Storytelling This past year numerous dramas have competed for our attention: sub-prime mortgages, banking meltdown, bailout, stimulus, pandemic, bankruptcy. The all-consuming effort to follow these events seldom leaves a moment to contemplate the explanations themselves. What is the stated dilemma, context or motive for any one of these problems? And most importantly, how does a problem’s formulation determine its proposed solution? Volume 20 is dedicated to the art of storytelling. It presents the storylines of current events and architecture to show that while the truth is important, so is the ability of fiction to elevate fact. Perhaps the best way to understand our era is through narratives that distort, pervert and animate reality?
Table of Contents Storytelling Jeffrey Inaba Make Believe C-Lab Sleeping Beauty: The Rewrite Character Development All’s Fair in Love and War Hush Little Baby, Don’t You Cry Volume Asks PS 123 What They Read This Summer Tokyo Asleep Neil Denari Crises of Complexity Joseph Tainter Crisis in Crisis: Biosphere 2’s Contested Ecologies
2 4 8 12 14 18 21 22 26
Janette Kim / Erik Carver The Endless Vacation Deane Simpson Symbolic Remainder Tom McCarthy Design for the Apocalypse John McMorrough There’s No Place to Roam C-Lab The Promised Land Robert McLeman Imaginario Constructivo Smiljan Radic (Arch)/ Gonzalo Puga (Photo) Foreclosed Homes Geoff Manaugh Warren County Leaflet Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Nato Thompson
29 34 38 40 43 54 56 58 65 81
If You Go There Will Be Trouble, An’ If You Stay There Will Be Double Andrew Oswald Yes Stories Roger Dean
82 85
Age of Reason Catherine Hardwicke Facing the Crisis C-Lab Staremaster Dave McKean The Technostrich / The Technology Narrative C-Lab Liquid Pro Quo Christopher A. Scott Waterkeepers Stephanie von Stein China’s Sustainability: Asynchronous Revolutions
92 95 96 100 110 112
Jiang Jun
114 118 120 125 126 133 145 148 150 160 160
Wish Upon a Star C-Lab Welfairy Tales Bjarke Ingels Waves of Mermaid Mutilation C-Lab International Style Heritage Lucia Allais Alibi: Isle de San Cristobal de Groüt C-Lab News Report Nicholas Lemann Fact and Friction Jay Rosen Letters From the Editor Lewis H. Lapham Colophon Corrections/Additions
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Volume 20
Volume 20
Jeffrey Inaba
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Make Believe
Smart Grid (IBM Version)
There are many ways to make sense of events beyond our immediate control. The most convincing explanations have a clear narrative arc. Applicable to children’s stories as well as real world circumstances ranging from policy debates to technological projections, Gustav Freytag’s familiar narrative form structures a storyline from a stated problem’s point of origin to its compounding factors and ultimate resolution. This organization, often retroactive, allows for a believable argument to be made about contentious issues, disputed causal effects and untested solutions. Only then can these be debated, supplemented or taken apart. In this sense a public narrative should not be received as Climax definitive, but as the starting point of the story.
Smart grids digitally optimize performance and give consumers control over their energy usage. They also incorporate renewable ener- gies.
em syst r grid gned fo e Th desi tly n s a a c w and nifi a sig ller demt take a o n m he s did nt t and accou nt or e o int ironm s. env sumer con
People enjoy owning their own home, yard and car. They feel their neighborhoods are more safe and are better for raising children.
Status Quo After World War II, new communities and mortgages allow people to move to the suburbs.
Description of New Status Quo
ht le op ug Pe r tho re e e ty v ne ut wh trici o elec . b a ir om the me fr ca
Exposition/Context Initial Problem
Complications
increasing amount of energy, resources and time to maintain as the result of a non-efficient spatial distribution. An awareness develops that alternatives are needed.
Today’s energy loads are processed through an inefficient system that loses half of the energy before it even reaches a single appliance.
‘The Planners, designers and investment residents are exploring other now being configurations. shaped in Washington could yield almost People a quarter beginof to adopt more a million jobs and sustainable practices, such as a enable new forms of having a shorter commute. industrial innovation.’
The suburbs grow rapidly, along with the highway system. People use cars more and more to travel greater distances as communities become less compact.
People live crowded into cities.
* Based on Freytag’s classic pyramidal structure of narrative development
Status Quo
Smart grid pro id to jects are sa and save le p eo p p . hel k demand reduce pea
Climate change is furthered by using fossil fuels to meet high energy demands. People’s lifestyles require an unsustainable and
A notion of community disolves further (as well as many urban centers) as development expands at a low density.
Urbanism: Density
Dénouement
Crisis
It was successful in providing energy to homes, businesses and cities. The grid became an emblem of progress.
le re op o Pe w m ir o e kn t th on and . u yc n n o ab erg pt io ctio en um odu s pr
Density Goldilocks And The Three Bears
She screams and runs out of the house.
They discover their food gone, chair broken and beds slept in.
Goldilocks is afraid of bears.
She tastes their porridge, sits in their chairs and tries all their beds, finally falling asleep in Baby Bear’s.
Goldilocks comes across the Three Bears’ home while they are out.
People’s lifestyles require an increasing amount of energy, resources and time to maintain as the result of an inefficient spatial distribution.
Goldilocks is discovered in Baby Bear’s bed and she wakes up.
Notions of community and urban center further dissolve as development expands at low densities.
She never goes back.
After WWII, new communities and mortgages allow people to move to the suburbs.
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The Three Bears and Goldilocks have no interaction.
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The Bears return home.
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People enjoy having a home, a frontyard and a car. They feel their neighborhoods are safe for raising children.
People live crowded into cities.
The suburbs grow rapidly, along with the highway system. People use cars more and more to travel greater distances as communities become less compact.
An awareness develops that alternatives are needed.
People begin to adopt more sustainable practices, such as having a shorter commute.
Planners, designers and residents explore other configurations.
Local Food
Stem Cell Research
Community gardens and CSAs provide a way for people to be more directly involved with what they eat.
A ‘local food’ movement is proposed, which negates the need to ship foods.
They like having an array of choices at the supermarket.
Due to the resource intensity of raising animals, it appears that environmental impact is more closely correlated with what is eaten than where it comes from.
It becomes difficult to balance competing priorities.
Improvements in shipping and trans portation allow for exotic foods to be readily available at low prices.
US President Bush vetoes Congress’ overturn of the ban on stem cell funding in 2006, citing moral reasons. US federal funding is only permitted for research on approved embryonic lines – most of which do not contain viable stem cells. All are contaminated with animal products and don’t carry the genetic defects necessary to model inherited human diseases.
People are confused and feel guilty about what they eat.
Scientists are hopeful that stem cells will provide significant medical breakthroughs.
Research stem cells come from discarded blastocysts. The cells are still undifferentiated, giving them unique scientific value. Stem cell research is promising but raises moral and ethical issues.
Raw food is often shipped great distances, which adds significant carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. People give little thought to where their food comes from.
President Obama overturns the US ban on funding for stem cell research in 2009.
Therapeutic cloning is often confused with reproductive cloning.
The Obama administration ‘vigorously’ supports therapeutic stem cell research.
There are a number of uncured diseases.
Twitter
An Inconvenient Truth
People become compulsive about checking and generating messages, unable to prioritize other activities.
‘There is no doubt candoubt solvewethis ‘Therewe is no can solve this problem. have obligation a problem. In fact,In wefact, havewe a moral moral obligation so.daily Theroutine to do so. Small changestotodo your can add up to big differences in helping time to come together to solve this to stop global warming. The time to come problem is now – TAKE ACTION.’
People completely stop having spatially synchronized interaction and are unable to form complex, sustained thought.
together to solve this problem is now – TAKE ACTION.’
‘If the warming continues, we can expect catastrophic consequences.’
Wait, that never happened. ‘However, by burning fossil fuels and clearing forests we have increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and temperatures are rising.’
Twitter everywhere. People love Twitter anyways and use it for a variety of communication needs.
Action is taken. Like this movie, website, book and lecture tour by Al Gore.
Celebrities love Twitter too.
Twitter only allows 140 characters per tweet.
‘This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable.’
The ease of use (coupled with mobile interface devices) allows Twitter to be used day or night.
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Blogs / Email.
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‘Gases warm the surface of the planet by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere.’
People are more aware of their habits.
‘Glaciers are melting, plants and animals are being forced from their habitat and the number of severe storms and droughts is increasing.’
Through education people will collectively become more responsible for their carbon footprint.
http://www.climatecrisis.net/thescience/ An Inconvenient Truth Official Site.
Sleeping Beauty: The Rewrite Giambattista Basile, Charles Perrault, The Brothers Grimm and Walt Disney
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A King and Queen desire a child but cannot bear one. A crab appears and tells the Queen she will soon have a child. The King and Queen finally have a daughter. The King summons astrologers to predict his daughter’s future. The King summons all the fairies in celebration. Each one is to bestow a gift upon the Princess. An old fairy was forgotten and not invited. Bitter, she arrives and curses the Princess rather than blessing her with beauty or grace. It is prophe sized that she will be killed when she is fifteen years old by flax pricking her finger. The other fairies cannot reverse the evil fairy’s curse, but modify it. When the Princess pricks her finger she will instead fall asleep for one hundred years and will be awakened by a Prince true love. Fairies take the baby to live in safety in the woods. When she is sixteen, she accidentally meets her bethrothed Prince, forcing the fairies to reveal her identity and take her back to the palace. The King bans the offending object – flax – from his Kingdom.
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Simple and concise, with enough fantastic detail to engage even young readers, fairy tales have always been ideal vehicles for conveying the moral values of a given era. And just as history is constantly rewritten, so too will the fairy tale – all the better to convey current ethical directives. While today’s stories serve a well-loved purpose, their earlier versions have a potency that is worth investigation. C-Lab looks to see what skeletons Sleeping Beauty has hiding in her closet.
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Despite this, the Princess comes upon an old woman spinning. Upset that her plan has been foiled, the evil fairy has her pet raven locate the Princess in the forest. Once at the palace, she lures her to a spinning wheel. She pricks her finger and dies falls asleep for one hundred years. The King, in his sorrow, lays her out in the palace and leaves forever. A good fairy hears of the event, and returns to the palace. She puts everything to sleep, so that it would be ready for the Princess. Immediately a dense wood thorn bush grew all around the palace so that the Princess was concealed safely. A second King discovers the abandoned palace while hunting. Rumors abound that the castle is haunted, but a curious Prince discovers that a beautiful Princess slept inside. Rumors abound that a beautiful Princess slept inside. Many Princes try to reach her, but all get caught on the thorns and die a miserable death. One Prince cannot stop thinking of the Princess and is determined to try. The Prince returns to the forest to find his love but is captured by the evil fairy. She takes him to her lair in the mountain so that he will grow old there and never kiss the Princess. The good fairies bring the Prince the Sword of Truth and the Shield of Virtue, which he uses to slay the evil fairy in the form of a fire-breathing dragon. He then makes his way to the palace and the sleeping Princess. He searches throughout passes easily through the weeds thorns and finds the Princess. He finds her irresistable, despite the fact that she doesn’t respond to him. He carries her to the bed and gathers the first fruits of love. He returns to his kingdom and forgets the incident. The Princess gives birth to twins nine months later. Fairies assist the Princess they lay the twins with her and one begins to suck her finger, dislodging the flax. The Prince kisses her and the Princess awakens, unaware of what has
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snakes, vipers, serpents and toads. The Queen and the children were to be thrown in at dawn. The last scream brings the King. He demands to know where his children are and learns that his wife had them killed and served to him. He becomes crazy with grief, and orders his wife and the secretary thrown into the fire. The cook, who was also to be burned, explains that he hid the children. The cook’s wife brings forth the children. Everyone is reunited and the King marries the Princess. The King suddenly returns home and at the sight of him, his mother suicides into the tub of serpents. The King is saddened by the loss of his mother, but comforted by his wife and children.
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happened to her and they fall in love, and have two children, get married and live happily ever after. The second King remembers the Princess and comes to visit. He is thrilled with his children and she is enamored of him. The King Prince returns to his Kingdom but cannot stop dreaming of the Princess and his children and tells his parents that he has been hunting. He visits the Princess but never dares tell his mother, the Queen, about the Princess and the children because she is an ogress. His wife mother, the Queen, is becoming suspicious. She threatens an attendant with death to learn the truth. When the King dies, the Prince declares his marriage and finally brings his family to the palace. Shortly, he is called to war. His mother the ogress is unable to control her craving for human flesh. She sends for the children in the name of the King. The Princess happily sends them. The Queen tells the cook to kill and prepare the children the little girl as dishes for her husband. The cook instead kills two lambs a lamb and hides the children little girl. The King finds the meal delicous, much to the Queen’s delight. The Queen then decides to eat the little boy but the cook deceives her again. The Queen is not satisfied, and orders the royal secretary to bring the cook to kill the Princess as well. The Princess, believing the King has called her, goes happily. The Princess, believing her children are dead, begs the cook to kill her too. He instead takes her to them where they are concealed and serves the Queen a young hind. The Queen confronts her husband’s mistress with a tirade of obsenity and insults and orders her thrown into a pit of fire. The Princess asks to remove her clothes first, screaming loudly with each piece. The Queen overhears the children playing and discovers that she has been deceived. She is furious and orders a tub to be filled with
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Character Development The flat personalities and predictable outcomes of today’s adaptations have diminished the narrative complexity of the fairy tale. Flashes of extreme violence, morally-questionable acts and deeply conflicted motivations are just some of the human dimensions that in the past have served to ground the fantasy. Indeed, familiar characters were not always as one-dimensional as they now seem, including some complicit victims of circumstance, conniving children, well-intentioned-but-negligent parents and a witch with a soft spot.
Although the Sea Witch had warned the Little Mermaid that she would die if she did not successfully seduce the Prince, she tells the Mermaid how to break the spell and return to the ocean alive when the Prince marries someone else – unfortunately the only way is to kill him.
Beauty’s cherished father gives her to the Beast in exchange for his life, a decision she wholeheartedly supports.
Although it saddens him, the woodcutter abandons Hansel and Gretel in the forest because his wife thought it would be best.
Having squandered his mother’s cow on a mere handful of ‘magic’ seeds, Jack, of Jack and the Beanstalk, decides to steal all of the ogre’s prized possesions to make up for his mistake.
Penta’s beloved brother, in Penta of the Chopped-off Hands, commands her to marry him when his own wife dies because her hands are so appealing to him. After removing the hands and taking some time apart, the siblings happily reconcile with no hard feelings.
Lonely and imprisioned in a tower by the witch, Rapunzel finally has a secret friend in the Prince – until she gets pregnant.
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Desperate to escape, Little Red Riding Hood resourcefully performs a striptease to outwit the wolf.
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A spoiled Goldilocks breaks into the Bears’ home, eats their food and breaks their furniture.
Hoping he’ll die, the Princess in The Frog King abuses and finally throws the frog, her future husband, against the wall in disgust.
All’s Fair in Love and War Once upon a time, fairy tales were primarily conceived of as adult entertainment. Whether metaphorically implicit or graphically explicit, they contained a wide range of allusions to desire, perversion and violence. Playing on two classic tropes of virtue – Prince Charming and the Damsel in Distress – Volume debunks some assumptions about the sterility and irrelevance of fairy tale content.
Cannibalism ‘You have gotten into a murderer’s den. Your bridegroom does H
live here, but he intends to chop you to pieces and kill you, and then he intends to cook you and eat you.’
omicidal maniac ‘The king drew his sword, and with his own hand, cut off his children’s heads. And he smeared the stone with their blood.’
Pedophilia ‘The Pied Piper sounded his fife in the streets, but this time it wasn’t
Adultery ‘He, who was a youth who had eaten bread from several bakers,
rats that came to him, but children: a great number of boys and girls, from their fourth year on. The swarm followed him, and he led them into a mountain, where he disappeared with them forever.’
soothed her with kind words, and swore an oath, and said that for the handsomest leman in the world he would not exchange what was his, and that she alone was engrafted in his heart.’
Rape ‘When the king beheld Sleeping Beauty, he called her, but she remained
Ravishment ‘It has been noted that when a young woman lost her ‘innocence’, Mutilation ‘‘Perhaps your name is Rumpelstiltskin?’ said the Queen.
unconscious. Crying aloud, he beheld her charms and felt his blood course hotly through his veins. He lifted her and carried her to a bed, where he gathered the first fruits of love.’
the popular expression of the time was ‘She’d seen the wolf.’’
Interspecial sex ‘And for all Little Red’s clothes – her bodice, her dress, her
‘The devil has told you that! The devil has told you that!’ cried the little man, and in his anger he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in, and then in rage he pulled at his left leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two.’
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petticoat, and her shoes and stockings – she asked where she should put them, and the wolf replied, ‘Throw them into the fire, my child. You won’t need them anymore.’’ ecrophilia ‘The prince saw the coffin upon the mountain, with the beautiful Snow White lying within it. He said to the dwarfs, ‘Let me have the coffin, I will give you whatever you want for it.’’
ncest ‘The king, having been bereft of his wife, and the Evil One entered his head and suggested that he should take his sister Penta to wife. Penta, desiring to know what had caused her brother such great longing, went to him. ‘Thine hand is the thing which above all others causeth me to faint with excessive desire.’ Upon hearing this, Penta promptly ordered her hands chopped off and delivered to the king.’
Carnage
Nail torture ‘The king said, ‘What does a person deserve who drags someone
‘Out of spite he killed all the women of that place whom he could get into his hands. Now after hundreds had been led thither by their ill-luck, only to lose their lives, there chanced a beautiful maiden named Porziella, and the king could not help falling in love with her. But he was so cruel and spiteful to women that, after a while, he would kill her like the rest.’
Enhancement ‘So he lifted up his hands to heaven and said, ‘Oh Allah, for my Volume 20
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first wish, I desire to greaten my yard and magnify it.’ Hardly had he spoken when his tool became as big as a column and he could neither sit nor stand nor move about nor even stir from his stead, and when he would have carnally known his wife, she fled before him from place to place. So he said to her, ‘Oh accursed woman, what is to be done? This is thy list, by reason of thy lust.’’
out of bed and throws him into the water?’ The old woman answered, ‘The scoundrel deserves nothing better than to be put into a barrel stuck full of nails, and then rolled downhill into the water.’ To this the king said, ‘You have pronounced your own sentence.’’
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eriatric sex ‘Reaching the king’s bedchamber, the old woman unrobed at once and went into bed. It was well for her that he was thus anointed and perfumed, so that he could not smell the stink of her mouth, and the vinegar of her arm-pits.’
Dirt fetish ‘But when she saw her lying in the bed, all defiled with mud
Decapitation ‘While the little boy was leaning over, the Evil One prompted
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as it was, and looking pleased and contented, she thanked God for this favor, that her son had at last found a spouse according to his liking.’
ndecent exposure ‘The lad, who had little beard and less discretion, hearing this flow of abuse, repaid the old woman with the same coin, saying, ‘Wilt thou not hold thy tongue devil’s grandam, bull’s-vomit, children-smotherer, turd-clout, farting-crone?’ The old woman waxed so wroth that, losing all patience, she raised the curtain of her clothes and showed a truly rural scene.’
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his mother, and crash! She slammed down the lid, and his head flew off.’
mputation ‘She could not get her big toe into it, for the shoe was too small. Then her mother gave her a knife and said, ‘Cut off your toe.’ Cinderella’s stepsister cut off her toe, forced her foot into the shoe, and went out to the prince. Then he looked at her foot and saw how the blood was running from it.’
Seduction ‘That evening, the door opened again, and a plump, white woman’s
Masochism ‘The king ordered his men to bind her to a cart and to take her
arm, with a most beautiful hand, reached in over the sleepers. The young man arose from his bed, drawn noiselessly out through the door. Three years passed and nothing had been heard of the missing man… he was dragged by the nymph down into the sea. In her pearly halls he forgot his wife, parents, and all that was loved by him.’
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to his castle…Further, each night she was required to go to her master’s bedroom and pull off his boots, whereupon he threw them at her head.’
triptease ‘Red Cap ate her grandmother’s flesh, drank her blood, and then performed a provocative striptease before climbing into bed with him.’
orture ‘She beat the child on the head, making the mouth bleed, as if he had just eaten raw pigeons.’
for him to come every day and be pulled up. They lived in joy and pleasure for a long time…The fairy did not discover what was happening until one day Rapunzel said to her, ‘Frau Gothel, tell me why it is that my clothes are all too tight. They no longer fit me.’’
murdered and chopped to pieces. In spite of this she proceeded to gather their parts together, placing them back in order: head, body, arms, and legs. Then, when nothing else was missing, the parts began to move. They joined together, and the two girls opened their eyes.’
Extramarital sex ‘She came to like the young king so well that she arranged
Reanimation ‘Her two dear sisters were lying there in the basin, miserably
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Exhibitionism ‘The woman, seeing that her finger was the finest and
ust murder ‘So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and the thorn touched her heart, and a fierce pang of pain shot through her. Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb. Then she gave one last burst of music…The red rose heard it, and it trembled all over with ecstasy.’
Self-destruction ‘She gazed on the sharp knife, and again turned her eyes
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toward the prince, who was calling his bride by her name in his sleep. Her fingers clutched the knife instinctively – but in the next moment she hurled the blade into the waves. It gleamed redly where it fell, as though drops of blood were gurgling up from the water. The Little Mermaid gave the prince one last dying look, and then jumped overboard, and felt her body dissolve into foam.’
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woman, but proud and overbearing, and she could not be surpassed in beauty by anyone. She had a magic looking glass, and she used to stand before it, and look in it, and say, ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of us all?’’
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mpalement ‘On the fire the Three Bears threw her, but burn her they couldn’t. In the water they put her, but drown there she wouldn’t. They finally seized her before all the wondering people, and chucked her aloft St. Paul’s churchyard steeple.’
Narcissism ‘After a year had gone by, the king took another wife, a beautiful
the smoothest, put it through the key-hole, and showed it to the king.’
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ororicide ‘The poor little one begged them, ‘O darling sisters, do not kill me! I haven’t got the saucer or the apple with me at all.’ ‘What a lie!’ say the bad ones. ‘You never would leave it behind.’ And one caught her by the hair, and the other swung the axe, and between them they killed the little pretty one, who was called Little Stupid because she was so good.’
Hush Little Baby, Don’t You Cry
‘Golden slumber kiss your eyes, Smiles await you when you rise. Sleep, pretty baby, Do not cry, And I’ll sing you a lullaby.’ ‘When the bough breaks, The cradle will fall, And down will come baby, Cradle and all…
If the fairy tale serves as a point of departure for tackling weighty issues, then it finds some relief in the lullaby. The lullaby, like the crisis speech, functions to reassure its audience. Both speech and song calm the nation/child during transitional states bridging restlessness and deep sleep. Albeit soothing in tone, they can be quite threatening in content, informing audiences of uncertainty or looming peril. Yet, the supine listener is comforted by the performative act itself, assured by its practiced rhythm and melody. Thus the lullaby and crisis speech restate tough issues while serving as a mechanism to process disturbing ideas in a state of relative peace.
In his public response to the Challenger space shuttle disaster President Reagan aimed his message at children: ‘I know it’s hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery… The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted / it belongs to the brave.’ His speech sought to reassure and encourage them to continue to dream and to take risks, despite occasionally unfortunate and even tragic outcomes.
‘Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird. When that mockingbird don’t sing, Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring…’
Anaphoric repetition was famously used by Churchill in his speech upon becoming Prime Minister in 1940: ‘We shall fight on the beaches / we shall fight on the landing grounds / we shall fight in the fields and in the streets / we shall fight in the hills / we shall never surrender.’ This brief excerpt demonstrates Churchill’s ability to pragmatically reassure and generate solidarity in the face of crisis.
Calm and sober in manner, Benazir Bhutto delivered an address after being the target of a 2007 assassination attempt. Her rhetoric was straightforward, but her statements were marked by a sense of urgency, addressing problems of national security and Islamic identity: ‘The people / who planned the assassination attempt on me / are not Muslims. No Muslim / can attack a woman. No Muslim / can attack innocent people.’ Bhutto committed herself to carry and allay the grief of Pakistani people in a time of sadness and uncertainty and to deliver a warning to those who would venture to lay blame on Islam.
‘Sleep, my babies, Sleep sweetly and the kind of sleep From which one wakes up. Sleep, my souls, my twins, happy babes, Be blessed in your sleep, and wake up, Blessed at dawn.’
In his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln appealed for resolution to the ravages of the Civil War: ‘Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.’ Like Alkmene’s lullaby from Theocritus’ Idyll, which intimates the perilous link between sleep and death, Lincoln prayed for deliverance from the war’s darkest hours.
‘I met Sleep, And he asked me what I was carrying on my back. I answered that I carried Nothing but the moon. And he said: ‘Rock her to sleep, rock her to sleep.’’
Throughout his campaign, Inaugural Address and State of the Union in 1991, George H.W. Bush repeatedly evoked ‘a thousand points of light / of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good’, praising individual contribution to society to validate the scaling back of the federal government. He adulated American ingenuity, just as many lullabies extol the virtues of the child. By employing the star metaphor, Bush also lent his message a sense of providential timelessness.
‘Sleep, baby, sleep, Your father tends the sheep. Your mother shakes the dreamland tree, And from it fall sweet dreams for thee. Sleep, baby, sleep, Sleep, baby, sleep.’
