heralded by
the Japanese rapid economic expansion of the 1960s, followed by the Korean Han River miracle of the 1980s-90s,
and then consolidated by the current gigantic industrialization of China. People mobility, infrastructure development,
industrial modernization, growth of consumerism and of the service sectors, social restructuring have led an
unprecedented urbanization in this part of the world both in scale and rapidity. Ballooning cities have to
accommodate a new class of urbanites and more immigrants from rural areas, with housing shortage being one of
the foremost important issues. Following the lesson of other developed and developing nations which have adopted
mass apartment buildings as strategy to foster modernization (Urban, 2012), house as shelter and especially as a
status symbol more and more characterizes the aspiration of the middle class generated by the economic success of
Japan, China and South Korea. The Japanese live, work and move in the super-conurbation stretching from Tokyo
region to the north side of Kyushu Island, called Megalopolis of Tokaido, which integrates and support productive
zones and an intricate extension of residential urban fabric and heterogeneous industrial zones, and has developed
in a sort of continuous and mainly horizontal and decentralized multi-polar urban entity (Kornhauser, 1976; Sorensen,
2002); South Koreans live in a sort of Republic of Apartments whose main smart and radiant hyper-connected
cities are composed by clusters of dense residential compounds filled with shops and retails, schools, public services,
landscaped areas and infrastructures (Gelezeau, 2003); likewise China has orchestrated on a much larger scale the
development of many of new towns and vast and dense new residential and business districts in the suburban areas
around the major cities in order to promote both a modern urban development and lifestyle, and support a larger
industrial and economic growth to foster their profile and influence as global cities (Rowe and Kuan, 2002; Friedmann
2005; Wu, 2007).
Though apparently different, indeed these countries present many similarities in their urban and economic growth
patterns, and in the design of mass housing for their urban middle class.
2. Japan
The Post-WW II Japan set the path and overall patterns for the industrial and modernization process of other Asian
countries in the second half of 20th century, and produced planning strategies and housing prototypes largely
emulated by its neighborhoods. By the early 1960s all the economic plans promoted by the government to recover
from the war were completely fulfilled, and Japan became one of the most dynamic and advanced industrial power
among the developed countries. Economic growth brought the development of a modern system of infrastructures,
an improvement of living standards, better alimentation and in general an increase in the national wealth and a
comprehensive technological progress; however it also caused new serious urban problems which posed a severe
threat to the social life in the Japanese metropolises. Frequent cases of environmental contamination caused by high
the levels of pollution were one direct consequence of the co-presence of an high concentration of factories and
industrial plants in urban residential areas alongside an high population density in the big industrial cities; this was
because of the accelerated urbanization that took place during the years of rapid economic growth and because of
the political choice to locate the industrial complexes in close proximity to each other and to the workers residential
areas (kombinatos). In the early 1960s the rampant and widespread urban sprawl and the associated problems
became a serious concern for the Japanese government, which in general considered city planning practice
(toshikeikaku) essentially as a simple process of provision and management of public infrastructure to support and
sustain the process of economic growth, giving little attention to issues related to urban beautification and in general
to the improvement in the urban life of the citizens, and especially to the problem of housing shortage due to the
strong process of rural depopulation and urban immigration (Glickman, 1979).
Since 1955 the Japan Housing Corporation (JHC) was established as state agency in order to coordinate and promote
the development and the construction of public apartments and other housing facilities in the main metropolitan
areas, and relieve the tremendous housing shortage caused among other factors by the massive immigrations from
small towns in the rural areas to the growing industrialized cities. The schemes of new planned towns and expanding
city suburbs were mainly structured as kombinato, Japanese transliteration of the Russian word kombinat, a sort
of integrated clusters of interrelated industries close to each other and to the workers residential areas; these were
multi-story flat complexes for rent called danchi, formed by groups of housing blocks (kodan jutaku), designed
typically as slabs of 4 floors with apartments defined as 2DK (2 rooms + Dining-Kitchen). These dwellings were
designed in a modernist style, made of reinforced concrete and built mostly by semi-public agencies.
The extreme fragmentation of urban land ownership (coupled with little power to expropriate land for public
interest) and the scarcity of suitable and cheap land to accommodate new buildings within the city boundaries
suggested the JHC and other construction firms developed large scale danchi complexes in the suburban areas
because of lower land price. These were often developed near the stations along the most used railways lines of the
major cities (but sometimes the process reversed: the railway lines developed near denser residential areas),
targeting middle-income employees of the big industrial companies (zaibatsu).
By the early 1970s the sustained urbanization and economic development of Japan had created a large extension of
conurbations and an intricate and complex and mixed urban fabric, the so-called Megalopolis of Tokaido, a
continuous and dense multi-faced urban corridor stretching from Tokyo and Kanto region to Fukuoka city,
characterized by the fragmentation of the space and the multi-polarization of the functions with an overlapping of
uses, forms and dimensions which change continuously. This new urban model have portrayed and reshaped the
modern Japanese city as a chaotic patchwork made of fine urban grain and a sky-line composed of an uninterrupted
extension of low dwellings overshadowed by scattered groups of modern high rise towers and buildings. The cities
which constitute the Tokaido Megalopolis offer a clear example of what has been termed railway urbanism,
conceiving the city as a hierarchical network of mass transport pathways (expressways, metro, railway lines) which
intersect in sub-node-points always connected to major nodes of services and movement (major railways and subway
stations) which are central functional and visual points of large residential areas. Indeed the main backbone of the
entire system is the transportation infrastructure which operated at different interconnected levels of network: at
local scale is the bus, car and subways; at intermediate scale the railways and long route bus stations; on a larger
scale the high speed trains (shinkansen) and airplanes. Indeed the transportation infrastructure and especially the
railways development have had a strong impact on the formation and development of the modern Japanese urban
environment (Kornhauser, 1976).
Indeed it was in the Megalopolis of Tokaido that most public investments were poured in order to increase the
economic efficiency, and this resulted in the sprawl, fragmentation and hyper-densities which depict the typical
Japanese city today, especially considering the residential areas. The Japanese government indeed had special merits
in the development and success of the thriving construction industry since the post-war years, for innovative housing
projects and infrastructure development, and in assuring the dominance of the cities as the main concentration
points of people, capitals and activities. The combination of advanced systems of research and production, and the
high concentration of people in limited and compact areas became a mix which fostered the development of radical
and innovative urban solutions, both in the research and the creation of technology used and in terms of architectural
and aesthetical forms.
One of the most important achievements during the years of rapid economic growth was the progressive
construction of rental apartment house complexes (danchi), which the government sponsored as the typical housing
complex for the urban working class. The spread of this typology of mass housing accelerated in the second half of
1950s, when throughout the country there was the spread of high rinse multi-unit dwellings blocks in the suburbs of
the main cities (mostly built by the Japan Housing Corporation after 1955) and in the planned new towns. In spite of
their small size, however the overall space was larger in comparison with those of the apartments built by private
firms, and also the quality of the interiors was by the time largely improved with many western-style housing
appliances.
The private firms were able to satisfy public demand for better quality and cheaper housings with the development
of prefabricated single family houses and condominiums, but had to also face many obstacles present in the Japanese
cities, in particular the overcrowded spaces, the small dimension of lots of land, as well as the limitations and
annoyances posed by many legal restrictions (such as the property of land and the fire codes). The efforts to
overcame all these problems and compete in a very competitive housing market, prompted the construction
companies to improve their technologies and develop new design methods and construction technologies.
Together with the powerful images of innovative and sophisticated urban and architectural projects like those
promoted by architects and planners of the avant-garde architectural group of Metabolism, who preached for mega
structural structures and for hyper-technological dwellings designed and built as an immense habitat of compact,
high-rise and dense urban elements, also the Japanese government, by means of the sponsorship of national design
competitions which awards prizes and contracts by the JHC, directly stimulated the research in the field of advanced
building techniques and the design and development of more economical solutions to housing problems; among the
most successful of these competitions were those for the design of single-family and multi-dwelling systems and
high-rise apartment units, such as the Pilot House Project in 1970, and the Ashiyahama High-Rise Housing
Competition in 1973 (Ross, 1978).
Built with new materials, advanced structural systems and based on prefabrication methods of production, these
collective housing forms were typically groups of high rise towers or slabs of apartments with a functional internal
lay-out but still minimal size (the surface average by early 1980s was slightly above 100sqm), featuring both western
style rooms and Japanese tatami rooms. The years during and just after the great financial speculation of the 1980s
(the Bubble) witnessed an impressive phase of redevelopment projects in several central areas of the Japanese cities,
foremost Tokyo. Here new multi-functional urban spaces were created in the districts of Shinagawa, Roppongi,
Marunochi, Shinjuku, which merged residential towers with cultural facilities, offices, retails and restaurant to form
a multipolar urban structure in the city in order to organize key reference central nodes and balance the growing
suburban sprawl (Sorensen, 2002). Creating a sort of urban archipelagos and urban islands, or cities within the
cities, clusters of super-high rise multifunctional buildings emerged. These projects, especially the luxury residential
towers and the new housing blocks, despite their limited number, tried to (re)propose, albeit on a larger scale, the
traditional model of mixed use and self-sufficient local urban community (machizukuri) so common along the narrow
streets (roji) of the traditional Japanese city.
In spite of the new construction technologies able to withstand earthquakes and typhoons, the improved design,
more effective interior comforts and the close proximity to working places, the mass housing apartment blocks in
the city from the very beginning appear to have not gained popularity among most of the Japanese, who by the early
1980s and especially during the years of the bubble felt that all belonged to the middle class. Most people still
preferred to live in ordinary single family houses. Interestingly enough by the late 1990s, and after the 1980s Bubble
burst, not the apartment block but the (suburban) single family detached house with private garden and parking plot
was the favorite urban residential typology as indicated in a survey of 70% of the Japanese (Hirai, 1998); a sign of a
collective search for a more intimate and quite life style, a more strong search for traditional values in cultural and
spiritual terms, and despite the high costs of this typology and the long commuting time necessary to reach workplace
in the big cites. In this sense this trend towards a more human scale in the dimension of the urban living is a new
trademark for contemporary Japan, with private construction firms looking mostly at single family houses with
courtyards, pilotis and post-beam structures, open wells and core systems, as the most favorite residential typology
for the Japanese when it comes to creating attractive new homes and apartment homes to fit the requirements of
an aging society which need more and more 2 generations mansions for extended families composed of older
grand-parents with their children and grandchildren (Inabe and Nakayama, 2000).
3. South Korea
The modernization of the Republic of Korea after the end of 4 decades of Japanese colonial rule in 1945 and the end
of subsequent Korean War (1950-53) become a priority for the Korean government, which fostered the
modernization of many aspects of the traditional Korean society, from economy, to industry and life-style. The
development and construction of large housing complexes received a particular attention as this related directly with
the necessities of larger redevelopment projects in the cities which could be planned, organized and integrated with
new urban infrastructures and in general related to the broad process of industrialization and modernization of the
country.
In this context the first projects aimed to design and build high-rise housing buildings, which were the most logical
choice for a country at the start of its development with few materials and economic resources; indeed these
buildings became the forerunners of a new type of low-cost residence in South Korea: the multi-family apartments
blocks. The large use of this new model of urban housing had to face many difficulties caused by the overall economic
situation of Korea during the 1960s and 1970s, however the few buildings actually built presented many
shortcomings due to the low quality of the design and because of the technological solutions implemented (for
instance the elevators were not provided because the excessive cost of the electricity, and the high-rise development
was also limited because of the lack of efficient water pumps to provide sufficient water pressure). But another
important factor which prevented a fast diffusion of this new building type was the strong resistance of Koreans in
embracing what appeared to be a totally alien housing environment. Even though many technical problems were
eventually resolved, most people still found difficult to abandon the old pattern of social life typical of the single
family house, heated by the traditional ondol system (hypocaust-style heating system), and move on toward a more
western life-style.
In fact the definite governmental support of the diffusion of new high-rise apartments complexes, their progressive
improvement in terms of provision of many up-to-date luxuries (e.g. western style kitchen, bathroom, upgraded floor
heating systems) in the interiors, the use of innovative building technology and the more sophisticated design,
prompted the diffusion of the urban housing typology from the early 1970s on, and eventually these became a
concrete symbol of the growing national modernization, economic success and social advancement for many
Koreans.
The design of new and larger (complex) high-rise apartment blocks was especially encouraged since the 1990s, and
the Apatu Tanji (Apartment block), as Koreans called them, became also functional for the development of a strong
construction industry and the formation of a growing middle class, especially in order to sustain the economic growth
of Korea, turning the country in a Republic of Apartments (Gelezeau, 2003).
The very first model of apartment complexes developed in the South Korea was the Mapo Apatu built in Seoul in
1962-1964, a system of 10 residential towers and slabs 6 floors high equipped with several services facilities such as
playgrounds, elderly houses, gardens and shops. Although as first experiment it didnt prove to be especially
successful (most of the apartments were still vacant after years the construction was completed), indeed the Mapo
Apatu, whose massive scale contrasted with the surrounding low-rise urban fabric, actually became a model for the
design of new housing blocks.
It seems evident that the general lay-out of the internal organization and the building facades design of this collective
housing suggest a strong link with some of the most important architectural and urban design theories developed in
the first half of the 20th century. More generally the profile and the aesthetic appeal show of an influence of the
prefabricated residential structures as borrowed by the European CIAM and Le Corbusier design vocabulary, while
the lay-out and distribution of the functional zones in the site are more closed to the Anglo-American Garden City
and Neighborhood Unit experiences; with the exteriors of most of these complexes truly resemble in some aspects
many of the early European rationalist housing projects, in particular Ludwig Hillberseimers design for a Vertical
City proposed for Berlin (1927), as well as the famous schemes by Le Corbusier (Radiant City, 1931; lUnite
dHabitation, 1949) and Walter Gropiuss projects for mass produced high-rise dwellings (1935).
Between the late 1960s and early 1970s, in Europe the urban and architectural models proposed a few decades
earlier by the masters of Modern Architecture, pure geometric volumes standing in large landscaped open areas,
began to be systematically rejected and criticized for the lack of architectural quality, their often inhumane scale
which caused alienation, and the loss of traditional urban environment and many valuable old districts rich in history
and memories which were bulldozed to give room to these new forms of constructions; ironically it was precisely
this model of high-density and high-rise urban blocks designed as towers in the park that began to spread and
strive in South Korea. A fundamental reason for this was the peculiar characters of the Korean high-rise apartments
blocks and for their special relation to the housing policy of the national government (Ha, 1999).
As the modernization and industrialization proceeded, the Korean government regarded the housing ownership as a
top social and economic issue, in order to increase the capital of most of the population and shape the new Korean
middle class. With this target the government strongly supported with financial and tax incentives both the first-time
buyers and also the new construction companies which soon developed into a competitive national construction
industry. Indeed the Korean Apatu, now mainly organized as landscaped gated communities of towers with
communal spaces provided with many basic facilities (playgrounds, gardens) and services (shops, nursery) for the
community, from the beginning was not intended as a simple model of social housing for low-income workers, and
the architectures and the urban spaces were superior in quality to those available in the Western countries.
Almost all the new apartments, whose more generous interiors size was designed as a hybrid composition centered
on an open-plan living space area which allowed the western style bathroom, the Japanese LDK system (Living,
Dining, Kitchen) and the Korean traditional ondol heating system to be integrated, were built for sale and rarely for
rent, and this explains the general higher standards of the buildings if compared with similar projects in other
developed countries and the West in general.
Whilst the construction of single family houses was by far superior to that of Apatu until 1990, with more than
4,700,000 housing units built vs less than 1,700,000 apartment units, 10 years later this number dramatically changed
in favor of the apartment units (4,100,000 housing units vs 5,200,000 apartment units), and by 2010 became
apparent the absolute popularity of the apartment block (4.000.000 circa housing units vs more than 8.000.000 units)
as main housing typology (Source: Statistic Korea 2010); furthermore the census 2005 indicated that more than 52%
of the population lived in high rise apartments, and a separate survey in 2009 by Kookmin Bank revealed that 72%
of Koreans chose the Apatu as their ideal housing type (Korea Times, 18/02/2011).
Figure 2: Apartment block (Apatu Tanji) in

