1 unadapted

231 reflections onarchitecture /

(Academical upgrade 05, part 1) /Luc Deleu, on board Malu II, Atlantic Ocean (2005) Reprinted from the original in A/S/L/, Yearbook Academy of Architecture Amsterdam 2004–2005, translation Peter Mason

To decide just what architecture really is, is a difficult question. No one will givethe same reply. Architecture will always be elusive and volatile, malleable andchangeable. But it will certainly be so that architecture is beyond stone, concrete,steel, glass and insulation and belongs to the realm of the mind. Architecture is aconcept, not an object. I know what I am talking about; since I first started to take an interest in architectureand urbanism some forty years ago, I have seen the world change astonishingly andbecome entropic, and along with all that I have seen architecture explode in all direc-tions. In short, there has never been so much confusion about architecture before.Architecture has all the characteristics of human beings and of nature; charm,seductiveness, honesty, correctness, legibility... and also hypocrisy, phoniness, inco-herence... Architecture is metaphysical and transcendental. Le Corbusier wrote:‘L’architecture, c’est pour emouvoir’. 1) Architecture, whether built or unbuilt, is art:the art of (city) building. Building architecture requires for the greater part aMaecenas without ulterior motives or opportunism who wants to build a monumenton the one hand, and a designer with artistic ambition, on the other hand.

So if architecture is art, what is the art of architecture? There is the art of building andthere is building, and there is urban development and the art of city building. There isconstruction and there is architecture; there is only a partial overlap between thetwo, just as texts and literature sometimes coincide. Architecture seems to me to bethe preeminent art of laying down proportions and priorities, the art of separating thewheat from the chaff, in every sense and in everything and more, both materially andspiritually, both emotionally and rationally, both consciously and unconsciously.Architecture is thus connected with the cosmic universe, the Muses let’s say. That iswhy architecture addresses different levels of consciousness (the conscious, theunconscious and the subconscious), just as all other arts do.

But architecture is also not just art. Architecture is therefore not amoral, and itsbeauty cannot justify everything. There are taboos, and there can be wrong objectivesand programmes for architecture. Dying on an electric throne is more grotesque thandying on an electric chair, and architectonic gas and torture chambers are doublydespicable. Two far too extreme examples? Well then, another, not extreme examplefor the twenty-first century, now that we can experience every animal in the world inits natural environment in cyberspace: there is not a single reason or excuse to keepon designing zoos to cage animals architectonically. In short, architects better askthemselves each time whether the programme is suitable or acceptable for architec-ture.1) Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture, Paris (Vincent Fréal & Cie), 1966

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3

Luc Deleu

4And many places on earth are still taboo for buildings: horizons, vistas, perspectives,landscapes, public spaces, ensembles... it makes no difference whether they are pro-tected by law or not. More and more places on earth should be properly respectedand do not tolerate any further architectural addition. In New Zealand the sacredspots of the Maori are not built on as a token of respect; it goes without saying thatnothing is built on the Campo in Sienna, a panoramic hotel around the peak of theMatterhorn would be misplaced; the Belgian western (!) North Sea horizon, barely 65kilometres long, deserves a place on the list of protected landscapes.

Of course, not all architecture has to be built. It may be the case that unbuilt archi-tecture outnumbers built architecture – just take a look in all the architects’ archives.At any rate, I am not one of those who believe that architecture can only be built. I have always considered that at a time when the pressure of building on land isincreasing so exponentially (probably, more was built in the last century than in all thepreceding centuries together!), while space on earth is decreasing at the same rate,it becomes more of a task to practice architecture without building much, and there-by make the world realise the finiteness of the earth, all the more in that a virtualarchitecture is perfectly in line with today’s so highly spoken of information era.Nowadays we increasingly see architecture more in images than in reality, don’t we?And in electronic, digital space, what difference is left between a drawn and a pho-tographed architectural experience? More than that, conceptual architecture settingout to propose something or to give an example perfectly uses the new possibilitiesof the virtual world. Scale models, yet another medium and often miniatures of non-existent buildings,present a different though specific facet in the world of architecture. The reduction ofscale always has a magical effect, as the viewer becomes like Gulliver. Marcel Duchamp’s suitcase of miniatures was a shot that hit the bull’s-eye, and lookat the large number of construction kit shops with toys for both children and adults.On the other hand, not everything that is built is architecture – just look around you.Obviously, all buildings lacking artistic ambition cannot be architecture. Of coursenothing is wrong with a well designed and sound construction. Better a good con-struction than bad architecture or fake architecture with all its gratuitous and trendyclichés. Not everything construction can or has to be architecture. Building is as hon-ourable as architecture, but it is important to know what you can, what you want andwhat you are doing.