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In his January 2009 Inaugural Address President Obama invoked an American resilience reminiscent of the infamous itsy-bitsy spider. After summing up the indicators of crisis and describing the lessthan-desirable prospects for the country’s future, he rejects the possibility of failure with this bout of reassurance about American hope and determi nation: ‘Today / I say to you / that the challenges we face are real / they are serious / and they are many / They will not be met easily / or in a short span of time. But know this America / They will be met.’
‘Twinkle, twinkle Little star, How I wonder What you are!’
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‘The itsy-bitsy spider Climbed up the water spout…’
John F. Kennedy’s public address regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 stood up to the sheer threat of attack, claiming that ‘the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing.’ He promised not to wait blindly for disaster to strike before taking action and enacted a quarantine on the distribution of offensive weapons. Like the macabre undertone of Rock-A-Bye-Baby, the degree to which the President’s rhetoric is actually threatening or apotropaic isn’t altogether clear.
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One of the most horrifying examples of the placative capacity of the ‘crisis address’ is People’s Temple leader Jim Jones’ speech at Jonestown Guyana in 1978. Referred to simply as Dad, he urged his brainwashed followers to ‘put themselves to sleep’, interspersing threats of fabricated air raids within soporific reassurances eerily akin to the lullaby: ‘My opinion is that you be kind to children and be kind to seniors and take the potion like they used to take in ancient Greece, and step over quietly because we are not committing suicide; it’s a revolutionary act.’
… zzzzzzzz
Volume Asks PS 123 What They Read This Summer
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I read everything Lynne Cheney puts out. My favorites so far are We the People: The Story of Our Constitution and Sisters. – Angela
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alis I love Danielle Steel. Max Runs Away is definitely one of her best. – Andrew
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FDIC chair Sheila Blair’s Savings series was pretty good – though not cheap. – Sarah
At space camp I read Fuller’s Earth: A Day with Bucky and the Kids. – Lily
I’m not really into science but I liked Stephen Hawking’s George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt. – Mike
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The lullaby can also be cathartic for the orator, affording him/her an opportunity to release personal anxiety. Just as it is critical to find ways to cope with the challenges faced during conscious states, it is important for a leader to remember to take time to wind down and get a good night’s sleep. Much like the cosmic asterism (a composition of stars that may not actually be physically related although they appear so from Earth) the public will imbue the speech with meanings that, according to its own perceptions, begin to situate it within the nation’s overarching narrative.
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I’m not sure what career I want to pursue. Reading Sandra Day O’Connor’s Finding Susie helped. – Edward
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I don’t like to read, but I liked the graphics in Paul Rand’s Sparkle and Spin: A Book About Words. – Abby Volume 20
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In June, my grandma gave me Maria Shriver’s What’s Happening to Grandpa. Now I get it. – Timmy
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May EAST
It is said that a story is not worth telling if it can’t be told to a child. The children’s storybook thrives today because of its capacity to transmit a distilled message. It often describes emotionally difficult subjects, advanced theories or morally complicated issues with concision and clarity. A diverse group of intellectuals and public figures have found it a challenging but ultimately satisfying format for communicating culturally relevant material in a simple form. Not that writing children’s stories is all fun and games. You know what they say, kids can be the toughest critics.
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Not much I was really into. But I still haven’t read Condi Rice’s book. – Rob
I’ve been on a conservative kick lately. The most memorable? Laura Schlessinger’s Why Do You Love Me? – Patrick
Photo: Jasooon
Neil Denari
The O s t r i c h p o s e , head buried, feet firmly on the floor. Here the skirt and purse coordinate perfectly with the red velour seats. Photo: Hiromi
not dead
Sleeping families
More like bricks, this family makes a w a l l .
When asleep, Tokyoites invent a kind of or urban contortionism. The classic head-back, mouth-open pose: the easiest to perform.
Tokyo Asleep documents the e x p l o i t a t i o n o f p u b l i c s p a c e in Tokyo as a safe zone, and as a zone of literally un conscious expression. Here, the Harley cap and the spread legs demonstrate American tendencies, an imported sleeping style.
This group pose is called ‘the Domino’. One salaryman nods off, then all the others follow in succession.
Photo: Sam Graf
typically collaborate structurally. Here two sisters act a like an arch, while the mother has tuned them out long ago.
Photo: Jrim
Photo: Jjsan
Photo: Hiromy
Photo: Kristen Leep
This man is . He is s l e e p i n g . He may be extremely e x h a u s t e d from overwork. He may be drunk. He may be bored by too much information. One thing is for sure, however, he’s safe.
new yoga
Photo: Santa Spillberger
A typical sight in Tokyo: sleeping on the subway, with the uncanny ability to w a k e u p a t y o u r s t o p . This is the most common form of sleeping in the city.
Photo: Joey
Another classic, the ‘90 degree’. A closely guarded aluminum briefcase with a loose black book suggests that work is m o r e i m p o r t a n t than social life. Photo: Eat-Head
Photo: Alex Davies
Tokyo Asleep
Personal space
This is the ‘pole position’. Dressed for summer, it appears the sweltering T o k y o h e a t has overcome this man.
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The most elegant resting position, a slight angle of the neck. An image seemingly from a b y g o n e e r a of sleeping styles.
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Photo: Shirotsugu
is often infringed upon while sleeping. The lady performing the ‘90 degree’ will wake up and find herself much too close to the man performing the basic forward slump pose. She will fall asleep again and do it again.
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A rarely performed pose, this is the ‘Chiropractor’s Special’. A stiff spine and cracked neck allow for maximum extension across the train.
With public school so demanding in Tokyo, no wonder these girls are completely One has even shockingly loosened her tie.
wasted.
Photo: Persimonous
Photo: Anjeverena
Photo: Gaijan Seb
Like a Weegee photo, in these images the flash exposes all of the grittiness of u r b a n s l u m b e r .
Photo: Kaoru Miki
Photo: Jjsan Photo: Jjsan
Photo: Jjsan
One of a variety of ‘sunrise’ poses as he surely will be there when the S u n r i s e s .
Photo: Jjsan
Photo: Rueben Stanton
If you are out in Tokyo, at 12:15 am, a decision must be made: catch the l a s t t r a i n or keep going. (To keep going is to essentially put many more bad choices into play.) For this man, the mind is willing but the flesh is weak.
Police in Tokyo watch over sleeping Tokyoites, providing .
Photo: Jjsan
alarm on
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The clock says 11:36 pm, in time for the last train. At times, these images seem exactly like those captured at a homicide scene in other cities.
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Photo: Osaka Steve
There is n o p u b l i c s c o r n for sleeping in Tokyo. People just step around you.
Sleeping on a clean floor will allow this man to go to work in the morning without changing clothes. Note the SUICA card is ready to go.
This is the ‘it’s time for bed’ pose. Shoes off, hat off, glasses off, legs and feet together, cell with .
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When he wakes up, will this man be angrier at having had too much to drink, or at his wardrobe choice the previous day?
Photo: Tanakawho
Photo: Kappuru
safety
In the over-lit Ballardscape of Tokyo, in glare of urban infrastructure, when after a long night and the money has run out and not even a capsule hotel is a possibility, being asleep in Tokyo is a normal thing. Anywhere else, you’re probably in p r e t t y b a d s h a p e . First presented at the A/Cute Tokyo symposium held at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles / 05.04.09
Crises of Complexity
that you know you’ve passed it only in hindsight. So there is naturally controversy about how close it is. Some analysts think we have passed it already, but the effect is masked by the economic downturn. How badly peak oil affects us depends on how quickly we bring alternative energy production systems into place. If we delay too long, the party will be over. This is a real danger. Devel oping new energy sources is the most important thing we can do.
Joseph Tainter Interview by Kazys Varnelis
In The Collapse of Complex Societies, anthropologist Joseph Tainter concludes that civilizational collapse, as it took place in ancient societies such as the Chou Dynasty in China, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia and Ancient Rome is ‘a rapid, significant loss of an established level of sociopolitical complexity’. In a world shaken by a crisis created by the intersection of architecture and seemingly impossible-to-understand financial instruments, is it possible that collapse is in the cards for us?
KV What about technological innovation? The spread of digital technology, the Internet and mobile technology contributed to the economic recovery during the last fifteen years. There has been a bit of talk about innovating our way out of this recession too, for example through urban computing, green archi tecture, or investment in new kinds of infrastructure. Is such optimism in technological solutions warranted? Are there pitfalls? Are there other means by which we can avoid collapse? JT Short answer: It’s complicated. Long answer: tech
KV So as civilizations develop, you conclude, they differentiate – for example, by creating highly specialized social roles – and build greater and greater levels of organization that require higher investments of energy to maintain. Eventually the marginal returns on investment decline, and civilizations either figure
JT Diminishing returns to complexity are probably
inevitable, but collapse doesn’t necessarily follow. Collapses are actually . There are several ways to cope with diminishing returns to complexity. One is to find energy subsidies to pay for the process. That is what we have done with fossil fuels. And it is a big part of why a future crisis in fossil fuels is the most important thing we should be worrying about.
not that common
KV All but a few geologists suggest that a decline in fossil fuel extraction is inevitable. In 1998 Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah said ‘The oil boom is over and will not return… All of us must get used to a different lifestyle.’ Are we doomed? JT The critical point is when we reach peak oil. And every year after that there will be less oil available than the year before. One of the challenges with peak oil is
quickly become outdated
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of an anthropologist. In our field one of the oldest ques tions is how and why human societies evolved from being relatively simple and undifferentiated to being complex and highly differentiated. Complexity in the framework I use consists of two components: s t r u c t u r a l d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n a n d o r g a n i z a t i o n . Structural differentiation refers to the development of new categories of social roles, institutions, information, settlements, occupations, technologies, etc. Organization is how those are constrained so that they behave to form a system. If everyone does as they please, there is no organi zation and structural elements cannot form a system. Organization limits and channels behavior. So increasing complexity consists of increasing differentiation of structure combined with increasing organization. Collapse means that an established level of complexity is quickly lost.
out how to deal with that situation or collapse. You note that from the perspective of humans as a species and Hominidae as a family, complexity is quite unusual. Most of our existence has been in small settlements or nomadic groups that have relatively little differen tiation and low levels of complexity. Today we are living in the most complex society humans have ever built, yet we’ve avoided collapse thus far. Why is that?
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Kazys Varnelis Could you elaborate on what you mean by complexity and why it leads to collapse? Joseph Tainter I approach complexity from the perspective
nological-innovation-as-savior is part of our cosmology. It is a fundamental part of our beliefs, so frequently we don’t think about it rationally. Relying on technological innovation to find some solution is what I call a ‘faithbased’ approach to the future. There are two things about technological innovation that concern me. The first is that, like other endeavors, research grows complex and costly and can reach diminishing returns. This is covered in Collapse. The second problem is what is known as the Jevons Paradox. William Stanley Jevons, a nineteenth century British economist, pointed out that in the long run technological innovations aimed at using less of a resource actually lead to even more of it being used. His example was coal, but the principle applies across the board. As technological innovation leads to economy in using a resource, people respond to the lower cost by using even more. I conclude from this that technological innovations can offer only short-term advantages. They , then the next round of innovations may be harder to achieve.
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KV What role did complexity play in this recession? If the popular sentiment was – until quite recently – that all of our access to information turned financial decision-making into a very rational enterprise, this turned out to be utterly false. One of the key problems with the financial instruments such as tranches and collateralized debt obligations is that they were simply too difficult for most people, even the MBAs, to under stand. Is this recession an attempt by the system to get rid of toxic complexity?
JT Keep in mind that complexity emerges to solve
problems. In regard to the economic crisis, part of the problem was insufficient complexity. Remember that complexity includes both differentiation of structure and increase in organization. The financial business had over the last few years innovated new structures – new fiscal products such as derivatives. This was not met by an increase in organization, which would have involved regulation and government oversight. The problem emerged because the financial system (involving both the private and public sectors) . Now it appears that the government will add the organization, but of course too late in regard to the current crisis.
enough
was not complex
KV Modern architects believed that architecture would be able to solve society’s problems by creating more powerful systems of organization to get rid of malfunctioning, older ones. In the 1960s and 1970s all this changed. Architects began to find ways to value complexity and congestion. In his 1966 book Com plexity and Contradiction Robert Venturi all but defined the future trajectory of the field by suggesting that complexity should be embraced by architects living in a complex culture. In other words, he called for architects to abandon the modernist idea of forcing a simple building to hold a complex program. Instead Venturi advocated complex buildings that acknowl edged the contradictions inherent in highly organized life to the extent that they even anticipated their own failure. Meanwhile in his 1978 book Delirious New York Rem Koolhaas suggested that c o n g e s t i o n was what made cities vital. If these books animated much of architectural thought into the last decade, it strikes me that we are now in a time of over-complexity and over-congestion, a period in which complexity is getting away from us. Whether it’s trying to get a new subway built in New York, a high speed rail line built between San Francisco and Los Angeles, managing my insurance policy or just getting my universal remote to work, the levels of com plexity we’ve built appear to be spiraling out of control. And then of course there’s peak oil looming. It’s not clear to me what we do in such a situation. Do you have any thoughts on this? JT Congestion does not necessarily equal complexity.
Congestion may mean a lack of complexity, or insufficient organization. The irony of complexity is that it simplifies. That is, elaboration of structure and organization simplifies and channels behavior. Isn’t this what Le Corbusier was trying to accomplish? Le Corbusier wanted to design complex systems – systems that were highly structured
Crisis in Crisis: Biosphere 2’s Contested Ecologies
and organized. The trouble is that in the human realm you can’t design a truly complex system from the top-down. The Soviets tried that, as did the Brazilians with Brasilia.
Janette Kim and Erik Carver
‘[There is] a crisis of misalignment between the
KV You have suggested that collapse was actually p r e f e r a b l e for many of the people who experienced it.
biosphere and the technosphere. These seem to be out of balance; a catastrophe…Biosphere 2,
JT Western European peasants saw their taxes drop and
probably saw more of their children survive. But times became more violent and less certain. Perhaps one million people died around the time of the Mayan collapse. It’s a matter of perspective. For those who survive, life may be better. But usually it is not better for the elites.
instead, creates a balance between biosphere and technosphere.’ – John Allen1
KV How do we survive this period of diminishing returns and crisis? As a civilization, and as individuals? How do we live with crisis? JT I am often asked questions like this, and I am less
optimistic now than I once was. Certainly we need new energy sources or the future will be very unpleasant. But new energy creates its own problems, which in time we will have to address. We can foresee this with nuclear energy and its waste. Even so-called ‘green’ energy sources will be environmentally damaging. All of our adaptations are short term. They solve immediate problems but set the stage for future ones. Eric Sevareid once said, ‘The chief source of problems is solutions.’ He was right, but that does not mean that we forego solutions. I like to use an athletic metaphor to think about sustainability. It is pos sible to lose – to become unsustainable and collapse. But the converse does not hold. There is no point at which we have – becoming sustainable forever. Success consists of staying in the game.
Every symptom – thinning ozone, missing species, growing slums, dwindling oil supplies, acid rain, DDT, mushroom clouds – confirmed the diagnosis of i m p e n d i n g w o r l d d e s t r u c t i o n . For Biosphere 2, conceived in the swirl of post-Hiroshima environmentalism, the crisis of scarcity revealed a breach of spiritual and technological equilibrium. It prescribed nothing less than a new world wrapped in a three-acre bubble. Emerging from the Arizona desert in 1991, Biosphere 2 enclosed eight humans, 3,800 other species and seven biomes for two years. Its crisis response was to repudiate the arrogance of the past in favor of a monastic harmony between biosphere and technosphere. Today, a generation after Biosphere 2’s launch, Al Gore continues to check the planetary balance.2 But Biosphere 2 is in a new kind of crisis mode. The windows have opened. The m o n k e y s h a v e b e e n s e n t a w a y . New neighbors are crowding in. Never having achieved a seamless web of life, Biosphere 2 has become an engine of productive catastrophes, simulating global warming and assembling a fantastic menagerie of displaced specimens. Biosphere 2 initially mouthed conservationism’s mantras of restraint (consume less, switch bulbs, recycle, etc.). Yet in practice it embodies the Obama administration’s tactic ‘we never let a crisis go to waste’.3 Rather than ameliorate crises, it exploits them.
‘won’
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Equilibrium and Escape
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The Institute for Ecotechnics’ (IE) 1982 ‘Galactic Conference’4 in Les Marronniers, France brought Buckminster Fuller together with Phil Hawes, a Frank Lloyd Wright student who pitched a scheme for a spherical, space-traveling greenhouse. Fuller leapt on it: ‘If you guys don’t build a biosphere, who will?’5 Two years later, IE launched Space Biosphere Ventures (SBV). In 1969, Fuller famously called for managing the planet as if it were a .6 SBV reversed Fuller’s metaphor and proliferated its rationales.
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Biosphere 2 was pitched at various times as a spaceship prototype, a nuclear shelter and a new kind of ecosystem laboratory which would better model Biosphere 1 (Earth). To John Allen, co-founder of IE and president of SBV,7 these diverse missions worked towards a singular vision of ecology in tune with egalitarianism, global spiritual consciousness and the ‘delicate web of life’ on Biosphere 1. ‘Ecotechnics’ extrapolated Lewis Mumford’s concept of ‘Biotechnics’, in which designers act like gardeners cultivating an organic collective . Biospherians synthesized the theories of such IE con versants as ecologists James Lovelock and Eugene Odum to portray the planet as a cybernetic organism that self-regulates to achieve a ‘climax state’ of maturity, health and efficiency.8 The project took its name from Vladimir Vernadsky’s 1926 book The Biosphere, and its theory that the Earth has evolved from geosphere to biosphere, and is poised to enter noösphere, or sphere of thought, which will culminate in the of maximum global complexity and consciousness. Allen compared Biosphere 2 to a giant mandala of global unity and admitted that this syncretic vision would have been impossible without psychoactives.9 Like a trip, Biosphere 2 escaped, momentarily, from the atmosphere of earth.
Point
A hot-dog stand [was set up] not far from the Biosphere….Sometimes we lined up… and took turns peering through binoculars at fat people who were spurting ketchup on sausages and shoveling them into their mouths. We were culinary voyeurs.15 Few imagined that their Eden would be overrun by ants, roaches and morning glories. Five species of roaches were included to recycle dead leaves, but a stowaway species from Australia multiplied into the millions. The person on night watch had the chore of creeping into the kitchen to catch them unawares. Armed with a vacuum cleaner, he or she flipped on the light and vacuumed up as many of the roaches as possible before they all scuttled away.16 Captured insects were fed to the chickens, whose eggs in turn were fed to the humans. Biospherians were constantly exhausted from work. Starvation and the psycho logical pressures of isolation left little energy or desire for the ambitious roster of philos ophy lectures, meditation and theater initially designed to promote collectivism. The anticipated new civilization receded amidst outbursts by ‘master manipulator’ John Allen. During morning meditation, Allen bellowed, ‘You have no discipline, no interest in the Synergia!’17 The self-sustaining community became a m o n a s t e r y i n a h i g h - t e c h s h e l l : outfitted with the latest machinery, but without the economies of scale that would provide enough caffeine or alcohol to intoxicate.
Omega
Precarious Stability
Biosphere 2 was built as the world’s most airtight building, designed to leak no more than ten percent of its air per year (half the rate of the Space Shuttle). With 1970s advance ments in hermetic enclosure, it was sealed to tolerances only dreamed of by machine-age architects. Facade consultant Peter Pearce patented the ‘Multi-hinge’ node-less space frame, triangulated to minimize thermal flexing. Structural silicone was factory bonded to two layers of glass and plastic laminate.10 Sealant was applied in two colors (white and gray) to make redundant enclosure legible. A skin of welded stainless steel plates lined concrete slabs and foundations beneath two to six meters of soil. Neoprene spanned 158foot diameter steel drums housed in geodesic domes to create ‘lungs’ that expand and contract as Biosphere 2’s interior air heats and cools. H u n t i n g f o r l e a k s , installers waved incense under the glass and shot compressed air through ‘sniffer tunnels’ to verify welds. With Biosphere 1 sufficiently excluded, a state of equilibrium could then be engineered by instrumentalizing two distinct ecological theories: Darwinian competition and cybernetic regulation. Biosphere housed five ‘Wilderness’ biomes, an ‘Intensive Agriculture Biome’ and the humans’ ‘Habitat’, some species were grown in greenhouses and others trucked in as entire landscapes. Swaths of tropical rain forest were sampled from Venezuela, savanna from French Guyana, desert from Baja, marsh from the Everglades and the ocean from the Yucatan. At the suggestion of William S. Burroughs, bushbabies were introduced to supply companion primates.11 Biosphere 2 designers included ‘more species than the scientists thought might finally survive, so that if one species failed, another would thrive, finally reaching self-organized stability.’12 Unlike those of the prevailing reductionist science, this would be a new kind of lab: operating with a large number of variables to study systems at the scale of the earth’s ecosystems, while (in theory) being able to track ‘every atom in the Biosphere’s systems’.13 Ultimately, however, the . Bio sphere 2’s sixty-mile long, termite-proof, silicone seal was eventually penetrated by ants, creating an insect network that united its biomes with the Sonoran Desert outside. Due to unforeseen oxygen absorption by the raw concrete, oxygen plummeted from 20.9 per cent of the atmosphere to fourteen percent (equivalent to respiration above 10,000 feet) in six months.14 A measured amount of air had to be added for survival. If Biosphere 2 was headed towards homeostasis, it was not the Arcadia imagined at the outset. Biospherians soon went hungry, lost an average of fourteen percent of their body weight and reported caffeine withdrawal headaches.
The Space of Mononaturalism
Biosphere 2 was largely dismissed by reporters and scientists as ‘science fiction’ perfor mance: a commune founded upon ‘New Age masquerading as Science’.18 Only two of the eight had graduate degrees in science. These claims were reinforced by images of the Biospherians wearing suits that looked ‘like a cross between a scarlet prison jump suit and a Star Trek uniform’. In true utopian style, Biosphere 2 was built on a mythology of consensus based on natural principles. Vernadsky, Odum and Lovelock described an image of nature so pure and purposeful that social policy should submit to its imperatives.19 Odum called for birth control and fiscal policy to discourage economic growth. Lovelock writes, ‘let us forget human concerns, human rights and human suffering, and concentrate instead on our planet, which may be sick.’20 This version of nature-in-crisis made no provision for dissent. A holistic nature was enclosed in a single interior, forming a continuum of the world’s major landscapes. But its monolithic shell was articulated into a neighborhood of iconic architectural forms from distinct cultures: the Great Pyramid, Babylonian Vaults, Kennedy Space Center, Monticello.21 Unlike Le Corbusier’s modernist dream of neutralizing walls and a ‘single building for all nations and climates, with respiration exactly…at 18°C’22 and unlike Hawe’s original spherical spaceship, Biosphere 2 was : superficial, multicultural variations enclose a substantial, universal Nature. Yet the project soon erupted into a battlefield for nature wars. Midway through the first mission the venture split between those who – like Allen – pushed for the primacy of containment and those who felt that this obsession interfered with the work of the laboratory.23 The debate over whether this was an engineering feat or a science experiment grew louder. Even the value of equilibrium was in question. While Biospherians trans lated Odum and Gaia into blueprints, 1970s ecologists had turned away from steadystate theories. They instead favored ‘shifting mosaics’ or more aimless and anarchic models. Ecologists like Daniel Botkin saw the landscape as flux: ‘wherever we seek constancy… we discover change’.24 In the end Biosphere 2 succeeds or fails not in maintaining enclosure or home ostasis, but rather in its a b i l i t y t o e f f e c t n e w a g e n d a s , debates and decisions on scientific hypotheses.
decidedly postmodern
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atmosphere seeped back in
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‘Self-sufficient’ buildings and ‘eco-cities’ such as Masdar (in Abu Dhabi) or Dongtan (near Shanghai) seek their appropriate place in the biosphere by acting as biospheres themselves. Responsibly efficient – with zero-carbon, zero-waste, zero-greenhouseemissions, zero-water usage and zero-energy standards – they from the same domestic problems as Biosphere 2: pursuing conservation as though it were both possible and desirable to withdraw into a steady state free of politics. What if this were reversed? Biosphere 2’s crisis offers possibilities for aggressive, informed inclusion of nonhumans in an expanded city. As Biosphere 2 reunites with Biosphere 1, Cañada Del Oro Ranching and Devel opment LP (CDO) – who purchased the Biosphere 2 site in 2007 – is drawing up plans to build a retirement village with commercial and resort developments. Like Biosphere 2, these new buildings will regulate their perimeters: air conditioning systems will calibrate and filter the air, windows will be airtight and shielded with optical coating films, utilities will monitor consumption. Houses will be as big as local tastes allow. Shells will be a series of membranes and moisture stretched across lightweight steel framing. Office buildings will likely express their triangulated exoskeleton rather than the individual office. Our buildings are now domes – machines that optimize and express atmospheric enclosure. They react to the crisis of man-made world destruction by building more and better little worlds. Skin has replaced basement as the site of refuge. Architects have taken on biology. Plastic sheeting and duct tape are the new bomb shelter. This involves nothing less than a progressive un-balancing of natures and publics. Anything else would be wasting a crisis.