Daegu, South Korea.
(Source: the author, 2012)
The reasons behind the great popularity of the Apatu are numerous, but some are somewhat precise: first, from the
very beginning the Apatu were designed with much higher standards and for sale, not rent, as was the case for most
of the working class housing complexes built in the western countries; second, this typology of apartments targeted
the workers employed in the industrial and service sectors who could have higher salaries; third, the central
government strongly promoted the development of Apatu as a convenient solution to resolve quickly the severe
housing shortage both in quality and quantitative terms, therefore supporting the growth of a strong construction
industry and creating the basis for political consensus and economic growth; fourth, even though the first models of
apartments showed some limits in their design and functionality, and their construction replaced many traditional
urban districts of historical value, their development was functional in the regeneration of some underdeveloped or
obsolete areas filled with sub-standard shelters and inefficient infrastructures; fifth, the new apartments blocks
became affective symbols of a modern Korea as sponsored and guided by the central government. The evident and
sometimes annoying repetitiveness in the design of the identical facades and exteriors of the Korean apartment
blocks, and the standardization of the interior layouts of the apartments, presenting the same basic spatial
organization/features in several parts of the big cities and regions throughout the country, is balanced by the
soundness of the structural technology implemented for high-rise buildings and by the high standards in terms of
comfort and management, with organizational schemes of the residential towers which show several fundamental
elements derived from the Anglo-Saxon planning tradition (Lee, Choi et al., 2015), in particular the urban
communitarian structure which again recalls the legacy of Clearance Perry s Neighborhood Unit model (1929).
The fast economic growth and the shift from a light industry system to a heavy industrial system of production
naturally accelerated the need to face the housing crisis and the development of new urban infrastructures and
services for a growing urban population. The high-rise apartment complex became the main solution to urban
problems (also) because of their presence near industrial parks or other logistic areas (transportation terminals,
railway station) created an effective integration of residences and jobs, and also fostered the creation of a larger
market where retailers, small shops and other social activities could thrive and grow.
4. China
In the last 30 years China has witnessed more than 300 million people move from rural regions to urbanized areas,
compressing in a few decades what western countries and other Asian developed nations, especially Japan and South
Korea achieved in a much larger period. Getting rich before getting old is now a common expression in China, a
clear allusion to the successes of Japan and South Korea and the danger of China becoming quickly an ageing society
which must reach the full targets of a complete economic growth before too late.
The instruments to control and boost exceptional processes of mass migration, by displacing millions of farmers and
rural workers, and massive urbanization of expanding city districts, achieved by transforming rural land into buildable
areas, have been built mainly on 2 elements: on a local scale though bold plans for infrastructure development,
projects for the renewal of urbanized areas through the construction of high-rise buildings, dense housing complexes,
commercial districts, shopping malls, markets and new public spaces and civic facilities; and finally, at a more
comprehensive larger scale, on the design of new models cities as new towns, brand new urban settlements built
to host the growing urban population of metropolitan regions, thus promoting economic growth and the new reality
of modern urban China. Local municipalities backed by the central government have set their main source of funds
in the acquisition of the land that is sold to developers to finance their public works, with the idea to foster urban
activities, a market economy and consumption among the new urbanites.
The process of sustained urbanization in China during the last decade is among others factors the direct consequence
of a radical shift in the economic structure and the massive phenomenon of immigration from the rural areas of the
country (Rowe and Kuan, 2002; Friedmann 2005; Wu, 2007). The need to implement a specific plan to control the
growth of the economy and the expansion of the main cities has fostered the development of planned cites and new
towns in their suburban areas. For instance in the early years of 2000s Shanghai municipality promoted the design
of a series of model new towns called 1 City, 9 Towns Plan, whose design was based on foreign styles and planning
traditions, in order to foster external investments and marketing the city and her position in the global economy (Den
Hartog, 2010). Among these new towns the most relevant are Anting (German Town), Pujian (Italian Town), Thames
Town (English Town) and Gaoqiao (Dutch Town). In the case of Thames Town and Gaoqiao Dutch Town architects
and planners designed these new towns as places for public consumption and for marketing. In other words, the two
towns aimed at attracting tourists and other cultural activities, although the Shanghai Municipality, following a typical
top-down planning approach, still designates them to be new development residential areas accommodating
population from the city centre. On the contrary, in the case of Anting German Town and Pujiang Italian Town,
designers developed them as urban prototypes for the growing suburban areas in mega-cities, especially proposing
new models of middle/low rise housing, and a new morphology concerning the organization of the urban blocks and
the configuration of the whole city. In terms of interest and public perception of the urban morphology of the new
towns, most of the residents are aware of the foreign style of the buildings, and in general they seem to appreciate
them. That is to say, it seems the residents hold the idea that the design (and the presence) of these foreign
architectural style buildings is synonymous of good quality of life. On the other hand, concerning the evaluation of
the new urban morphology and the general schemes and main housing typologies implemented in these new towns
and clearly exported from the West, Anting new town could be considered a representative case: here for instance
it has been noted that the selling rate of properties facing east-west is extremely low (south facing being the favorite
one), and residents seem to have little familiarity with the use of the semi-enclosed public spaces of the residential
compounds. In addition, evidence suggests that in most cases the pedestrian friendly streets remain largely un-used
because no economic or civic activity is encouraged there.
10 years after the start of their construction and in spite their attempt to feature themselves as real model new
towns, substantial changes to the original projects lead to a unfavorable public perception, leading to several
problems such as a severe shortage of public services and social segregation, turning these ideal and modern new
towns in China simply into showcases for the works of designers and developers (Den Hartog, 2010). On a smaller
urban scale the organization of the urban block and the provision of mass housing with modern style and efficient
and comfortable interiors are behind the great development of large and massive superblocks of gated communities,
enormous compounds of guarded residential (super) blocks structured by the combination of extensive landscaped
greens spaces and high-rise, high density apartment towers, which are progressively reshaping at an impressive rate
the skyline of all the main Chinese cites. Indeed is the rapid diffusion of gated communities built around clusters of
high rise apartment complexes the direct consequence of the rapid urbanization in China which has led to a set of
problems: the uncontrolled urban sprawl, lack of housing, and the decline of living quality in some areas.
To face these challenges the construction of higher density housing complexes, the regulation through master plans
for better zoning and land use in cities, the planning of new districts in the boundaries of cities have been
implemented, again mainly relying on imported ideas and schemes from the West or other East Asian cities and
countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore, which also structured their urban planning tools and methods on the
lesson of British models.
Despite the strong social and urban impacts on the built environment (especially in terms of urban morphology and
townscape), in China the gated community (GC) seems to be a model of community widely accepted by the majority
of the people, both as exclusive residential enclave for the new upper and middle classes, or when built as
compensation for housing relocated farmers and immigrants. Indeed the diffusion of GC was facilitated by a large
acceptance of this form of urban enclaves, given that for several decades the only form of urbanization for Chinese
cities was trough the development of socialist working units (danwei) which combined factories, residences and other
services, based on former Russian self-contained residential superblocks models (microdistricts or microrayon),
which were transplanted to China since the early 1950s (Duanfang, 2006). Essentially, based on different housing
demands, the GC are commonly planned using various typologies of building according to price, location, facility and
design. Most of the projects have a strong vertical development as they are conceived as towers or slabs of multistory flats in well planned landscaped areas reminiscent of modernist planning schemes. Different reasons are behind
their success: some attract people searching for high level of privacy and security; others provide convenient
facilities, such as small shops, schools and are nearby transport lines or other civic and commercial facilities. On the
other hand, in terms of social impacts, though the GC effectively prevent the free access to a private property and
apparently assure a high degree of safety, as can be expected, they also can cause social segregation, and very often
most of residents do not have contact with people who live outside the GC, therefore residents tend to stay more
Figure 3: Gated community in Suzhou, China.

(Source: the author, 2015)
with those of similar status and from the same enclave. The same effects are also altering the former urban footprint
as their presence exert a direct influence over the transformation of the urban block and eventually a strong impact
on the change of the entire urban morphology of the city.
5. Conclusions
Some general elements on the urbanization and modernization of China and South Korea show these countries
followed a very clear pattern which was first evident in the case of Japan. Similar is for instance the prominence
granted by the central governments in enacting national policies which could sustain economic growth and national
interest (infrastructure development and support to local industrial factories) over the need of common people
(housing and services).
The direct support of private and national companies though the commission of public works for infrastructures, tax
incentives, loans and other financial aids are elements widely present which explain the high rate of growth in short
time. There is also a strong ideological component based on the notion of importing models and schemes from more
developed countries (from the West) in order to pursue the modernization of the nation through the westernization
of the society and the culture, with inevitable consequences on the planning, design, organization and transformation
of the pre-existent urban environment. The traditional elements of the natural landscape, and of the local urban
milieu and the surviving relics of the old cities are, especially at the beginning of the urbanization, mostly removed
and/or drastically altered to give way to the new urban and suburban developments in order to stimulate the
integration with the motorization and increase the circulation in the expanding metropolises, generally resulting in
higher urban densities and a mostly vertical development and accentuated fragmentation of the urban tissues.
More peculiar cultural differences are evident in the form of urban life-style and the preferred housing types among
Chinese, Koreans and Japanese, with clear indication of some specific consequences in terms of the housing
typologies used and the evolution of urban morphology on the city skyline and footprint. While the Japanese seem
to prefer as an urban residence the single family house with garden, with a consequent peculiar urban fabric which
presents a finer grain, instead Koreans and Chinese in contrast mostly prefer flats built in secured and exclusive
compounds organized as extensive and compact superblocks mixing services, green spaces and other communal
facilities.
The consequences in terms of urban morphology is that Japanese contemporary cites are highly fragmented and
allow for mixed used functions on the ground and in general show a more open spatial order, while in China and
Korea the continuity of the urban space is in general interrupted by the growing presence of these large superblocks
of what in essence are gated communities filled with high-rise towers and park-like community gardens, which more
and more are re-shaping and altering the current townscape of expanding metropolises, and show little coherence
and no integration with more traditional architectural forms and the memory of pre-existent urban districts.
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AN EVALUATION TOWARDS THE POTENTIALS OF

ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN CONFLICT
PREVENTION: THE CASE OF PALESTINE
AHMET GN
1
Department of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, 34437, Istanbul, Turkey