Incidentally, building architecture is not always the real answer to the question. Manyprogrammes do not call for architecture. Our flashy cars have no need at all for archi-tecture, not even if they are on sale in showrooms... Cars cannot experience architec-ture, neither can horses, so as long as their stables are animal-friendly and not ablemish on the landscape... just as legal texts are only required to be unambiguousand clear.Then again, other programmes can be implemented without building. The Greeks didnot build luxury hotels for the 2004 Olympic Games, but they had the brand-new andprestigious Queen Mary II and several other cruise ships come to Athens to welcomethe guests there. What a bright solution! A long time ago, when the university insti-tutions of Antwerp were to be founded, instead of putting up buildings I proposed toaccommodate the university on three aircraft carriers that would be able to sail theseven seas, connected by satellite with all possible information and communication

31 reflections on architecture /

5

31 reflections on architecture / 12340

media: ‘Mobile Medium University’. Also cleaning up, consolidating, renovating,adapting and recycling what has already been built is more than praiseworthy todayand worth mentioning here.

Which buildings should or should not be elevated to the status of art? Again, thereis no unambiguous answer. Everyday functions can always be carried out properly ineconomical and purely functional buildings, but the architect can always set to workto think up ways of giving the building a soul so that it transcends its time and its pro-gramme. The building becomes a monument, acquires a certain eternal value with asignificance for future generations, and thus will become part of the cultural her-itage. This is where the historical significance of (built) architecture lies, even thoughthat significance has changed dramatically over the centuries. In the past architec-ture served above all to store knowledge and information and to pass it on (as a medi-um) to successive generations. Previous generations wanted architecture to confirmtheir existence for their successors. Since the art of printing, and especially withtoday’s communication and information technology, this task has been taken over bythese media and only the exciting beauty of built architecture has become its solehistorical significance.

Whether we like it or not, buildings always make a contribution to society, sometimespositive and sometimes negative. Since building always goes on in the public andcollective space, it always bears a social responsibility, and by extension the same istrue for built and unbuilt architecture. Architecture bears an enormous responsibili-ty in enormous commissions and a smaller responsibility in small commissions, somuch is clear. I am not referring here to the classical professional responsibility formistakes in the conception or building stage, against which today’s architects are sokeen on insuring themselves, but the ethical responsibility vis-à-vis the earth andmankind. After all, buildings are pertinently and for a long time present on earth, theychange the landscape irrevocably, and are almost always constructed at the expenseof nature. And that responsibility increases in proportion to the steadily increasingpressure on the environment. An additional factor is that the building industry is aprimary polluter on earth and, on top of that, a global bulk consumer too. We buildwith iron ore from Brazil, bauxite from Australia, nickel from New Caledonia, woodfrom Congo and petroleum derivatives from the sea...Even unbuilt – conceptual or theoretical – architecture cannot evade its responsibili-ty. Optimistic as it is, having grown on the foundation of social critique, it believesand hopes that it will be the basis of a built reflection in the distant future.

Throughout the centuries, architecture and particularly the art of city building havebeen an expression of a particular form of society. That is why the art of (city) build-ing is a permanent touchstone for the social thought of its time. Our architecture willbe judged by the following generations more than by our own. The generation of ‘68condemned the Modernists for wanting to over-organise the world, dehumanising thescale of buildings and destroying historic cities, and I fear that future generationswill accuse the generation of ‘68 of having looted and polluted the world on anunprecedented scale, leaving it soiled and passing on the problems. Future genera-tions will probably condemn our unlimited egoism as expressed in the built environ-ment.

6Built architecture can seldom be other than confirming society. Building swallowsenormous amounts of capital, and capital is one of those things that particularly con-firms society, although it must be said that architecture, when it goes beyond pureconstruction, retains its value for other generations and other societies. In its pure-ly spiritual state, architecture can transcend the social mindset of its time.