Viva Las Bio-dome25
Trees inside the enclosure developed soft bark due to lack of wind: Biosphere 2 was better at creating new ecosystems than modeling existing ones. Once homeostasis and holism ran dry, Biosphere 2 came . Built to last 100 years, it outlived its founding premise in less than three, and its massive space-framed atmosphere now absorbs any and all ecological experiments. It produces a strange world with buttons and switches that allow for the continuous production of new relationships. Allen named the mechanical realm housed in CMU walls beneath the biomes’ ‘artistically modeled’ concrete grottoes the ‘Technosphere’, after the man-made world that Biosphere 2 sought to bring into alignment with the planetary ecosystem.26 Here urine was converted into irrigation, drinking water was captured from transpiring plants and air was cooled and heated by a dedicated power plant.27 Designed for stable state regulation, the Technosphere has become an environment machine registering a balance sheet that subsequent housekeepers28 – now inspired, disgusted or otherwise provoked by this first model – can adjust. Following SBV’s two closed missions, it has been managed as a controlled ecology lab by Columbia University (1995-2003) and the University of Arizona’s B2 Institute (2007-present). Academic scientists replace enclosure with regulation: windows have been opened and a system of fans and sensors have been installed to control atmospheric conditions. In B2, air can be fresh or recirculated as long as its chemical makeup is consistent. Plastic partitions subdivide the dome, isolating the biomes and allowing multiple experiments to go on simultaneously.29 In practice, Biosphere 2 is a blur of many spheres. In place of Allen’s idealized philosopher-scientist, contemporary Biospherians include tourists, school children, grad students, retirees, scientists and international researchers. They take guided tours, exchange information with research teams in the Venezuelan rain forest or participate in high school outreach programs.30 Even during the first mission the enclosure membrane restricted molecules and bodies, yet allowed heat, photons and electricity to pass freely. Telephone, email, videophones, satellite TV and radio were constantly cycled through a control room at the center of the Habitat.31 Biosphere 2 performs equations of efficiency and contingency that decide who is present, who is responsible to whom and who gets their way. Each of its spheres defines a broad constituency including humans and nonhumans, enclosed territories and sites of shared concern. The global environmental crisis is not just scarcity and global warming. It is the failure to contest standards of distribution, efficiency and value necessary to run the house. Biosphere 2’s own crisis engages in debate over research priorities, ecosystem construction and resource distribution. Having never proved eco-holism, it becomes a machine for actively connecting sites, organisms and systems according to s h i f t i n g e c o - p o l i t i c s . Biosphere 2 began with the belief that we can be most responsive to the pressing charges of environmental crisis with ascetic sensitivity to homeostatic equilibrium. It claimed to provide an architecture of limits based on the authority of Nature, an updated container for a low-impact life. But at the same time it cleared land, synthesized ecologies, manufactures infrastructure, patented new building systems, expanded universities and published volumes of data. In doing so, it became the scale model of an ambitious new collective.
alive
suffer
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Dreamland of a Warm Age
Walt Disney sought to showcase life in a utopian city with futuristic life support systems and no private property: a vision ultimately spun off into edutainment (EPCOT) and New Urbanism (Celebration). Biosphere 2 is today’s Lilliputia. The life of the future is tested in a contained environment, then broadcasted to the public.
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1 John Allen and Anthony Blake, Eds. Biosphere 2: the Human Experiment (New York : Penguin Books, 1991), 10. 2 Al Gore, Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, (New York, Rodale, Inc, 2006). 3 Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things’, Rahm Emanuel. Jeff Zeleny, ‘Obama Weights Quick Undoing of Bush Policy’, New York Times, November 9, 2008. 4 Papers included The Galaxy: A Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Challenge by R. Buckminster Fuller, Principles of Evolution of Life in the Galaxy by Richard Dawkins, The Interdependence of Inner and Outer Space, by Dr. Albert Hofmann, and Architecture for Galactic Colonies, by Phil Hawes. 5 Jane Poynter, The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2 (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006), 20. 6 R. Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 1969). 7 Allen headed SBV with architect Margaret Augustine. He studied sociology and geology at Colorado School of Mines, attained an MBA at Harvard, and was a General Manager of the ‘Synergia Ranch’ commune in New Mexico. Here Allen befriended Biosphere’s principle investor, Ed Bass, in the 70’s through the acting troupe, the ‘Theater of All Possibilities’. Bass, billionaire oil heir, former Yale architecture student, and ‘ecopreneur’ invested $150 billion in the project. Broad, 1991. 8 Odum, a pioneer of ecosystems theory, posited that organisms are linked in a ‘healthy state of order’ in which ecological succession leads to a ‘climax state’ of maturity, health, and efficiency. Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1994), 368. 9 It’s impossible to fully appreciate the Amazon, or anything as complex as a tropical rainforest, without special states of consciousness’. David J. Brown and Rebecca M. Novick, Eds. Mavericks of the Mind: Conversations for the New Millennium. (Freedom, Crossing Press 1993). 10 Pearce is a student of Fuller’s and author of Structure in Nature. More in John Chilton, Space Grid Structures (Oxford: Architectural Press, 2000). 11 One of them dies exploring a transformer box. 12 Poynter, 75. 13 Poynter, 204. 14 Sniffers produce a daily ‘weather report’, tracking oxygen and carbon dioxide levels. A homemade scrubber turns carbon dioxide into limestone using sodium and calcium hydroxide, but cannot offset the oxygen depletion. 15 Poynter, 191. 16 Poynter, 191. 17 Ibid, 107. SBV infighting during the second mission in 1994 was so fierce that when an investor takeover led to a communications blackout, two former Biospherians raced to the building and broke its seals, to let their voices and the atmosphere rush back in. See B. Drummond Ayres Jr. ‘Ecological Experiment Becomes Battleground,’ New York Times, April 11, 1994.
18 Michael Zimmerman, ‘Review: Biosphere 2: Long on Hype, Short on Science’, Ecology, Vol. 73, No. 2 (April, 1992), 713. 19 ‘Users of the term ‘ecosystem’ were retaining modernism’s basic defect, its penchant for composing the whole without the explicit will of those humans and nonhumans who find themselves gathered…in a totality constituted outside the political world, in the nature of things. The ecosystem integrated everything but too quickly and too cheaply. The Science of ecosystems allowed us to dispense with the requirements of discussion and the due process in building the common world’. Bruno Latour, Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2004). 20 Worster, Nature’s Economy, 386. 21 John Allen, Ed. Biosphere 2: The Human Experiment (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), 89. 22 Quoted in Reyner P. Banham, Architecture of the Well-Tempered Envi ronment, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 156. 23 Dissenters included an advisory council of scientists hired by Bass. Poynter, 225. 24 Quoted from Worster, 397. 25 Bio-Dome. DVD. Directed by Jason Bloom with performances by Pauly Shore, Steven Baldwin, and William Atherton (Los Angeles, MGM Home Entertainment, 2002). 26 Poynter, 76. 27 The Technosphere sits within the seal of Biosphere 2 and includes air handling units, water storage tanks, the carbon scrubber and a patented waste-recycling system, Wastron™, converts human urine into agricultural irrigation, while water transpired by plants is captured as condensation for drinking water. External to the seal on Biosphere 2’s campus is a natural gas and diesel plant, using six million kW hours per year at a cost of $1.3 million per year, enough for six hundred homes. 28 Many have noted that ecology, the study of the household (‘oikos’ in Greek), is a term derived from economy or household management. 29 Columbia researcher Guanghui Lin, for example, tests the rainforest’s ability to absorb carbon at different concentrations. Marino and Odum, Biosphere 2: research past and present. (Great Britain: Elsevier Science, 1999). 30 Travis Huxman, director of B2, celebrates the opportunity for tourists to interrogate graduate students working alongside elevated viewing platforms, arguing that they provoke and assist students in framing their work. 31 Visitors and self-described ‘inmates’ would kiss through the glass or put their hands up in a ‘Biospherian handshake’ while talking on a prison-style visitors’ phone next to the airlock.
The Endless Vacation Deane Simpson
An impending crisis of gigantic proportions has been predicted by demographers in recent decades, hailed as the ‘demographic time bomb’, ‘the gray wave’ or the ‘senior epidemic’. These terms refer to the widespread ageing of the population of the developed world. The result of increasing life expectancy and declining fertility rates, this situation is further exacerbated by the arrival at retirement age of one of the largest generations in history.
The Villages, Florida
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‘casserole club’
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Just as the condition of fewer workers supporting ever more retirees anticipates a future crisis that threatens the viability of national economies, a relatively recent but similarly important crisis is marked by the emergence of an historically unprecedented demo graphic group: the ‘new third age’. First described in detail in A Fresh Map of Life by British social historian Peter Laslett in the late 1980s, the term describes a shift in the developed world that began in the mid-twentieth century as the three traditional life phases – childhood, adulthood and old age – were supplanted by a four-phase schema in which old age is partitioned between the young-old (the ‘new third age’) and the oldold (the ‘new fourth age’). As a rapidly increasing proportion of the population reaches retirement age in a state of good health, the young-old are at once freed from the respon sibilities of education, employment and child care, and at the same time are uncon strained by many of the physical and mental impediments defining traditional old age. Whereas old age was formerly characterized as a period of dependency and decrepitude, Laslett describes the ‘new third age’ as a longer period of independence and activity. The particular nature of this crisis revolves around the lack of preexisting scripts and protocols directing how one might live in this new phase of life. Inevitably this has marked the ‘new third age’ as an e x p e r i m e n t a l d e m o g r a p h i c s i t e for alternate forms of subjectivity and collectivity, as well as architecture and urbanism. Subjectivity in the ‘new third age’, for example, can be increasingly articulated in terms of a cyborgian leisure subject, for whom prostheses such as electronic pacemakers, artificial hips, dentures, hearing aids and blood pressure medications play a key role in extending body functionality and life expectancy. These are supplemented by additional devices and procedures dedicated to enhancing life quality such as Viagra, Prozac, buttock implants and over-the-counter canned oxygen products (used in some Floridian retirement communities as a hangover cure). Modes of social collectivity in the ‘new third age’ have developed beyond the dominant social models of the nuclear and patchwork
families as well as beyond the traditional incorporation of the elderly into the extended family. While the dominant household structure in the ‘new third age’ will remain the married couple, broader collective interactions are anchored in peer (rather than kin)-based leisure activities that situate the club, class, circle and the association at the center of the collective social sphere. Further conditions specific to the demographic group support experimental social formations. These include arrangements such as 1 the phenomenon based on the relative longevity of women compared to men and the resulting gender disparity in many retirement communities. Likewise the relatively uncharted lifestyles of the ‘new third age’ have driven experimental urban arrangements. The majority of these experiments contradict the two dominant preexisting models of residency for the old – extended family living and ageing-in-place – both models that disperse (and theoretically integrate) the elderly within an existing and relatively unchanged urban environment. As economic necessity has waned and the older generation has desired more social independence over the course of last half century, extended family living has become less common. Ageing-in-place has in turn declined due in part to increasing mobility as well as a perception of increased suburban social isolation.2 The shift away from these earlier models – indicated by a 2005 poll indicating that fifty-nine percent of American baby boomers intended to purchase a new home for retirement – suggests the developing perception that this particular change in life phase necessitates changing one’s lifestyle and spatial environment.3 By the late 1950s and early 1960s retirement in the US had been institutionalized for approximately twenty-five years. Yet for the first time considerable numbers of Americans were reaching retirement in a state of physical and financial health. It was at this time that the United States emerged as the incubator for alternatives to the dominant retirement arrangements of extended family living and ageing-in-place. These experi ments saw the retirement milieu as a privately developed, ‘age-qualified’ community located in a favorable climatic zone. They integrated the existing model of the suburban or ex-urban housing tract with leisure amenities such as golf, tennis and swimming. The first examples include Benjamin Schleifer’s Youngtown, Arizona in 1955, Del Webb’s nearby Sun City, Arizona in 1960 and Ross W. Cortese’s Leisure World, California in 1962. Of these Sun City would emerge as the most influential model in drafting a set of protocols for an urbanism of the ‘new third age’. By spatially concentrating such a homogenous demographic group, these urban formats were highly rationalized and efficient leisure machinery capable of disciplining time in order to avoid the persistent threat of retirement-induced boredom. Rather than simply selling homes, these developers sold a complete retirement lifestyle – one with d i s t i n c t l y u t o p i a n o v e r t o n e s . With little precedent for such a retired leisure lifestyle, the most used rhetorical frame of reference to sell and brand these developments became the vacation. Based on the commercial success of the Sun City experiment in particular, the concept of the ‘new third age’ developed toward that of the ‘year-round vacation in the sun’ as a spatial and temporal counterpoint to work. This eventually supported the large-scale migration of hundreds of thousands of American retirees as permanent vacationers to climatically favorable retirement paradises built on inexpensive land in the Sun Belt (Arizona’s deserts and Florida’s swamplands in particular). While almost half a century later these basic protocols remain commercially successful within a multi-billion dollar retirement community industry, further experi ments have produced surprising mutations to this schema. One of the most important general tendencies is the increased role of the entertainment industry in the staging of lifestyle products for the ‘new third age’. Life in The Villages of Florida – now the world’s largest single-site retirement community with approximately 75,000 inhabitants – has been explicitly conceived
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by CEO Gary Morse as ‘a vacation that never ends’. Morse employed the designers of Universal Studios theme park in Orlando to generate ‘a Disneyworld for active retirees – a completely themed environment that would follow the script of ‘Florida’s Friendliest Hometown’.4 This total environment has been designed to spatially and temporally transport residents to the carefree hometowns of their childhood. This effect is achieved in part through the architecture and urban design deployed across the entire development and most intensively in the three ‘downtowns’, which are staged according to various ‘local’ styles: Spanish Missionary of St. Augustine, Floridian beachside of Key West and Florida ‘cracker’ of Arcadia.5 Thematizing childhood hometowns extends to practically every realm of urban life, from transportation systems (with Ford ModelT-styled golf carts and buses modeled on early twentieth century street cars) to signage and graphic design that is consistently ‘aged’ throughout the entire development and on to programmatic offerings that include street parades and retro-themed restaurants. The material construction of this childhood hometown is so complete – through the near eradication of objects of a contemporary nature – that the perception of contem porary time passing or of one’s self ageing in relation to objects is severely limited. Whereas The Villages constructs retirement as a permanent temporal displacement – a year-round vacation to one’s own childhood – Huis Ten Bosch, an integrated cultural theme park and retirement community in Japan, structures retirement as a permanent spatial displacement. It represents an endless vacation to the Netherlands, but one con veniently located in the south of Japan.6 This places residents in a complex and ambiguous space in an : no longer sleeping on tatami mats, living in brick houses with fireplaces. By day, they watch visitors while drinking coffee in the cafés, buy cheese at the market, cruise the canals on small vessels and attend classes on Fabergé egg making or tulip pressing. Such developments elicit multiple concerns common to existing critiques of both the gated lifestyle community and the theme park – anxieties that are particularly relevant as developments like The Villages become increasingly influential models in the retirement community industry. In this context the urban scenarios described above seamlessly integrate the gated community’s mechanisms of social exclusion and control with the theme park’s structural tendency toward the reduction of the critical potential of utopia and the debasement of culture in general.7 However, in making the themed vacation permanent, interesting forms of slippage emerge that surpass readings conventionally associated with such urban typologies. Rather than theming delivering a temporary semantic journey to another time or place, an experience in which the residents have a profound awareness of a representational landscape within which they are immersed; in the context of the permanently occupied retirement community such a themed environment suggests an artificial performative milieu for actively restaging subjectivity and collective relations, one that allows ample time with which to experiment or workshop various roles and modes of interaction. In the case of The Villages, this offers the possibility for the resident to occupy a temporal gap between old age and youth, a gap that supports a range of activities from cheer leading and golf-cart customizing to competitive (senior) athletics. In the case of Huis Ten Bosch it allows the opportunity for the resident to occupy their own position in the gap between the role of Japanese tourist in the Netherlands and Japanese resident in Japan. For many residents this ambiguity opens emancipatory possibilities to construct a l t e r n a t e i d e n t i t i e s and lifestyle realities, illustrated by the residents’ pleasure in their ability to reconfigure what many describe as the overbearing obligation in Japanese society to accept social invitations from neighbors. The scale, homogeneity and self-containment of environments such as The Villages, founded on the pure leisure logic of the permanent vacation, have supported an unwitting return to the workforce and to particular forms of volunteerism for many
of the ‘new third age’ residents in recent years. Based on the sheer size of The Villages and its isolation from a supporting workforce, many of the service jobs (both full and part-time) have necessarily been filled by residents. Whether by economic necessity or as a means to gain social interaction, this has produced a fairly common phenomenon of second careers ranging from a couple (formerly a police detective and a school teacher) running an electronic organ store and music class to widows and widowers working in Denny’s or operating checkouts in local hardware stores. In light of current and emerging crises there is a certain attached to the fact that for many the complete package of the endless vacation is proving not to be enough. The author would like to thank Marc Angélil, François Höpflinger and Ida Richter Braendstrup. This research was supported by grants from the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction and the ETH Zürich TH Fund.
optimism
1 ‘Casserole Club’ is a colloquial term common in retirement communities. It refers collectively to older single women who inundate recently widowed males with competing romantic advances in the form of casseroles personally delivered to the widower’s home. 2 The experience of social isolation amongst elderly in suburban contexts is illustrated in Del Webb Corporation’s circa 1962 film The Beginning. 3 The Harris Interactive document Del Webb Baby Boomer Survey published in 2005 indicates that fifty-nine percent of baby boomers aged 40-49 in 2005 indicate they will buy a new home for retirement with forty-five percent of those willing to do so out of state. 4 H. Gary Morse, ‘Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow!’ Supplement to The Villages Daily Sun, 2007. On The Villages, see also: Hugh Bartling, ‘Tourism as Everyday Life: an Inquiry into The Villages, Florida’, Tourism Geographies, Vol. 8, No. 4 (November 2006). 5 Gary Mark, Director of Design at The Villages. Interview with author, The Villages, Florida, January 17, 2008. 6 For previous descriptions of Huis Ten Bosch, see for example: Miodrag Mitrasinovic, Total Landscape, Theme Parks, Public Space (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2006); Marc Treib, ‘Theme Park, Themed Living: The Case of Huis Ten Bosch (Japan)’ in: Terence Young and Robert Riley (eds.), Theme Park Landscapes: Antecedents and Variations (Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2002), pp. 213-234; and David D’Heilly, ‘Letter from Huis Ten Bosch’, Any Magazine No. 4 (Jan/Feb 1994). 7 See for example one of the earliest and most referred to critiques of gated communities: Edward Blakely and Mary Snyder, Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1997). A relevant analysis of theming is Michael Sorkin’s ‘The Theming of the City’, Lotus International No.109, pp 6-13.
‘almost-Netherlands’
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Huis Ten Bosch, Japan
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Symbolic Remainder
He does get his memory back, but what’s lost is a sense of authenticity. I conducted a long interview with someone who’d been in a very serious accident resulting in motorneuron damage and he had to relearn how to do every thing – from w a l k i n g to l i f t i n g a glass. And interestingly, he said ‘I can do it now, I can lift up the glass and walk, but it seems fake. It seems like I’m simulating.’ Warhol said the same thing after he was shot. He said he felt like he was watching TV for the rest of his life.
Tom McCarthy Interviewed by Jeffrey Inaba
On behalf of the International Necronautical Society, novelist Tom McCarthy and philosopher Simon Critchley recently released their ‘Interim Report on Recessional Aesthetics’ to President Obama in the pages of Harper’s Magazine. Among their suggestions to the US leader was to read the recession allegorically, as ‘the intimate space at the heart of all economics, its muted truth’, and celebrate it ‘as you would the revelation of godhead itself ’. Volume spoke with McCarthy about representing crisis and trauma – whether assaults against the economy or the body – and the death-driven compulsion to repeat these moments of intensity in seeking catharsis.
JI In this issue of Volume we think about how nar ratives of crisis are told: what structures are employed to convey our experience of a world in flux? It seems that Remainder is not about narrative per se, rather it’s about constant confrontations with the elements of storytelling and in particular the objects that percolate as confrontations within a larger symbolic order. TM Yeah, the character keeps on going on about a carrot that won’t stay still. That’s a metonym for the whole material world: this thing that cannot be controlled. And I suppose, you know, objects are really important. They’re always really important in Freud.
JI The hero/anti-hero of Remainder goes into a coma as a result of an object falling from the sky and hitting him on the head. How did you arrive at this device as a departure point for the novel? Was
TM No, initially I had to consider that if the hero’s going to do all this stuff, he needs a lot of money to pay for it. So he could win the lottery or inherit lots of money from an uncle like the character Jean Des Esseintes in that wonderful Huysmans novel Against Nature, which was definitely an influence on Remainder, but I just wasn’t convinced. Then I looked into compensation culture, trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, and it perfectly tarried with his whole . For Freud, and for almost all psychologists, trauma is always linked to repetition afterwards: the reenactment and repetitive behavior. And so, yeah, it just kind of made sense. The idea of something falling from the sky is just straight Blanchot. One of the first things he points out in The Writing of the Disaster is that the word comes from ‘des astre’, literally, ‘from the stars’. It’s the Fall. You can read that as the death of god, the collapse of metaphysics or in a Newtonian way, in the sense of gravity: things fall. And in Remainder you have lots of things, not just airplane parts or bits of technology, but also undisclosed matter and the share prices of stocks, falling. He’s somehow reacting against this entropic universe and trying to delay the inevitable, but of course he ultimately fails.
pulsion
TM Yes. He has to not only reprogram himself in
reenactment com
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came about by happy accident. I was just passively looking at a crack in the wall and had this moment of déjà vu during which I remembered a similar room with a similar crack. I remembered a building or I kind of half-remem bered – it was like the composite memory Proust describes in which you can remember a staircase in a house that never existed because you make a collage in your head from other houses you’ve known – and I thought it would be good to reconstruct this moment: to make the house and to put the crack in the wall. So that’s what happened in the book. The hero, or antihero, starts by reconstructing a building he’s remembered. And by making everyone – all of his neighbors who he’s remembered – move to the rhythms he’s created as they c o o k l i v e r o r p l a y p i a n o . Then he expands the parameters of that reenactment zone until he’s reenacting shoot-outs in the street and bank heists. By the end he’s making planes fall out of the sky.
it immediately apparent that this was how the novel should start out?
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Jeffrey Inaba Can you explain the process of creating Remainder? Tom McCarthy Well, in a way the writing of the book
JI Remainder is about all of these encounters with estranged objects. During moments of crisis, while we might obsess over how we construct logical explanations of the situation, it seems that crisis is really when things can’t be explained. It’s when there’s a breakdown of a given symbolic order. We question the relationship between the things we experience in the world and the way that the world is described. In that sense do you see the post-traumatic reencountering of objects the pro tagonist goes through as analogous to crisis moments?
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terms of kinetic stuff and movement, but it’s also about movement and language. He has a large staff and he keeps having them look up words in the dictionary and text him the definitions. That informs his behavior. By the end, he’s more or less k i l l i n g p e o p l e because of dictionary definitions. So all of that is borne out of crisis, out of catastrophe. As he’s moving away from the catastrophe he’s trying to remaster the symbolic order. But what for him is the happy ending – the euphoric, orgiastic ending – comes not through resolution, but through provoking an ultra crisis. It’s when everything goes wrong, spectacularly wrong, when people are dying all around him and planes are crashing. At that moment, everything comes together. He’s at one with catastrophe. Trauma studies report that only trauma is real. The trauma is the moment-in-time. It’s always excluded from
narratives and histories of time because it’s always cen sored: the actual kernel of the disaster is always withheld from consciousness or narratable memory. And yet it’s the only moment which is true, which is real. Therefore trauma victims often try to recover that moment, as if it were some lost nirvana. The whole of Remainder is less a movement away from – or resolution of – crisis than it is an attempt to reenter crisis and retrigger it. In that respect it’s successful. I mean, in the end, he gets .
his disaster
Thomas Cole, The Architect’s Dream
Design for the Apocalypse John McMorrough
Defonten, ‘City Ruins’ (after ‘Fallout’ video game), http://www.highend3d.com, 2007
‘Don’t wake me for the end of the world unless it has very good special effects.’ – Roger Zelazny
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engine of transformation
dim
similarity
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Invoking the ‘apocalypse’ brings forth connotations of the end of the world – historically imagined as everything from the judgment of God to nuclear Armageddon. In its con temporary manifestation it has taken the form of various global crises: environmental, economic and the unexpected. Of course the ‘end of the world’ is not a novelty; it has its own history and is itself a genre of expression as a category of pessimism. A recurrent theme, it is the s h a d o w of the progressive ideal of the avant-garde. It seems that at this juncture, utopia, that place of high aspirations and lofty ambition, has been the motivating conceit for a society (and an architecture) of aspirational perfection for quite some time, but across the spectrum of culture there has been a recent fictional and factual turn from the utopian to the apocalyptic. With the intermingling of the improb able and the prosaic (think Katrina and The Day After Tomorrow, or 9/11 and Children of Men), consideration of the apocalyptic is no longer a matter of fantasy1, but of policy (one recently referred to as ‘disaster capitalism’).2 What we see in this latest manifes tation is not merely the conservative position describing a fall from grace or the entropic decline of systems and the diminishment of quality over time, but a description of a new prevalent condition. If utopia is an unattainable goal, literally nowhere, then the apocalypse is everywhere.3 The question is, of course, why apocalypse now? The genre of the apocalyptic always contains within it a means of working through the problematic of its era. The term itself indicates as much: ‘apocalypse’ from the Greek ‘okaluyiz’ literally translates as a ‘lifting of the veil’ and conceptually represents the disclosure to certain privileged persons of something hidden from the mass of human kind. Its occurrence in narrative is a symptomatic response to issues, though it reveals the limits and fears of the society that created it. For us it is a combination of factors, it is both global warming and sub-prime loans, it is nuclear terrorism and social ills. All are real and all are, to some degree, constructs.