*Corresponding author: E-mail: ahmetgun@itu.edu.tr, Tel +90 5067163716
The social role of art and architecture on community has been questioned for a long time. Especially in the
last century, it is questioned that whether these disciplines play a pioneering role in community by
regarding their relation with consumption and market. It is generally stated in the western literature that
art and architecture lose their pioneering role on community. Although western social dynamics have been
used as a base in this determination, this situation shouldnt be generalized because there are different
artistic and architectural praxis have been realized in the other part of the world. Thus, moving away from
discussions which have realized for many years in the western world and examining architectural and
artistic praxis of other world should be beneficial. In this regard, the activities which realized in Palestine
selected as a case where artists and architects take an active role in peacemaking.
In this study, firstly, the historical development process of Palestine problem is addressed. Then,
pioneering activities of artists and architects which aim to prevent conflicts and wars realized in Palestine
are examined. In this context, the cartoons of Naci el Ali and Carlos Latuff, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
which was established by Edward Said and Daniel Barenboim and the facilities of APJP (Architects and
Planners for Justice in Palestine) organization are examined. It is determined in this study that these actors
and organizations play an important role in terms of molding public opinion by creating awareness about
region problems, providing communication media and playing a pioneering role in preventing conflict in
Palestine so they cause a paradigm shift in the social position of architects and artists.
Keywords: Art and architecture, peacemaking, Palestine.
Introduction
The role of the art on the community evolved many times in last century. The avant-garde role of art was
effective in between two World war, but this situation lost its effect and yielded to new movement such
as Pop-art movement after the Second World War. Avant-garde soul revealed again in France in 1968 but
this was a short-term illumination. Artists tried to challenge to institutionalism and they desire the
autonomy of art but they couldnt be successful. The art works became to be market objects which
depended on art institutions such as exhibitions, museums etc. (Artun, 2003). Thus, art was consumed by
large masses in the market namely, it became to be the object of the Culture Industry (Adorno, 2007).
Similar avant-garde discussions were in question on architecture. Although autonomy on the form was
against to its social settings in the beginning, it ended with the form reductivism. According to Tafuri,
architecture breaks its connection with reality (Tafuri, 1974). The discussions about the avant-garde role,
which means pioneer role in this article, of art and architecture still continue in Western communities.
The avant-garde role of the art and architecture have examined from the facilities on Paris and other
developed western cities in Avant-garde Theory of Peter Brger. The Culture Industry concept, which
was developed by Theodor Adorno and his friends, examine and question mainly the art works produced
in the markets of developed capitalist countries.
When this literature is analyzed, it is adopted that art loses its Pioneering role and architecture become
the market object and it cant have an active role against to dominant powers except for producing
discourse. The events taken place in Western communities are used as a base on this determination and
these are generalized as if all communities and cultures have the same history. It is beneficial that moving
away from this generalization and examining activities which have been taken place in other cultural
geographies. In this study, it is examined facilities realized by architects and artists who try to remove
conflicts and wars which have occurred in Palestine for a long time. In this context, the historical
development process of Israel-Palestine conflict is unfolded. Then, facilities of architects and artists
towards to solving social problems in Palestine are examined and evaluated.
Historical Development Process of Palestine Problem
After the four century under the sway of Ottoman Empire, Palestine lands were taken possession of
England at the end of the First World War. Palestine problem starts from this time and it has lasted up to
now. British Mandate for Palestine kept under control region until 1948, then it decided to withdraw from
this region. After the Israel State had founded in this year, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq armies
declared war against Israel. Israel won this war and it occupied the majority part of the Palestine lands,
Egypt kept under control the Gaza Strip and Jordan took the Jerusalem Old City and the west part of the
Jordan River (Cleveland, 2009). Cease-fire line, which is known as Green Line, was set out between Arab
Countries and Israel in 1949. This line refers to the Pre-1967 Israel Lands and Occupied Areas and it is
acknowledged by World public opinion (Url-1).
Figure 1: Left map shows the UNs partition plan(1947) and the right map shows the ceasefire line, the Green
Line(1949) (Url-2).
Arab-Israel War, which is known as Six Day War, realized in 1967 and Israel won against to Egypt, Syria and
Jordan armies. Israel occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which had been under the control of Jordan,
at the end of the war so all Palestinians became to be a refugee in region. Israel started to implement
settlement policy to the strategic point throughout the Jordan River between 1967-1977 (Figure 2).
Palestine Liberation Organization, which was managed by Yaser Arafat, was acknowledged diplomatically
after it had been given Observer Status by United Nations General Assembly (Cleveland, 2009). Despite
all these developments, Israel continued to attack Palestinians so Palestine community started a
movement which named as First Intifada and it had lasted between 1987-1997. This movement started
with protest, then it evolved to civil disobedience and strikes against to Israel. Nearly two thousand people
killed and thousands of people got injured in this process (Celkan, 2014).
Figure 2: Israel settlements in West Bank, 1967-1987 (Cleveland, 2009).
After this rebellion movement had ended, delegates of Israel and Palestine negotiated to come to an
agreement in Oslo. Five-Year Program was set forth in order to give autonomy Gaza Strip and West Bank
to Palestinians and to increase the administrative responsibility of Palestinians. Although this process
promised hope to both parties, it was interrupted due to some actions. zak Rabin, who was a Prime
Minister of Israel, was killed in 1995 and Israel violated the agreement by constructing many settlements
area on West Bank and East Jerusalem (Cleveland, 2009). Moreover, Likud leader Ariel Sharon visited
Harem-l erif, which was a sacred space of Muslims, so these actions caused to end relations between
parties and triggered to start the Second Intifada (Pressman, 2003). Israel army used tank, helicopter and
F-16 Fighting Falcon against to civil society of Palestine and it occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip which
had been given to Palestinians a while ago (Cleveland, 2009).
Israel started to construct West Bank Wall in 2002 by asserting security matters. This wall, which length
will be 725 kilometers when completed, affected Palestinians social life negatively in terms of
accommodation, trade, education. The route of West Bank Wall violated the Green Line and it causes that
Palestinian settlements, which located on West Bank, pass to Israel lands (The Humanitarian Impact of the
Barrier, 2008) (Figure 3).
Figure 3: The boundaries of Cease Fire Line (Green Line) and West Bank Wall (Red Line) (Url-3).
When the wall construction will be finished, approximately %9,5 of West Bank region including also East
Jerusalem will be isolated, it will locate nearly 385.000 settlers between Wall and Green Line, 125.000
Palestinians living in 28 settlements will be surrounded wall by three edge and 26.000 Palestinians, who
have only tunnels and highway connections to the other parts of the West Bank, will live in areas which
will be surrounded walls by four edges (The Humanitarian Impact of the Barrier, 2008) (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Palestinians who try to pass every day for working to the other side of the wall for working (Url-4).
Israel started to bomb Gaza on 27 December 2008 by showing reason the facilities of Hamas. More than
1.000 people died and 4.000 people wounded due to these attacks (Blme, 2009). It was stated that onethird of dead and wounded were a child. This war is examined ethically because Israel announced at first
that it retaliated against to the armed forces but Israel army didnt make a distinction between soldiers
and civilians. New Gaza War broke out on 7 July 2014 and 2100 Palestinians, which are mainly civilians, 66
Israel soldier and 7 Israeli died. United Nation schools, which are a temporary shelter in war times, seasides
and civil settlements were bombed so many people lost their life in these areas (Url-5).
Pioneering Facilities for Palestine
When the historical process of the area is examined, any solution cant be foreseen by war or by diplomacy
plain in the short term. Palestinians and people who support of Palestine independency are accused of
being Anti-Semitist. In this context, there is a need for public spaces which provide inclusive, egalitarian
and emancipatory atmosphere. However, existing dominant discourses, media effects, walls, racist
policies, distant behaviors of politicians towards to formation of peacemaking, indifferences of
organizations such as United Nations are the preventer reasons for generating this atmosphere. In this
regard, there is a need for creating third party/organization which should be independent from parties, it
should be based on voluntariness and know internal dynamics of situations and circumstances. The
facilities of artists and architects for preventing conflicts in Palestine are corresponded to this mechanism.
Naci el-Ali ve Carlos Latuffun Karikatrleri: Naci el-Ali, who was a Palestinian cartoonist, drew his
cartoons with intent to point out the reality of Palestinians resistance so he created Hanzala character
which is renowned worldwide. (Asma, 2011) (Figure 5-6). Hanzala is a children who always turn his back
and protests keeping silence of World towards to Palestine problem. This character is one of the most
known symbol of Palestine resistance (Kvrak, 2015). Naci el-Ali was killed in 1987 because of his cartoons
which portrayed the Palestine problem.
Figure 5-6: Hanzala cartoons drawn and published by Naci el-Ali between 1975-1987 (Kvrak, 2015).
Carlos Latuff is the other cartoonist drawing cartoons about Palestine-Israel conflicts. He adopts the
manner of Naci el-Ali and his cartoons are used in social media, publications and demonstrations in many
countries, especially in Turkey (Figure 7-8). Latuff defines the role of artist on community as: Artists
should perform their art for the benefit of people and their primary object should produce something
which can be used by activists. The artist should take responsibility in terms of social and political
issues.(Asma, 2011). Both Latuff and Naci el-Ali mold public opinion about Palestine problem on the
international community.
Figure 7-8: Cartoons of Carlos Latuff (Anon., 2015).
West-Eastern Divan Orchestra: Johan Wolfgang van Goethe wanted to have knowledge about Islamic
issues. He came across with Persian literature, then he compiled poems which are related to other and
he prepared a book which named as West-Eastern Divan. According to Goethe, Art is a journey to the
other rather than concentrate on self-respect. Palestinian ntellectual Edward Said and Israeli maestro
Daniel Barenboim inspired from this book and established West-Eastern Divan Orchestra by bringing close
young Israeli and Arab musicians (Figure 9). People from countries, who cant stand one another on
political grounds, come together during their youth under favor of musics power so music provides
effective communication atmosphere. Barenboim aims to generate a humanistic project with Said and he
states that they aim to recognize the other and generate a public space in which people of region come
together because military actions have lasted for many years and they arent a solution for peacemaking.
Togetherness which get strenght from art can turn into solution so art can play a Pioneer role in solving
social problems (zden, 2006).
Figure 9: West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (Url-6).
Facilities of APJP (Architects and Planners For Justice in Palestine): Architects and Planners For Justice in
Palestine (APJP) is an independent organization which established in Richard Rodgers Office with the
support of some designers such as Charles Jencks, Ted Cullinan and Neave Brown. This organization gets
into the act with the aim of finding ethical and practical support on international platform for helping
Palestine and Occupied Territories (entek, 2015). APJP oppose to some projects such as illegal
settlements in Palestine lands, control points and Separation Wall (West Bank Wall). Abe Hayeem, who is
the founder of APJP, stated in his speech that showing Palestine State cant be possible because living
areas of Palestinians consist of several pieces. He also said that while the ratio of Palestinian areas were
%97 in 1917, this ratio decreased to %44 in 1947 and now Palestinians live only %10 of the region which
is composed of canton particles. Moreover, these particles have broken into pieces by means of planning
and architectural tools, architects and planners have taken an active role in destruction process of
Palestinian architectural heritage (Figure 10). Hayeem added: Towns and cities have been constructed on
ruins of 560 Palestine settlements within the scope of Israels Kibbutzim policy for 1947. Architects and
planners have been the part of this process. Illegal settlements, which have been constructed after 1967,
couldnt be realized without their support. Professional ethics which have shrined in architecture and
planning discipline requires not to take part in crime and keep silent under these conditions (Hayeem,
2010).
Figure 10: The boundaries of Israel and Palestine lands from 1947 to present (Url-7).
APJP notices the direct relationship between architecture&planning professions and policy so it
problematizes this situation. Eyal Weizman, who is and architect and research about this issue, indicates
that military reading list has involved the book of Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Guy Debord and it also
include psychology, cybernetics, post-colonial and post-structuralist theories. General Naveh, who is the
commissioner of Operation Theory Research Institute, states that theories are important in order to
identify the gaps between existing paradigms and their future situation, we cant give meaning to different
events but for theories. He adds that Architecture and Disjunction book, which is written by Tschumi, is
related to their actions because this book helps them breaking unliteral information and centralized
thought, seeing world as different social practices by ever-shifting point of view and developing new
grammar (Weizman, 2006).
Moreover, striped and soft extent concepts, which are developed by Deleuze and Guattari, are used in
operations. While walls, wire fences, blockaded ways provide Palestine area as striped, soft area is used
for transformable extents (Bakkalbaolu, 2009). Israel soldiers implemented these strategies in Nablus
operation. Military units used architectural theories and they broke(soften) walls(striped extent), passed
between houses and made an operation from interior to open spaces (Souza, 2014) (Figure 11-12).
Figure 11-12: Israeli soldier who perform an operation against Palestinians by implementing theories in Nablus (Souza, 2014).
APJP focuses on the role of architect and planners on this process so it calls for their colleagues to struggle
against occupational projects of Israel Architecture Assembly and Israel Government. Thus, this
organization objects to the illegal settlements, control points and some projects such as West Bank Wall
(Anon., 2009). APJP campaign against to occupational construction strategy of Israel and started petition
campaign against to E-1 Plan in 2009. America and Europe published a condemnation message in order to
prevent E-1 Plan thanks to the facilities of APJP (McDevitt, 2012). Eyal Weizman and his team also provide
evictions of war destructions to legal institutions by using architectural discipline. Moreover, they project
for Palestinians in consultation with them so that they can construct their house (Souza, 2014) (Figure 1314).
Figure 13-14: The project which was prepared for people who lost their house after the bombardment (Souza,
2014).
APJP prevents the destruction of many villages and helps locals to construct their settlements so it plays a
Pioneer role in the community and shows us that architecture and planning disciplines are not only a
market object but they also have important potentials in solving social problems.
Conclusion
Art and architecture are perceived as consumption objects oriented by market actors. General view about
these disciplines is that they lose their pioneering role in community. This view is adopted due to the
experiences in Western communities and generalized as if all communities have the same experiences. In
this context, it is beneficial that moving away from this hopeless picture and examining the other cultural
geographies. In this regard, this study focuses on the roles of art and architecture on community in
Palestine which is the other cultural geography.
The social problems in Palestine couldnt be solved in peace talks nor conflicts and this situation have
become much worse day by day. Moreover, discourse of dominant powers, the effect of media, walls,
racist policies, negligence of intermediator organizations such as United Nations are the reasons of
delaying peacemaking. Art and architecture have the important potential to create a peace environment
in this process.
This study shows us that art and architecture play a pioneering role in politics and these disciplines can
create a resistance mechanism against to conflicts. Artists and architects have also molded public opinion,
helped victims of conflicts, prevent occupant projects and formed public spaces, which provide egalitarian,
inclusive and emancipatory atmosphere, through their professions. When considered from this point of
view, artist and architects, who get into the act for peacemaking for Palestine, play a pioneering role in
solving problems so they break a general acceptance about their role on community.
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THE QUESTION OF THE MODERN IN

ARCHITECTURE A HISTORIC OPEN DEBATE
PATRIZIA MELLO
THE QUESTION OF THE MODERN IN ARCHITECTURE, FLORENCE UNIVERSITY
Abstract
Taking its cue from the theme of Absorbing Modernity assigned to the countries participating in the 14th
International Architecture Exhibition, the aim of this essay is to trace out a path of reflection on Modernism and on
what makes its lesson still vivid today. What are the most meaningful moments of a longsighted critical processing
of the values transmitted by modernity? A historical-critical examination has brought out a common thread linking
the work of outstanding personalities, for instance El Lissitzky in the early twentieth century or Cedric Price in the
1960s, in terms of key themes of modernity like an emphasis on social values and the sense of democracy in design,
up to the current situation in which we find ourselves faced with an attention to the social that overflows to the point
of resetting the official character of architecture in favor of its progressive fusion with events, whether real or virtual.
In architecture, all is in metamorphosis.

Generic themes some of them of great duration appear and reappear in ever changing forms.
William J. R. Curtis
One of the sections of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition8, entitled Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014, is
aimed at understanding the ways in which the principles tied to the birth of Modernism were absorbed on an
international level through forms of contradiction, emancipation, or simple habituation to the artistic languages used
by the great thinkers of modernity. It may be helpful to investigate more fully and evaluate some of the themes that
emerged in order to shed light on one of the most controversial topics in the history of architecture and its destiny,
up to the situation of the present day. The relations between contributions made in different periods in the course
of the twentieth century, often inspired by the same principles and values but with different results, cause us to
reflect on the import of an architectural thought that is rigorous and captivating at the same time, like a wave that
leads to action, spurs ideas and underpins all the adventures rising from it, above and beyond what continues to
perpetuate its absorption in a negative sense. Curtis himself refers to the existence of a great number of cultures of
modernity which in turn drew (sometimes unconsciously) on preceding modern prototypes, or took advantage in
full awareness of these sources of inspiration. I have elsewhere compared the situation to a delta in which the
main currents continue to flow down diverse channels. Some dry up. Some are renewed by deep sources. Overall,
the river continues to move (Curtis 1998, p. 9). In this direction, the experience of Modernism can turn into a
characteristic call to reflect on the architects role, the far-sightedness of the thought, the fully political character of
a profession that today has become faded and clouded by events that often have very little of the edifying about
them.
A turning point for architecture, a new face for mankind
The revolutionary value of the concept of modernity is not only connected with a desire to make a tabula rasa of
the past but above all to the wish to impose a shift on events, a real form of acceleration of events by means of a
vocabulary made up of abbreviations, types, elements of construction, in order to give a new face to the time through
the way in which space is occupied and lived, from the smallest to the biggest, from the most intimate to the
Fundamentals is the title of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition, directed by Rem Koolhaas (Venice, 7 June 23 November, 2014), made
up of three main sections: Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014, the national pavilions; Monditalia at the Arsenale (an overview of Italy made up of
82 films and 41 research projects, characterized by the fusion of architecture with the dance, music, theatre and cinema sectors of the Biennale);
Elements of Architecture in the central pavilion (ancient, past, present, and future examples of the principal elements of architecture placed in
comparison in rooms each devoted to a single element). See VV.AA. 2014a.
showiest. This was a language that in and of itself tended to produce globalizing effects involving the most diverse
places and the most varied cultures.
Society as a whole, its needs, the improvement of living conditions, a life regulated by the punctuality of events,
essential landscapes for supporting a well-defined daily life of gestures, simplified, easy to approach, and salvific
compared to a past that was in some ways cruel in its creative emphasis, that had exasperated class differences,
contained form in content and content in pure vanity these are some of the main concerns underlying a movement
that imposed a turning point on architecture and gave a new face to mankind. The most representative movement
is without a shadow of a doubt lUnit dHabitation (1947-1952) by Le Corbusier, the standard-bearer of a mature
modernity that knew how to pick its way through the countless streams of a past that was no longer credible and the
necessities of a present dominated by the urban, with relations among people increasingly preponderant over an
architecture already relegated to a subordinate role, an architecture that would very soon make way for the
accumulated energy that the cities would unceasingly set free, flying in the face of any presumption of planning the
various intensities, their physical placement, or their recognizability 9.
A society-building, a building-society, as can be sought and found in some symptomatic contemporary achievements.
De Rotterdam (1997-2013), the recently finished skyscraper designed by Koolhaas, a condensation of constructional
and relational energies no longer distinct, no longer separate, but conceived to create volume together, quantity
in the city. As the project report notes, urban density and diversity are the guiding principles of this building that aims
above all at the fruitful exchange among different types of functionality10. The Market Hall (2004-2014), always in
Rotterdam, designed by MVDRV: a large covered market whose outer walls (an imposing arch decorated on the
interior by an evocative mural of fruit and vegetables) are made up of private homes that face directly onto the
market and the various gathering spots set up inside it. As though to say: it is the residences themselves that delineate
the public space, which thus becomes the beating heart of domestic life, no longer distinct but right at hand, as one
of the many links with which to connect daily in an intimate, familiar way (Mello 2015a).
Figure 1. and 2. MVRDV, Market Hall, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2004-2014