Architecture is not always desirable, not always necessary, and sometimes meaning-less. Architecture will not save society, nor is it supposed to – it is impossible forarchitecture to bear that responsibility. Architecture only makes the world morebeautiful, while it sometimes tries to improve and to structure our planet, the lastthen applying in particular to the art of city building. The art of city building hopes toparticipate in directing the world both spiritually and materially and to adapt it moreand better for people.Architecture is the celebration of men on earth. That is the responsibility architectswant to and can bear. And it is already heavy enough, while opportunism, ulteriormotives and the temptation provided by capital to misuse architecture are alwayslurking around the corner! The art of building is too readily used for personal andshort-term objectives.Architecture, so elevated above everyday things – and rest assured these words havebeen given long consideration – should not be used to shamelessly sell more shoesat even higher prices!For me it has been an open-and-shut conclusion for a long time that architecture can-not rely on something like a day-to-day and volatile programme or intention.Panamarenko once said: ‘The usefulness of things is a secondary matter, that’s con-sumption and I don’t believe in it’. 2) Panamarenko’s submarine, airplanes and carsserve no useful purpose but they are very beautiful, appeal strongly to the imagina-tion, and are poetic. The building is functional, but its architecture serves no purposeand is just there, to delight and please people.

Building architecture without a minimum of altruism and with a purely egoistic visionto create, maintain or promote nothing but false myths is ‘applied’ architecture, com-parable to the plastic tricks applied by trendy young advertising men and women tosell soap, underwear or suntan lotion.An architectural practice built on strong theoretical foundations helps prevent thiskind of abuse. But what helps above all is not to play up to society, politics and theeconomy, I could experience.Of course, everyone has to decide for himself what objectives his architecture canserve. The decision on how far architecture can and may go should better be taken infull freedom, because everyone wants to interpret the task of architecture in a differ-ent way and in accordance with his own views.

To conclude: do not forget that only very few people are interested in living architec-ture, and that those who are interested still sometimes get it wrong. You simply can-not be interested and educated in everything, and there is no need for more interest-ed people and experts. There is no need to preach architecture. People should not bebrought up in architecture. Advertising for more architecture, like all advertising as amatter of fact, is unnecessary. Architecture is architecture, no more and no less, andarchitecture can do without slogans; never again ‘Architecture ou révolution’.2) Interview with Panamarenko in Janus 18, 2005.

31 reflections on architecture /

7 The AmsterdamAcademy ofArchitecture

asked Luc Deleuto investigate the

artistic connec-tions between the

three design disciplines of the

Academy – architecture,

urban design and landscape

architecture –while exploring

the artistic boundaries of

spatial design /

8

9 Critical, sociological,

ecological /In 1970, the Belgian architect and urban planner Luc Deleu established T.O.P.Office (Turn On Planning Office) and promptly distanced himself from theworld of architecture. His oeuvre is characterised by his break with a conser-vative lifestyle and his search for alternatives. From the end of the 1960s, thevisual arts world became Deleu’s base of operations, and from here he struckout in search of an alternative approach to urban development, one that wascritical, sociological and ecological. His findings are the wellspring of his fre-quently startling designs and proposals for a different, utopian and unadapt-ed city, for another form of (co-) existence.

11

Proposal for the abolition of the law protecting the title and profession of Architect /

Proposal for theabolition of thelaw protecting

the title and profession of

Architect /Deleu developed the concept of Orbanism in the 1970s and constructed a broadframework in which to formulate methods for increasing mobility, improving commu-nication, encouraging city-beautification and securing freedom for the individual.

The proposals contained in his manifesto were provocative and utopian-anarchist,but well-grounded. They included planting avenues of fruit trees, making telephoneand electricity cables visible, abolishing traffic regulations and zoos, transformingaircraft carriers into floating universities or homes for the elderly, launching nuclearwaste towards the sun, fertilising the Sahara with surplus manure, converting publicmonuments into social housing, cushioning rather than metalling road surfaces,growing vegetables in flower boxes, cultivating urban orchards, creating pastures for‘city cattle’, creating city dung heaps, letting ‘public poultry’ walk around, makingurban fish pools, protecting weeds, and so on.

These proposals were presented at the 1978 exhibition ‘Proposal for the abolition ofthe law protecting the title and profession of Architect’.

The Unadapted

City /Luc Deleu has been working on the study of The Unadapted City since 1995.All cities are unadapted. Deleu is convinced that while cities can be shapedas desired on a large scale, they must offer the greatest possible amount offreedom for individual initiatives on the small scale. That is why the proposedvolumes, which are the result of a study of required space and infrastructure,are detached from their programme before the city comes into use. Sufficientcinemas are provided, for example, but these may also be used as sport halls,mushroom nurseries or dwellings for hamadryas baboons.‘The Unadapted City is my method of investigating how a city should beequipped before it can manifest itself as a contemporary metropolis,’ heexplains. ‘Instead of concentrating on small problems here and there, I amdesigning a city on a large scale. A new city.’