The real issue with the various evocations of the ‘end of the world’ has never been about ‘the end’, but a beginning. Anthony Burgess, author of the dystopian classic A Clockwork Orange, once commented that the ‘warnings’ of apocalyptic tales about the end of the world were really a kind of wish fulfillment.4 In a world of overwhelming complexity, of zero-sum economics and peak-oil, the apocalypse comes n o t a s a p r o b l e m , b u t a s a n a n s w e r . The ‘end of ’ also implies a ‘beginning of ’ – a chance to re-start and re-think. As fantasy the apocalypse represents the chance to begin anew; the end of the world always represents a new start, a chance to have another, unencumbered, go at making the world. In this sense the specter of the apoca lypse is another version of the modernist tabula rasa, a leveling of the past to make way for the future.5 The end of the world is merely a re-orientation of sensibility. We can already see evidence of this in the new emphasis on the basic conditions of our existence. What unifies these manifestations is their survivalist undertone.6 The operation of the subject in an environment is not only a thing but also an action, a mechanism that calibrates itself to need. This mechanism is never in stasis; its needs are never in perfect equilibrium to the available means. Thus it is scarcity (of food, water, safety, resources, amenity or potential) that is the and change in a variety of environments (natural and artificial, economic and ecological – namely architecture, landscape and the city). Given this symbolic (and increasingly real) economy, these impulses can be seen as having strange portents for architecture. What would architecture in a post-apocalyptic mode look like? And what is the relation of architecture to capital when there is no capital? If we understand architecture as a historically formulated set of rules and guidelines, then the future of architecture looks . One could imagine its continuation, but in a material enactment of an increasingly archaic form of thought. Eventually architecture may become a fixture of the university – as a testament of the plentitude of an earlier humanism – next to the Classics Department, as just another repository of dead languages. Or one could imagine the re-description of architecture’s disciplinary legacy in terms of effectivity (as opposed to affectivity), with an emphasis on the agency of design as a responsive, problem solving effort. If this sounds like an environmental call to arms, with the earnestness of LEED and green design, of responsibility and stewardship, preserva tion and prevention, it is not (at least not completely). There are issues of responsibility, of course, but that is not the only manifestation or even the most useful. The new mode would want to address matters of concern where environmental matters are no more or less important than others (such as aesthetic or social) in terms of cause or need. The coming apocalypse may be a solvable problem or it may not be a problem at all, but its existence even as an idea demonstrates a shift that is not only practical, but conceptual.7 To shift from the utopian to the apocalyptic is not merely to set the terms in opposition, but to understand their . Both describe a condition of radical change; turning from one to the other as a privileged mode doesn’t speak to a preponderance of nihilism per se, but to a fundamental recalibration of the imagination (specifically, architectural imagination) from issues of plentitude (of capital, of resources, of attention) to those of scarcity. How would architecture act in a postapocalyptic mode? One can imagine that the answer will not come ex nihilo, but rather would be seen in architecture’s response to the imperatives of survival, in how it responds to coming disasters major and minor. The results will not be definitive, but indicative, of directions to follow and refuges to find, the bomb shelters of utopia if you will, in which to weather the a p p r o a c h i n g m a e l s t r o m . Design for the apocalypse: the time is neigh and the end (of something) is near… and the beginning (of something else) is imminent.
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1 See Kiel Moe’s ‘Observations of the Concept of Place in Post-Risk Societies in Recent Fiction,’ Places, Vol. 20, no. 2, 2008, pp. 42-43. 2 See Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007). 3 This usage is a reference to the Thomas More’s Utopia within whose famous work of a perfect imaginary island there is the irony that the perfection is not only imaginary, but in a sense impossible, as ‘utopia’ means, literally, ‘not place’ (as translated from the Greek ou, ‘not’, and topoz, ‘place’). The positive associations attributed to Utopia are in fact the domain of the homo phonic ‘Eutopia’ (as derived from the Greek eu, ‘good’ or ‘well’, and topoz, ‘place’), to which it is clearly related, yet significantly distinct. 4 Anthony Burgess, ‘The Art of Frivolity’, Times Literary Supplement (12 June 1992): 22. 5 The extent of the renewal motif with the apocalyptic can be found not only in religious contexts such as the Second Coming in Revelations or the restarting of the Mayan calendar in 2012 with a new epoch, but also in its literature. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006), one of the more depressing entries in the genre, in the end (spoiler alert) offered a hope of a future with the son. The extent of this implicit optimism with the End of Times can be seen as even extending past ‘humanity’. For an envisioning of post-human ecology see Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007). 6 One of the more interesting specimens of recent apocalyptic fiction as both indictment and wish fulfillment is James Howard Kunstler’s World Made by Hand: A Novel (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2008) which extends the arguments regarding the depletion of the world’s oil supply made in The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century (Grove Press, 2006). In the novelization the result of the extended energy crisis is both worldwide economic and political collapse as well as an increased supply of fresh churned butter, made possible by the new agrarian existence. For a further discussion of Kunstler’s Long Emergency see my own ‘The Future of Fuelish Building’ in Volume 7 (2006). 7 A seminar conducted at the Ohio State University Knowlton School of Architecture last winter examined how the idea of the ‘apocalyptic’ appears in various narrative forms (films, novels, reports, games) and considered its relation to historical and contemporary environmental design in architecture, landscape and city planning as indicated in projects such as Noah’s Ark, Biosphere II, the Seed Bank in Spitsbergen Norway, Wagner’s Götterdäm merung, the Left Behind book series and George A. Romero’s zombie films.
There’s No Place to Roam by
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C-Lab
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Once upon a time, a poor woodcutter’s family lived in a tiny cottage at the edge of the forest. One harvest season, a great hardship struck the land.1 worried the Woodcutter, ‘I will need t o s e l l t h e c o t t a g e if I am to feed us all.’ The blight continued, but the Woodcutter’s new wife would not agree to sell the cottage. The food in the cupboards dwindled until only one loaf of bread remained. The Woodcutter was afraid because his wife was in fact an , who had an insatiable appetite for children’s flesh. He shuddered to think what would happen to his children, Hansel and Gretel, if she were to crave them. At dawn, the Woodcutter woke Hansel and Gretel and led them to the woods. he told them, ‘And never return or else your hungry stepmother will have you for dinner!’ Tears in their eyes, the children ran away, d e e p i n t o t h e f o r e s t .2
family?’
Hansel and Gretel drifted westward3, guided by nothing but the sun. The journey was l o n g a n d s l o w . Just as the sun was setting, the children arrived at the edge of a bog. Who tramples there?’ barked an angry tree. , cried Hansel and Gretel, ‘Can you please ?’ ‘I am G a t e k e e p e r o f t h e f o r e s t ’, said the tree, ‘I see you are but children, and will . But the forest beyond is d a n g e r o u s and you must be careful whom you ask for help. There are many that only wish to .’ With that, he broke off a small branch and gave it to the children. ‘Take this’, he said, ‘If you are in trouble, snap the branch and it will keep you safe from harm. Y o u m a y o n l y u s e i t o n c e h o w e v e r , and only under the most grimm circumstances.’
‘How shall I care for my
‘Oof,
ouch, my roots! ‘We are lost’ help us
help you
ogress
selves
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help them
Hansel and Gretel w e r e p u z z l e d by the gravity and relative vagueness of the tree. Nevertheless, they thanked him, took the branch and continued into the forest. It quickly became . The children grew tired and sat down under a tree. A snow-white bird flew and perched on the tree above them. ‘Look!’ said Gretel to Hansel, ‘It is just like the ones i n t h e f i e l d s a t h o m e ! ’ The bird stretched its wings to fly. said Hansel. The bird took flight and the children ran after it. They followed it until they reached a little house hidden in the trees. ‘Gretel!’ exclaimed Hansel, ‘ I t ’ s m a d e o f c a k e ! ’ The children ran to it and began to nibble the walls. Suddenly, an old woman appeared. ‘Oh please’, she said, ‘Don’t eat my house.’ ‘Come in and help yourself to my supper. You will be here tonight.’ H u n g r y a n d s l e e p y , the children followed her inside. The children ate pancakes and jam and then fell asleep in . But the children were hardly safe at all. Watching them dream, the old woman sang a lullaby, pleased that her trap had worked:4
The next morning the children awoke and tried to stretch in bed, but they were t i e d i n p l a c e . yelled Gretel. ‘I can’t move. Hansel, please help me.’ ‘Gretel! I too am caught.’ the Witch cackled. ‘Good morning my little pretties’, she said. ‘Last night I fed you full of sweets and pancakes but today I i n t e n d t o e a t y o u ! ’ Hansel began to cry, but Gretel remembered the Tree’s gift. She kept quiet lest Hansel give away . The Witch began to untie Gretel. ‘Prepare the cauldron, girl’, the witch commanded. ‘I will eat your brother this morning f o r b r e a k f a s t .’ As soon as her arm was free, Gretel grabbed the branch she had hidden in the bedclothes. She reached for Hansel’s hand, the branch in two, and t h e y disappeared.
‘Help!’
dark and cold
‘A-ha, Ehe-he-he-he-he-he!’
‘Let’s follow it!’
their secret
cracked
safe
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‘Alas you dears have lost your way And come to this place as unwitting prey On Hansel I will feast tomorrow And enslave young Gretel in her sorrow.’
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cozy beds
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Up they climbed to the house in the treetops. ‘How do you come and go?’, asked Gretel, ‘If your hair is t h e o n l y w a y i n o r o u t ? ’ Rapunzel told them the story of how she had fallen in with the . She had given all of her dowry to an evil sorceress to obtain it. But when she stepped inside for the first time, t h e h o u s e g r e w l e g s so long she could never leave.5 Hearing her name, the evil sorceress appeared. ‘What is this?’ she asked. ‘Perhaps I shall cut off Rapunzel’s hair and all here.’ Hansel began to cry again, but Gretel remembered the Tree’s gift. ‘Here!’ she said, ‘T a k e t h i s m a g i c w a n d in exchange for letting us go. We used it to escape from the Witch in the Candy House.’ The Witch in the Candy House was the sister of the Evil Sorceress, and . If the wand allowed the children to escape, thought the Evil Sorceress, it must be v e r y s p e c i a l i n d e e d . ‘Give me the wand and I will ’, she declared. Gretel handed her the nowuseless branch and the Sorceress released the spell on the house.6 The house’s legs quickly shrank and H a n s e l , G r e t e l and Rapunzel ran into the forest.
Hands clasped tightly, Hansel and Gretel fell d o w n , d o w n , d o w n . They landed with a soft thud. asked Hansel. The surroundings looked wild and unfamiliar. ‘Look!’ cried Gretel. ‘A h o u s e i s g r o w i n g out of the trees ahead.’ A young girl appeared in the house’s window. As the children approached, her tumbled to the ground. ‘Please come up’, she called to them, ‘M y n a m e i s R a p u n z e l .’
‘Where are we?’
love
long hair
charming house
keep you
very powerful
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let you go
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surprisingly short
They ran as quickly as they could away from the Evil Sorceress. T h e y r a n a n d r a n a n d r a n . Finally, exhausted, they stopped to rest. Hansel began once again to cry. ‘Why can’t we find a ? The Tree was right’, Gretel observed. ‘I wish we could go back home. I wish that none of this had ever happened!’ ‘Let’s go just a little further’, said Rapunzel, ‘We might still find somewhere safe.’ The three children continued on. ‘Look!’ cried Gretel ‘I think I see a ahead!’ ‘Oh no!’ cried Hansel, ‘I think I see a ahead!’ Cautiously, the children approached. ‘You have reached the great crossroads of the forest’ the Wolf declared. ‘A l l w h o p a s s h e r e a r e l o s t . You must choose one of two paths. To the right is the path that will lead d i r e c t l y t o y o u r g r e a t e s t d e s i r e . Pass to the left and you will .’ The children were so tired and hungry. They immediately chose the right-ward path without hesitation, but the passage was unremarkable. ‘Is this right?’ Gretel asked, ‘This looks the same as any other in the forest.’ , said the Wolf, ‘You’ll find just w h a t you are looking for…’
The path was . At the end a great house loomed. ‘This doesn’t look anything like Father’s stone cottage…’ said Gretel. ‘But it does look like my Grandmother’s house!’ said Rapunzel. ‘I am too confused to say for certain, but if it is w e w i l l b e s a f e h e r e . ’ And so the three children approached the house.7 Grandmother?’ called Rapunzel at the door. ‘Oh dear child, ’ answered a hoarse voice. ‘Press the latch. I am ill and too weak to come greet you. Come up to my bedchamber.’
safe place to go
gate
‘Hello?
wolf
continue your journey
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‘Keep going’
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is that you?
dark
1. An inherent dissonance between ease of mobility and the stability of settlement has long plagued those seeking pros-
The three entered. The house was , but the children found candles and made their way to Grandmother’s bedroom. ‘Grandmother!’ cried Rapunzel. ‘C o m e h e r e m y d e a r , and bring your little friends’, she replied. ‘Won’t you all come join me in bed? I am so cold and you must be so tired.’ Hansel and Gretel removed their coats, and Rapunzel her red traveling cape, and they all climbed into bed. , remarked Rapunzel, ‘You’ve changed so…your eyes, your ears…even your teeth!’ ‘Don’t worry child’, remarked the Grandmother, ‘This is what happens with age. Y o u h a v e n ’ t v i s i t e d i n s o l o n g .’ ‘Can we stay here w i t h y o u f o r e v e r ? ’ asked Hansel. ‘You don’t have to, but where else would you go?’ answered the Wolf,
mother’
‘Why Grand
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‘Architecture of Terunobu Fujimori and ROJO: Unknown Japanese Architecture and Cities’ Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery
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‘Muahahahaha!’
perity. The tension between homeownership as an index of personal success and mobility as an instinctive drive has been rendered transparent by the current crisis. Like Hansel and Gretel’s parents, the families most vulnerable and often hardest hit by home foreclosure were those situated further from the urban core. Their isolation put them in a worse position to deal with problems linked to to the crisis such as job insecurity, the fragmentation of the family, financial jeopardy and the deterioration of social networks. Rather than offering two paths to success, families struggle with the dilemma of immobility due to owning a home, and the lack of available jobs to sustain a mortgage. 2. Like movement in the fairytale narrative, mo bility has alStone Cottage by Terunobu Fujimori ways been an important aspect of the American psyche. Although the US is notorious for having a fluid population, mi gration rates have in fact slowed to about 60 percent of what they were in the post-WWII era. Even across Canada and western Europe mobility rates have slowed significantly since the 1980s. The real estate market as a source of capital flow has increasingly lured young people as well. As a result of this rise in and prioritization of ownership over flexibility, economic fluidity decreased and the real estate market stagnated. (See the interview with A. Oswald, p.82.) 3. In many respects, however, we still hold romanticized notions of migration, of ease of movement a way from the problematic to a desirable or opportune future. From the westward expansion, to the great mi gration, there has always been a desirable ‘destination’ of sorts – a place to escape to – California during the Great Depression, the Sunbelt states in the post-war period, and so on. So what now? It seems like the ‘Great Dilemma’ is figuring out where to go. Where do you go when you can’t afford to stay where you are? (See the interview with R. McLeman, p.54.) 4. Like Hansel and Gretel’s story, personal greed coupled with an alluring offer seduced millions of homebuyers into danger ous territory just before the crash. Many people mortgaged homes they could not afford. Those with little personal savings or poor credit were particularly vulnera ble to prowlToo-High Tea House Ichiya-Tei Tea House by Terunobu Fujimori ing mortgage brokers. Unchecked ac quisition was by Terunobu Fujimori the name of the game on both ends: investors were desperate to package mortgagebacked securities and buyers were desperate to ‘get ahead’ economically, socially and otherwise. Both sides d e s i r e d to profit from securitized debt vehicles, but in the end, no one did. 5. Since the hous ing bubble b u r s t , many people are now ‘upside-down’ as a result of the dramatic shift in housing values. Pay ing nega tive equity on their homes, the value of which had de- creased from the original purchase price, families are stuck in the very spaces they were led to believe w o u l d bring them happiness and a reliable investment. Coupled with rising unemployment, many find t h e m - selves living under a sort of market-induced house arrest. 6. Though there’s no ‘magical’ way out of in- v e r t e d mortgage payments (unless you consider bankruptcy magical), loan modification is possible for those w h o find themselves in negative equity. Unfortunately, most big mortgage and banking servicers are ill equipped to handle the volume of meritorious cases brought on by the crisis. Millions of fore closures could be prevented if the ser vicers were sim ply better equipped to work with homeowners to renegotiate their loans and interest rates according to both personal income and the shifting values of their homes. 7. Made uneasy by the ostensibly innumerous unknowns presented by the crisis, many people are seeking at least some form of stability to ride out the storm. With no real viable destination, both those who have and have not owned houses are finding themselves drawn Lamune Hot Spring House t o w a r d s moving home – many by Terunobu Fujimori out of economic circumstance, but some out of familial or psychological necessity as well. Home can bring about unanticipated and perhaps unfamiliar twists of its own however. And with it comes the threat that the next generation may also fall into the trap of prioritizing stasis – and Gemütlichkeit – over agitation and flexibility.
The Promised Land
TM What are your overall observations about
The second risk is the scarcity of resources, particularly
Robert McLeman
migration then and now? Do you see similar patterns,
water. The long-term population growth in dry cities is not
Interview by Talene Montgomery
in that relatively well-off people migrate and the
sustainable. There are two options. Either find new sources
relatively poor stay where they live now?
of water you can bring into those cities (no easy solution)
The belief in the journey to make a better life in another place is central to the
RMcL Well, a lot has changed since the thirties in that, back
or, more likely, you will see a reversal of that migration.
American experience. Going to a new region to seek prosperity is so ingrained
then, the majority of the North American population still
Places like Texas and Arizona will no longer be attractive
in the American psyche that it is nearly an instinctive act, especially in times of
lived in rural or agricultural settings. So the sheer number
and you will see emigration, or certainly a cessation of
of people who are
population growth in those areas, as well as renewed pop
exposed to the types of risks that
hardship. But now traditional destinations of opportunity like the American West
occurred during the thirties is low. That said, population
ulation growth in areas along the Mississippi watershed,
have gone belly up – leaving those in tough straits with no place to go. Might the
growth in dry-land areas of the United States has been
in the northeast, on the Pacific Coast, particularly from
growing rapidly in recent decades. So what you have are
Northern California to the Pacific Northwest and so on.
economic crisis also be an existential one for many people today? Environmental
these large urban centers in the Southwest and the Sun
Again however, this will only happen in areas with an eco
geographer Robert McLeman sheds light on past and current migration patterns,
Belt. I don’t see it actually happening right now, but there’s
nomic base as well. It won’t just be simply people moving
been a couple of cases where American urban centers
to Cleveland because the houses and water are cheap.
have come awfully close to r u n n i n g o u t o f
You’ll have to have concomitant economic growth in those
w a t e r . The city of Atlanta, for example, about eighteen
areas and that’s always a tough one to predict. If we were
months ago, was just about sucking mud out of the
having this conversation in the 1980s you and I would never
reservoirs that supply that city.
have been able to foresee the growth in the tech sector in
In these types of events who suffers most? What I see
the nineties that drove population growth in Silicon Valley,
happening in the future is that the poorest of the poor will
the Pacific Northwest and places like Raleigh-Durham.
continue to suffer the most. The wealthier classes always
So the great
manage to get through somehow, but what happens to
in technology will be and where people will go.
questioning where to go from here.
the middle class? I recognize many of the same forces that came together in the thirties to affect the rural middle class in the Great Plains affecting the urban and suburban middle classes in many regions of North America today: Talene Montgomery The field of geography involves
communities were suddenly divided. The middle class
the combination of increasing environmental degradation,
the study of physical and social environments. It seems
was missing.
increasing environmental risk and an erosion of the economy that caters to the middle class.
to me the study of climate change and migration requires both disciplinary angles, doesn’t it?
TM In other words, there was social degradation
Robert McLeman You’re right. I conceive of my own work
in that there weren’t the same types of networks one
like that, in that it draws upon an understanding of the
would normally have in a community and moreover,
RMcL Yes, middle-class jobs. The middle class is suffering
physical and natural processes of the environment as well
those who stayed came from fragmented networks
considerably from the current economic downturn. When
as human social behavior and socio-spatial patterns.
that may not have had the collective resources to
you remove those types of jobs from the labor market, well
relocate. Simultaneously these people had to deal
most people have to go somewhere. I wouldn’t say I see
with massive environmental degradation that
actual patterns right now, such as what we saw in the
affected their livelihood.
thirties, but the same sort of cocktail of stresses is coming
TM From the way the Dust Bowl has been historicized, especially through photography, our understanding
TM That caters to the middle class?
is that it was the poor who migrated west. Yet you con
RMcL The reality is that agricultural regions – the Great
tend that those who went west had the fiscal means to
Plains or any other – typically have a capacity built into
do so and that, in contrast, poor people stayed where
society to cope with drought, because drought is a reality
TM What do you see as potential patterns of move
they were.
in these communities and in these regions. But during
ment as a result of climate change and environmental
mass exodus of the rural poor out of the Great Plains
multi-year droughts, like that which occurred in the 1930s,
RMcL In the North American context there are two big
to California. But my own research in this area shows it’s
of that built-in capacity. Then when you tack onto that
risks. One is coastal communities and infrastructure. The
more the rural middle class who migrated. The people
the economic crisis of the 1930s many of the traditional
current trend is a rise in sea levels on the East Coast and
who were left behind fell into two groups: people who had
fallback positions families took, like getting off farm
increasingly frequent extreme storm events. If these trends
sufficient means to ride out the drought and depression,
employment or going to work in a different sector for
continue – and given our greenhouse gas emissions right
like landowners or professionals like lawyers, and then the
a period of time, weren’t available. So you had to rely
now there’s no reasons why they won’t – damage to coastal
very poorest, who probably would have loved to get out
very heavily on social networks. If you happened to
cities will be an o n g o i n g p r o b l e m . You’ll have
but simply lacked the means. This includes broken families,
be in a strong family network or cohesive community,
single women, elderly people and so on. I think one of the
you could ride out those additional years of drought
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pressures over the next thirty to fifty years?
you get this s t e a d y e r o s i o n , year-after-year,
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RMcL We often tend to think it was sort of this
together again.
long-term consequences of that era was that a lot of those
and economic hardship.
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Carolinian cities, or New Orleans again.
more of these Hurricane Katrina-type refugee situations in cities like Galveston, Miami, Tampa or any of the
surprise is what the next leap forward
Photo: Gonzalo Puga
Imaginario Constructivo Smilian Radic
‘Almost all the buildings that interest me are past ones, of which we have no memory or image of any kind, the ones we are blithely ignorant of…’ says Chilean architect Smiljan Radic – while at the same time his work is distinctly rooted in the material world. His projects respond to their context through the careful consideration and treatment of building materials such as wood, stone, copper, rock and even mud. Yet the otherworldly forms of two recent collab orations with Marcela Correa, the Extension to the charcoal-burner’s hut and the A-House, exceed their presumed contextual narrative, as if a fantasy story
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Extension to the charcoal-burner’s hut Location: Culipran, Chile Designers: Smiljan Radic, Marcela Correa Construction year: 1999
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underscored their creation instead.
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Smiljan Radic architect / Marcela Correa sculptor Site area: 0,7 ha Built up area: 75 m2 Location: Talca, Chile Construction year: 2008
Foreclosed Homes Geoff Manaugh Photographs by Todd Hido
In the otherwise unwatchable 2005 film Fun With Dick and Jane actors Jim Carrey and Téa Leoni watch in dismay as their front lawn is repossessed. The turf is literally peeled off the surface of the earth, rolled up like wallpaper and carted away in the back of a pick-up truck. The natural landscape of their suburban world is revealed as very literally superficial. It is not a landscape at all, you could say, but a commercial product whose lifespan has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with affordability. The couple has fallen behind on their payments so their prosthetic terrain is taken away. ‘Not everybody could afford a landscape like that, eh?’ says Hector, the gardener, as he packs an armful of turf into his truck. Not everybody, indeed. I’m reminded of an article by Charles Montgomery from the October/November 2008 issue of The Walrus. On a visit to Stockton, California, a town particularly hard-hit by foreclosures, Montgomery stumbled upon a bizarre growth industry: painting the dead lawns of foreclosed homes green using athletic turf dyes. ‘It seemed fitting that realtors in Stockton should consider it normal to paint these lawns green’, he explained to me by email. ‘It was only the appearance of vitality that mattered. Homes that looked palatial from the street were fragile inside: thin walls, cheap lights, shelves pinned to cardboardthin drywall. Everything about Stockton’s suburbs felt temporary, as though the place was a movie set – built to be consumed and abandoned.’ Of course, foreclosures in the US continue to accumulate with no genuine end in sight. Whole suburban developments that everyone expected to be booming have now been reduced to ghost towns. Lawns are drying up, if not repossessed outright; pools
begun to colonize the derelict homes, like some avant-garde backdrop designed for a particularly exotic zoo. Mountain lions sleep atop uninhabited ranches, sunning them selves on pinewood decking.