This is a sign of a modernity absorbed and fully digested, fed to the future which has perforce altered its initial
plan. Nonetheless it remains latent, on tiptoe, as an indelible imprint of a path undertaken on which there is no going
back, no erasing ones steps, a one-way street, as demonstrated by the insufficient and useless injections of history
inflicted on architecture by those who have attacked Modernism from up close, fighting against the stasis of meaning
(the spectre of white walls and precise interiors), the aura of salvation that had in their opinion emptied of content
a healthy flow of existence, by its very nature contradictory and elusive.
For the problem is not the refusal of Modernity, but a detailing understanding and possible updating of it, as emerges
from the dense historical investigation enacted in this exhibition by the individual nations in order to bring out salient
moments of dialogue with the incipit of Modernity and the key principles unfurled, always and in any case in the
direction of an architecture that is now politicized with respect to the past. Because it is precisely this political
character, thus the value of democracy associated with the birth of Modernism, that is the tangible sign of the
change, since everything from the type of simplified language so as to be globally accessible, to the building costs
went in the direction of engaging in political action by means of architecture and producing architecture inspired
by new egalitarian and democratic principles.
9
In this regard, I would like to cite Mello P. 2015a, pp. 71-74.

De Rotterdam is conceived as a vertical city: three interconnected mixed-use towers accommodating offices, apartments, a hotel, conference
facilities, shops, restaurants, and cafes. The project began in 1997. Construction started at the end of 2009, with completion in 2013. The towers
are part of the ongoing redevelopment of the old harbour district of Wilhelminapier, next to the Erasmus Bridge. See
http://www.oma.eu/projects/1997/de-rotterdam/)
10
At the worst, absorbing modernity has meant accepting its logic feeding a project meagre in content which has
however become the reigning substance of outskirts and suburbs of the most important and illustrious cities of our
time. Representative in this regard is the neologism coined for the Israeli pavilion, The Urburb, which points a finger
at the absurd nature of modernist urban planning dictated from above, which over time has revealed itself to be
nothing more than a miscellany of attempts to give a sense to urban and suburban growth, leading to the triumph of
the hybrid (as an illegitimate child of modernity), halfway between romanticism and biting economic utility: from the
garden cities of the early twentieth century to the low-cost housing projects of the 1950s to the anonymous
tenements of the contemporary outer city11. The Urburb seems, ultimately, a euphemism for what Koolhaas would
have called junk space, as the characteristic trademark of contemporary urban space, outside any logic of planning
and exact functional definition of events.
The built sediment of modernization is not modern architecture - Koolhaas states - but junk space Junk space is
what remains after modernization has run its course, or, rather, the container in which modernization takes place.
Junk space is the real thing. The twentieth century has developed it, and the next century will be its apotheosis.
Junk space is beyond pattern, geometry or recognition. Its beyond memory even, because it can never be grasped,
and, because it can never be grasped, it is literally unmemorable (Koolhaas 2001, p. 36).
Whereas the most classic double meaning tied to the concept of modernity, in particular to the desire to update
the domestic environment, emerges poignantly in the question chosen by Jean-Louis Cohen for the French pavilion,
La modernit, promesse ou menace?, since everything that modernity presents in its technological efficiency, in the
minimalism of the forms, in the absence of ornaments, can in a short time turn into a real threat to the self, whose
unconscious desires flounder in the struggle with extra-functioning, over-determined worlds, nothing other than the
equivalent in the private sphere of the urban planning presumption mentioned above. Proof of this is the Villa Arpel,
the modernly welcoming (?) domestic universe, around which the characters in the legendary Jacques Tatis movie
Mon Oncle (1958) revolve like guinea pigs, presented in the pavilion as a 1:10 scale model 12.
On the side of the Modern: the export and spread of ideas, methods, values
Forms of Freedom: African Independence and Nordic Models tells the story of a modernist type of architecture
disseminated in Africa in the 1960s, born of a partnership with the Scandinavian countries (politically pure because
not compromised by episodes of colonialism), and little known in books on the history of architecture 13. In reality,
the Scandinavian architects literally exported modern architecture to Africa, contributing to a new image of the
countries there. Tanzania, Kenya, and Zambia, which achieved independence in the 1960s, viewed the Scandinavian
countries as the example of social democracy to which they should aspire as life models and which they could set up
on their own soil thanks to the architects who could create new forms, freed of useless epoch-making frills,
simplified and representative at the same time, and the kind best suited for interpreting this newly-acquired
freedom. This is the case of the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (1966-1973), a 32-story tower, designed
by the Norwegian architect Karl Henrik Nstvik (1925-1992) and commissioned by Kenyas first president, Jomo
Kenyatta (1889-1978)14. The tower, symbol of social and political ascent, looms over Nairobi as a cylinder of
concentric rings with a panoramic view from the roof. But the Zanzibar Conference Center (1974, never built) was
the project in which Nstvik unleashed his creativity and ingeniousness to produce an exalted civic meaning: the
circular shape of the building spreads out like a fan in a symbolic way, emanating grandeur and simplicity at the same
time in one sole act of composition15.
11
The Urburb, Israeli pavilion, 2014 Architecture Biennale, commissioners: Michal Gov, Arad Turgeman; curators and exhibiters: Ori Scialom, Roy
Brand, Keren Yeala Golan.
12
La modernit, promesse ou menace?, French pavilion, 2014 Architecture Biennale, commissioner: Institut Franais, Ministry of Culture and
Communication direction gnrale des patrimoines; curator: Jean-Louis Cohen.
13 Forms of Freedom: African Independence and Nordic Models, pavilion of the Scandinavian countries Finland, Norway, and Sweden, 2014
Architecture Biennale, commissioner: The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Norway; curator: Nina Berre.
14 Nstvik worked for the Kenyan Government in the Ministry of Works in 1965 until the completion of the KICC (Kenyatta International Conference
Centre), officially opened in 1973 for the first World Bank Conference in Africa. It is well-known that President Kenyatta continued to maintain
excellent relations with England and America and that he was heatedly protested in Kenya for corruption and mismanagement of national
property. His son Uhuru Kenyatta is currently president of the country.
15 The building, commissioned by Aboud Jumbe, second president of Zanzibar (from 1972 to 1984), was conceived to hold 2500 people. Located
in the far northern part of the city, near the Ya Bwawani hotel, it included a restaurant seating 500, a supermarket and a theatre. In 1978 Nstvik
built a discotheque and a swimming pool near the site where the Convention Centre, which was never built, would have stood.
Of course, modern architecture presents all the requisites for export: the globalizing effects that Koolhaas treated in
the show, emphasizing the generic nature that would end up cancelling out national identities, can be seen in the
case in point in a salvific sense to help others to be born, to feed hopes in people who for years had had none.
This theme of exportability distinguishes also the Russian pavilion, entitled Fair Enough, in which a real international
fair is installed, simulating the possibility of advertising and marketing some of the most interesting ideas cultivated
in Russia in the years of urban modernization because of the topical nature of their content. Russias Past, Our
Present is the slogan chosen with the aim of engaging the past as a means of better understanding the present and
generating ideas for the future16.
Inside the pavilion are real fair booths, each one representing a single fictional company that could model its business
today on the ideas of the past, bringing their contents up to date (Lissitzky; VKhUTEMAS Training; Moscow Metro
Worldwide; Shaping Inspiration, etc.)17.
In this case, then, exportability over time is the value put into play, compared to an historical period that among
other things had as protagonists in Russia the most important architects and artists, who with their ideas contributed
to the theoretical elaboration of Modernism. Certainly Constructivism was the functional political turning point
that marked the history of modern architecture, tying its destiny more than ever to the expectations of society, the
possibilities of representing its values and contents in a direct, unconventional way. Just as for the exponents of De
Stijl, the construction process, is taken to its farthest consequences and exhibited as the one best suited to express
the needs of society, the masses, in accordance with a refined plan of building solutions that, in their elementarity,
contain all the force of a reborn, convincing world.
Construction is aspiration to create a single, concrete object, El Lissitzsky (1890-1914) stated. As opposed to
composition, which does nothing but debate the various formal possibilities, building declares. The compass is the
scalpel of construction, the paintbrush is the instrument of composition18.
This sense of affirmation is soon translated into that of society itself, whose equivalent is represented by spaces
symbolic of the life redemption that has taken place, the new rights acquired, of which the so-called clubs for
Russian workers are the living testimony, social condensers:
in which the worker, of whatever age, the entire mass of labourers, find a chance for recreation and relaxation after
a day of work, where they could find a new burst of energy. Here children, youths, adults, the middle-aged and all
the others must be trained, outside the family, to become all together new citizens of a collective. Here their interests
must broaden. The clubs task is the liberation of people, not as it was before with the tools of the State and the
Church. It is clear that we should create spaces that can be transformed and adapted to different uses and different
kinds of movement. The crucial moment for a club is that of mass automatism, and this is because the crowd has not
come together to be entertained, but so that it can achieve maximum distraction. The club has to become the high
school of the new civilization (Lissitzky 1929-1930, pp. 310-311).
The dynamism instilled in each construction is therefore fundamental, referring directly back to the versatility of the
spaces created by the architecture, to their being an instrument more than a building immobile in time.
Lissitzky is one of the architects whose work is advertised in the Fair Enough pavilion, with the installation he made
in 1928 for the Press Exhibition in Cologne. For this pavilion, Lissitzky stated, I had designed a photomontage frieze
which was 24 meters long and 3.5 meters wide. It became the model for all those gigantic montages, which became
the symbol for future exhibitions. For this work I received much appreciation from the state (Burgos, Garrido 2004,
pp. 148-149).
16
See VV.AA. 2014b, p. 11. Russian pavilion, 2014 Architecture, commissioner: Semyon Mikhailovsky; curator: Strelka Institute for Media,
Architecture and Design (Anton Kalgaev, Brendan McGetrick, Daria Paramonova).
17 We present an exhibition as an expo, the catalogue says, adopting the look and logic of the trade fair in order to acknowledge its influence
and take advantage of its efficiency as a design. Rather than presenting a linear story of Russias modernization, Fair Enough applies architecture
history to meet contemporary needs. The exhibition takes urban ideas from the past century some celebrated, some obscure; some seemingly
outdated, some supposed failures and gives them new purpose. To maximize its utility, each exhibited projects is stripped to its conceptual
essence. Ibid., 10-11.
18 El Lissitzky 1920-1921 in Quilici 1978, p. 105. With his invention of prouns Lissitzky found an efficacious way of generating volume, not through
the conjecture of form, but through the effectiveness of the relation among the parts/geometric shapes brought into play and their intrinsic
expressiveness. In this lies the potency of the thought of a personality like Lissitzky, a topic to which we shall return.
The photomontage in question was made introducing diverse elements objects, collages, sculptures, light effects
until he had created a veritable environment in which one could immerse oneself and take active part, supported by
the various media in play, their symbolic import and the messages they conveyed. At the entrance loomed a sort of
printing press with a series of rollers that unfurled information, simulating the printing of a newspaper. Among the
topics treated were the conditions of life of the proletariat, agriculture, the electrification of the country, life under
the new political system, and so on.
As the catalogue says:
Lissitzky breaks the idea of a single path and a single perspective, replacing it with a multiplicity and simultaneity of
information and ways of perception in the midst of which the beholder becomes an active participant on the level of
physical movement as well as through active meaning making, operating without a conventional base of
operations19.
Figure 3. El Lissitzkys Soviet pavilion at the Press Exhibition in Cologne, Germany, 1928
The historic installation can be compared to the complexity of a hypertext with which one interacts daily, by
opening, for example, a random Google page, where the user can move about autonomously, be immersed in a
simultaneous multifaceted vision of information, build his own path of learning and further investigation. Thus the
existence of a Lissitzky company is fully plausible, with its own booth, which today thanks to the use of electronic
tools could be dedicated to developing and decanting the multimedia effects produced at the time by this great
Russian artist and architect, who is one of the most interesting cases of innovation of the languages and ways of
conceiving the practice of planning and design in the early decades of the twentieth century.
Lissitzskys thought moves easily back and forth between theory and practice. His Prouns (understood as the station
where one changes from painting to architecture), real exercises in the birth of forms, dense and rarefied at the
same time, hold the material together without the encumbrance of its actual weight, finally freed of the rhetoric of
frills; for it is the balance among the various geometries, their mutual exchange of energy, the tension set up among
the parts that causes volume to bloom forth. As Mart Stam wrote in 1966 about Prouns:
They are compositions with an unusually powerful spatial effect. The impression is no longer of something
standing, but of something floating, resting in space. There is no ground floor plan, no elevation, no top and no
bottom all the lines and all the planes go on into an infinite space and it is this infinity which they must have
(Burgos, Garrido 2004, p. 78).
19
See VV.AA. 2014b, p. 94. The catalogue produced by Lissitzky reflected the complexity of intent of the installation: it was one single
photomontage that opened like an accordion, inviting readers to a free association of meanings. It does not rely only on the power of the images
of the exhibits, but combines them with other imagery and texts to create new layers of meaning, which not only support but also add to, and
alter the original meanings of the exhibits. The catalogue gives another chance to juxtapose the different exhibits and create new paths of
interpretation.
If we think now about the photomontage set up in Cologne, it is evident that the matrix is still the same. Indeed, in
my opinion, the technique of photomontage, too, is tied to the capacity to put together individual meaningful bits of
a broader discourse, whether spatial or communicational in nature.
The sense of boundlessness, of something that begins something else but without making its development definitive
like a gear mechanism improbably free in time and space to multiply and extend its effects of organization of signs,
contents, messages can be compared, to my mind, to the same principles that enable Modernism to operate on
the urban level, setting in motion a sort of grammar that each time could be picked up again, amplified, pursued
keeping the past on standby. Proof of this is the concept of Wolkenbgel (a sort of final result of the studies on
prouns), which can also be thought of as the meaningful junction for containing centralized services on the urban
level, the starting point of a building system which could be repeated as is.
He was thinking about a system, about an infrastructure for the city, like a water tank, the bastion of a military
fortress or a metro station, Burgos and Garrido say. The project had the structure, size and approach of a great civil
work, which as often happens could be repeated without important variations (ibid., p. 26).
The issue of urban infrastructure is today especially topical in relation to the possibility of raising the quality of
metropolitan areas that have grown uncontrollably in a way that is disorienting for everyone and which only with the
vitalizing effect of certain public improvements could attain a minimum of sense and character.
Another example is the modernist type lesson enacted by the booth devoted to the so-called VKhuTEMAs Training,
the unique pedagogical method adopted in the Higher Artistic and Technical Studios created in Russia along the lines
of the German Bauhaus immediately after the October Revolution 20. As in the Bauhaus, all the disciplines of art