13friday 07.01.2005

09:00 / Welcome and breakfast for chefs and tutors 10:00 / Start workship at Zuiderkerk, Amsterdam (exhibition VIP city)

10:00 — 10:15 / Welcome and introduction by Aart Oxenaar – Director of the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture10:15 — 11:00 / Introduction Orbanisation by Luc Deleu11:00 — 12:30 / Presentation assignments by studio-chefs12:30 — 13:00 / Signing in for studios 13:00 — 14:00 / Lunch break14:00 — 17:00 / First sessions for the studios at the Academy building17:00 — 18:00 / Drinks

saturday 08.01.200510:00 — 18:00 / Design Studio

sunday 09.01.200509:30 — 13:00 / Expeditions (gathering at the Academy building)13:00 — 18:00 / Design Studio Academy building closes at 18.00

19:00 / Tutors diner

monday 10.01.200518:00 — 22:30 / Design Studio22:30 — 23:00 / Cleaning up + drinks Academy building closes at 23.00

tuesday 11.01.200508:00 — 18:00 / Excursion ‘Holland Tour’ for the foreign guests (gathering at the Academy building)18:00 — 19:30 / Design Studio19:30 — 22:30 / Studio presentation and discussion with visiting critics22:30 — 23:00 / Cleaning up + drinks Academy building closes at 23.00

wednesday 12.01.200518:00 — 22:30 / Design Studio22:30 — 23:00 / Cleaning up + drinks Academy building closes at 23.00

thursday 13.01.200518:00 — 22:30 / Design Studio22:30 — 23:00 / Cleaning up + drinks Academy building closes at 23.00

friday 14.01.200509:00 — 12:00 / Design Studio and preparations on the presentations13:00 — 14:00 / Exhibition in the Academy building14:00 — 14:45 / Presentation Studio 1 ‘Antipodes. Measuring the world’ 14:45 — 15:30 / Presentation Studio 2 ‘Features of substitutive urbanity: insight and outlook’ 15:30 — 16:15 / Presentation Studio 3 ‘Urban Scores’ 16:15 — 17:00 / Presentation Studio 4 ‘Slowspeedcity’18:00 — 18:30 / Cleaning up18:30 — 19:30 / Drinks

19:30 — Farewell Dinner Academy building closes at 19.30

Visiting critics: Koen van Synghel Dirk Jaspaert

Programme /

saturday 08.01.200510:00 — 18:00 / Design Studio

sunday 09.01.200509:30 — 13:00 / Expeditions (gathering atthe Academy building)13:00 — 18:00 / Design Studio Academybuilding closes at 18.00

19:00 /Tutor’s diner

monday 10.01.200518:00 — 22:30 / Design Studio22:30 — 23:00 / Cleaning up + drinksAcademy building closes at 23.00

tuesday 11.01.200508:00 — 18:00 / Excursion ‘Holland Tour’for the foreign guests (gathering at theAcademy building)18:00 — 19:30 / Design Studio19:30 — 22:30 / Studio presentation anddiscussion with visiting critics22:30 — 23:00 / Cleaning up + drinks

monday 10.01.200518:00 — 22:30 / Design Studio22:30 — 23:00 / Cleaning up +drinks Academy building closesat 23.00

tuesday 11.01.200508:00 — 18:00 / Excursion‘Holland Tour’ for the foreignguests (gathering at theAcademy building)18:00 — 19:30 / Design Studio19:30 — 22:30 / Studio presenta-tion and discussion with visi-ting critics 22:30 — 23:00 /

14

Luc Deleu, ‘Outline concept for urban development of the European Quarter in Brussels’, 06.08.2002

Orbanism /

Orbanism /In 1980, while in all probability still under the influence of Buckminster Fuller’s poet-ic description of our planet as ‘spaceship earth’ and deeply affected by the first pho-tos of our globe, I launched the notion of Orbanism into my work. Planet earth is aspaceship, mother and home to us all. From its inception, Orbanism advanced theintegration of (urban) development design practices on a planetary scale. It attempt-ed to regard the earth as the spatial and social context of cities and architecture. Thegoal of Orbanism is the balanced organisation of earthspace.