All images are from the series Foreclosed Homes (1995–2008) by Todd Hido, toddhido.com. Courtesy of Stephen Wirtz Gallery.
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sit empty; upstairs bedrooms have fallen silent. In some cases wild animals have actually
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are turning green with algae or simply evaporating to form illegal skate parks; garages
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This is the spatial residuum of the financial crisis. Like a modern-day Pompeii, it is a geography of collapse – in this case, an immersive archaeological site distributed nationwide. Yet we mustn’t forget that these foreclosures did not begin today. In the mid-1990s, for instance, photographer Todd Hido had already begun to document repossessed homes in the greater Los Angeles area. These houses, forcibly abandoned and emptied of not quite all their contents, were sealed behind locked doors and left to accumulate dust. However those locked doors included coded lock-boxes containing keys, which Hido figured out how to access. He and a realtor friend discovered that the codes were nothing more complex than an abbreviation or anagram of the name of the bank that foreclosed on the property. ‘Home Savings of America was HSA’, Hido pointed out in a telephone interview. Enter that code and you can enter the building. ‘You could always tell what bank it was by the signs in front of the houses. I probably made it into forty or fifty of them that way and then I started taking pictures.’ When asked what he hoped to find Hido replied: ‘I was definitely more interested in the ones that weren’t cleaned up. A lot of times somebody would come in and wipe the place clean, but I concentrated on the simple little marks and the simple little traces left behind. You could tell where pictures had been hung, for instance, as if there were still stories on the walls themselves.’ The photos he produced are an odd kind of spatial portraiture: the inner lives of abandoned buildings. It’s as if we’ve come across some little-known burial practice in which twenty-first century homeowners have been entombed with none of their possessions. They are antechambers to the afterlife of the American Dream. In sheer volume alone our living rooms now far outweigh the pyramids: for every stone tomb in the world there are a thousand unused dens full of cat hair and dust. For every cemetery there is a dead lawn in Stockton. Take away the possessions and the electric lights and perhaps it is not a landscape meant for the living at all: the suburbs become a giant sepulcher. Perhaps the most astonishing thing here, then, is to realize how mundane it will be when the world really does fall apart. It won’t be all fires and riots and warfare, but empty dining rooms and leaking sinks. Perhaps the only things we’ll leave behind are some carpet squares, maybe a broken lamp, perhaps some loose thumbtacks on the garage floor. So much for the monumental. Hido’s photos are all the more bleak for being so ordinary. There are stained rugs and scuff marks, old mattresses, weak afternoon sunlight filtered through cheap drapes and oil stains on concrete. Perhaps it’s much worse to realize that there isn’t some apotheosis of the suburban landscape on the way, a geographic rapture that will complete – and finally justify – our built environment. There is no moment in the end when it will all make sense. We’ll evacuate a world we hardly knew, a purgatory of broken drywall and reclaimed lawns constructed by ancestors
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we will pretend not to understand.
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TO U T 9J EN 0 0 M 2 LE — PP 20 SU ME LU
VO
SPECIAL REPORT — 1
W AR RE N SP EC IA L RE PO RT FR O M CR IS IS TO PR O JE CT
CRISIS
JACKSON: ‘IT’S NOT THE BIG THREE. IT’S 4 MILLION JOBS’ ... 2
LEAVING MICHIGAN BEHIND: EIGHT-YEAR POPULATION EXODUS STAGGERS STATE 3
AUTO COLLAPSE WOULD RIPPLE ACROSS COUNTRY
4
METRO AREA HOME VALUES SINK FORECLOSURE GLUT FUELS DOUBLE-DIGIT DROPS IN MACOMB, OAKLAND 5
FORECLOSURES UP BY 81% IN U.S.
6
LY
THE FORECLOSURE FACTORY: METRO DETROIT IS A NATIONAL CENTER OF THE CRISIS
WARREN SPECIAL REPORT
SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 20
FROM CR ISIS TO PROJECT
R EDEFINING THE AMER ICAN DR EAM
CITY OF PROJECTS— 21ST CENTURY WARREN 179,260 between 1940 and 1970. Indeed, it was one of the fastest growing cities in the United States in that period. Federal programs and policies played a central role in the rapid growth and industrialization of suburban areas through highway construction and mortgage subsidies supporting the ownership of new suburban homes. Within a relatively short period metropolitan Detroit experienced a massive reordering. People and money left the central city en masse and relocated to the suburbs. In metropolitan Detroit homeownership and racism were closely linked and influential in shaping the development of the region. Warren remained over ninety percent white for decades while Detroit grew increasingly black. Positioning itself in stark contrast to Detroit, Warren was able to draw businesses, people and their money out of the central city to fuel its own growth. Warren was the ‘City of Progress’ succeeding as Detroit seemed to fail. The city of working and middle class families had become America’s future, proof of the American Dream’s viability for those who are diligent, practical and forward thinking. It became a perfect example of American values and the willpower to pursue them through hard work and homeownership. The suburban lifestyle was the material reward for America’s middle class, the workers who had endured and provided the labor to fuel Detroit’s industrial might. Yet Warren’s status as a destination city did not last. By 1970 the city’s population had grown to its height of 179,260. From that date on Warren lost population more quickly than almost any other U.S. city. People seemed to move through Warren on their way to bigger homes and ‘better’ suburbs and the city’s manufacturing industry dwindled. Continued expansion of the tax base was the fundamental driver of
BY CHRISTIAN ERNSTEN AND TONI MOCERI
Seeking bold visions for how the metropolitan suburb can herald a new rendition of the American dream and utilizing the current crisis as inspiration, this special report seeks to imagine how suburban cities throughout America could evolve in the coming decades. Struggling real estate and financial markets, surging foreclosures, rising unemployment and the looming fallout from the failure of the auto industry all come together to produce a crisis of extreme proportion in the metropolitan Detroit region. Once the fastest growing city in the United States, Detroit’s largest suburb, Warren, staked its future on the continued might of its manufacturing industry and appeal of its single family homes. It is here, amid the tremendous challenges of this now humbled suburban landscape, that we find motivation for action and vision. In the early 1800s the area that was to become Warren was rich with wetlands, creeks and forests, much like the rest of the southeastern territory of Michigan. Before the establishment of the township, Warren was a small settlement known as Beebe’s Corner. Serving as a way station for anyone traveling north from Detroit, it was essentially a road tollgate that grew to include a tavern, distillery, mill and trading post. As more people settled the area it was subdivided and organized into a township of farms in 1835. Originally Hickory Township, the name was changed to Warren in 1839 after the first hero of the Revolutionary War, General Joseph Warren. As the City of Detroit grew in the first half of the century, so did Warren. The automobile industry became one of the most pervasive forces influencing the urbanization of Detroit and its outlying areas. Rail lines reaching north from Detroit provided the impetus of growth and Warren’s farm and wetlands began to surrender to development in the late 1930s. Soon the area began to attract world-class military and automotive facilities. Metropolitan Detroit’s conversion into the ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ during World War II propelled the expansion of the military-industrial complex into the unlimited space north of Detroit including the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant designed by architect Albert Kahn. In 1950, in open space accessible by rail, General Motors began developing their Technical Center. Designed by architects Eliel and Eero Saarinen, the renowned campus was ceremonially opened by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956. The City of Warren was incorporated in 1957. Encompassing 34.5 square miles, the city is organized in an auto-dependent, gridded arterial system of Mile Roads. Warren could be seen as the typical suburb with single-family homes, commercial retail strips and manufacturing related industry spanning from the famed Eight Mile Road to Fourteen Mile Road. As part the massive American suburbanization of the post World War II era, Warren’s population surged from 42,653 to
ENCOMPASSING 34.5 SQUARE MILES, THE CITY IS ORGANIZED IN AN AUTO-DEPENDENT GRIDDED ARTERIAL SYSTEM OF MILE ROADS. WARREN COULD BE SEEN AS THE TYPICAL SUBURB WITH SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES, COMMERCIAL RETAIL STRIPS AND MANUFACTURING ... development and filled any remaining open space with detached condominiums, single story office buildings and the like. Over the years the city’s economic vitality paralleled the ups and downs of the auto industry. The city had done little to move beyond its manufacturing industry, homeownership and auto dependent values even as it celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. Now it also has the status of one of the most rapidly aging cities
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Heritage Village, 2009 PHOTO: CORINE VERMEULEN-SMITH
in the United States as it struggles to attract the young families central to the suburban lifestyle. The start of 21st century proved that Warren could no longer continue with business as usual. The economic and real estate crisis followed by the related financial stimulus of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and imminent restructuring of the American auto industry has created an urgent need in cities like Warren for radical transformation. Some have argued that the death of suburbia is to be expected and would even be liberating. Clearly this is a simplification; a complete erasure of suburbia is very unlikely in the near future. In fact the 2000 U.S. Census confirmed that suburbs continue to dominate the United States demographically, economically and politically. These places are a powerful shaper of America policies that have global implications. Yet there is an immediate need for a more dynamic approach. Indeed, places like Warren are at the heart of the battle over the future of the American Dream. For this reason they should lead the way in defining how a different narrative and type of civic attitude can shape the 21st century. Warren is transforming and simultaneously innovating by increasing collaboration with urban areas beyond its boundaries. Resources are limited, but there is energy for renewal. A fundamental rethinking of the city’s values and its relationship to the metropolitan Detroit region is of eminent importance. People continue to build their lives in Warren, investing energy, time and money. Optimistic visionaries predict that suburbia after the crisis will be at the center of a cultural shift, a lifestyle change that necessitates economic restructuring and the reorganization of community and space. The demise of suburbia is not at stake. Instead they argue for a new type of urban
THE ECONOMIC AND REAL ESTATE CRISIS FOLLOWED BY THE RELATED FINANCIAL STIMULUS OF THE AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT AND IMMINENT RESTRUCTURING OF THE AMERICAN AUTO INDUSTRY HAS CREATED AN URGENT NEED IN CITIES LIKE WARREN FOR RADICAL TRANSFORMATION. monumentality through a strategic reorganization of infrastructure and public buildings that have lasting historic significance. Still the question remains whether the current crisis will be a true catalyst for suburbia to become more than the American Dream as we have known it. Mere attempts to restore, stabilize or reconstruct what once allowed American suburbs to thrive won’t be enough to keep up with the rapid pace and negative effects of outsourcing and deindustrialization. Bold steps need to be taken. As one-time visitor of Warren, Dutch architectural historian Arjen Oosterman, remarked ‘the situation is grim but American optimism has beaten ghosts and giants’. The American pioneering spirit bodes well for the future of suburbia. In shaping that future three words come to mind: community, partnership and innovation. Initiatives to accelerate suburbia out of the current downturn need to be based on the appreciation of old values in new ways, at the both regional and local levels. Indeed, the demographic realities of Warren offer opportunity: Warren’s population is more diverse than ever before. It’s Polish, German, Irish, Italian, English and Ukrainian
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WARREN SPECIAL REPORT
SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 20
FROM CR ISIS TO PROJECT
opportunities to reposition Warren in the region and counter the city’s over reliance on the automotive industry. Energetic groups of unlikely partners – local homeowners, businesses, politicians along with local and international institutions and professionals – now have the chance to rethink how the city organizes itself, specifically with regards to the relation between housing, work, transportation and leisure. As such, the City of Warren needs a Master Plan to enable regional collaboration, catalyze innovation and facilitate alternative forms of ownership and production. In addition, projects such as the Van Dyke-8 Mile Gateway Collaborative (V-8) and Design 99 Powerhouse project provide examples of new approaches that should inform the city’s planning process. The V-8 consists of partners from Detroit, Centerline and Warren actively developing regional strategies that support physical revitalization and social equity activities, unrestricted by municipal boundaries. The Powerhouse prioritizes small-scale do-it-yourself entrepreneurship and production. Projects such as the Powerhouse are simultaneously community based and networked through media technologies with like-minded efforts that locally produce energy, food, furniture and all kinds of niche goods. These initiatives illustrate the importance of leveraging shared assets and experiences to enhance economic viability and quality of life. Finally, a new collaboration, a partnership of hope must be built between the City of Warren and the corporations that call it home, particularly General Motors. The crisis urges both public and private partners to reconsider their methods, values and opportunities in the interest of shared solutions. Community and commercial ventures should be engineered in smart ways. Advancement in manufacturing and engineering as well as infrastructure and transportation are likely common
families have been increasingly joined by African-American, Hmong, Chaldean and Muslim groups. Old and new groups could exchange and share community values as well as strategic techniques and projects to deal with the crisis. Gran Torino, filmmaker Clint Eastwood’s motion picture of Detroit metropolitan life shows the difficulties as well as the virtues of changing communities. Immigration has been and continues to be central to the region’s vivacity. History shows that culturally diverse and open communities are essential to job growth, entrepreneurship, innovation and the dynamism of our cities. New partnerships have the potential to create new
The situation is grim but American optimism has beaten ghosts and giants ILLUSTRATION: TAYLOR SHEPHERD
STRENGTH IN PRODUC TION ; SPACE FOR SOLUTIONS
... PROJECTS BASED ON NEIGHBORHOOD SELFORGANIZATION, INNOVATIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND CREATIVE PARTNERSHIPS WILL DETERMINE WARREN’S FUTURE.
R EDEFINING THE AMER ICAN DR EAM
Fig. 1
Fig. 4
WARREN
MACOMB COUNTY
DETROIT
WAYNE COUNTY
Fig. 2
goals. While the road ahead may already be paved, creative partnerships have the capacity to spark a broad-minded, more sustainable version of urban development. Instead of restoring old values, projects based on neighborhood self-organization, innovative entrepreneurship and creative partnerships will determine Warren’s future. Once a gateway out of the central city, Warren could become a model for how the suburb can redirect the region’s focus towards reinvigorating the American Dream in previously unimagined ways. The ingenuity, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of metropolitan Detroit was a fundamental force in the 20th century; it literally moved the world. Join us in envisioning where Warren moves us next. Toni Moceri is a Macomb County Commissioner representing the northwest portion of Warren and a lifelong resident of the city. Christian Ernsten is editor at Volume Magazine and partner in Partizan Publik, based in Amsterdam.
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DE T ROI T
Fig. 5
Fig. 1, Michigan in context of the United States; Fig. 2, Warren in relation to Macomb County relative to Wayne County; Fig. 3, Warren (lower left) in relation to Macomb County; Fig. 4, Street map of Warren; Fig. 5, City of Warren seal symbolizing the historical assets of the municipality
Fig. 3
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WARREN SPECIAL REPORT
SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 20
FROM CR ISIS TO PROJECT
R EDEFINING THE AMER ICAN DR EAM
W
W
POLITICAL MACHINE {IN RESPONSE TO}
TRANSITION IN THE ‘CITY OF PROGRESS’ BY BRIAN LOUWERS
WARREN, MI — There’s a steady
SOCIAL CONDITIONS, ECONOMY & CULTURAL VALUES {WHICH CONTROLS}
AMERICAN DREAM
=
STRATEGIC INVESTMENTS,
{INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM}
POLICY,
{FEDERAL MORTGAGE FINANCING REGULATION}
INCENTIVE
{TAX STRUCTURE} &
TECHNOLOGY
{BALLOON FRAME MASS PRODUCED HOUSING}
VISIONARY LEADERSHIP {PURSUIT OF: HAPPINESS, FREEDOM}
Diagram outlining the framework that has defined the ‘American Dream’
stream of traffic flowing into Warren these days, but unlike years past it’s not carloads of families looking for new homes in Detroit’s innerring suburbs or job seekers looking to fund lifestyles with livelihoods set in factories, warehouses, offices or commercial spaces. Many of those heading to Warren in 2009 carry notepads and cameras. They’ve come, along with their counterparts from all over the world, to document life on the frontlines of the nation’s economic troubles, at the epicenter of the American auto industry’s hardships, where the global financial crisis has hit home with a vengeance. In today’s Warren the story is often one rooted in the staggering number of homes either left abandoned or in foreclosure. It is a tale marked by high unemployment and one amplified by a growing strain on the remaining resources available to the region’s families, businesses and units of government. For those of us who live here, it’s the way it is – and it’s certainly newsworthy – but it wasn’t always this way, not even in our recent memory. Warren, Michigan’s third-largest city, was on the move when I started covering it in 2000 as a general assignment reporter for the local weekly newspaper. I jumped at the chance to
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tour the city’s former U.S. Army Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant property and write about the metamorphosis of the ‘Arsenal of Democracy,’ where more tanks rolled out of an iconic factory designed by Albert Kahn during World War II than were produced in all of Nazi Germany. The site eventually became the most successful commercial redevelopment of a former military facility in U.S. history and a nearly $40-million boon for Warren’s general fund budget. I followed a $1 billion investment at the General Motors Technical Center, the company’s North American engineering epicenter, and wrote at length about the city’s efforts to fund its new municipal offices and civic center library with funds sold against the promise of tax dollars paid by GM, and others, into the Warren’s Downtown Development Authority district.
stories in the Warren Weekly are about fear – fear on the part of businesses owners struggling to keep the lights on and the doors open as fewer patrons pass through them, and fear on the part of hardworking men and women in danger of losing their homes, after already losing their jobs. Even most typically stoic local administrators are nervous, as tax revenues that were once plentiful continue to wither and as needed projects that rely on those precious funds die on the proverbial vine, a bitter parallel to the sharp decline in the region’s property values and business climate. In Warren, it’s no news flash that everyone is worrying about their ability to pay the bills. From Michigan’s Gov. Jennifer Granholm on down many officials agree that the state needs to position itself as a leader in the development of ‘green’ products and ‘green’ jobs if it is to thrive in the future. And just as the factories of Warren sprung from the once-fertile farmland during the middle part of 20th century, the city’s existing properties – specifically, the GM Tech Center – look to be
JOBS, HOPES AND DREAMS ARE AT STAKE IN WARREN. At a dusty construction site just west of the Tech Center, on property previously owned by GM, I took notes as the Heritage Village development broke ground, in part, as planned attractive new housing stock for GM engineers going to work at the Tech Center. That was less than four years ago. In 2009 many of the
logically poised to lead the way in the engineering of tomorrow’s vehicles. Even in these dire times, there is good news to report. A concerted effort on the part of labor leaders, educators and local politicians – including Warren Mayor Jim Fouts, who has touted his own ‘Buy American’ campaign to bolster sales
by Detroit’s Big Three and has attempted to lure GM’s executives from their headquarters in downtown Detroit into existing space at the Tech Center – is falling into place, an obvious attempt to guide and expedite the transformation. The addition of a new battery laboratory at the Tech Center would only improve the facility’s chances of garnering international attention as a place where the cars of tomorrow are engineered and perfected. As home to GM’s North American engineering operations, a GM transmission plant and a Chrysler truck assembly plant that collectively fund through their taxes about 15 percent of the city’s annual $98 million general fund budget, Warren has a lot to lose as the global financial crisis plays out. Many automotive suppliers and
Suburban family households PHOTO: CHRISTIAN ERNSTEN
other businesses – restaurants, barber shops and bars – have already closed shop for good. Beloved family homes are gone forever. A large percentage of the region’s young people are now leaving town in search of jobs elsewhere, contributing to a phenomenon that, along with improved health care and a large number of aging baby boomers, has left the area’s
REINVENTING AMERICA’S METROPOLITAN SUBURBS BY JOHN PAUL REA MT. CLEMENS, MI — We have
reached a defining moment in the dynamic history of American suburban life. Since the late 1800’s the majority of American’s have vacated our urban cores, and chosen to reside in the cozy confines of suburbia. Politicians, developers, architects, planners, financial institutions, and industries have all played an integral part in the unbridled growth
of suburbia. The environment that was created displaced the grit and complexities of urban life with a pristine, homogenous, and easily duplicated societal structure. The suburb, which was once the alternative, has now become the standard of American living, but currently the standard has fallen on hard times. Today, America’s metropolitan suburbs are faced with economic
over 65 age group as the only segment of the population to experience a net increase. But even in the face of today’s realities, Warren also has much to gain if it can invest its governmental, educational and business resources early in what many believe will become the technologies of the future, the kind sought, sold and
purchased the world over. Jobs, hopes and dreams are at stake in Warren. They can be saved if the seeds of the future can be properly sown in those once-fertile lands lying just north of the Motor City.
uncertainty and physical decline. A number of the same social and economic challenges that fueled the fall of urban life have seeped into the fabric of suburban society. Increased crime, declining housing stock, and population loss seem to be commonplace in a number of metropolitan suburban communities. The most recent and devastating
uncertainty in many suburbs across America. Their hope lies in the many federal, state, and local agencies, which are committed to redevelopment and reinvestment in these communities. Their strength lies in the foundation for revitalization, which exists in many metropolitan suburbs. Metropolitan suburban communities, such as Warren, MI, still possess many viable amenities. These communities are anchored by vibrant residential neighborhoods, which are populated by loyal and passionate residents. They are serviced by an integrated and operational road and utility infrastructure, which is positioned to support enhancement and
threat is foreclosure. Many suburban communities are plagued with vacant homes due to the lingering credit and housing crisis, which has led to instability and
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Brian Louwers is a lifelong resident of the Detroit area, a graduate of the University of Michigan-Dearborn and a local journalist for C&G Newspapers who has covered the city of Warren, MI since 2000.
WARREN SPECIAL REPORT
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redevelopment ventures. Many of these suburban communities possess a mixture of established commercial, industrial, and institutional resources that have been serving the public for decades. To top it all off metropolitan suburban communities possess two very convenient characteristics in these difficult economic times: affordability and opportunity. We cannot allow metropolitan suburbs to fall into a constant state of economic decline and physical disinvestments. The crisis we are faced with is unprecedented, however our metropolitan suburban communities still remain intact and focused on revitalization. What society must do now is equip our suburbs with cutting edge planning, design, and development techniques that will allow us to re-imagine suburbia and stimulate growth. One of the great examples hampering the rejuvenation of suburbia is zoning. Metropolitan suburbs were founded on planning and zoning regulations that
not to defunct any theories of the origins of suburban development or what the current impact suburbs have on society. My purpose it to simplify our understanding of suburbs. What made the suburbs grow was the availability of cheap land, an increase in people, an influx of money,
supported uniform and compartmentalized land use, prohibiting the emersion of diverse land classifications. In today’s society these exclusionary planning and zoning practices prohibit growth and creativity. Planners and urban design practitioners have begun to implement more fluid development practices focused on mixed-use and traditional neighborhood design. Local decision makers must utilize these tools and provide their communities with the ability to attract new investment and ideas. The days of sprawling residential subdivisions, mundane commercial strip centers, and uninspiring institutional developments have long passed us. We can no longer allow the cul-desac, the strip mall, and the industrial park be the identity of American suburban life. The evolution and current state of American’s metropolitan suburbs and its many positive and negative externalities can be attributed to people, land, money, and technology. My point is
BY ANIRBAN ADHYA manity now lives in cities and their associated urbanized regions. Within two decades nearly 60 per cent of the world’s population will be urban dwellers. Yet this global urban growth is not uniform across different urban regions. As some urban regions grow in size and population,
are focused on the reuse and rehabilitation of underutilized property; Federal, state, and local agencies have committed billions of dollars in aid to metropolitan suburban communities in order to stabilize local economies; and advancements in green technologies and transportation efficiencies
THE DAYS OF SPRAWLING RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISIONS, MUNDANE COMMERCIAL STRIP CENTERS, AND UNINSPIRING INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTS HAVE LONG PASSED US. WE CAN NO LONGER ALLOW THE CUL-DE-SAC, THE STRIP MALL AND THE INDUSTRIAL PARK BE THE IDENTITY OF AMERICAN SUBURBAN LIFE.