were experienced together under the common banner of injecting art into daily life, in particular into mass
production21.
This pedagogical method is characterized by the desire to go beyond a formative process based only on learning to
one centred on the possibility of raising new questions and issues as the lessons unfolded. As is written in the
catalogue: The teachers and students of VKhUTEMAS developed an approach without precedent, in which the
process of teaching and learning served as a vehicle for venturing into the unknown. Studio teaching became a
laboratory method, a way of testing different iterations over and over again22. Evidence of this is the teaching
method of Nikolay Ladovsky (1881-1941), who in his courses on the concept of space asked questions outside the
most orthodox debate on Rationalism, aiming at spotlighting the perceptive effects of the various spaces, distancing
himself from the rigor of the productivist current of Constructivism represented within VKhUTEMAS by Rodenko,
reaching the point in 1921 of proclaiming, Space, not stone, is the material of architecture 23.
Vieri Quilici says this about Ladovsky:
20
Anna Bokov, a scholar of Soviet design education and avant-garde practices of the early twentieth century at Yale University, traces in the
catalogue a reconstruction of this teaching method and what this might mean for breaking ground in the training of young designers. See VV.AA.
2014b, pp. 100-111.
21 VKhuTEMAs was comprised of eight art and production departments: Architecture, Painting, Sculpture, Graphics, Textiles, Ceramics, Wood and
Metalworking. Teaching there were the leading lights of the Russian avant-garde: Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova, Alexander Vesnin
and Lyubov Popova, Boris Korolev and Anton Lavinsky, Nikolay Ladovsky and Vladimir Krinsky, El Lissitzky and Vladimir Tatlin, Gustav Klutzis and
Moisei Ginzburg. Closed in 1930 with the rise of Stalin, it had many more students than the Bauhaus; for example, enrolled in the 1924-1925
academic year were 1445 students, compared with 127 at the Bauhaus. As opposed to the Bauhaus, which until 1927 did not have an architecture
department, VKhUtemas from the beginning included architecture in both introductory and advanced courses. Furthermore, VKhUtemas went
beyond the desire to unite art and technology, aspiring to the creation of a proletarian version of that union, to the point of accepting a possible
disassociation between the two. On this subject, see also: Per una nuova pedagogia architettonica: Ladovskij e il Vchutemas, in Quilici 1978, pp.
64-81. At the end of the essay, the author highlights the difference between the Bauhaus and VKhUtemas, stressing the pedagogical vocation of
Constructivism as opposed to the more experimental and empirical attitude of the Rationalism of Gropius.
22 VV.AA. 2014b, p. 106. The introductory courses (the workshops that made up the Core Curriculum) in graphics, colour, volume and space,
ending up becoming real experiences that served as vehicles for innovation and the development of the modernist language.
23
The course in the concept of space was the first to assign modern architecture to the mass majority of students. It very soon became a basic
course, developed in particular by Ladovsky, who wrote a short essay entitled Fondamenti per lelaborazione di una teoria dellarchitettura
[Fundamentals of Architectural Theory]. For him, Architectural Rationalism, as he called his doctrine, was analogous to the technical rationalism,
but operated in terms of perception, rather than labor and material. Rationalists aimed to create a self-referential system, a new grammar of
architecture based on abstract elements. In his essay, Ladovsky listed the formal qualities that would serve as the proto-elements for the new
architectural order. In the perception of the material form as such, we can recognize the expression of its qualities: 1) Geometric relationship
of surfaces, corners, etc.; 2) Physical weight, mass, etc.; 3) Mechanical stability, mobility; 4) Logical articulation of surface as such and of
surface bounding volume. Depending on the articulation of size and quantity we can talk about: a) Strength and Weakness; b) Growth and
Invariability; c) Finiteness and Infinity (Ladovsky 1926, p. 246).
These qualities formed the pedagogical basis for the Space course, and eventually developed into assignments on the articulation of Form, Space,
Volume, Rhythm, Structure, Balance and Mass, and Weight.
The distance, or at least the distinction between representation (of a project as given spatiality) and perception, is
admitted: rather, it becomes the object of study and observation. The laboratory is no longer the magic place of
invention, where the instruments come to life and guide the hand of the artist/medium, but becomes the site of a
continual working-out of the instruments of planning and design (Quilici 1980, p. 54).
In reality, Ladovskys position initiates a morphological approach in a psychological key, as is evidenced also by the
clay models he had the students make, echoing with the use of this highly malleable material a sort of connection
between mind, body, and material in which it was possible to come into physical contact with the birth of the forms
and the idea of space connected with them.
Experience like the VKhUtemas or the Bauhaus itself, making due allowance for the differences, remain among the
milestones of the history of Modernism, pointing to the desire to make planning and design come alive, exploring
the entire range of its generative dynamics, with the goal being to educate in the broadest sense to planning, without
disciplinary boundaries, using every means possible, to elevate the qualitative and aesthetic level of mass production
and ensure for all a high percentage of daily beauty, opening the world up to the beautiful and the beautiful to the
variety of the world. To set these experiences in motion took uncommon courage and virtue.
Being an architect, we have a very simple tool which is available for our work. We have to make space Make a space
for a man in a way that living in this space becomes a kind of tool for each one to get a little more understanding
about his existence. I think I belong to that group who finds, by working, also the meaning of life (Bakema 1962, p.
80).
These are the words of Jaap Bakema (1914-1981)24, a historic member of Team 10, to whom the Dutch pavilion is
dedicated with the title Open: A Bakema Celebration25. From the very beginning of his notes on the possible
developments of the lesson of the modern, Bakema posits the question of an architecture capable of acting in
society, as a form of identification of social concerns and their characteristic variety. As early as 1942, discussing with
Willem Kloos the topic of functional architecture, he stated: The architectural form must not express only
functions; it must not be purely functional, but become function in itself: function of the form (Gubitosi, Izzo 1974,
p. 16). One might add: social function of the form, as indeed was promoted by the members of Team 10, who were
among the first to reflect on an objective detachment from social problems once the avant-garde thrust of the
theories and teachings of the masters of Modernism had run its course.
For Bakema, too, then, the creation of space is a fundamental issue since our life takes place inside it, to the point of
making us aware of it. With a profound sense of realism, Bakema goes even further, declaring: It would be better if,
in electoral campaigns, the politicians showed on their posters not so much their faces as the type of built
environment that would result from their political intentions (Ibid., 41).
Looking at some of the buildings actually constructed, Bakemas innovative contribution lies especially in his desire
to combine the functional components dynamically so as to unleash energy in the form, vitality in the form, yielding
a personalization of the spaces created, as for example happens in the realization of the residential complex for onethousand families called t Hool (1961-1973)26, where the guiding principle is that of providing a minimal house, which
can be expanded and transformed, to the greatest possible number of owners. This principle can be summed up in
the idea of what Bakema called the visual group, which he developed after 1945 to respond to the demands of an
egalitarian society: a housing unit of a mixed typology ranging from flats for the single individual, to houses for the
young couple and the family with children, to houses for the elderly. As a unit for urbanization, the visual group
encompasses all walks of life. It forms a micro-society that reflects the larger society and it aims to make an inclusive,
open society a reality at the smallest scale of the neighbourhood.
24
Bakemas name is associated professionally with that of Johannes Hendrik Van Den Broek (1898-1978), who in 1947 became rector of the
Technical High School in Delft, where he invited many young architects to teach. Thus in 1948 Van Den Broek, busier than ever with professional
commitments, asked Bakema to become his partner, founding a joint design firm. In late 1962 and early 1963 Bakema acquired national renown
with the television programme From Chair to City, which led to the publication of From Chair to City; A Story of People and Space (1964).
25 Open. A Bakema Celebration, Dutch pavilion, 2014 Architecture Biennale, commissioner: Het Nieuwe Instituut; curators: Guus Beumer, Dirk van
den Heuvel. The reference is to the exhibition on the work of the Van den Broek en Bakema firm held in Rotterdam in 1962 with the unusual title
Building for an Open Society. The exhibition was organized for the occasion of the Prix de la Critique in 1961, which was awarded to Van den
Broek en Bakema with a special mention to Bakema himself as a leader of the so-called Otterlo-group or better-known as Team 10. The jury
praised Bakema and the office for their achievements in modern architecture, how they had found a balance between the emphasis on human
relations on the one hand and the possibility for personal freedom and intimacy on the other. The jury report concluded their design work was
a major contribution to a functional, human and democratic art of building. Van den Heuvel 2014, in VV.AA. 2014c, p. 3.
26 The complex was built at Voensel-Eindhoven, in collaboration with J.M. Stokla and G. Lans.
These are the most up-to-the-minute aspects of Bakemas work. The idea of creating an architecture that is no longer
standard but, I would say, standardized for change, to accommodate diversity, to create a community, a society over
time these are all aspects that could be applied today to a multicultural, mobile society that is hard to categorize.
In the project realized for the Osaka international exposition in 1970, the casual sense of the spaces, their interweave
of different functions is reinforced by the use of media that enable the creation of a sort of fluid, enveloping
architecture capable of entertaining the public, going beyond the silence of classic perimeter walls. As Bakema
himself said in his lecture in Naples in 1974 in conjunction with the 4 th Architecture Exhibition, where his work was
presented:
With a team that included Carel Weeber as co-architect, Jan Wrijman as director, Louis Andriessen as composer and
Wim Crouwel as graphic artist and designer, we succeeded in making a building in which visitors could move through
the space, on foot or by escalator, stop and observe at their pleasure, in a complete, integrated experience of space,
images, and sound; fifteen screens for movies and eight for projecting slides, plus continuous transmission of music,
in one sole conception, in a free and harmonious impression of Holland: the impression of an active democracy, of a
modern country, an open, stimulating and international society (Bakema 1974, p. 50).
On the exterior, the pavilion is designed to resemble a large machine made up of rotating parts. The reference is to
Lissitzky and the above-mentioned Wolkenbgel (1924), a project that fascinated Bakema. The rotation corresponds
also to the desire to channel flows and functions in multiple directions. Even the vital energy of the public is thus
transformed into formal complexity.
The Osaka project arose at a particular moment in time. Suffice it to think of the deflecting action of radical thought
that developed in Italy and the rest of Europe with designs that went against the current, in which social concerns
boldly grabbed the spotlight, in view of a possible redemption from architectural form that organized functions and
conveyed democracy but was totally unable to communicate tensions, contradictions, and fantasies of the social
issues themselves27. Meanwhile McLuhans teachings were widely absorbed, encouraging experimental designs on
the theme of the interaction between media and architecture.
In the last analysis, with respect to the foregoing throws into relief the key problem at the base of the theory of
Modernism. Standardized, politicized, scientifically proven democratic form is discovered to be a possible aspect for
operating in favour of society and a close relationship with the built environment. It thus turns out to be part of a
much larger discussion, still completely to be explored, certainly always under the banner of a reigning modernity
(radiant with ideas and good intentions) but laid out in the direction of the human and of whatever in it still has to
be discovered as a counterbalance to an all-encompassing project imposed from above.
Thus functionalism can find new spaces of reality in Bakemas Osaka project, tranquillizing and avant-garde at the
same time.
Maximum Society, Minimum Architecture
But the most interesting experiments are certainly the ones in which, starting from the stringency of the topic of
construction, from its paring away all but the essential (as in the case of the experiences matured in Russia), we arrive
several decades later at a sort of invisible architecture, thus at the very negation of the theme of construction as the
foundational act of a society, in favour of a society whose actions are already in and of themselves constructions,
and in that sense are given value. Thus it is that themes like architecture, democracy, social issues, and politics
achieve forms of coexistence and total fusion, while the figure of the architect could sound hollow in relation to his
historical significance of one who orders and builds beautiful forms in line with the taste of the time.
The experience of Cedric Price (1934-2003), the topic treated in the Swiss pavilion along with that of the economist
and sociologist Lucius Burckhardt (1925-2003)28, is representative in this regard, compared to the I would say
total absorption of modernity in its political aspects, since in Prices designs architecture has disappeared in favour
of a spirited debate on it that can occasionally assume some degree of reality, always very snobbish towards any
27
Radical architecture was a meaningful moment of critical elaboration of the lesson of Modernism, in some cases taking its thought to the
extreme (as is the case of groups like Archigram), in others anticipating its ultimate development and consequences on the built environment (this
is the case of Italian radical architecture, in particular Archizoom and Superstudio, just to cite some examples). In the exhibition the radical
experience is present in the Monditalia section with the installation Radical Pedagogies: action-reaction-interaction, a review project carried out
by the Princeton University School of Architecture. On radical avant-garde in Florence, I would like to cite Mello 2015b.
28
Lucius Burckardt, Cedric Price, A stroll through a fun palace, Swiss pavilion, 2014 Architecture Biennale, commissioner: Swiss Art Council Pro
Helvetia; curator: Hans Ulrich Obrist.
ambition to form, but giving an encouraging wink to the free circulation of ideas and contents that assail the more
traditional elements at the foundation of the discourse on construction.
In his well-known Fun Palace (1961), unfortunately never built, floor, ceiling, etc., are just a memory. The public
moving about inside it creates a new reality that emanates design, liberates ideas, configures space, makes its way
forward, acts, and permeates the site with its own character, dictating each time the need for new functions.
Architecture is by this point invisible, and yet fantastically representative because, in its official character, it is
devoted to diverse and manifold ways of entertaining the public; between music, theatre, and performance art, the
adjective fun stirs up the crowds against any form of staticness of events, since the idea of Price and of Joan
Littlewood (the theatrical producer and friend who sponsored the project) was to create an educational and
recreational centre where users would participate personally in its life. No space is defined once and for all, with the
exception of a grid of 75 steel lattice columns standing on an enormous horizontal base, over which loomed a gigantic
crane as a portal. Celebrated is the transitory, thus the fleetingness of the events that in the various forms of
entertainment take on a cult guise, a little like happened in the eighteenth century with Vauxhall and Ranelagh
Gardens, from which Price drew inspiration.
An article that appeared in the Tribune in 1964 asked:
What is Fun Palace? The word fun has been devalued by advertisers Mm-mm! Toothpaste fun! and made
sensitive people shudder. The English are supposed to take their pleasures sadly; it is time we took fun seriously
we are on the way to a dashing and invigorating kind of Socialism.
Its up to you how to use it. This is a challenge. The idea is an experiment in which all of us can realize the
possibilities and delights that a 20th Century City environment owes us. It must last no longer than we need it. This
is the kind of experiment in leisure which a Socialist Britain needs 29.
I would say that the Fun Palace echoes that sense of redemption analysed in the social condensers described by
Lissitzky, which derive from a progressive transformation of the palace (in the middle-class sense) to work palace,
then culture palace, and later more democratically into club. The Fun Palace initiates now a new kind of building
for the community, helping to dissolve that aura on which palaces were based, the solid, elegant bourgeois buildings.
Figure 4. Cedric Price, Fun Palace, project, interior perspective, 1964