Orbanism seeks to encourage a metaphysical and material ordering of the world forthe benefit of all. Orbanism seeks to effectuate a dynamic balance between orderand chaos, between architecture and life, between culture and neo-culture.Orbanism is as environmentally aware as practicable. Because we must organiseconstruction in an ever-diminishing natural space (a global system, incidentally),ecology is the primary structuring principle in humankind’s ever-expanding Orbani-sation, or appropriation of nature, by humankind.

Orbanism incorporates solidarity and proper proportions; it is ecocentric, balancedand unique.

The more highly commended globalisation is, the more a generalised view of ourplanet becomes preferable – even indispensable. We are evolving (at least we hopeso) towards a world populated by globally oriented people and globalised institutions– institutions subject to global rights and duties, and with global responsibilities.

15 VIP City / TheNautical Mile

Scale model of VIP City. A nautical mile is equal to one minute of latitude, or 1851 metres. At a scale of 1:100 the model is 18.51 metres long.

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17

CAPITA SELECTA october - december 2004

28 OctoberLuc Deleu

T.O.P.office work in progress

4 NovemberLuc Deleu

From Ville Contemporaineto Chandigarh

11 NovemberSteven Van den BerghIsabelle De Smet

The Unadepted city, a formal review

18 NovemberHans Theys

Work & World of Panamarenko

25 NovemberLieven De Cauter

Entropic empire

2 DecemberFilip De Boeck Koen Van Synghel

Kinshasa,The imaginary city

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9 DecemberNel Janssens

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"La laideur a ceci de supérieur à la beauté, c'est qu'elle dure"(Serge Gainsbourg)

Luc Deleu is architect and urban designer. For theyear 2004-2005 he will be the Artist in Residence of the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam.

This will take place in the context of the readershipArtpractice and Artistic Development, an initiative by the Amsterdam School of the Arts.

Luc Deleu will start with a series of lectures called 'Belgian Stuff'. These lectures will inspire the programm for the winterterm in january 2005.

BelgianStuff

unadepteddef.. 14-10-2004 14:00 Pagina 1

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Defragmentation /

Defragmentation /It is an interesting characteristic of the image of the large scale that it has an auto-nomous identity. Seen from close by, the beach is an unstable jumble of sand, shells,rocks and plants. Viewed from the sea however, the beach offers a beautifully stableand coherent aspect. In the same way, the large scale of the dynamic city is – despiteits changing facets and temporary, fickle and unstable programme – an image thatdeserves artistic urban development.

All human-made structures fragment while integrating.The world globalises, regionalises and atomises simultaneously. The balanced urbanspace manifests fragmentation and defragmentation. So cities could also do withsome regular defragmentation. In addition to fragmentation, defragmentation mustalso form part of artistic urban development strategies and means.

The most obvious and comparatively easy approach is to design from large to small,or ‘top-down’. To work from small to large, or ‘bottom-up’, on the other hand, is a farless self-evident option: it is very complex, difficult and confusing. Just look at theEuropean Union (EU). Nonetheless, both have their own significance, their advanta-ges and disadvantages when it comes to urban design. The former method structu-ralises and the latter destructuralises. The first creates unity and rest, and thesecond creates diversity and commotion. One tends towards elitism, the othertowards popularism.

The bottom-up method guarantees a differentiated result because it takes accountof particularities, exceptions and individuality, and it is an important safeguard ofindividual freedom.

Luc Deleu, ‘Outline concept for urban development of the European Quarter in Brussels’, 06.08.2002

20The orbanismworkship

>>Rem Koolhaas: ‘Maybe architecture doesn’t have to be stupidafter all. Liberated from the obligation to construct, it can beco-me a way of thinking about anything – a discipline that repre-sents relationships, proportions, connections and effects: thediagram of everything.’

Nowadays, public space and public transport – especiallyEuropean cities – are particularly inefficient. Urban peripheriesare out of control and the distribution of urban equipment ishighly disturbed. Current town planning regulations are evident-ly becoming less and less suitable for creating palatable para-digms or meaningful images.

Bearing these facts in mind, I think there is no better aim for theworkshop than to search for new tools to manage the form of theintention. In four studios, participants will try to develop an openpreview of cities’ futures, to look for new media for proposingtown planning rules, and so on.