CONSIDERING MODELS SOUTHFIELD, MI — Half of hu-
R EDEFINING THE AMER ICAN DR EAM
other urban areas – urban cores, inner-city areas and first ring suburbs – are shrinking and facing the challenges of depopulation and deterioration. The Detroit Metro Area is an illustration of such dynamic urban condition. While southeast Michigan has experienced steady population growth during the last century, Detroit and the
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and a desire for technological innovation. Looking at the current state of metropolitan suburban life one could conclude the following: There is a wave of first time homebuyers that are entering a housing market with great opportunity, affordability, and support; Land may be mostly developed, however many engineering, planning, and urban design practitioners
have laid the foundation for the rejuvenation of America’s aging infrastructure. What this all means is that America’s metropolitan suburban communities possess the people, land, money, and technology needed to revitalize and thrive.
communities surrounding the city have lost more than half their population in the last six decades. This urban condition has created an imbalance between a continuously sprawling periphery consisting of some of the wealthiest suburbs and a deteriorating urban core consisting of Detroit and the first-ring suburbs. This regional imbalance has evolved on account of a combination of historic racial dynamics in housing and employment within Detroit and political
differences between the city and the suburban communities. The current economic crisis has compounded the extant problem of a shrinking city with the new challenges of restructuring the auto industry, the loss of manufacturing sector jobs and real estate foreclosures. One result of this situation has been a lack of effective cooperation and partnership at the regional level: regional governance and political power is weak, regional
John Paul Rea is an Associate Planner with the Macomb County Department of Planning and Economic Development.
economic investment is misplaced, regional infrastructure development is poorly planned and even concern with regional problems is extremely low. As the metropolis faces the enormous challenges of the current economic crisis a regional approach is critical considering the valuable resources communities across the region share and can potentially harness. Facing such complex problems, Warren, one of the oldest and the largest suburb of Detroit, gives rise to some critical questions. Where and when do we invest within the city and the region? How do we define a new urban ecosystem based on the multidimensional relationship between city and society, economy, polity and technology? How do we imagine a sustainable community within the context of a shrinking population? The present economic crisis provides an opportunity to address these questions. In the absence of a strong regional political framework and with the failure of the traditional economic
surrounding suburbs. Detroit, Warren and the surrounding suburbs should work to capture the imagination of the regional population, to motivate regional collective action and to translate the resulting policies into physical realities. Establishing this regional framework thus also demands concentrated efforts of ‘envisioning, planning, promoting, and creating’ at the local grassroots level. Complementing the top-down regional framework, everyday urbanism emphasizes the bottom-up approach of creating sustainable communities through local projects. The focus is on selecting and investing in projects that address the relevant everyday needs of the community. Based on this idea everyday functional space in Warren could promote a zone of possibility and potential transformation via pragmatic community projects. The process of project selection and investment decision is unique to everyday urbanism. It does not take place according to typical political interests, based on standard business model, or conceived by outside design consultants. Instead everyday urbanism empowers the existing community to participate in active citizenship, form a design agency and create projects through the spontaneous action of everyday inhabitation, appropriation and adaptation in the changing context of the community. The two-way approach of strategic regionalismeveryday urbanism focuses on the people, the assets and their
development model, a new model of urban life is needed to transform the Metro Detroit region. Such a new urban direction should promote social, economic and environmental harmony. A community like Warren should foster stronger relationships with other suburban communities and with Detroit. A projectoriented collaborative environment could create a regional framework for creative partnerships and networking. The development of such informal networks will inspire and shape formal regional systems, governance and power-sharing structures. This project-based regional framework can be characterized by strategic regionalism coupled with everyday urbanism – a blend of top-down and bottomup approaches. Reconstituting the public realm of a region requires changes in the way it is imagined. The idea of a region can be effective when it is conceived as more than mere economic partnership and political collaboration between the city and the
Foreclosed House, Warren, 2009 PHOTO: CORINE VERMEULEN-SMITH
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EVERYDAY URBANISM, URBANISM EVERYDAY
Everyday urbanism defined as a dialectic blend of top-down and bottom-up approaches
value within the community. For Warren this would necessitate collective decisionmaking to reinforce the strategic investment of money and resources where they are most relevant to the everyday life of the community. In the face of drastic economic changes these everyday places will drive the future direction of investment, growth and community consolidation. This new model empowers Warren to create an important role in the region for itself thereby illustrating the rebuilding process from crisis to projects through collective imagination, citizen stewardship, technological innovation, design agency and communicative action. Anirban Adhya is Assistant Professor of Urban Design at Lawrence Technological University in Michigan, USA.
WARREN SPECIAL REPORT
SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 20
FROM CR ISIS TO PROJECT
R EDEFINING THE AMER ICAN DR EAM
WARREN, 2015 I VIS
99.
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Landscape and monuments of the New Warren
TE
ORG OFFICE FOR PERMANENT MODERNITY, ANDREW CORRIGAN AND ALEXANDER D’HOOGHE
CT
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E X P E R I M E N TA L
RE VI VE
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ILLUSTRATION: AIDA MIRON
PHOTO: CORINE VERMEULEN-SMITH
Alexander D’Hooghe is Associate Professor of Architectural Urbanism at MIT. He is founder of ‘ORG - Office for Permanent Modernity’ located in Belgium and the USA.
SO AC T CI IV AL AT N N EQ I N G TO EC UI TY RE TIN G SO U BU RC S ES INE SS
... WARREN DECIDED TO DECLARE ITSELF A ‘FREE-ZONE’ (FREISTADT), A PETRI DISH FOR EXPERIMENTS IN ALTERNATIVE MODERNIZATION.
Visions of Warren
Landscape of the current Warren; Heritage Village, 2009
of these can be found in the Dakotas (because they’re too thinly populated) or in New England (because it’s too dense and interconnected). Thus Warren’s willingness to experiment gave it the competitive edge. Engineers and researchers could simply walk out of the building and use their own city as the test-society. As a result people from all over the world came to visit Warren 3.0 and see its upgraded infrastructure grid, downtown warehouses, research facilities, art colonies and natural preserves: the dream 3.0. And the rest is history.
L
CENTER LINE + DETROIT + WARREN
already begun to take back those unraveling edges of Warren with the lowest development density. Second, a new generation of citizens, younger, more diverse, and increasingly invested in the city decided to develop a more diverse economy. Third, the vast open spaces in the immediate vicinity of the region’s airports, maximized through
CO
Michigan has become the exciting ground zero of the new version of the American Dream. The American Dream 3.0 if you will, after 1.0 (refuge from European barbarism) and 2.0 (automobile suburbia as refuge from the evil city). Future Warren is a refuge from the complicated, polluted, vast areas of global urbanization crisscrossed by a population of exhausted zombies, an overworked, overheated hive of highly educated workers. Future Warren is a clear, orderly city with a balance of green and compact development organized in large, often old, container-like buildings (a typological residue from the previous industrial age), yet filled with new content. These
buildings, weatherized microcities, are connected with a uniform grid of generously sized roadways which are the test bed for the Personal Rapid Transit technologies developed in the area’s research centers after the bankruptcy and restart of General Motors as ‘Green Monuments’. Warren was able to make this transition into model 3.0 first because it was better equipped than most American cities. What were Warren’s great assets? What set Warren apart from other cities? First, its declining property values had finally reached the point where redevelopment made sense: where else could you find – for free – an excellent roadway network, existing monumental buildings and a natural reserve that had
ES
CU
BY ALEX ANDER D’HOOGHE CAMBRIDGE, MA — Warren,
TD
the Michigan ‘Aerotropolis’ initiative, allowed for the location of new green industries with big footprints and easy access to the global market. Fourth, Warren decided to declare itself a ‘free-zone’ (Freistadt), a petri dish for experiments in alternative modernization. For example, it holds a permanent Art Biennale, attracting artists from across the world to its suburban neighborhoods while simultaneously creating an experimental zone for imported concepts. This openness launched its current trajectory of rapid upward development. Finally, GM installed the first electric car refill grid in Warren, a project similar to Israeli Shai Agassi’s electric project. In addition, Segway and GM built the first Personal Rapid Transit system in Warren. Neither
VAN DYKE–8 MILE GATEWAY COLLABORATIVE POWERHOUSEPROJECT.COM A DESIGN 99 PRODUC TION
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ADDRESSING THE CONSEQUENCES OF URBAN SPR AWL THAT HAS AFFECTED THE CIT Y OF DETROIT AND ITS INNER-RING SUBURBAN NEIGHBORS.
, LY L A N Y” I O LL G A T RE C EN M K P LO VE N HI HO RO S P T T “ S M E I R AN D G IT Y ÇA MUN FA M O C ONS I ING ITAT VERSAT L I C FA CON ING PR O M OT
E N T E R PR
ISE
CREATING EFFECTIVE TOOL S
PROVIDIN PROGRAMMING + G EDUC ATION
AY.ORG V8GATEW
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WARREN SPECIAL REPORT
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FROM CR ISIS TO PROJECT
BUIL D STRO NG COM MUN ITY PRIDE DEV ELOPING LAN D BAN KS BREA KING BOU NDA RIES BETW EEN POL ITICAL FOR CES
DEV ELOPING A WIN D FAR M ALO NG 8 MILE RD &CR EATI NG GRE ENH OUS ES
PLAC ING KIOS KS AS MEE TING POIN TS IN NEIG HBO RHOO DS
CRE ATING A CATALO G OF PARTS AVA ILAB LE FOR HOM EOW NER S
OPE NING UP FREE DOM OF EXPR ESSION THR OUG H REV ISED CODES & ORDINANCES
LAB ELING HOM ES WIT H OWN ERSH IP INFO RMATION
BRINGING NOR THE RN MIC HIGA N’S “SPO RTSM AN’S PAR ADIS E” INTO WAR REN
ENCOUR AGING PEO PLE TO SHO P AT STOR ES WIT H THE HIGH EST RETU RN TO WAR REN
ENC OUR AGING IMM IGRATION PIONEERS
USING EMP TY HOM ES OR STOR EFRO NTS FOR NEIG HBO RHO OD PERFORM ANC ES & ART EVEN TS
EXPE RIM ENT ING WIT H GRE EN TEC HNO LOG IES
through those repetitive fields of suburban homes and their cultivated dreams made me think of intensive farming, of monoculture. That’s what suburbia is: land used for the over-production of real-estate value. What if we allow certain fields in the city to ‘lie fallow’, releasing them from this single function. Leaving land fallow is an acceptable practice in agriculture, a method to rest and revitalize the land. How would this strategy look if applied to the city?
Letting land go fallow is not the same as letting it grow wild. Instead it’s more the equivalent to allowing other ‘feral’ forms of design and design practice to take over for a while. In fallow fields weeds and unpredictable practices can temporarily flourish before giving way as the suburb’s growth renews. It’s the opposite of doing nothing. The first task would be to clearly demarcate the fallow zones. These don’t have to follow a grid pattern, but can be more like distinct islands within it - encompassing
an area with the most foreclosures or a floodplain. Homeowners would receive incentives to exchange and improve property lying just outside fallow zones. Vacant homes within fallow zones would be bought by the city and dismantled. The task would be to concentrate both empty and inhabited domiciles
AC TION
at their respective boundaries. Next, each fallow zone would include a Design Studio and a Fabrication Workshop. These would
COL LECT ING HISTORIE S OF FOR ECLO SURE STOR IES
WOR DS
RSVP PAR TNE RS
RETH INKI NG OWN ERSH IP
[email protected] *RSVP EVENTS ARE A SERIES OF INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOPS ORGANIZED IN RESPONSE TO AN URGENT CHALLENGE. THESE EVENTS ARE AIMED AT PROVIDING CITIES IN NEED WITH CLUES AND CONCEPTS TO REVIVE THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, TO RE-ENERGIZE ITS URBAN SPIRIT AND TO REVITALIZE ITS TRUST IN DIALOGUE AS THE ESSENCE OF CIVIC LIFE. WARREN JOINS FELLOW CITIES SUCH AS SHANGHAI, NAPLES, NEW YORK, BEIRUT AND BERLIN IN HOSTING THE RSVP SERIES.
Sketch of haystacks and vertical wind farms in autumn fields ILLUSTRATION: BERENIKA BOBERSKA
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constitute a think-tank, design laboratory and a sort of area headquarters all in one. The fabrication workshop would be a newly built industrial shed-type building, large enough to work on structures the size of a typical pre-fab house. It would be a place to invent new building materials and structures. The fallow
THE PHYSICAL EFFECT OF AN ELEVATED VIEWPOINT IS EMPOWERING, ALLOWING ONE TO BE ABLE TO SURVEY THE CITY FROM ABOVE AND ONE’S PLACE IN IT. THIS IS WHAT HAS BEEN MISSING IN SUBURBIA ALL ALONG: AN INTERRUPTION.
CH ANGE PO LICY
INIT IATI NG NEIG HBO RHO OD BAR TER SYST EMS
E—S TILL S COU RTES Y
STAR TING A RADIO STAT ION OR POD CAST
LEGI TIMI ZING SCRA PPING
BY BERENIK A BOBERSK A LOS ANGELES, CA — Driving
VIDE
ENACTING ADA PTIV E REUS E/M ISUS E OF BUIL DING S
OF GINA REIC HER T
A GROUP OF LOCALS AND INTERNATIONAL VISITORS GATHERED FOR A RSVP EVENT* IN WARREN, MI (USA) TO FOCUS ON FINDING PRAGMATIC ANSWERS TO HOW TO MOVE FROM CRISIS TO PROJECT IN METROPOLITAN DETROIT—
A WAR REN MOD EL HOM
REA LIZING LAN D TRUSTS
FEBRUARY 2009:
WOR KSH OP HELD IN
DISA SSEM BLING HOM ES FOR REUS E OF MAT ERIA LS & COM PON ENT S
FALLOW CITY AND FERAL DESIGN
THE CLOS ING O DOC UME NTAT ION OF
RSVP RE SULTS WE ’RE TH INKING ABOUT:
R EDEFINING THE AMER ICAN DR EAM
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zone would become a testing ground for these experiments. Failure is allowed. The workshop would need to be equipped with the latest fabrication technology and tools for this low- and hightech combination to work. Each workshop could take advantage of local technical knowledge with a paid fellowship for a ‘resident engineer’, someone laid off from the auto industry, perhaps! Feral - as in run away or escaped from the suburban house - means returning to an untamed state. Feral Design could mean recycling building components in new, creative and public ways. A few ideas already come to mind. Timber frame roofs could be used in their entirety as formwork for casting new elements. The morphology of roof shapes is very strong and can be used to assemble larger public landscapes, surfaces and even earthworks. Flipped upside down they become vessels for wetlands, meadows, elevated gardens or ponds for Canadian
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FROM CR ISIS TO PROJECT
RETURN TO AN UNTAMED STATE FAILURE IS ALLOWED
geese. Some houses are almost like mobile building blocks; they can be cut, combined and stacked. Surface materials can be stripped and changed. Fallow zones could be public islands within private suburbia, feral architecture scattered in public orchards, meadows, forests, wetlands, open air cinemas and auditoriums, a collection of houses raised on stilts above the trees and turned into aerial libraries or reading rooms. The fallow zones would gradually become autonomous. There would be enough freedup surface area for solar or wind energy collectors to meet the needs of a much lower density. A strong singular intervention, such as a tall structure – not a cluster of towers or a linear downtown – instinctively makes a necessary counterpoint to the fallow field..Like tall haystacks loosely interspaced in autumn fields, they would be essentially public structures, tall point-towers with viewing
DIY RECIPES {RECIPE FOR A WILDFLOWER HOUSE} STRIP THE WALLS AND ROOFS OF OUTER SURFACE MATERIAL DOWN TO THE TIMBER FR AME AND STUDS. THEN FILL THE HOUSE WITH THE DEBRIS AND PACK E ARTH MIXED WITH SEEDS IN-BE T WEEN THE TIMBERS {RECIPE FOR WILD MUSHROOM HOUSE} SIMIL AR TO A WILDFLOWER HOUSE, ONLY WITH MUSHROOM SPORES. ( FARM L AB OF LOS ANGELES HAS A SELEC TION OF MUSHROOM SPORES PARTICUL ARLY FOND OF BUILDING MATERIALS.) THIS COULD ALSO BE A KIND OF ‘SOF T DEMOLITION.’ {RECIPE FOR A FABRIC HOUSE} STRIP A HOUSE DOWN TO ITS STRUC TURE AND CRE ATE A FULL-SIZE FABRIC GLOVE FOR IT. THE FABRIC CAN BE SCREEN PRINTED, COMBINING A PAT TERN OF PRINTED SOL AR CELLS WITH GR APHIC S. THIS COULD BE A PROTOT YPE FOR A ‘SOL AR HOUSE COZ Y’ – SOME THING TO BE USED WIDELY.
FINANCING
THE PROJEC T’S INITIAL FINANCIAL BURDEN ( BUYING PROPERT Y ) WOULD FALL ON THE CIT Y AND GOVERNMENT STIMULUS FUNDING. THIS REL ATIONSHIP WOULD E VENTUALLY SWITCH AROUND, HOWE VER, AS THE ENERGY HARVESTING PROJEC TS DE VELOPED IN THE FREED UP ARE AS WOULD FEED BACK INTO THE CIT Y’S SYSTEMS. THE BOUNDARY BE T WEEN FALLOW ZONES AND THE CIT Y WOULD BE THE MOST FECUND. THESE WOULD BE PUBLIC SPACES FOR THE TR ADE AND E XCHANGE OF PRODUC TS, IDE AS AND PROTOT YPES. FUNDS COULD INITIALLY BE REDIREC TED FROM WELFARE PROGR AMS TO CRE ATE EMPLOYMENT DISMANTLING HOUSES. PAID FELLOWSHIPS AT THE DESIGN STUDIO WORKSHOPS AND FOR THE PROTOT YPICAL DESIGN PROJEC TS COULD BE FUNDED BY CORPOR ATE SPONSORSHIP, NOT PER PROJEC T, WHICH WOULD LIMIT THE RESE ARCH, BUT PER FALLOW ZONE. PERHAPS E ACH FALLOW ARE A COULD DE VELOP GENER AL RESE ARCH THEMES. THE SPONSORS WOULD HAVE ACCESS TO THE WORK , WITH AN E YE TO TAKING THE DESIGNS TO A WIDER MARKE T, I.E., TO OTHER CITIES. THE FALLOW ZONES WOULD FUNC TION LIKE L ABOR ATORIES. AS A STR ATEGY THIS STORY DEFINITELY HAS AN ENDING. FALLOW CIT Y WOULD ONLY E XIST FOR A SE ASON OR T WO – ON AN ECONOMIC/URBAN TIMESCALE. THE CIT Y WOULD E VENTUALLY E XPAND AG AIN ABSORBING THE NE W E XPERIMENTAL PR AC TICES, WHICH BY THEN WOULD HAVE HAD A CHANCE TO ESTABLISH THEMSELVES, LIKE PIONEERS IN SUBURBIA.
WARREN WELCOMES
PLATFORM FOR A PERMANENT MODERNITY As an outcome of the RSVP goal to perpetuate an ongoing exchange between local stakeholders and the international design and architecture community, Warren welcomes the Platform for Permanent Modernity and their researchers! The Platform for a Permanent Modernity, a research group at MIT, studies architectural urbanism. It investigates the intersection of formal design, intellectual reflection and a political theory of action. The platform is directed by Alexander D’Hooghe.
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NAME : John Pugh AGE : 30 HOMETOWN : Herndon, VA SPECIALIZATION : Architecture and urbanism RESEARCH INTEREST: Urban core typologies WHY WARREN : Warren represents an advanced version of the typical inner ring suburb. Through the introduction of the mega-form type, which serves as a platform for growth, a new identity for the city will be generated.
R EDEFINING THE AMER ICAN DR EAM
platforms. The physical effect of an elevated viewpoint is empowering, allowing one to be able to survey the city from above and one’s place in it. This is what has been missing in suburbia all along: an interruption. The structures could be vertical parks, tall slender mountain-like forms with engineered surfaces packed with wildflowers. Or they could be lighter structures like vertical aviaries for migrating birds. Or they could be high-tech structures clad with fabrics printed with patterns composed of colorful solar cells. These would be vertical wind farms with sculptured surfaces made from tiny plastic turbines that work just as well as one huge one. It would be a place where one can stay right at the top, have a picnic and connect visually with other structures in other fallow zones of the city a place for encounters.
ARCHIVES: PROJECTING TOMORROW’S VOICES TODAY
Berenika Boberska is a Polish-British architect and installation artist currently based in Los Angeles.
COLOPHON
LO OK IN G FO TH E PO TE NT IA RW AR D TO OF TH IS NE W L OU TC OM ES AN D EX PA RT NE RS HI P!CI TI NG
NAME : Marissa Cheng AGE : 26 HOMETOWN : Carlisle, MA SPECIALIZATION : Architecture and urbanism RESEARCH INTEREST: Urban public infrastructure WHY WARREN : The consequences of the decline of the automobile industry can be read in Warren’s industrial landscape. A new industrial typology can revive Warren’s economy and provide infrastructure for new civic programs.
On left: A scenario re-working the idea of an assembly line for the future of design, architecture and culture in Detroit, from the fictitious book Agents of Change. POSTER DESIGN: NINA BIANCHI AND LIISA SALONEN, PRODUCED BY AIGA DETROIT
On right: ‘Heartland Machine’ — a roving, kinetic, collecting bricolage slated to travel through the Midwest Heartland in the summer of 2009. POSTER DESIGN: NINA BIANCHI AND DESIGN 99, A PROJECT OF DESIGN 99
*HEADLINE SOURCES (FRONT AND BACK COVERS) 1. “The foreclosure factory: Metro Detroit is a nation center of the crisis. Special Report.”The Detroit News. 15 May 2009. <www.detnews.com> / 2. Brand-Williams, Oralandar. “(Rev. Jesse) Jackson: ‘It’s not the Big Three. It’s 4 million jobs.’” The Detroit News 4 December 2008. <www.detnews.com> / 3. French, Ron and Mike Wilkinson. “Leaving Michigan Behind: Eight-year population exodus staggers state outflow of skilled, educated workers crimps Michigan’s recovery.” The Detroit News 2 April 2009. <www.detnews.com> / 4. “Auto collapse would ripple across country.” The Detroit News 19 November 2008. <www.detnews.com> / 5. Jun, Catherine. “Metro area home values sink: Foreclosure glut fuels double-digit drops in Macomb, Oakland.” The Detroit News. 21 November 2008. <www.detnews.com> / 6. “Foreclosures up by 81% in U.S.” Detroit Free Press 15 January 2009. <www.detnews.com> / 7. Louwers, Brian C. “Gathering aims to look forward, away from housing crisis.” Warren Weekly 25 February 2009. <www.candgnews.com> / 8. Guerra, Jennifer. “In Detroit, Artists Look For Renewal In Foreclosures.” All Things Considered. NPR. 18 March 2009. / 9. “A model for others?” Detroit Free Press 3 May 2009. <www.freep.com> / 10. Rogers, Christina. “Wind turbines generate Michigan job hopes.” The Detroit News 7 May 2009. <www.detnews.com> / 11. “Motor city journal: Farming takes root in Detroit.” Detroit Free Press 4 May 2009. <www.freep.com> / 12. “What can Flint’s near-death experience teach other cities?” Detroit Free Press 3 May 2009. <www.freep.com> / 13. “Green acres in Detroit? Why not, mayor asks.” Detroit Free Press 15 April 2009. <www.freep.> / 14. Zemke, John. “Think local, act regional.” Metromode 30 August 2007.
WARREN SPECIAL IS A SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME MAGAZINE 20 EDITORIAL TEAM : Toni Moceri, Christian Ernsten, Arjen Oosterman DESIGN : Nina Bianchi PHOTOGRAPHERS : Corine Vermeulen-Smith, Arjen Oosterman and Gina Reichert ILLUSTRATIONS / GRAPHIC IMAGES : Nina Bianchi, Aida Miron, Taylor Shepherd and Berenika Boberska SPECIAL THANKS TO : Ole Bouman (NAI), Lucia Tozzi (Abitare), Gina Cavalier (City of Warren), Rose Furlong (City of Warren), Henry Bowman (City of Warren), Jeff Schroeder (Macomb County), John Crumm (Macomb County), Philip Plowright (Lawrence Tech), Constance Bodurow (Lawrence Tech), James Stevens (Lawrence Tech), Calvin Creech (Lawrence Tech), Jordan Martin (Lawrence Tech), City of Warren, Abitare, Netherlands Architecture Institute, the College of Architecture and Design at Lawrence Tech, Macomb County Planning and Economic Development, Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA), City of Warren TIFA, Winnick Homes, Design 99, Kuhnhenn Brewery, Michigan State Representative Lesia Liss, Michigan State Representative Jon Switalski, Corine Vermeulen-Smith, Brent Moceri and everyone who participated in the Warren RSVP. Volume is published by the Archis Foundation, The Netherlands, and Printed by Die Keure, Belgium. VISI ★ TO GET INVOLVED IN WARREN
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LU SU M PP E LE 20 M — EN 20 T T 09 O JU LY
Nato Thompson Interviewed by Volume
IN DETROIT, ARTISTS LOOK FOR RENEWAL IN FORECLOSURES
If the legacy of the boom economy known as gentrification is a deep-rooted example of class conflict, then home vacancy may be an emerging example of class meltdown. Rampant foreclosures in highly entrenched US working-class neighborhoods in, for example, Chicago and Boston have created a situation
8
A MODEL FOR OTHERS?
in which once-antagonistic neighbors now find themselves on similarly perilous
9
footing. Both the previously upwardly mobile and native-born, blue-collar families
PROJECT GATHERING AIMS TO LOOK FORWARD, AWAY FROM HOUSING CRISIS
SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 20
REDEFINING THE AMERICAN DREAM
are increasingly being disenfranchised from homeownership. Volume speaks with New York-based curator Nato Thompson about the effects of the global recession on a local urban scale.
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WIND TURBINES GENERATE MICHIGAN JOB HOPES WHAT CAN FLINT’S NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE TEACH OTHER CITIES?
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immediacy and that’s effective in organizing and radicalizing
conditions?
people. It gets people’s attention and politics on the table.
is that geopolitics and resistance practices have become
Volume Given the ongoing crisis it seems interesting
extraordinarily esoteric. They failed to ground themselves
that the composition of urban neighborhoods is
in the things that were happening around them. So now you
changing. Now, with foreclosures and people losing
have things like the activist group Right to the City looking
jobs and having to find cheaper places to live, in some
at geopolitical forces from the local perspective, in terms
cases those very people who ‘gentrified’ neighborhoods
of struggles happening right on your corner, and tying
are now in
them into the conditions of global capital movement. This
the same plight as struggling working class families.
is an organic outgrowth of the anti-globalization move
People who might have been on different divides of
ment which found itself e x t r a o r d i n a r i l y w e a k
the gentrification issue may discover that they’re now
with regard to issues that dealt with the particulars of
on the same side and literally on the same block today.
everyday life.
So it seems like the geopolitics of the local scale is
peril as well. They find themselves in
evolving and fluid at the moment.
GREEN ACRES IN DETROIT? ...