In the early 1970s Price did build in London the Inter-Action arts centre (1972-1974), an architectural mechanism
whose purpose is to give vitality to the daily life of an outlying neighbourhood by introducing a series of functions
that involve the people of the community (a space for shows, a snack bar, gym, periodicals library, rehearsal rooms,
sewing rooms for making costumes, nurseries, etc.). In this case, too, architecture is relegated to the background:
29
Play, Ideas for Socialist Britain, Tribune, 24 July, 1964, published in http://www.cca.qc.ca/en/collection/283-cedric-price-fun-palace. Prices
archive is on deposit at the Canadian Centre of Architecture. In 1999, the CCA sponsored the exhibition Cedric Price: Mean Time - 19 October 1999
to 27 February 2000, Octagonal Gallery.
the structure is a light framework into which various volumes can be inserted, some of them transportable cells (as
for the service units).
Interviewed by B. J. Archer on the place architecture occupies in his thought, in the contemporary architectural
context and in the overall context of Modernism, Price answered:
I think that buildings in fact would become possibly monumentally sublime if their lifetime was far more sensitively
attuned to their usefulness. I think the best products come from assuming the value of, or measuring the value of a
worthwhile process; and I very much suspect architecture that is produced as a response to an immediate problem.
The only reason for architecture is to provide conditions that were hitherto considered impossible. If you just
reproduce conditions that are already found in other architectures, then you are wasting your life Architecture is
peripheral to the most valuable social aims. I wish it were less peripheral, and thats why Im an architect (Price 1978,
p. 21).
At the beginning of the interview Price states: It is probably through sheer exhaustion that some architects will
simplify just what social well-being is into allying it with three-dimensional form too early on. Health clinics arent as
important as good health (ibid, p. 20).
As Koolhaas himself notes: The Venturis hoped to discover in the commercial vernacular an energy that could revive
architecture. Price wanted to deflate architecture to the point where it became indistinguishable from the ordinary
(Koolhaas 2014 p. 14). Architecture and the daily unfolding of events coincide. The flows of existence are the same
ones that design roads and paths, a little like it is possible to learn by applying the so-called science of strolling
invented by Burckardt, which he called strollology, certainly one of the points of contact between the innovations
brought into the urban field by these two unique individuals. Strollology examines the sequences in which a person
perceives his surroundings (Burckhardt 1996, p. 239).
The vitality of the social sphere versus architecture
Modernism would do nothing other than spread profusely ideas and concepts that conveyed a new way of living,
moving about, being outdoors, and interacting with others. The social sphere was thus exalted in its productive
efficiency, its possibility to become the mechanism for a life that was efficient, essential, never redundant. Each
person, returning home, should be able to recognize himself as part of the idea of a new world, finding nothing more
than an exemplary life, a little cog in a great, fascinating machine with various planes, various levels, various
dimensions, qualitatively above reproach.
The utility to which Price alludes is a central concern. At the beginning of the twentieth century the world needed to
be renewed, and man needed to find new certainties, to rise to the surface in his ideal dimension.
Everything that came later, the absorption of modernity, is an open story that is moving in the direction of facts,
ideas, personalities and their insights, also with regard to the concept of a profession as a mission whose various
protagonists felt vested from the beginning, by devoting themselves to others, with the constant discovery of others.
It is precisely this last motive that characterizes the absorption of modernity up to today: discovering others leads to
formalizing ever new uses, until they can become, as in Prices case, a minefield for the architectural profession,
calling its obviousness and objectives into question.
A certain constructional elementariness of the modern way of framing architecture and the built environment and
the desire to reduce and emphasize, besides being concepts directly tied to the rampant mechanization of the
twentieth century and to the need for rapid rebuilding of countries afflicted by repeated war damage, are
reconnaissance actions on the part of architecture in order to be able to manage and handle its future automatically,
almost instantaneously, under the banner of reason, of what therefore does not leave room for doubt or
compromise, under the banner of high construction quality and a democratic aesthetic that reinvigorates the wilted
gaze of history by channelling it in the direction of the needs of the present. It is an objective thought that can take
root anywhere the need and utility are felt, free to move about from one continent to the other without a break.
To do this it was necessary to reduce, synthesize and break down in an elementary fashion the fundamental
significant steps underlying every construction. In this direction, the same elements of construction that Koolhaas
chose to retrace through history in this Biennale echo the key principles of modernity tied to making maximum use
of each element in its relative capacity to characterize individually a building. The same elementariness can then
lead to paradoxical operations like the one done by Price.
In an article on the Fun Palace, Mark Wigley wrote:
If Price was the No. 1 Anti-architect, as he himself called himself, his method for destabilizing architecture was
simply to dig ever deeper into each of his most elementary operations. Research was a weapon. By trying obsessively
to reduce the reach of my ignorance, Price presented a project so ambitious in its conceptual, technical, spatial, and
social newness as to condition all of us still today. Instead of designing a building, he redesigned the figure of the
architect (Wigley 2004, p. 16).
It remains to explore everything that today concerns the vitality of the social vs. architecture. If we take, for example,
the type of relationality and irrationality developed in cyberspace 30, the various and plural forms of entertainment,
the free (or almost) exploration of distant worlds, the intimate strolls through buildings, parks, entire cities
everything resounds with an overflowing sense of social issues and with a real lets call it that architecture pushed
into the background, occasionally visible for advertising purposes, like a product whose performance and virtues
(ecological, recycled, passive, just to cite a few) have to be emphasized, without which it would have no longer a
reason to exist. Pierre Lvy refers to cyberspace as one of the major arts of the twenty-first century.
The new architects, he states, can be persons coming from the traditional spheres of art or they can be engineers,
creators of networks or interfaces, software inventors, groups who are part of international normalization organisms,
information jurists, etc. Our hope here is for an architecture without foundations, like that of boats, with its whole
system of practical oceanography, navigation, and orientation through the currents Far from instituting a theatre
of representation, the architecture of the future assembles rafts of icons for traversing the chaos. Listening to the
collective brain, translating plural thought, it erects palaces of sound, cities of voices and song, instantaneous,
luminous, and as mobile as flames (Lvy 1996, pp. 132-134).
Wasnt instantaneousness one of the characteristic traits of the Fun Palace? In light of these observations, it appears
as a sort of phantasmagorical future in action, where the most efficient planning minds (Price and his friend
Littlewood) devise a new way of making a world, making a society, making culture. The Fun Palace: a farewell to a
type of exhausted and ineffective materiality that is a cumbersome dead weight for dreams and desires.
Elements in the midst of an identity crisis
These same architectural elements seem by now to be out of the game, and the sophisticated film montage made
by Davide Rapp to introduce the historical overview of them at the Biennale looks like a last attempt to celebrate
their leading role and features, in light of a hypothetical end to them. Very much in line with the cynical realism that
has always distinguished Koolhaas way of working, the elements seem to refer to the vivisected body of architecture
itself which, in the extreme ordinariness of things, stuns, alarms, broadens existence, moves thoughts. As though to
say: architecture is nothing other than the elementary assembly of parts having a sentimental component or not,
which on the whole becomes a story, a vision, an official work, poetry, spare time. But what happens to all this in the
electronic age? Today, the best-known elements, linked with the realization of architecture, are called into question
by computer planning which would make its existence parenthetical. In effect, windows, ceilings, doors, balconies,
etc., this glorious past of buildings has been put into crisis in the electronic age. Suffice it to think of the concept of
structural surface, in which it is the computer processing of one large element the surface of a building that
becomes first and foremost structure, cancelling out definitively the division between Modernist-type pillars and
beams. But the same things would end up now absorbing also many other functions, adapting to become faade,
window, floor, ceiling Exemplary in this sense is the work of an architect like Toyo Ito, who for some years has been
experimenting, to the best of his ability, with the concept of structural surface in his projects, in view of creating a
new genre of architecture, as in the case of the building he designed for Tods in Tokyo (2004), whose precedents
can be seen in the pavilion of the Serpentine Gallery in London (2002), and even earlier in the one built in Bruges
(2002). The result: spacious areas devoid of pillars, windows or doors, in other words of any architectural
connotation. As Ito states: Computer technology has revolutionized our ability to dissect structural forms columns,
beams, brace, walls31. To the point that, today, planning by parts seems to have been left behind in favour of the
possibility of conceiving the design simultaneously, like a unicum, starting from the very conception of structure
which can no longer be separated from the shape of the building.
30
Cyberspace crosses the line of reason and feeling and every day blooms forth different and irreducible to a unity.
VV.AA. 2006, p. 31. This exhibition was mounted in Tokyo at the Opera City Art Gallery from 7 October to 24 December 2006. For further
discussion of Itos work, I take the liberty of referring to Mello 2008.
31
Figure 5. Toyo Ito, Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, London, United Kingdom, 2002
In 1964 the London magazine 20th century published an interview by Peter Carter with Mies van der Rohe. Called to
respond about the possibility of inventing new forms starting from modern technology, despite the well-known thesis
that in architecture form must be a consequence of structure, the great master answered:
As I see it, there are two general bases, and you may call it the more objective. The other has a plastic basis, which
you could say is emotional. You cannot mix them. Architecture is not a Martini (Carter 1964, p. 106).
Ito, on several occasions, has sought a direct confrontation with Mies (whom he particularly admired) 32, starting from
his invaluable legacy to reach the point of putting his principles and values in question in light of the objective changes
that affect the contemporary age, following in the wake of the thought of Mies himself when he stated, in a fully
modern spirit:
I really believe, more and more, that architecture is closely related to the driving and sustaining forces of an epoch
and can, at its best, be nothing more than an expression of these forces; it is not a fashion, nor is it something for
eternity, it is a part of an epoch. To understand an epoch means to understand its essence and not everything that
you see. But what is important in an epoch is very difficult to find out because there is a very slow unfolding of the
great form. The great form cannot be invented by you or me but we are working on it without knowing it
Architecture is an historical process (Carter 1964, p. 106).
In this case, with reference to the possible technological innovations of the present, we are faced with an objective
overcoming of Modernism: architecture can now turn into a Martini cocktail of excellence. It all lies in succeeding
in absorbing its inebriating effects, given that, already now, it is necessary to make a distinction between the use of
the computer for the purpose of pure speculation about form and which would produce a superficial, faddish kind
of innovation which changes nothing, and a type of utilization of an experimental nature, which would open up new
spaces to the architects creativity and, consequently, new vital spaces for mankind. And wasnt this the main
objective of Modernism? Everything that the age of mechanization had served up on the architects plate as a
possibility to change the state of things in view of their translation into instruments aimed at improving living
conditions (mass manufacturing, economical, standard, high-quality housing) today becomes a veritable buffet to be
dipped into liberally so as to reshuffle the cards, in search of new forms of utility in the electronic age.
32
It is sufficient to read Itos description of the Barcelona Pavilion (1929): It feels as if we are deep in water looking at things, and it may well be
described as translucent. The infinite fluidity felt in the pavilion must arise from this translucent liquid space. What we experience here is not the
flow of air but the sense of wandering and drifting gently underwater. This very sensation makes the space distinct and unique. Ito 1997, pp. 126129.
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Generation, in Fezer, Schmitz 2012, p. 239.
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20th Century, republished in Casabella, no. 741 (2006), p. 106.
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vol. 75, pp. 71-74.
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in the Historical City], in Intersezioni. Rivista di storia delle idee, no. 2, pp. 309-323.
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THE SICILIAN DEFENSIVE SYSTEM: THE COASTAL