The networking of public space – public transport, urban equip-ment, transferiums (car parks) and housing – could be one of theguidelines in the search for urban paradigms. The creation oftight connections between different nodes could be another.

Results can be developed in one respect from a theoretical base,in the other from a specific site.

The core objective for all operations is improvement on a plan-etary scale.

Luc Deleu

The orbanism workship /

Luc Deleu, ‘Outline concept for urban development of the European Quarter in Brussels’, 6 August 2002

The need for an architectural concept for the EU became clearly evident during dis-cussions about its future in Dec 2001. A group of intellectuals initiated a debate onhow the EU could be shaped. The main topics of this discussion were: Brussels as thecapital of the EU, and how Europe as a political and economic entity could achieve acoherent and unique identity. Some conclusions of the debate were formulated in adocument prepared by AMO (Koolhaas, OMA). In this document the role of architec-ture was reduced to a mere marketing strategy.

After the politicians, economists, lawyers and bankers, it is now time for architectsto consider how the EU space could be shaped.

Borders shift, multiply or disappear, distances decrease, people move through theEuropean space for work, vacation, retirement and so on: all these elements changeour perception of our environment. Meanwhile, new architectural questions and pro-grammes emerge: buildings for the European Parliament and for the Council ofMinisters have been constructed; eleven new member countries have recently joinedthe EU; and the European constitution – although agreed upon in principle – is stillbeing debated at national level.

The EU is founded on the notion of total democracy: each member country decidesto participate and can leave at any moment. Democracy is expressed in the publicrealm, and that is why European space and architecture should be based on newdefinitions of public spaces and reclassifications of the relationships between thepublic and the private, and their representations. This could be the starting point forthe development of a new urban paradigm. This workshop wants to define buildingsand public spaces that respond to a new notion of the public, and reconfigure therelationship between public and private. We ask ourselves:/ What kind of architectural definitions can we develop for new programmes? / Can we develop a new type of public space that can, of itself, construct theEuropean territory? / Can we develop an architectural image that organises the relationship betweenpublic and private on a European scale?

Using an atlas, we ask you to select at random one meridian and one parallel. Movealong them, measuring elements, quantities and conditions. Concentrate in particularon changes and constants, similarities and differences. Concentrate on the twopoints of intersection, the antipodes. You are also requested to propose a conceptu-al project for the meridian and parallel you chose. We ask you to represent the analy-ses with maps, charts and diagrams (take into consideration the interpretive repre-sentations usually found in atlases).

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References R. Koolhaas, S. Boeri, S. Kwinter, N. Tazi, Mutations, ACTAR 2000. Rem Koolhaas, OMA/AMO, Contents, Taschen 2004. S. Boeri, Mediterranean Migrations, Kassel 2002 Documenta, small catalogue. M.T. Litschauer, Landscapes, Triton 2002 Atlas.

Workship Studio 1 /Antipodes: measuring the world / Lieven de Boeck Studio

22VIP City radically separates dwellings from other urban apparatus. The project fore-sees housing for 38.000 people in an open field covering more than 100 km2 and par-celled out in 15.140 lots. A 7.5 km long megastructure bundling infrastructure andurban facilities cuts through the gloomy carpet.

As Dominique Rouillard argues about No Stop City by Archizoom, 1) VIP City doesnot break with contemporary conditions but envisions their extrapolation. It intensi-fies events and accelerates current propensities. In forecasting a possible future, itprovides for a retrospective view on the present, thus allowing a critical examina-tion. It reverses utopia in the sense that it substitutes an imagined finality or a story-bound project with the projection of an image. VIP City is the radicalised image of thereality that lies hidden behind the shroud of the everyday.

Accordingly, the megastructure shows what remains of the city – and perhaps ofarchitecture – when dwelling has liberated itself from urban imperatives. It featuressubstitutive urbanity in a structure and an image. However, while the ribbon of VIPCity seems to celebrate communal standards throughout its accommodating struc-ture, the question remains: to what extent is it able to actualise ‘democratic space’?

We propose the acceptance of the drastic separation as a given. We will explore thesurrogate city as a reality. The primary focus for our investigation will be the issue ofdemocratic space.What community is there for architecture to embrace and represent when all thecity’s users are visitors or consumers? And what is the position, the accountabilityand the capability of architecture under these circumstances?