THINK LOCAL, ACT REGIONAL
that’s happening a block away. The local scale has personal
in new directions given current economic and political Nato Thompson Yes. A big problem of the post-Seattle era
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FARMING TAKES ROOT IN DETROIT
Volume Do you find urban-related practices evolving
Volume What is the significance of the attention given
NT I agree and to be quite frank, you never know where
to the local scale?
these things are going to
erupt. I mean everybody’s
NT The local scale is critical. For a project called
susceptible – it’s not quite as simple as neighborhoods
Democracy in America, Daniel Tucker and I recently went
being separated. You need to create allegiances that are
to cities across the US and talked to people about what’s
more productive and will be drawn increasingly together.
important to them. Chicago is a really interesting example:
The big question is the degree to which foreclosures and
Volume 20
VO
Won’t You be My Neighbor?
the Iraq War was clearly a concern, but we found that most
mass layoffs will actually affect neighborhoods and commu
people’s primary concerns were with gentrification. I think
nities. That question is very much unresolved at this point.
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happening in a foreign country than about something
that’s because it’s harder to get excited about something
If You Go There Will Be Trouble, An’ If You Stay There Will Be Double
Unfortunately, all over the Western world, governments
Andrew Oswald
have given major tax breaks to people to own their own
Interviewed by Jeffrey Inaba and Talene Montgomery
homes and individuals have responded rationally. But that
AO I think it’s a mistake to emphasize differences between
has locked in even very young people and they’ve been
the United States and most of the rich European countries.
more concerned about holding onto their asset than finding
There’s a tremendous spread in the owner-occupation
the right career. That’s really bad – at the group level – for
rate across North America just as there is across western
the whole economy.
and eastern Europe. There isn’t a one-to-one correlation
The foreclosed home is the most potent sign of our times, casting doubt on Westerners’ impulse to settle in one place. Community planners often highlight the importance of social capital during moments of crisis – but what are the
JI
than migration and flexibility be central to resolving our economic crisis? In an era when infrastructure and public works dominate urban debates, how might incentives to migrate be built into policies that affect the built environment? Economist Andrew Oswald’s work elucidates the mobility debate.
differences between these two?
between high levels of homeownership and a badly working
economic values of mobility? Might stability and investment in one place rather
Is it simply a matter of degree or are there categorical
Are there economic models or theories about the
labor market, but in both continents there is something
threshold at which homeowners decide that it’s not in
to the idea that having a lot of homeowners
their best interest to hold onto their asset and move?
labor market down.
slows the
AO Yes. Economics assumes that people weigh the costs
It’s useful to bear in mind that homeowners routinely block
and benefits of everything in life including the decision
new businesses through zoning laws which is bad for
whether to be an owner or a renter, whether to remain
employment. Homeowners also routinely commute much
where they are or move, perhaps very far away, or possibly
longer-distances and that produces pollution and con
switch careers. In order to achieve economic efficiency,
gestion both of which are bad for everyone. So geography
workers and citizens need to do this efficiently.
and architecture are deeply entwined in the labor as well
If we give very large tax incentives for homeownership then,
as the housing market.
in a sense, as a society we’re providing a huge subsidy to immobility. We’re really saying to workers: ‘Forget what’s
JI
efficient for the economy, just think about how to earn
sprawl. In the post-war era in western Europe and
capital gains.’ That’s always a dangerous strategy, even
in the US, the only place where young families could
when the housing market is rising. When it’s falling, as it
afford to buy were further away from city centers.
has been recently, this is a very serious error.
So from the very outset, one is commuting a long
One of the things that’s happened across industrialized
distance. That, as you say, is further exacerbated
countries during this huge housing boom is that people
by the fact that when one wants to keep their home,
I suppose that it was this flaw that prompted
Jeffrey Inaba In 2002 you anticipated the housing
Talene Montgomery Over ten years ago you began
have started to think that they can make more money from
they’re willing to seek jobs elsewhere, which could
market crash. What were the indicators?
making observations about the dichotomy between
just d o i n g n o t h i n g – holding onto their housing
be at great distance.
Andrew Oswald Historically it’s not that hard to predict
homeownership and private rentership. We are
assets – than from their real job or investing in retraining.
AO Yes, exactly. It’s worth emphasizing too that this
housing crashes. It’s tricky to get the timing exactly right,
interested in your idea that there are ‘those who invest
This has caused a tremendous distortion in what you might
is an especially serious problem for young people. If you
but we know that every twenty years there tends to be a
in immobility’ and ‘those who invest in flexibility’.
call reliable economic values.
imagine a world with very high levels of homeownership,
big house price rise above the long-term trend and that’s
AO If a person buys their own home, they become
what we’ve seen. It’s really most striking in the US.
less mobile. Owning a home is typically a disadvantage
If you draw a graph of real house prices in the US over
to a worker because they tend to become locked into
the last hundred years, it’s a wiggly line but it’s pretty flat.
their particular area. And there’s a double effect: a n
AO We don’t know why this sort of homeownership fever
War there was a much greater supply of cheaply available
When I started issuing warnings in my country, the UK,
i m m o b i l e w o r l d , in the economist’s terms,
gripped the world, but after the Second World War the
rental housing that helped people, especially the young,
real house prices in the US had reached their highest levels
is an inefficient one. You get square pegs in round holes,
idea was promoted that to be well-off, you needed to be
relocate and get their first and second jobs.
in a century. T h e n t h e y d o u b l e d a g a i n .
so firms have job openings for ultimately the wrong sorts
a homeowner.
The graph is a classic example of a strongly trend-reverting
of workers. There’s a strong link between the need for
Switzerland is unusual in that it did not give big tax breaks to
economic system. You can have crazy boom periods or
efficiency and the need for a fluid kind of housing market
homeowners. Instead they kept a balance between incen
crazy slump periods. But you tend to come back to the
that allows people to move around.
tives to rent and incentives to own. As a consequence only
AO I have a sense that western governments are starting
about one-third of Swiss citizens own their own homes. The
to realize that maybe it’s not such a great thing to try and
Swiss have an unemployment rate of about 3.5 percent, the
push homeownership rates up to eighty or ninety percent.
lowest in Europe. All the economies in which around eighty
Maybe politicians are realizing that you need a fluid element to your housing stock. Renting helps economic efficiency.
it’s extremely hard for a new cohort of young workers
sensible trend. Most people didn’t want to listen. If the party is absolutely
JI
booming and it’s half-past midnight, anyone who says,
within a certain demographic range?
And do you find this to be particularly the case
TM Why is it that housing has been made to seem
because they can’t start off being a homeowner. And
attractive in terms of incentives?
throughout the industrialized world after the Second World
JI
Do you see promising policy proposals that take
stock of these effects?
‘Look this is crazy, we better stop now’, [pause] most folks
AO Yes. Life-cycle considerations are very important,
percent of the residents are homeowners – that includes
don’t want to hear it.
both for the individual and for the good of the whole
places like Spain, Finland, Eastern Europe and Italy – are
economy. There’s lots of economic evidence that young
now experiencing serious labor market problems. Looking
TM If the idea of moving to a place of prosperity exists
people – those in their mid-twenties, say – are
back to the 1960s, we see that economies seem to flourish
in the American collective psyche, given the current
when around fifty percent of residents are homeowners.
downturn is there really a ‘place’ to move to? What do
experi
AO I do own my own home. I deferred purchasing and
menting. They’re looking for the right kind of job,
bought the smallest possible home I could for family
the right kind of career track, for the rest of their life. And
reasons. I’m pleased I’m in the smallest possible home,
because they’re doing lots of sampling, it’s simpler for
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Do you own your own home?
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JI
given the current sorts of losses.
them not to be tied to a particular area.
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you think, in terms of larger migration patterns? TM How do patterns of homeownership and unem
AO It’s a mistake to be overly gloomy. You can always
ployment differ in European countries versus the US?
find some sectors of the economy that are doing relatively
well. And those that buck the trend are typically being
Yes Stories
driven by some sort of new technology. Of course, it does
Roger Dean
have the downside that we have these large swings up and
Interviewed by Jeffrey Inaba
down, but the good side is that there’s a lot of technical change and there are always good new ideas coming
Oversized mushrooms, free-floating spores, expansive waterways, ambiguous
through. Ultimately, we need workers to move from the
horizons. These are just some of the fantastic environmental elements comprising
depressed areas and the depressed industries and follow the new technology jobs in whatever form they’re going
Roger Dean’s universe: a hallucinatory flip-side known to many as simply ‘Yes
to come in. It’s not possible, of course, to predict what the
World’. Here the venerated Brighton-based artist translates this visual language –
new trend will be say, twenty years from now. This kind
one that has adorned tee-shirts, album covers, concert posters and the walls
of flexibility is the good side of capitalism. JI
of countless dormitory rooms as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum – and
Bucking the trend seems like an important point
its etymology to methods of storytelling and child-like experiences of space.
to remember. AO [laughs]…If you can pull it off, yeah.
Jeffrey Inaba You’re known for using organic-shape
long lists of things that bothered both children and adults,
landscapes and architectural forms in your paintings.
and a slightly shorter list of attributes they found positive.
Was that a response to an urban reality at a particular
The organic look of my designs came about from a child’s
moment in time?
description of a space. He did it by waving his arms and we
Roger Dean Well, the thing that interested me about archi
just literally designed the child’s room around these waved
tecture as a student at the Royal College of Arts in England
arms. As I extrapolated that into the rest of the house, I got
was that built spaces didn’t seem to accommodate the
very positive feedback. So I kept it, but I didn’t set out to do
human psyche very well. I was interested in why people
it that way. I suppose in the end I had a list that I had tuned
found it difficult to sleep in
down from about a thousand things that were concerning
strange buildings.
Was it just the strangeness or was there something
people, into about a hundred elements of design people
fundamentally wrong with the space?
would be much happier to have included. Of course you
My original research was very disappointing, because
can’t get all the elements right, but if you aim to get as
people basically wanted to talk about their aesthetic
many as possible, you make a space that feels much more
responses to space. But my girlfriend at the time was teach
comfortable, private and tranquil. It seemed to me that
ing children and I started questioning them. I discovered
was the way people should design buildings. It should be
that children have an entirely more intuitive response:
about how people felt when they were in a building.
they’re making dens under tables and in cupboards out of cardboard boxes and blankets on a very intuitive level,
JI
without the constraints of an aesthetic inhibitor. So I asked
Yes album covers? There seems to be a story to them,
a bunch of children, ‘If you were making a house, how
right? Beginning with Fragile there is a planet that
would you like to sleep?’.
To what degree did this research influence the
fragments and takes off into outer space…
with sketches, but when I did Fragile I sketched out a story
that were not liked, but it was much harder to find the
with my brother Martin Dean. That story was the origin of
positives. In the end, I took it from children’s rooms to the
the paintings that went from Fragile to Close to the Edge, Yessongs into Tales from Topographic Oceans and on.
Volume 20
RD That is correct, yes. Normally if I do a painting I start
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I discovered they had a pretty consistent list of things they didn’t like about rooms. It was easy to isolate the elements
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whole house, to the way communities work, and I made
All images by Roger Dean
JI
What is the story?
JI
Yes, I see what you mean with the spore in the
RD It’s a creation myth – I guess sort of a Noah’s Ark
background. It’s like a proto-city and the bridge and
story, really. It’s about a boy who dreams about the world
pathway suggest a human occupation of some sort.
breaking up and how he persuades his friends and neigh
Was the spore-like thing envisioned as a hybrid – a
bors to help him build a
natural and urban element?
space ark so they have
some means of escape.
RD Yeah, many of my buildings look as if they could have
grown rather than been built. In parallel to the research JI
So fragments of Earth break apart and they
relocate into another space? RD Yes, into another world.
I was doing about architecture, I was fascinated by how we treat pathways. Some pathways through the landscape have such a p o w e r f u l s p i r i t u a l e f f e c t that they’re almost like a prayer. And I was very interested
JI
When you developed the story what were you
imagining that other world to be?
in how pathways worked – in their choreography and landscaping. The straight line between two points might
RD I would describe it as an ‘alternative now’ – it’s not
work for an airplane or even a train, but for cars, bikes and
the future and it’s not the past. It’s just a different now.
for walking it doesn’t. You need to have a pathway that takes you through, around, over and under, not just from
JI
Were there particular attributes you wanted to
A to B. So I thought a lot about what made a pathway
portray in that alternative place? Let’s take the painting
attractive and what made it tiring. What was exhausting,
with a stairway that winds around a very naturalistic
encouraging and inspiring?
form, for example? RD That painting is called Pathways, and it was one of
JI
a series of four (Escape; Arrival; Awakening; Pathways). It’s
it’s ambiguous whether the fish are swimming around
a very simple sequence of events. The first event happens
in water or whether they’re floating around in the air.
after the small world disintegrates and segments of the
It seems that the fantasy world is a place that lacks
planet are being led through space like spores. Then Arrival
gravity or it’s a space where water and air are
is literally these spores l a n d i n g i n t h e o c e a n
indistinguishable?
In the Tales from Topographic Oceans series,
followed by Awakening which is life coming about – there’s
RD Well, the subject of the painting really was patterns
plants and animals and finally the fourth one, Pathways,
in the landscape, but a lot of other ideas are explored
shows the hint of human involvement. The background
there too. One is that you can look at a body of water like
looks like a city, unlike any city you may be familiar with,
the sea and know that there are currents – there are paths.
but nevertheless, possibly a city with a bridge and a
At times it isn’t obvious, but at other times it is. And I like
pathway in the foreground.
the idea of there being rivers of water within the water.
Fragile. (1971)
JI
In Arrival there’s a fish in the foreground. It seems
JI
In the series there’s also a painting with two
to be on something different from the fragmented
children sitting on what look like fantasy trees. What
pieces of the world. They’re more mushroom-like, more
were you trying to explore with the trees? Was it again
curvilinear, whereas the fragmented world pieces have
a pattern in the landscape that interested you?
flatter tops and more stalagmite-like bases to them.
RD I liked the energy in some very ancient trees, that
What were you trying to achieve with the differences
they’re t w i s t e d a n d g n a r l e d . So I thought
between the two elements?
I would make the shape out of that. There was a painting
RD I was looking for a family of shapes. You see it with
on both sides of that album – it effectively has two fronts.
trees on the horizon and with the mushroom. I guess
And they have a similar exploration of a tangled growth
that triangular shape balancing on its point was the key
on the front and the back, but done very differently.
to these things. JI JI
Regarding the spore elements in Awakenings,
they have nature on them, but humans are not yet Volume 20
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present at this point in the story, is that right? RD Yeah, I guess that’s right. What we’re looking
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necessarily there.
One might speculate that the gnarled, entangled
nature of those trees is translated into cities and architecture with Relayer. Was that a continuation or were they separate? RD Separate, but they all come through me. So I’m the
at is not the humans yet. The humans come in the
connector, I guess.
final picture, Pathways. Even then, they’re not really
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Yessongs, ‘Pathways’ (1973)
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Close to the Edge (1972)
Yessongs, ‘Escape’ (1973)
Tales from Topographical Ocean (1973)
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Yessongs, ‘Awakenings’ (1973)
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Yessongs, ‘Arrival’ (1973)
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Relayer (1974)
Age of Reason Catherine Hardwicke Interviewed by Jeffrey Inaba and Talene Montgomery
Director Catherine Hardwicke bridges the gulf between fantasy and reality in her feature-length works Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown and Twilight. Shining compassionate light on whatever coming-of-age story she tells, from a fucked-up LA teenager’s journey for affirmation to a vampire story of unrequited teenage love, Hardwicke’s films depict the intensity of this learning process by detailing the yearnings and desperations of growing up. It’s not difficult to recall that this fragile time involves subjecting oneself to a continuous feedback cycle of exposure and protection, engagement and detachment, anticipation and disappointment. In this sense, Hardwicke is concerned with the blurry threshold between reason and uncontrolled emotion – the very territory one navigates in a state of crisis.
Jeffrey Inaba Your films all seem to deal with young
of on-going struggle. This thirteen-year-old girl had
people reckoning in one way or another with reality.
matured very quickly. She looked like a supermodel, and
Your characters address the transition between a
she was being bombarded by 3,000 advertising images
formative fantasy world of love, friendship and family,
per day – like we all are [pause] telling us to be sexy and
and real encounters with people and events. When
hot and be cute and dress radical. And then when she
adolescents face ‘adult’ situations for the first time they
a c t e d o u t and did what society was telling her to do,
must reconcile reality with their formed hopes and
people were shocked!
dreams. And discerning what the
It was a story that I needed to tell. And telling it in a very
what the
specific way about this specific girl and her mother and her
real world is and ideal world is, doesn’t happen all at once.
It’s an awkward back-and-forth negotiation where
family turned out to have kind of an enormous resonance
teens often miscalculate the intentions of others and
all around the world.
the codes of interaction that they are experiencing.
For me, it started with Nikki, the girl, having this trouble
From Thirteen all the way to Twilight it seems that you
and this crisis and me wanting to help her to find con
are fascinated with portraying this dimension of youth.
structive things to do with what she was going through.
Catherine Hardwicke My films are all coming-of-age stories,
I tried to get her to learn how to surf, go to museums, draw
in a way. They are about youth, about that transitional
and everything, but no, she really wanted to act. So we said,
moment in our life where we’re trying to figure ourselves
okay, let’s write a story that you could act in and I could
out, to figure out our reality. Where do we fit in, in a life
direct. But the story became so much bigger when I saw
where everything is suddenly possible? You can drive,
what she was really going through.
you can drink, you can kiss a boy or a girl for the first time, and this whole world of choices is out there. It’s got a lot
JI
of potential for drama, and I think it’s the most volatile and
Twilight is a fictional story. What were you trying to
interesting time of life.
achieve in dealing with something fantastical?
Thirteen was forced upon me, in a way, because I was
CH Well, I wanted you to feel like this could really happen
friends with this thirteen-year-old girl and her family, and
to you. Our special effects budget got slashed about a
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Thirteen was based upon real events whereas
every time I went over to their house there was this kind
month before shooting, so I had the challenge of figuring
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out how to do everything that I want to do and create a
Talene Montgomery Do you think working within the
Facing the Crisis
level of magical realism. We didn’t have the money to build
fantasy genre lends layers of metaphor that commu
C-Lab
a forest or have control of settings. We had to shoot
nicate things more realistic stories cannot? Fantasy
outdoors, and we didn’t have green screens or anything.
generally distinguishes itself by being very confident
We were really up in the trees.
in its own suppositions. What does that sense of
Crisis is a circumstance which requires immediate attention, yet for which there are no reliable references to set a course of action. The emotional experience of
certainty convey to the viewer? Does it maybe help the JI
Yes, that is a very specific sensibility of your
films. There’s a raw beauty instilled into very realistic
this uncharted territory bears similarity to a child’s encounter with a new situation.
viewer to come to grips with their own sense of selfdoubt or uncertainty?
It involves processing information in a state of complete vulnerability and demands
tableaux in some instances, while in others there
CH Well, I can try to answer that…it’s a pretty complicated
are treatments with an overtly fictional feel. Again,
and beautiful question [laughs]. I think that the vampire
searching without the proper tools to formulate a response, right up to when a
it seems that as a personal creative interest you
metaphor is a pretty obvious metaphor for teenage
constantly move between registers of realism and
sexuality: coming to your own, feeling all these hormones
thought must turn into an expression – leaving one to teeter momentarily between
fantasy, intersecting imagery from both. At the same
in your body telling you to do things. You just want to
time, the way you portray them also is highly appeal
grab the person next to you, but you’re not supposed
ing to an audience of a wide age range. Teens and
to. And how do you find that kind of balance? I’ve heard
adults both seem to respond to your aesthetics
that a lot of boys sneak into the movie. They don’t want
of fantasy, as if it fulfills an interest to explore their
anyone to know that they sneak in when the lights go off.
indistinct boundaries to a far greater degree.
They’re trying to come to terms with their own feelings.
laughter and tears.
What stands out the most in this regard is your use of c o l o r . Can you discuss that?
JI
That element of emotional processing seems
CH In Thirteen, we tried to make it really respond to
to be a really important part of the crisis experience.
the emotions of the characters – the color – so that in the
When there’s a sense of potential crisis oftentimes it’s
beginning it is slightly dull, ordinary look, then when Evie,
a thing we gravitate towards. It fascinates us because
the bad, glamorous girl comes into her life, the color
there are things we may very well want to discover,
gets more beautiful, like more golden skin tones – like the
despite knowing that their discovery might come at
fantasy world – and it continues as she takes more and
a cost. The way you talk about it makes me wonder
more drugs. We start h y p e r - s a t u r a t i n g the
if we are somehow attracted to crisis.
color, so that by the time you’re on Hollywood Boulevard,
CH Yeah, well to drama, or something that means
it’s too bright and too intense and too saturated. We used
something in your life. That brings it excitement or [pause]
color gels in the lighting of the house, so that it got garish
that’s why we pick the wrong boyfriends or girlfriends.
in a way. Then when Evie deserts her, and when everything
[laughs] So that you can feel something. To feel alive.
falls apart, the color drains away pretty drastically. It’s very desaturated by the end, and then there’s just a little bit of hope coming back in at the very end when the mom, you know, puts her arm around her, and we go to a little bit more natural colors. A bit more golden light. In Twilight, no sunlight is allowed in the movie because of course Edward (the vampire) can’t be in the sun, but also to create that beautiful Pacific Northwest, moody atmos phere. The palette was strictly controlled. So the movie is real things and real clothes and high school and everything, but we select that reality. In terms of art direction, well, you really feel almost
damp. What I tried to do – I think this could be related
to architecture too – when you go in our dream world, when you go to the location, we would really try to under stand the inherent qualities of the building or the place, and that’s what I really tried to do with the location, going
on rainy days up in Vancouver, and felt a real connection
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to the Pacific Northwest. So I had actually been there
to that kind of [pause] almost inhospitable beauty.
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quite a bit before and already loved it, and hiked around
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Staremaster Dave McKean
Illustrator and director Dave McKean has a compulsion with eyes. Their trans formation, mutilation and removal are central to the plots of his frequent collaborations with author Neil Gaiman. From the pinhole orbit to the black sclera to the prosthetic, his treatments are distinct from mainstream children’s depictions that excessively enlarge characters’ eyes to imply naiveté. Within the narratives he illustrates, McKean’s eyes instead allude to a moment of lost innocence that occurs when negotiating between reality and the perilous
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All images by Dave McKean
unknowns of a fantasy world.
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THE TECHNOSTRICH by
C-Lab
O
nce upon a time, in a far away land, there was beautiful palace
surrounded by elaborate gardens. The gardens contained all the flora and fauna of the kingdom. One day, the King received an encyclopedia of his kingdom as a gift from a neighboring ruler. The book was perfectly complete, so much so that it contained one thing the King had never heard of, let alone seen – an Ostrich, a gigantic bird that cannot fly, but could run faster than a lion. It looked and sounded so strange that the King nearly thought it was a lie, but he knew his neighbor was wise.
‘W
here does the Ostrich live?’, asked the King. But none of the
King’s advisors, generals, gardeners or even the royal astrologers knew. ‘Here,’ at last announced the Royal Mapmaker, who had visited the entire kingdom. He unrolled a map and pointed to a remote corner of the land. ‘She lives here where it is dry and plants barely grow.’ ‘Bring the Ostrich to court’, commanded the King.1 The Mapmaker traveled to the edge of the kingdom and asked the Ostrich if she would appear at court. The Ostrich agreed.
T
he new animal fascinated the King. He entertained the court
by holding races between the Ostrich and his other animals, which the Ostrich always won. The little Prince immediately fell in love with the Ostrich and rode her everywhere.
T
he King began to hold races with both birds. The real Ostrich’s
races were fraught with suspense – sometimes she ran faster, some times slower and sometimes she barely won, driving the crowd wild. The Technostrich, however, was steady and perfect – which pleased the crowd even more.3 The Technostrich also did everything the little Prince wanted and never got tired. He loved his new toy. Homesick, the Ostrich slipped away. She ran back to the desert that she missed, happy that the Prince had a new companion.
O
ne day, the King received another gift from his neighbor –
a life-size, mechanical Ostrich made of gold and covered in diamonds. It had a card around its neck on silk thread that read, ‘My Technostrich is poor in comparison with the King’s Ostrich.’ The King accepted his neighbor’s humble note with a laugh. The Technostrich was beautiful and ran as fast as the Ostrich.2
O
ne day shortly thereafter, the little Prince decided to explore
the kingdom on the Technostrich. They passed mountains and plains, hills and forests, and finally reached the desert. After days of travel under the scorching sun, the Technostrich began to slow. It was overheating. Sand was accumulating and sticking in its gears.4 Finally, the Technostrich could go no further and broke, leaving the Prince stranded. The Prince was becoming very hot and very thirsty. Suddenly, everything went black.5
T
he Prince awoke. He was moving very fast, and bumping up and
down. He looked down and saw the back of his old friend the Ostrich. She was taking him home. The Prince told his father how the Ostrich had saved him. The King forgave her for leaving. ‘You will stay’, he said, ‘and we will celebrate the Prince’s return.’ The Ostrich graciously declined the King’s invitation. ‘I can not live here’, she said, ‘I need to return to the desert and save the Technostrich.’ ‘No!’ commanded the King. ‘It nearly killed the Prince – the people are calling for it to be destroyed!’6
‘I
t just needs water and to be cleaned’, the Ostrich explained.