TOWERS. THEORY AND TECHNIC MEET IN UNIQUE
LANDMARKS
MANFREDI SAELI
Department of Architecture (DARCH), Polytechnic School, University of Palermo
ing.arch.saeli@hotmail.it, manfredi.saeli@gmail.com
Abstract
Sicily has historically experienced a massive colonial occupation due to its strategic position among the
Mediterranean Sea. Still today, its tactical importance is under everybodys eyes with at least 15 NATOs
headquarters. Thus, its easily understandable how defending such a large territory was particularly important which,
in turn, meant guarding and protecting more than 1600 km of coasts, leading to a possible supremacy on the trading
routes through the Mediterranean area.
This work will analyse the Sicilian coastal towers, a real typology that exploited traditional construction technologies
and local materials integrated by instances of military engineering, in a continuous relationship between
international theories and local practice. The Sicilian defensive coastal system is made of tens of towers arranged to
create a closed circuit able to spot and communicate, in a very fast way, the presence of possible enemies
approaching the territory from the sea. The first towers were built during the early-XIV century and their construction
was intensified due to the North African corsairs raids and later, between the XVI-XVII centuries, for the fights for
supremacy among the Ottoman and the Spanish Empires, to continue during the XIX century with the revolution of
the military technics and the risk of Napoleonic troops invasion.
During centuries, many military engineers worked to improve the islander defensive system: towers perfectly reflect
the evolution of the military technologies (i.e. transition to fire gun) helped by the development of studies and the
spread of dedicated treatises and manuals. Defensive towers were built in a solid way, respecting some precise
principles in order to make them robust to attacks, self-sufficient to host a permanent guard, dominant to have the
best view. Furthermore, they were perfectly integrated in the surrounding environment and generally located in
particularly scenic positions.
Nowadays 218 towers still survive and no one is used for military purposes. Many are in a terrible state of ruin, some
were incorporated in other structures, some were fully restored and are well preserved. Preservation of coastal
towers is fundamental for the cultural identity of Sicily along with representing an important landmark strongly linked
with the history of supremacy over the Mediterranean Area in an international panorama where the evolution of
military disciplines strongly influenced the local constructive technologies and building typologies. Finally, their reuse
may be strategically important for a compatible touristic exploitation.
Historical background of the fortifications in Sicily
Due to its central position over the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily has always been a focal point of occupation and
expansion for many dominations. Indeed, several reigns have come in succession and experienced the difficulty of
protecting such a vast territory characterized by a hundreds of kilometres of coasts. In the history of architecture,
towers have historically played a primary role as functional or prestige elements: lookout or sighting, bell or clock
tower, minarets, wind tower, etc. Very often the single element tower fulfilled at the same time different tasks:
i.e. the tower-house, a very common structure during the Middle Age, was usually built for both a defensive purposes
along with being a proper habitation.
In Sicily the earliest coastal towers, intended as an integrated system of both guarding and protection, are dated back
to the first half of the XIV century. Indeed, from the Sicilian Vespers (1282) Sicily was at the centre of a prolonged
war between the Spanish reign of Aragon and the Capetian House of Anjou. As a consequence, many towers were
built as stronghold against the naval raids moving from the Angevin Naples with the aim to conquer the reign of Sicily.
Such a war between Sicily and Naples terminated in 1372 only, after ninety years, with the famous treaty of Avignon.
In the meantime, from the Maghrebi north Africa, Tunisian pirates and corsairs began to look at the Sicilian territory
to expand and catch booties, thanks to the coastline often characterized by large beaches and easy docks.
The first known document of an organic project of coastal defence entrusted to towers is dated in 1405 when King
Martin I of Sicily the younger ordered to restore the about 40 existing old towers and to build some new ones;
indeed, after a long period of peace, Sicily was completely undefended especially against piracy.
The phenomenon of piracy had been known in the Mediterranean area since at least the IX century as the Arabs
started to appears and expand on its eastern costs. During centuries the Mediterranean sea became a theatre of
bloody confront between Europe, Christian, Latin and Greek, and come to be even harder after the Ottoman Empire
expansion during the XVI century. Usually, the Ottoman seamanship was referred to as Barbary (a term derived from
the name of the Berber inhabitants) or Turkish pirates/corsairs, who actually were real pirates and privateers
operating especially from North Africa, the Barbary coast indeed (still today, Sicilian people use the dialectal saying
Mother, the Turkish! intending that something terrible is about to happen). Nevertheless to say, among the socalled Turkish pirates there also were many renegades of Corsican, French, Spanish, Italian, or even Sicilian origins
who hoped to keep advantage of such an attacks to capture goods and slaves for the North African and the Middle
Eastern markets. One of the most terrifying events happened in 1524 when 400 pirates invaded Trapani (East side of
Sicily) and in 1529 when 300 corsairs, disembarked from 22 feluccas and one galley to invade Palermo.
As Sicily fell under the Spanish crown, it became the central territory of a theoretical fight between Catholics and
Muslims. Even if the Sicilian populations prayed for peace with the Barbary and Ottoman States, in order to avoid
the continuous loss of islander riches and the death of the
commercial activities, on the contrary the Crown went on to
show useless and periodic exhibitions of naval force and
inconclusive demonstrative expeditions. That continuous
state of facts made Sicily a border land, undefended and
badly equipped, with insufficient fortifications, an
inadequate fleet, and an ephemeral system of coastal
defence.
Figure 1. Turkish pirates attack a fishermen village in South
Italy (Vietri sul Mare, majolica panel)
After an initial attempt to besiege the isle of Rhodes (1480), chasing away the Knights Hospitaller, the Ottoman
Empire gained supremacy in 1522 securing its control over the Eastern Mediterranean. Hence the necessity of a
systematic coastal defence spread within the reign of Charles V (1516-1556) who spent enormous resources to
reinforce the Mediterranean coasts (Iberian peninsula and the Reigns of Sardinia, Sicily and Naples). Also under the
reign of his son Philip I (1556-1598) a strong defensive effort was kept on, mainly with the technical direction of the
Italian architect Giovanni Battista Antonelli (Gatteo, 1527 Toledo, 1588), who is recalled for the design of the
fortifications of Cartagena and Alicante, of the Valencian coast and of the African ports of Oran and Mazalquivir (Mers
El Kbir) in Algeria. During the XVI-XVII centuries, military architecture had a great boost mostly thanks to the Italian
wars. Indeed, the high fragmentation of the Italian states, one up against the other, generated an incredible number
of conflicts that are still today considered as the bloodiest of the whole old Europe. As a matter of fact, positioning
wars were characterized by the wise use of defensive structures conveniently designed to follow the fast
developments of military technics and weapons. Chasing such an advances required a large quantity of money and
the various Italian states were sufficiently wealthy to spend a high amount of resources in armament and fortification
and to employ the most brilliant brains of those times. Just think about the numerous studies of Leonardo da Vinci
on new war machines and urban fortifications, or Giorgio Vasari and Antonio da Sangallo, just to mention some of
the most famous. Italian architects and engineers had to face a series of technical evolutions (i.e. artillery became
more powerful and lighter allowing subsequent faster movements of troops) and deeply studied the relationship
between architecture and amounts of fire thanks to mathematics, ballistics, and progresses in material science. The
increasing power of weapons, along with the very modern bronze guns, forced a squatter and thicker design of walls
and towers in order to well absorb and resist to cannons shots. As time passed, constructions slowly acquired a
certain architectural grace based on perfect geometrical proportions and structural elegance. As a consequence, new
structures as polygonal bastions, watch passages and embrasures, terreplains, bastions, scarps and counterscarps,
adequate to the novel guns and fighting technics, took birth. The coastal towers defensive system foresaw a brave
defense in the case of attack and to raise alert in the fastest way, not only among the surrounding territory but also
in the inner and farer part of the region. To realise such a communication the old technology of light signals, fire in
the night and smoke in the day, was happily exploited: in the period of maximum functionality a message could be
delivered everywhere in about one day. The capillary presence of towers located in leading and strategic positions,
on spits peek out the sea or on peaks overhanging small coves, had the triple functions of 1) safeguarding the
economic activities of the coasts, 2) protecting ships and population in case of unexpected attacks, and 3) fast
communicating to the nearby towers and castles, by means of the optic system, the enemy presence. In every tower,
a permanent troop of soldiers used to live in order to patrol the territory and move to every request of help. In Sicily,
the Deputation of Towers, Bridges and Streets was established in 1547 with the principal aim of supervising every
public works plan and realization. Its institution lead to the construction of tens of towers, castles and fortifications
of various types around the territory along with the restoration of the old defensive medieval constructions. Another
tasks of the Deputation was supervising workforce activity in order to prevent frauds, especially in the use of poor
quality materials. For this purpose, sanctions were aggravated and a register of accredited employers was
established, a sort of professional register of builders, and a list of the prices of materials and works. The constructive
effort continue employing skilled architects and engineers, often entrusted with the title of royal engineer, coming
from different parts of Italy or Spain. More particularly, between the XVII-XVIII centuries a great number of coastal
towers were built or restored, following the ultimate evolutions, and many circumnavigations of the islander
perimeter were done to report the state of the art and maintenance of such a system.
Figure 2. A map of Sicily in 1717

where the 43 towers run by the
Deputation of Towers are
reported.
At the beginning of the XIX century, as the corsairs raid decreased, many coastal towers were abandoned or used
for different porpoises, i.e. as leper hospital for infective illnesses. Furthermore, the invention of the telegraph, by
the French Claude Chappe in 1790, caused the definitive end of the optical signals and lead to a complete restoration
and adjustment of towers to adapt the old structures to the very new technology. Such a system lasted till 1837 when
the first public telegraphic electric line was established, as a consequence the coastal towers definitely lost their
military function of communication and many others were abandoned.
Only some were preserved and continuously restored under the English Protectorate, the so-called Napoleon period,
but the constructive typology changed again due to the developments of guns and the ships increased volume of
fire. Therefore, after General Lord W. Bentincks arrival in 1811, some new constructions were built on the model of
the Martello tower, small defensive coastal forts built across the British Empire.
Figure 3. Martello towers: Magnisi T., Priolo (left), English Fort (centre) and Ganzirri T. both in Messina (right).
Finally, during the World Wars some towers were used as observatories or anti-aircraft placements, with
questionable result. Nowadays 218 towers still survive and no one is used for military purposes anymore. Many are
in a terrible state of ruin, some were incorporated in new structures, sometimes losing their original characters, some
were fully restored and are well preserved.
Figure 4. A map of Sicily with the existing 218 defensive coastal towers.
Military engineers for the defensive Sicilian system
Many were the architects and military engineers who worked in Sicily specifically employed as royal engineers
entrusted with studying, designing, building, or restoring the whole defensive system of the Reign of Sicily. Such a
system consisted in an integrated and complicated set of (coastal or inland) towers, forts, castles, bastions,
emplacements and walls. Indeed, during the XVI-XVII centuries Sicily underwent a key role within the defensive
strategy of the Spanish Empire from the threaten and pressing Turkish threat. An island defined as a stronghold
against the Ottoman enemy, enemy in terms of religion Counter-Reformation period but, essentially and
pratically, in terms of political and economic supremacy over the Mediterranean sea.
Among the first military engineers, Pietro Antonio Tomasello (Padua, - , 1537) was appointed Royal Engineer on
2 April 1523, with a huge salary of 200 ducats, by the Viceroy Ettore Pignatelli, Count of Monteleone. His employment
felt within the decision of the Emperor Charles V to reinforce the coasts of the Reign against the Berber corsairs.
Tomasello was mainly choose for his ability in defending the territory of the Republic of Venice designing some new
great circular towers, that became his trademark: he had the ability to reinvent the old round configuration, typical
of the XV-XVI centuries fortifications, integrating them with the pentagonal bastions. He mainly operated in the
fortifications of the cities of Palermo and Trapani where he re-designed the whole city walls and strongholds
equipped with round towers with scarp walls and ribbon (i.e. the so-called Seacastle in Palermo, an ancient fortress
that guarded the entrance to the port and partially demolished between 1860 and 1923). From 1526 he undertook
a journey through the Mediterranean sea to design the fortifications of Syracuse, Malta and Tripoli. Unfortunately,
coming back from Africa he was captured by the Turkish corsairs, unaware of his identity, but later released.
Figure 5. P.A. Tomasello: Castle of the Saviour, Messina (left), Seacastle, Palermo (right, source: Vesco 2014).
In 1533 Tomasello felt ill and, till his death (1537), he was cooperated with Antonio Ferramolino (Bergamo, ...
Mahdia, 1550). Indeed, he was detained on 13 November 1533 by the Viceroy Pignatelli in order to inspect the
fortifications of Syracuse, Trapani, Milazzo and Augusta. Less than one month later, on 7 December 1533, in a missive
to Charles V Pignatelli asked to permanently entrust Ferramolino with continuing designing and the fortification of
the island. Consequently, from 1534 he began an activity as royal military engineer with the scope to protect the
main cities and strategic places of the Reign of Sicily, subjected to the continuous attacks of the men of Suleiman I
the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1520-1566). To Ferramolino must be accorded the diffusion through
the Spanish Empire of the defensive walled structures equipped with round bastions, expression of the significant
developments in military defense and offence. From 1536 he worked in Palermo where he realized his most
important work, the urban defense where he adopted bastioned walls reinforced by relieving arches to better resist
to cannons shots, and in 1547 he made a complete circumnavigation of the isle with the purpose of surveying the
whole coastal defensive structures along with reporting their state of maintenance. In the meantime, the Turkish
threat became constantly higher with the most famous and for the population - terrible Ottoman admirals, and
privateers, Dragut (Turgut Reis) and Hayreddin Barbarossa (Barbaros Hayreddin Paa); thus in 1550 the Genovese
admiral Andrea Doria, along with the Viceroy and General Captain of Sicily don Juan de Vega, decided to attack the
African ports. Antonio Ferramolino, who served during the siege of Mahdia (Libya) died in battle on 18 August 1550.
Figure 6. Antonio Ferramolino: Castle of Milazzo.
After his death, from 1551 Pedro Del Prado ( - 1555) was in charge of the military structures. He mainly focused his
activity in the Eastern part of Sicily (Catania, Messina, Noto, etc.) and later in the isle of Malta.
In 1578 the Viceroy Marcantonio Colonna Duke of Paliano (15351584), one of the protagonists of the Battle of
Lepanto (7 October 1571), having noted that corsars cause serious damages to the coastal parts of Sicily where
towers miss (from a letter preserved in the State Archive) entrusted Tiburzio Spannocchi (Siena, 1543 Madrid,
1606) with making a complete plan to repair the existing 62 towers and to build new 130 ones. Spannocchi, who had
served the Papal States in Lepanto under Colonna, worked for about two years to edit the complete plan of the
fortifications to protect the population from pirates raids. Basing on local construction materials availability and
proximity of urban centres, his system envisaged a series of coastal towers that might not only protect the territory
but also allow a fast communication between the various structures. His work titled Descripcin de las marinas de
todo el Reino de Sicilia [trad. Description of the coasts of the whole Reign of Sicily] (1578), conserved in the National
Library of Madrid, contains a model of tower characterized by a quadrangular plan, scarp walls culminating with a
solid and protruding ribbon from which the main body of the tower raises, a unique opening at the top and four
lodges at the corners. His general plan showed the great deficiency of the islander defensive system but remained
mainly unrealized due to its extremely high budget.
In 1582 he was substituted by the Sicilian Vincenzo Geremia (Acireale, 15751679) who built some new towers and
fortresses. The most important is the Tocco Fort, previously designed by Camillo Camilliani (see forward), that he
equipped with a portable little cannon (1595-1606) that was used to warn the population the presence of corsairs by
means of one shot. In 1892, during the National Fair in Palermo, that portable cannon was studied by some experts
who regarded it as the first model of light artillery, even preceding the King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden who is
commonly recalled as the inventor of the quick mass fire.
Figure 7. Tiburzio Spannocchi: Description of the Gulf of Palermo (top left); Castle of S. Nicola lArena (bottom left);
survey of the Tower of the Milicia (right, source: Maurici, F. et al. 2008).
In those years, the Sicilian Parliament issued that () all the necessary towers must be erected on the coasts around
the Reign, and the already existing ones must be restored if needed. In each tower a troop of guardians must be
located in a number to be decided for every location, depending on the site and the season. The Deputation of the
Reign will be in charge of such a matter along with accomplishing every other things that might be useful to fulfil
such a responsibility in a wise and useful way. Furthermore, in order to make such an operations, the Deputation can
spend till 3.000 coins per year () [that was a very great amount of money].
The greatest number of the existing coastal towers were built following the design of the architect Camillo Camilliani
(Florence, Palermo, 1603), and still today are easily recognizable as a real architectural archetype. The exact date
of birth of Camilliani is fairly unknown as well as his earliest training, probably done in the workshop of his father,
the sculptor Francesco Camilliani. Some scholars wrote that, on the contrary, he made his apprenticeship under the
sculptor and architect Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli (Florence, 15071563) who was in Messina (Sicily) to direct
various construction sites. Anyway, it is documented that Camilliani arrived in Palermo in January 1574 to direct the
relocation of a monumental fountain in front of the Praetorian Palace. Till 1581 he continued such a work which was
so appreciated that he was invited in Sicily by the Viceroy Colonna to design a novel system of coastal fortifications.
Then, in July 1583 Camilliani and the Captain G.B. Fresco were entrusted by the Sicilian parliament with making a
complete circumnavigation of the island in order to analyse the state of maintenance of the whole defensive system.
On 19 July, Marcantonio Colonna in a letter to the Magnificent Engineer wrote () to examine the whole Reign,
build [towers] where it is necessary and repair the existing ones that need some works; and at the same time, to
accomplish our orders, hire and accommodate soldiers who, for the safety of the coastline, must communicate
continuously by means of fire and smoke, and [hire and accommodate] a sufficient number of knights and horsemen
ready to bring to the surroundings the news of eventual sighted enemy vessels; so in order to accomplish such an
order in a good way it is necessary to inspect and have the full knowledge of the quality and dimensions of all the
marine lidos () (State Archive of Palermo, Deputation of the Reign, vol. 202, p. 182 and following). Such a
recognition lasted two years, from 1583 to 1584, and implicated the circumnavigation of Sicily and the survey of all
the existing fortified structures along with an accurate description of the whole coastal territory, later published in
the report Descrittione delle marine di tutto il regno di Sicilia con le guardie necessarie da cavallo e da piedi che vi si
tengono [trad. Description of the coasts of the whole Reign of Sicily with the necessary located guards on foot and
on horses].
Figure 8. Camillo Camilliani: Vendicari Tower: drawing (top left) and picture (top right); Monterosso Tower (bottom
left); Sibiliana Tower (bottom right). Drawings source: Maurici, F. et al. 2008.
The constructive effort was particularly amazing in XVII-XVIII centuries with the Sicilian Carlo Maria Ventimiglia
(1634), an aristocrat called the Archimedes of Sicily for its wide scientific interests; the Sicilian Francesco Negro in
1637-1640; Giuseppe Amico from Castellalfero from Asti in 1713; the Sicilian Andrea Pigonati in 1756.
Architectural typology and constructive technologies