Participants will work individually or in elective associations.They will elaborate on clusters of amenities taken from or inspired by Deleu’s VIPCity project.Plan and section will be used as tools to investigate relationships, proportions, con-nections and effects, to create the diagram of everything.Ultimately the outcome of the investigation will be cast in a compelling image andstatement.As a collective work, the results of the process will be formatted as an exhibition andas a booklet.

Workship Studio 2 /Features of substitutive urbanity: insight and outlook / Studio Guy Châtel &Kersten Geers

1) La Ville, Art et Architecture en Europe 1870–1993, p.432, Paris, 1994

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The Unadapted City (De Onaangepaste Stad) is a project by Luc Deleu & T.O.P. Officewhich began as a research project involving categorising all the amenities that cre-ate the urban fabric according to a common criterion: the number of inhabitants. Theresult of the project, with the collective name of The Unadapted City ‘95, was a totalof ten tableaux that visualise the relation between amenities and inhabitants. Eachtableau, with its own colour range and graphics, represents one of the ten classifica-tions of amenities described in the list below.

01) Bars, Restaurants and Hotel02) Social Facilities03) Medical Facilities04) Distribution05) Sports, Recreation and Special Facilities06) Education07) Universal and Commercial Services08) Culture and Entertainment09) Worship10) Arts and Crafts

Whether or not the groups and the figures used are exact is not the issue. Becausethey are based on various existing cities, the result is a collection of spaces – largeand small, high and low, designed and undesigned, pleasant and unpleasant, adaptedand unadapted – into which urban life can fit.

Since 1997, T.O.P. Office has sought to develop a city for 192.000 inhabitants, basedon the The Unadapted City ‘95 project. The entire focus of this project (The UnadaptedCity ‘98 – The Unadapted City XXI) is on the backbone of amenities.

It is an investigation into how form and master plans can be generated by figures.It is an investigation into how numbers can be managed to create form.It is about creating tools for recording urban life (in a team context and in a shorttime).It has something to do with linearity, concentricity and clustering.The goal is clear; its method of achievement as yet undefined.

Our workshop is about urban scores: how urbanism and the formulation of urbanistrules could (more) closely resemble the writing of scores – with particular attentionpaid to the formal aspect.The starting point is the figures provided by The Unadapted City ‘95. Given the limi-ted length of the workshop, they are not open to discussion, but since they are una-dapted, they are very open to interpretation. In fact, they are more about form, scaleand frequency then they are about function!The ten tableaux provide the numbers constituting the given data.

A possible strategy might be to search for an identity for each part within an overallidea. The studio will try to write (draw, model) ten formal scores for a chosen numberof inhabitants (1.000.000?).

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<< Work from Workship 3

Workship Studio 3 /Urban Scores / Studio Steven Van Den Bergh & Isabelle De Smet

28Currently, the length of the average journey on the national road network is less thanten kilometres. Most travel is local. There is, then, a strong argument for making morespace available on the road network for local traffic, and less for large-scale infra-structure for through traffic. This would mean lower speeds, more slip roads andjunctions and an improved local road network. The number of opportunities for inter-action between driver and surroundings would increase significantly as a result. Thetotal road network would require less space and the large-scale no man’s land thatcharacterises contemparary motorways and their surroundings would acquire humanproportions.

In Slowspeed City, hard shoulders are walkways, verges are parks. Housing replacesacoustic fencing. Dedicated rush-hour lanes are substituted with bicycle paths. Theintensity of use is sufficient reason to intentionally design motorways in urban areasas public space with a choreography of movements. Inversely, the pedestrian couldalso delight in traffic dynamics: as yet there are no motorway promenades where theycan parade themselves. There is no place or space for the citizen to make him or her-self visible to passing cars. Are those few Romeos who take up their white paint-brush and make their feelings for their Julias known to the world on the viaduct pil-lars the only ones who understand that life is, for a large part, played out on theroads?

Slowspeed City takes a specific position within the context of city and infrastruc-ture. It is a quest for an attractive metropolitan fabric on the scale of the Randstad.By downgrading the motorway network and tying it in with regional and urban net-works, a new metropolitan road network would be created for the Randstad. 1) Indoing this, it would provide an unexpected boost for urban renewal, both in residen-tial areas and on company premises. The ultimate goal is to increase the level ofinteraction between urban and regional infrastructures, to develop new types ofcities and to add new types of public space to the Dutch urban landscape.

Using the prototype, which is 40 kilometres in length and six lanes in width, the vari-ous components of Slowspeed City will be surveyed and named. In addition, smallgroups will pay particular attention to the most important functions: service clusters(such as hospitals and stadiums), shops, work areas, recreational areas and residen-tial areas. The main focus will be the spatial and functional relationship betweenthese functions, and junctions, slip roads and main roads as public space.

The various spatial components of the prototype will be merged into one coherentdesign: a prototype of Slowspeed City. Elements crucial to the prototype will be deve-loped using scale models, cross-section and collage. The prototype will be applied toan existing situation in the Randstad. Simultaneously, at the level of scale of theRandstad, an argumentation will be composed about the impact of Slowspeed City.The most important issue in this context is how this superstructure can contribute toa new step in the development of the Randstad metropolis.

Workship Studio 4 /Slowspeed City / Studio Wouter Veldhuis with Rowin Petersma and René van der Velde

1) Dutch conurbation of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht

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Luc Deleu / ‘Outline concept for urban development of the European Quarter in Brussels’ (06.08.2002)

A contemporary theory of public space /

A contemporarytheory of public

space /Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, globalisation and deregulation are reflected in justabout everything, and thus also in urban development and in the city. Public admini-strations must increasingly share power with private institutions, whereby publicspace becomes increasingly privatised. This being so, are the forces of urban devel-opment democratically controlled in our nominally democratic Western world? Can they even be controlled at all? Can public space still be formed democraticallyand do people still believe that it can come into being democratically. Although, atpresent, a limited architectural vision holds sway that rejects this social and politicaldebate, might it be possible to conceive of a new, twenty-first century approach topressurised communal spaces (among other things)? This could provide a new ethi-cal paradigm to those private institutions that are increasingly encroaching on publicspace and which will thereby, perhaps unintentionally, acquire a public responsibility.

It would be preferable if democracy was to permanently exercise its authority withregard to the design and organisation of open space. The design and the protectionof public space – the forum – should (in the interests of the individual, of the electo-rate and of security) be under the auspices of a civil administration, unconditionally,and must be considered an urgent priority of the art of urban development.

Now that the world is moving so quickly, a new and freer definition of universal spaceis emerging. The communal space in general (our environment) calls for a much finerdifferentiation and simultaneously acquires a planetary scope of vision. There are, toname a few scales, global communal spaces (oceans, for example), national andregional spaces (landscapes, for example) and urban spaces (plazas, streets and alley-ways). Our public spaces might be prohibited, inaccessible, partially accessible orentirely inaccessible.They might be easy or difficult to reach,or sometimes concealedand dangerous or safe, attractive or repulsive and so on and so on, but each in theirown way deserves the specific attention of the politically authorised body. It is clearthat a fundamental investigation, involving the naming and cataloguing of types ofspace according to (planetary)scale would lift environmental planning to a new level.

The urban scale covers a whole range of public and private spaces. The urban com-munal space begins at the surrounding landscape (usually a neo-landscape), a smallor large piece of which is, in certain cases, a fully integrated component of the city:a view of the sea, a river, a panorama or the horizon, for example. >>

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A contemporary theory of public space

The negative city – the city landscape, the form and the spatial quality of the city orthe urban void – is universally evident. Within this, the public space – the forum – is ahighly specific part that in its turn also contains various spaces, each of which maybe outdoors, covered or indoors. Furthermore, the city consists of an amalgam ofcommunal spaces such as free spaces or residual spaces, infrastructural spaces,spaces for road traffic, for cyclists and pedestrians (together or separated) as well aspseudo-public, semi-public and semi-private spaces. I believe the interconnected-ness of all these spaces, and their relation to the private world, would be an interes-ting programme for artistic urban development.

Luc Deleu, ‘Outline concept for urban development of the European Quarter in Brussels’, 06.08.2002

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with thanks to

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of studies, guest tutors and students

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The AIR programme at the Amsterdam School of the Arts is an

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editors

Marijke Hoogenboom

Pol Eggermont

Nienke Rooijakkers

translation and English copy-editing

Steve Green (unless otherwise stated)

photographers

Thomas Lenden p.15

Luc Deleu p.7

Wim Riemens p.8

Miguel Baggaló p.10

SYB’LS.pictures p.12

Jan Kempenaars p.16

Steven Van Den Bergh p.32

graphic design

Esther Noyons

printing

SSP Amsterdam

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3231 reflections onarchitecture / 02Orbanism / 14Defragmentation / 19The OrbanismWorkship / 20A contemporarytheory of publicspace / 29