The main typologies of towers, inland or coastal, built in Sicily were three and depended on the Institute in charge
of them: Deputation, City or private citizen. The towers belonging to the first two typologies were usually built under
a public act and were used to provide a strong resistance to enemies attack, even to cannons and hand to hand
assaults. As a consequence, they were designed and built in a very solid way, with a usually round plan and equipped
with scarp walls and crenellation, in order to make them difficultly conquerable, and armed with cannons. Finally
they usually had a cistern of water, or a storage for food, in order to make them self-sufficient in case of a long attack
or if located far from the main streets or urban centres. On the contrary, the towers run by private people, had a
feudal character and were generally built close to palaces, castles, rural farms and villages, often in the countryside
with the main scope of protecting from corsairs coming from the sea, in the case of coastal feuds, or from local
bandits that used to scamper through the country and raid and terrorise the rural population. In any case, all the
towers, from the coasts to the most inner areas, were in mutual visual communication in order to allow a fast
transmission of news through the whole territory of the Reign. Usually, the state (Deputation or City) towers were
built in a very accomplished way and are highly interesting from a constructive point of view. Furthermore, if the
tower was a matter of real state security then its construction was done mindless of expenses. Indeed, even if private
towers were usually built by the rich aristocracy, they were anyway considered as a part of a rural building, or a
secondary construction, with all the subsequent restrictions as a smaller dimension, a less equipment of artillery and
guards. There are anyway some exempla of private towers completely comparable to the public ones, depending on
the richness and power of the feudal house.
Every time a new tower was about to be built, a series of social and technological issued used to raise: from the
morphological study of the territory, in order to find the best location for both protection and communication, to the
design of the building, from the construction with the right choose of workforce and material, depending on local
availability, along with the armament and guarding. Depending on the nature of the customer, public or private, after
having analysed the territory and the real needs of protection, the architects of the Deputation of Towers, the Royal
Engineer or a building headmaster (in case of private work) proposed the construction and asked for the permission
to the Crown. As it usually happened, a notarial deed used to be signed by both the actors, customer and contractor,
in order to guarantee the best execution of the whole process along with respecting the agreement, both in terms
of payment and construction. Such a deed included in detail all the works, phases, materials and times recalling a
proper modern contract. The building headmaster in charge of the construction was usually called fabricator and
used to carry out all the necessary acts of the constructive process: interpret the architectural design, employ the
workforce, choose the materials, test the building. The design also investigated all the military, safety and
constructive details: the site, the conformity with the other towers, the optimal visual communication with the others
buildings, the distance from the sea, the proportions, the military requirements, etc.. A great attention was given to
dimension, proportions, materials and constructive technologies in order to obtain the best result in term of territory
safeguard and protection.
The shape of plans and sections usually depends on the period of realization, as we saw in the previous section,
according to the state of the defensive technics evolution, and on the customer either public or (more or less rich)
private. Maybe, the oldest configuration is the right quadrangular plan, recalling the Medieval constructions,
immediately followed by the round configurations that improved the performance of the stronghold, giving an easy
360 sight from the top with a uniform surface without corners. The most common Sicilian coastal tower
configuration, drawn by Spannocchi and improved by Camilliani, is characterized by a squatter, quadrangular plan
design with thick scarp walls at the first elevation culminating with a protruding ribbon from which the main body of
the tower (second and sometimes third level) vertically raises, finally the horizontal roofing protected by
crenellations. The most typical configuration envisaged a water tank at the bottom, the guard room in the middle
and the rooftop used for light communications. Larger and taller buildings were built in case of particularly reach
territory that needed a major defence and octagonal or star plan are also reported; the last configuration is the XIX
century Martello tower.
Figure 9. Right quadrangular typology: Piraino Tower (left); Tower in Carini (centre); Tower of the Ursa Tuna-fishing
nets plant in Cinisi (right).
Figure 10. Spannocchi-Camilliani typology (quadrangular scarp walls, protruding ribbon, main level(s):
Tower of Nubia saltworks (top left); Tower in San Vito Lo Capo (top right); Tower of Manfria in Gela (bottom left);
Alba Tower in Terrasini (bottom centre); Pozzillo Tower in Cinisi (bottom right).
Figure 11 - 12. Star and octagonal typology: star Tower of the Mount Cofano Tuna-fishing nets, picture and survey
(source: Maurici, F. et al. 2008) (top); octagonal Tower of San Nicola in Licata (bottom left); The Colombaia fort in the
port of Trapani (bottom right).
Usually, the tower was accessible from a unique door opened at the upper floors, or in a more elevated level from
the ground anyhow, and reachable by a tight stair that could be retracted inside the building. The inner stair,
connecting the various levels, was made of stone and was usually quite narrow in order to make only one person
pass per time. That was particularly important in case of enemies entering the tower as they were obliged to face
the soldiers one by one only. Sometimes, at the top of the external door there was an embrasure that was used to
throw objects on enemies approaching the building.
Figure 13 14 - 15. Typological characters.

Top: Unique opening at the first level and external stair: Tower of Nubia saltworks (left); Saint Maria Tower in Ustica
(centre); Tower of Altavilla Milicia (right).
Centre: Embrasure (left), corner platform (centre); crenellations and embrasures (right).
Bottom: Embrasure and corner platforms in the Ligny Tower in Trapani (left), protruding ribbon and corner platforms
in the Tower of Santo Stefano dAlcagrossa in Paceco (centre); protruding ribbon and platforms in the round Tower
of Guidaloca in Castellammare del Golfo (right).
The main, and often only room, was used as soldiers headquarter and home as well: it was equipped with pallets as
beds, frequently located in a small wooden mezzanine, a fire to keep soldiers warm during the winter/night, and a
small cupboard. The gunpowder storage closet, also located at this floor, was always put far from the fire, often at
the opposite side, in order to prevent unwanted explosions. The ground floor was usually used as water tank and
used to collect rain water by means of tubes running from the attic. Little windows and loopholes were carefully
arranged in order to easily control the whole surroundings in an easy and complete way as well as attack possible
enemies moving closer. Finally, a serious attention was payed to the attic, a large stone vault used to both easily
collect rainwaters and resist to mechanical strains caused by the possible presence of heavy cannons. Furthermore,
at that level a bonfire was permanently located in order to make the light signals, fire in the night and smoke in the
day, possible.
Figure 16. Typological configuration: Tower of the Tuna-fishing nets of Mondello in Palermo (drawings source: Lo
Cascio, P., 2006). However, very often the basement was dedicated to a water tank (not in this case).
A detailed analysis of the constructive techniques, as well as the typological and functional investigations, is highly
essential to acquire a complete knowledge of the coastal towers. Furthermore, a deep awareness of the architectural
technologies and materials employed in such a constructions is fundamental for a possible correct project of
restoration and reuse.
Technologies are usually simple, essential and, at the same time, highly efficient as they are the result of centenarian
experimentations and refinements, with the most effective exploitation of the local environmental resources. All
integrated with the most appropriate military instances and their continuous developments. Indeed, selection and
use of raw materials are intimately related to the territory where the building is to be erected: the stones of masonry
and the colours of a possible finishing, that is rarely present, lays in a high harmony with the surrounding landscape
making the tower integrate and confuse with the environment itself. Natural stone masonry is used to erect the main
structure that is usually quite thick to better resist to cannon shots: i.e. in the western Sicily a very white stone is
locally employed, whereas in the area of Palermo (centre North) or Agrigento (far South) the most common stone is
the yellow-ochre coloured calcarenitic limestone. Brick was never used in the main body of a tower a part from
making regular horizontal courses in case of rubble masonry, in isolated consolidation works, or in secondary
structures such as embrasures, crenellations, etc.. Roughly hew or squared stone is used to shape the most accurate
elements in terms of static reasons as the corners; rubble masonry was usually made up of irregularly shaped stones,
or even boulders, that are set in lime mortar and not laid in regular courses. Unfortunately, in some isolated towers,
located far from water springs, salty water was used to knead mortar; as an easily comprehensible consequence a
quite number of problems had to be observed during times. Frequently, different sizes and shaping types are
observed for the various elements that constitute a masonry; in addiction, different natural species of stone are
employed, optimizing the usage of material resources depending on availability and performance and following the
criterion the right stone into the right position. Wood, where available and often associated to aquatic canes, was
the main raw material for secondary structural elements such as mezzanines or stairs, whereas not in masonry, or
light partitions.
Figure 17. Constructive technologies: use of squared stones at the corner and a rubble masonry, with/without a
finishing plaster. From the left, Torre Finale in Pollina, Torre Cordova in Ficarazzi, Torre of San John al Cofano in
Paceco, Torre of the Spalmatore in Ustica.
Figure 18. Constructive technologies: use of squared stones to shape window cornices in a rubble masonry (top left);
a barrel vault made of calcarenitic squared stones (top centre); a cross vault made of bricks (top right); masonry
made of roughly hew stone in wall bay and squared stones at the corners (bottom left), use of bricks to create regular
horizontal courses (bottom centre); use of different stones (bottom right).
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zgr ztrk DAKAM YAYINLARI

October 2016, stanbul.

A READING ON DIGITALLY-DRIVEN HOUSING STRUCTURES IN MOVEMENT

EVALUATION OF PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF SPACES IN SMALL HOUSING

CULTURAL REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURAL SPACE: THE CASE OF SINGLE RESIDENTIAL UNIT

POWER AND ARCHITECTURE RELATION:

ANALYSIS OF THE ARCHITECTURAL TRENDS IN THE FRAME OF

ARCHITETTURA RURALE ITALIANA AND MILL MIMARI SEMINERI

ADOPTING THE CHANGING DISCOURSE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL BY INNOVATIVE BUILT

GATED COMMUNITIES AND PUBLIC SPACES

TRANSCENDENTAL URBAN ARCHITECTURE: GLAZED OLYMPUS

THE SEARCH FOR A NEW ORDER: PERRAULTS DISCURSIVE APPROACH ON ARCHITECTURE

ANALYTICAL STUDY; ARCHITECTURE AS A LANGUAGE: LETTER, WORD, SENTENCE

25TH FRAME EFFECT OF ARCHITECTURE: TEXT AND RHETORIC

A CRITICAL APPROACH TO ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE IN TURKIYE

BECOMING A LAND OF "EXCHANGE:" ARCHITECTURAL DISCOURSE ON TOURISM IN TURKEY

FROM SEDAD ELDEM TO TURGUT CANSEVER, THE LEGACY OF A SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON BLURRED MARGINS BETWEEN ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE

SURFACE RE-CONFIGURATION: PARASITIC ARCHITECTURE INTERVENTION

THE EMBRYO OF AN URBAN BACKBONE: THE ISTANBUL-LONDON ROAD

AN EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF

ANCHORING:RE-UNDERSTANDING THE ARCHITECTURAL PROCESS FROM VOID TO PLACE

ARCHITECTURE AS A RISK MARKER

EPISTEMIC ANALYSIS OF ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISM

CASES OF INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISMS

HERITAGE ARCHITECTURE AND CAPITALISM

A MONUMENTAL DESIGN OF THE AUSTRIAN ARCHITECT,

PUBLIC SPACE OF NEIGHBORHOODS, A CASE STUDY OF MISURATA CITY, LIBYA

URBAN ARCHISCAPE AS A CONCEPT FROM THE EYE OF WORLD KNOWN ARCHITECTS

PERCEPTION AND MEANING OF CONTEMPORARY GEOMETRIC ORNAMENT

INDETERMINACY AS A CRITICAL DESIGN APPROACH: CEDRIC PRICE'S FUN PALACE

REMODELLING CONCEPT OF REPETITION IN CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE

COLOUR AS JOIE DE VIVRE: BRUNO TAUT AND THE

POPULATION EXCHANGES ARCHITECTURAL WITNESSES:

CONSTRUCTIONS OF SHIRVANSHAH'S PALACE ENSEMBLE IN BAKU

GOLDEN RATIO IN GREEK AND ROMAN ARCHITECTURE

SPATIAL EXPRESSIONS OF SOCIAL LIFE AND CULTURE DURING EARLY

SOME FORMS AND DIMENSIONS OF WALKING IN THE CITY

STUDENTS OF ARCHITECTURE DEVELOP COUNTER-STRATEGIES FOR SPATIAL

DANCE AND SPACE: A BODILY PRESENCE

EXPERIENCING THE PLACE, EXPERIMENTAL LEARNING AT ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 4

URBAN IDENTITY USING THE SIX DIMENSIONS OF URBANITY

THE DOMESTICATION OF THE TELEVISION IN FLANDERS

THE UTILITY AND LIMITS OF SPATIAL PARADIGMS

URBAN COLLECTIVES: A NEW PERCEPTION ON SPACE/PLACE

ARCHITECTURE AND CAPITALISM IN SKOPJE

THE LIMINAL QUALITY OF SPACE IN LVARO SIZAS WORK A CASE

URBAN HOUSING FOR THE MASSES IN EAST ASIA: STRUCTURING THE

AN EVALUATION TOWARDS THE POTENTIALS OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN CONFLICT

THE QUESTION OF THE MODERN IN ARCHITECTURE A HISTORIC OPEN DEBATE

THE SICILIAN DEFENSIVE SYSTEM: THE COASTAL TOWERS.

A READING ON DIGITALLY-DRIVEN HOUSING

EVALUATION OF PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL

Figure 1: Resource Furniture, Flexible Furniture example, worktable-bed (URL-1)

Figure 2: The Use of an Object for Multiple Actions (URL-2)

Figure 3: Gaining Space by adding Reinforcement Elements (URL-3)

Figure 4: Bedroom-Living Room in Functional Flexibility Concept (URL-4)

Figure 5: Folding and Concealable Furniture Samples (URL-5)

Figure 6: Dividers allow privacy in the space (URL-6-7-8)

Table 1: Batipin Flat Space Analysis (adapted from URL-9)

CULTURAL REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURAL

Table 1. Analysis of Form and Composition Morocco Case Study

Geometry & Geometric Configuration

Space Configuration Pattern