The Technology Narrative C-Lab
‘The Prince didn’t use it properly – it’s not its own fault it broke.’7
In the most general terms the technology ‘narrative’, when it is applied to
‘I promise I will come and visit often. In exchange for water for the
natural systems, involves identifying a specific environmental opportunity – or
Technostrich, I will bring you all the news of your kingdom. In this way,
problem – and proposing a solution in the name of progress. One example is the
you will be the wisest King – but you must never reveal the source of
case made for the multi-purpose dam in the US. Engineers and policy makers
your information.’ The King agreed. ‘So it shall be’, he said. She raced
claimed dams could address a host of problems, from
to the desert and rescued the Technostrich. Eventually, they fell in
the explicitly natural – like flooding – to economic and
love and had a hybrid baby, the Cybostrich. The baby was said to have
social, such as providing electricity for better living
the wisdom of its mother and the extraordinary power of its father.
standards and industrial development. How-
And according to some, they lived happily ever after.8
ever, as typically occurs in technology narra-
5. A Cognitive Dissonance Between Dams’ Narrative And The Actuality of Implementation. Dams began to be perceived as technological failures when their negative effects began to outweigh the benefits. They were expensive and disruptive, forcing the relocation of hundreds of thousands of people and flooding their homes and land to make reservoirs. With time, dams began to negatively affect overall water quality and the tremendous investments required to build them put many governments into debt. 6. Attention Returns To The Limits of A Natural Resource To Accommodate Technology. By the 1960s, nascent environ mental groups began generating a counternar rative to industrialization, and by default, the dam story. Anti-dam sentiment grew steadily as environmentalism extended into political arenas through NGOs and lobbying groups. By 1. Desire To the 1970s, dam construction had Capture The Natural Resource. slowed dramatically worldwide. Civilizations have long sought to From this counter-narrative emerg harness natural resources for human ed a move towards exorcising the consumption and use, but perhaps none dam entirely. Today, scientists and more critically than water. Throughout history engineers are exploring dam de people were forced to find innovative ways of coping commissioning as a means of re with the volatility of river supply, a major source of freshwater storing river ecologies. Some ad for drinking, agriculture, sanitization and energy. When the justments can be made to existing multi-purpose dam was introduced in the US in the dams to reduce environmental im 1930s, it represented an unprecedented shift in pact, such as the addition of fish the human control of water supply due to the ladders to allow salmon to swim intervention’s sheer scale. 2. Fascination upstream. However, much of the With The Capabilities of Technology. Dams infrastructure is ageing and is now were said to regularize the normative fundamentally unsafe. 7. An Under cycle of flooding and drought, but standing Develops That Even Though were quickly used for myriad other Technology Is Employed As A Solu purposes. As part of other nar tion, It Also Will Create Problems. ratives of improvement, dams This isn’t a problem in and of were built in the South during itself. What needs to be acknowl the Great Depression as the edged is the fact that the dam is foundation of an electricity not an agent of its own narrative, infrastructure, to stimulate nor is dam technology inherently the regional economy and detrimental. Understanding its abi to provide jobs. They were lity to affect both good and bad built in the West to trans outcomes is essential for the reform deserts into farmland. scripting of its narrative. Despite 3. Growing Obsession With And the shortcomings and dangers Dependence On Technology that many existing dams do pre Leads To A Disconnect With The sent, their removal poses an en Resource Itself. Soon everyone tirely new series of complications wanted a dam. The belief that for their respective ecosystems, dam technology provided un which have mostly adapted to limited growth, spread and their presence in the last fifty to soon dams became a major sixty years. 8. A Potential Happy symbol of modernized power Ending Lies In A Mutual Embrace Of over nature. This conviction and By Technology And Nature. None was transported all over the theless, of the 75,000 dams built world – to China, India, Europe, in the US, less than six hundred Africa and South America. have been removed, leaving the 4. Failures And Shortcomings of dam narrative unfinished. A happy Technology Begin To Surface. future, however, may be constitu Over time, flaws in the roman ted by both compromise and coa ticized dam technology narrative lescence. As long as weaknesses began to appear. Despite the fact are disclosed within the narrative that many were successful – pro itself and design allowances are viding more water, reducing flooding made for adjustments, updates and providing an independent and and even destruction, perhaps renewable energy source – just as many there is still room for a productive underperformed. However, these were relationship between nature and rarely mentioned. Some still allowed flood technology, albeit one that is ing and others were incapable of producing as approached with hopeful caution. much electricity as had been promised.
tives, the dams’ limitations were not adequate-
ly considered or disclosed as a part of that argument for technological intervention.
By the 1960s, the dec- binge of large dam and
ade-long
other
infrastructure projects
had rendered environ-
mental
abuse visible, expos-
ing flaws in the
narrative’s coherence.
When potential
complications and pit-
falls are not present-
ed early in discussions
about a technology,
both technological po-
tential and natural sys-
tems are compromised.
. Now, the nascent sci-
ence of dam removal
offers an opportunity
to reconsider the nar-
rative itself, and as
such, open up new and
different solutions for
consideration. By in-
cluding acknowledge-
ments of dams’ limits
and uncertainties in a
technology narra-
tive, through an explo-
ration of dam re-
moval, a compatible re-
lationship be-
tween technology and na-
ture can
still be established – which
in ef-
fect could lead to a reallife
‘Ostrich/Technostrich’ love story.
Liquid Pro Quo
about ‘aquifer over-extraction’ or sometimes ‘fossil
back as wastewater or sewage (depending its degree
Christopher A. Scott
water’ because that water may have been there for tens
of treatment, it bears those names) – so areas like the
Interviewed by Jeffrey Inaba
of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years.
Southwest, California and other areas in the US have
Now we’re pumping it out on a yearly or even monthly
gone past the paradigm of ‘waste water as waste’ that
time scale. Ground water is in some sense a much more
needs to be disposed, to ‘waste water or effluent’ that
That sustainable water resource management in arid and semi-arid regions
vexing problem when it comes to water manage
represents a system of trade-offs – between uses, technologies, nations
needs to treated as actually a resource; and we need
ment because of scale and invisibility issues and also
to be intelligent about how we use it. So this is how the
and policies – comes into sharp relief when sustainable energies and sus
because of the difficultly of limiting access.
whole notion of t o i l e t t o t a p arose. But there
tainable water use appear to be at cross-purposes. Urbanistically, these
I could mention other pressures on water resources
are other uses that we can make of that water. For
that aren’t high water management policy priorities, but
instance, it could be running it through power plants,
same trade-offs affect both the physical shape and economic prospects
that I see as issues today, like emerging sustainability
where it wouldn’t need to come into contact with human
of water-challenged cities. The difficulties of managing a substance that
challenges?
beings. There’s a significant amount of landscaping irrigation in public parks and on school campuses that
is necessary for more and more, even while there appears to be less,
JI
lies in avoiding a zero-sum game, as University of Arizona water expert Christopher Scott contends.
Yes, good.
that there’s a set of trade-offs. So do we really want
to re-supply or re-source water over time. But now, with
to be building more green golf courses in the middle
climate change, we are beginning to understand that’s
of the desert just because we’ve got effluents available?
not the case. Certain regions may be warming which will
Or do we want to make more intelligent use of it?
influence weather patterns and cause either more or less
One final remark: we’ve known for a long time that the
rainfall to occur, which means that the water we actually
societal drive for irrigation, for hydropower and for cities
have available is more highly variable – which gets a lot
has been increasing at a pace that far exceeds the natural
of attention.
variability due to climate change. So while it’s important
But this is the problem: most of the approaches have to
that we look at climate change, it’s actually a secondary
do with adaptation. How do we deal with our particular
driver to the supply and demand equation. The human drivers actually
not grasping in a careful-enough fashion how the activ
amount of water that we will have of acceptable quality for many uses.
people might be more alarmist: they see the water
ities we undertake and the technologies we employ in the
role as Asia Regional Director for the International
supply issue will ultimately lead to the failure
coming decades may actually have significant negative
Water Management Institute (IWMI)? What are the
of larger systems. Basically, water as a resource
consequences for the mitigation of carbon emissions.
is something that will become extremely limited.
swamp that signal in terms of the
region having increased or decreased rainfall? But we’re Jeffrey Inaba Can you elaborate on your former
larger water politics of the region?
is making use of effluent. As you can imagine, within
CS We’ve tended to assume the ability of ecosystems
JI
Interesting.
This gets to the second point: the energy-water nexus.
CS So all three of these – the water-energy nexus,
Christopher Scott Today’s set of issues in the densely
But the way I hear you saying it is that, if we
It is increasingly understood that energy and water are
the human demand driver and climate change – affect
populated, irrigated areas of South and East Asia really
are intelligent about the trade-offs we make, sus
two resources – if not flip sides of the same coin – with
water resource sustainability in most regions and we as
revolve around a set of trade-offs. The essential trade-off
tainable practice is possible?
significant commonalities and intersections that have
societies and decision makers must be prepared to deal with all of them.
really comes between human use of water and water
CS Yes, there are opportunities for sustainability and
not yet been fully understood from a management and
in natural river systems, groundwater, lakes and fresh
there are clear examples of failures. So to an extent,
policy perspective.
water bodies that sustain important ecosystems and
it’s where in a particular location, there are a set of
An example is hydropower. Another is making use of
we’re looking for opportunities where it isn’t an either/
demand drivers and a set of management options and
groundwater: pumping it out of aquifers for agriculture
or. So you don’t necessarily have to make use of water
policies allowing that context to f a l l o n t h e
and other uses. That demands significant amounts of
for human productive purposes at the cost of eco
c o n t i n u u m . I’m not trying to say that everything
energy, and areas like California, Arizona and northwest
systems. There are ways to look at these things and
is going to tend toward sustainability, nor am I alarmist
Mexico use a major share of their total energy just
manage water resources that don’t pose a z e r o - s u m
or defeatist in saying that everything ultimately is going
to m o v e , t r e a t , r e c o v e r a n d r e c l a i m
g a m e – meaning taking water out of ecosystems
to end in a crisis or failure with no option out, or no
water. In other words, the demands of water resources
or degrading water quality through human use. So we’re
opportunities to actually strive for sustainability.
management on the power grid are very high and rising;
trying to explore that trade-off at one level, but then
Some interesting examples around water systems and
as we adapt over the shorter term, most of the options
actually look for synergies on how to use water that
sustainability come with efforts that aren’t there com
we consider are energy-intensive.
don’t have to exacerbate that tension.
pletely, but are driving in the right direction, like those
So, we’re potentially burning more carbon to put in place
that deal with groundwater.
management systems that will help us through the next
Where we put in pumps, we’re often using water on a
decade, but that may in aggregate terms exacerbate cli
avoidance of a zero-sum game, what is the ultimate
much more rapid time scale and time frame than it took
mate change because we’re putting out more emissions.
story in water management? Is it a thing where
for that water to be deposited there. When it’s done at
it is possible to have a continuous cycle of con
a scale and a pace that is significantly in excess of the
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To get to the issue of trade-offs, and the
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JI
sumption in a way that can be managed? Some
natural system’s ability to recharge that water, we talk
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currently converted. Most urban supply actually comes
Now the third part: we’re going to have to be much more intelligent about reusing the water we have or that we’ve
Waterkeepers
The north is extremely dry, and the south is relatively
not really there to enforce.
Stephanie von Stein
wet, so China has initiated a huge infrastructure project
But new incentives have been created. For instance, last
Interview by Gavin Browning and Kate Meagher
called the called the South-North Water Diversion Project
spring an amendment to China’s Water Pollution Preven
that is going to consist of three channels: a western,
tion and Control Act was enacted calling for disciplinary
Spanning 185 countries, Waterkeeper Alliance was born in New York State
central and eastern route. A reservoir (Dan Jiang Kou)
actions including dismissals for EPB officials who fail
in 1966 when local fisherman banded together to patrol the health of the
at the top of our Middle Han Waterkeeper’s river is going
to investigate and penalize any violators after detecting
to be the starting point for the central section of the
or receiving reports on violations.
Hudson River. Other communities soon took note of this effective and trans
South-North Water Diversion Project. They’re going to
Also, the Open Government Environmental Information
ferable model of advocacy: one person, in a boat, on a waterway, watching
take about a third of her water from the Han River via the
Law enacted in May 2008 makes the local EPB staff
reservoir and send it to the northern cities to alleviate
responsible for publicizing local pollution information
over the waters. As the Asia Program Coordinator of Waterkeeper Alliance,
their water-availability problems.
and data, and for enforcing disclosure of data by industry. Because they (the local EPBs) have to publicize the
Stephanie von Stein explains how this type of non-governmental intervention
GB Who are ‘they’?
data in a certain number of local forums including local
on Chinese rivers reinforces private companies’ adherence to environmental
SvS The central government. It’s an enormous, central
newspapers and magazines and on their website, the
laws, while helping to create transparency and accountability between the
government endeavor, which China is known for. There’s
public does have more access to data, and this is going
really nothing that the local provinces or towns along
to help NGOs with enforcement. I think it will give NGOs
local and central governments in burgeoning State conservation efforts.
the way can say about the issue, even though these
a little bit m o r e p o w e r , because the EPBs are going
diversion projects are going to have massive deleterious
to be wanting to know what they know – and have access
effects on the rivers. When its flows are diminished by
to their data – before the government sees that they
a third, the pollutants in the Han River will be a lot more
neglected to report something. I think it’s just going to
concentrated. So, even though Ms. Yun can’t
reinforce and build upon cooperation that already exists.
really fight a diversion project, she’s trying to clean up her river to the point where even after the water-flow is diminished, it will be cleaner simply because of the prevention efforts along her stretch of the river.
GB This law really goes against Western notions of China as nontransparent. SvS Right, I think it’s a signal that China is really serious
about environmental enforcement, and that this is one
Gavin Browning You started the first two
powerhouse named Yun Jianli. She is doing
Kate Meagher Are there any other solutions that
attempt by the central government to get more power
Waterkeeper programs in China. Can you tell
true Waterkeeper work in that she has a boat – we
you or Waterkeeper would advocate for restoring
over what happens in the provinces, because it’s a really
us about them?
helped her find funding for a boat – called the Middle
the water, besides prevention?
tangible way for them to check that the EPBs are on top
Stephanie von Stein Yes, and, careful with the wording,
Han Waterkeeper Boat. She goes patrolling on it once
SvS Waterkeeper deals mostly with water quality [rather
of the situation. If an EPB did not did not report some
because one of Waterkeeper’s requirements is that
a week or more, and she takes school kids, officials,
than quantity] issues.
thing that a NGO then later reported, they could be held
activists come to us, and that they find us, because it’s
people from private companies on the boat, to have
In terms of pollution, the question is really enforcement,
accountable.
a grassroots movement. But we did have a dialogue with
a first hand look at the waterway. She has five set moni
because the water laws are there, and because the
It’s powerful, because it puts information in the hands
some environmental activists in China. In January of
toring sites along the middle stretch of the Han and
State Environmental Protection Agency was recently
of individuals.
2006 we met with Ma Jun. He’s one of the most promi
she keeps a water quality log for all of those checkpoints
strengthened and elevated to a cabinet-level ministry.
nent environmentalists in China. He gave us an overview
so her group can have an ongoing idea of the water
That’s a signal that China is taking its environmental
of water pollution laws in China and which NGOs are
quality along that section of the river.
issues seriously, and that they want the new Ministry
working on water issues, and among those NGOs who
Let’s say they see a discharge pipe putting out black
of Environmental Protection (MEP) to have more power
would be the best fit to be Waterkeepers, and we reached
or red water. They will call the local Environmental
than SEPA had in the past – even if it’s still somewhat
out to them. We said, ‘This is our model, and it seems
Protection Bureau (EPB), who will then send somebody
limited in terms of personnel on the ground, as well as
like you’re doing similar work, and maybe you’d benefit
out to do a check. And if necessary, they’ll have to
in terms of having direct control over provincial EPBs.
from a membership in the Alliance.’
go and talk to the private company that is doing the
They really don’t have clear authority over these provin
So this was an unusual situation, in that w e
polluting and tell them that they need to comply with
cial EPBs as of yet, and really, the people who know
r e a c h e d o u t . But there was an enthusiastic
the law. If a company has been called by the EPB and
what’s going on are the people on the ground, in the
response when we did.
they’re still not complying, she will call them again, then
towns and villages. So, it’s tough.
she will call the EPB again [pause] she’ll just make sure
A lot of the time,
GB What are particular water concerns in China,
that the problem gets resolved. She’s been responsible
officials have an incentive to look the other way because
and how does the program address them?
for getting waste-water treatment facilities improved
a factory owner will pay them. And even now, an official
SvS One Waterkeeper program is on the Han River,
on a number of facilities or factories along her stretch of the Han River.
river in its own right. It runs through Hubei and Hunan
What are the issues? I t ’ s h u g e . China has enor
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at the local level will be promoted to the degree
which is a tributary of the Yangtze and it’s a pretty big
Volume 20
corruption is involved. EPB
Provinces, and the woman on that river is an amazing
mous pollution as well as water availability problems.
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business and bring in revenue, then the incentives are
by which their province has developed economically. So if promotions are based upon being able to attract Yun Jianli and her boat.
China’s Sustainability: Asynchronous Revolutions
The traditional Chinese family and its genealogy contribute not only to vertical lineages spanning dynasties and eras, but also to an expanded network of family and acquaintances horizontally. Since it contributes even more as a greatly cohesive but exclusive community of common interests and a highly autonomous intermediate organization, the Chinese family balances the interests of the state and individuals.
Jiang Jun
Population Crisis
The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics broadcast China’s ‘Four Great Inventions’ as the contributions of an ancient and creative power. However, the historical distinction among the four inventions, as well as the differentiation in their global effects, has long been ignored.
The massive-population-strategy later used by Mao to fight his better armed enemies was a double-edged sword. Human power9 is apparently more sustainable than all the fossil fuels used since the Industrial Revolution14. Yet given the upper limit of land productivity, the population is congenitally confined. Throughout Chinese history population always rose with economic growth, which was then followed by massive land reclamation and cultivation1 until the demographic dividend was exhausted, which in turn was followed by economic depression.
Two of the four inventions, gunpowder and the compass, had a clear military application5, while the other two, paper-making and type printing, had more to do with cultivation1.
Civilization itself was like agriculture, experiencing seasonal ups and downs, while vitality was reserved for the future – a more oriental notion of eternity.
Development focused on human power stifled the development of technology that could replace manpower and hence change the organizational mode of Local Collectivism.
Low-Tech
8
paper-making
Cultivation1
Unitive Politics2
national collectivism
Agriculture Economy3
local collectivism
Confucian Culture4
state-family isomorphic structure
The rejection of high-end machinery, over-population, and the ideological subjection to nature combined to generate a highly developed handicraft industry11.
The low cost maximized accessibility for the masses while the low-tech minimized exploitation and pollution. This social and environmental sustainability is the result of the most valuable quality of pre-modern China, but also delayed the industrial revolution14 whose subversive nature would interrupt the sustainability itself. The self-sufficiency of the inward developing empire could not have been broken but by external forces.
Unitive Politics12 Massive-Population-Strategy8
Human Power9
Exhaustion6
gunpowder
Militarization5
Expansion7
As China suffered from internal warfare before becoming a unitive power over 2000 years ago, the internal, exhausting nature of the regime must have compelled them to finally choose a more sustainable development.
Paper-making and type printing facilitated the civil services advocated by Confucianism2 to ensure the long lifespan of each dynasty and a continuous civilization, while gun powder and the compass resulted in wars and colonialism at
the other end of the Eurasian landmass. They also unlocked the Pandora Box of industrialization14 and globalization13 – a revolution that put sustainability in danger.
Four Great Inventions stamps published in Hong Kong
The ‘People’s Republic of China’ is a country in which public spaces are supposed to be for the people. Given that the distribution of mobility deals directly with the possession of resources in a modern city while distribution decisions are always made within a top-down system in which the government functions as land owner, urban planning commissioner and infrastructure developer, it is no surprise that communal space becomes rich and powerful. Urbanization is materialized on the basis of industrial revolution14. However, the insufficiency of democratic revolution15 tilts mobility towards the superior and thus causes an unequal share of revolution’s achievements. This polarized urbanism is putting the sustainability of both environment, society and mobility at risk.
World atlas in a Chinese Bestiary with China at the center.
The offensive term ‘barbarian’ came from the most ancient Chinese book on geography, Classic of Mountains and Rivers, in which China was thought to be the orthodox center of both the geographic and the mental world. Barbarians were those uncivilized tribes living in the peripheral nowhere that constantly sought to invade China. Historically China failed several times to successfully fight off these ‘barbarians’ and was consequently subjected to minority rule, a nominal victory of gunpowder and the compass over paper and printing. However, these rulers were ultimately diluted by the massive population8 and assimilated. Given a long enough timeline, more sustainability can be found in words than in wars. This might be the origin of the prejudice against machines and Imperial Chinese arrogance toward the West.
Planning Capitalism17
People’s City20
Global Economy13
Sustainability, a modern description of ‘long life’, was the latent principle behind all dynasties of pre-modern China.
compass
The asynchronicity of the two revolutions resulted in a paradoxical urbanization when China resumed importing Western modernization models into its planning system in the 1980s.
Cultural Sustainability25
Democratic Revolution15
It was based on three aspects of civilization: unitive politics2 as the organizational mode of the state, agriculture economy3 as the social mode of production, and Confucian culture4 as its ideology. Unitive politics2 minimized internal exhaustion6 by virtue of its centralized instruction system and national collectivism. Agriculture economy3 stabilized local power via its land-oriented production mode and local collectivism. Confucian culture4 synchronized the two into ‘one ness’ with its state-family isomorphic structure. The stability and sustainability of pre-modern China was defined by this trinity. The sustainability of the state was therefore resolved into the sustain ability of all those local families. The repression of demilitarization5 and the extrication in self-organization resulted in periodic massive population increases8. Most mechanical inventions were supposed to merely reinforce human power9 not replace it.
The official discourse of the late pre-modern Chinese indus trial revolution14 was merely a tactic to play one barbarian state against another. It could be understood as the final statement of an imperial civil government, symbolized by paper and printing, on high-end technology, symbolized by gunpowder and the compass.
Handicraft Industry11
type printing
Four Inventions0
Slow Culture
Public spaces in China with ‘People’ in the title
Peasants making steel with self-made furnaces exemplify bottom-up industrialization during China’s Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s. The massive-population-strategy was used by Mao in fighting against his machinery-armed enemies.
China’s first modern, mechanized navy was defeated in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895.
Not only had the land-oriented nature of Chinese local society been subverted, but the vertical relationship of families was also trans formed into horizontal class-based relationships which resulted in increasing disparity between urban and rural areas as well as massive numbers8 migrating from the impoverished countryside to cities. These fundamental changes motivated potential revolutions that attempted to establish a new superstructure for these new socio-economic relationships.
Militarism
Made in China16
The dependence of industrialization14 on energy and the uneven distribution of fossil fuels thoroughly changed global geopolitics and even triggered two World Wars . The impact on China – a country with a deeply-rooted tradition in agriculture3 and handicrafts11 – was earthshaking.
Since the 1980s, the global polarization of manufacturing and consumption has made the issue of China’s sustainability a global concern. It’s dramatic to see billions of peasants migrating season ally from their land to the world’s factories. It’s equally ironic to see how China’s land-oriented family mode contributes to the global industrial revolution14 and globalization; Made-in-China16 stimulated by Consumed-in-the-West19 comes along with Polluted-in-China18. It has been proven to be highly unsustainable both economically and ecologically by the recent climate22, energy23 and economic24 global crises.
In 1964 the new petroleum city Daqing was set up as an industrial model and the oil worker Wang Jinxi became the Chinese working class representative. Discovery of Daqing freed China from the energy crisis23 in order to support its industrialization in 1960s. A village recycling electronic rubbish sent from the United States to south China.
Recycled/Polluted in China18
China’s reliance on Consumed-in-the-West17 has caused it to return to its hinterland just as its export-oriented economy is collapsing, and the global reliance on Made-inChina16 and Polluted-in-China18 forces the development of a more sustainable model of globalization before it turns to recycling disasters.
Climate Crisis22 Energy Crisis23
A typical migrant factory worker’s dormitory in South China
Over 20 buildings of a million square meters each were abandoned during the bubble economy of the Special Economy Zone Hainan Island in 1990s.
Industrial Revolution14
Handicraft is generated by human power9 while modern industry is powered by machine power10. This is the difference between ‘the machine is part of the human being’ and ‘the human being is part of the machine’.
Modernization was supposed to carry out two revolutions parallel to its western paradigms: industrial revolution14 and democratic revolution15. The former takes mobility as the main form of modernization while the latter emphasizes the equal distribution of mobility as part of human rights.
The ultimate ambition of the industrial revolution14 was to construct a mechanical utopia in which human beings would be liberated from physical labor by automatic machine output. The first part of industrialization was an accelerating process in which automation technologies were constantly updated and mobility was greedily maximized until its unsustainability was unveiled in the energy crisis23. The inten sity of energy reflects the speed of consumption. Industrialization14 was actually a shift away from nature’s consumption speed. It dumped the circulation rule of slow culture, betting that a new sustainable energy could be found to support mobility-oriented modernization before the old one was exhausted.
However, the two revolutions were not synchronous in China. Indus trial revolution14 was nearly completed through the Westernization Movement in the 1870s, national industrial development in the 1920s and The Great Leap Forward in the 1950s; democratic revolution15, successively led by the bourgeois and the proletariat, was finally solidified by Communism in the 1950s. This is another form of national collectivism – a denial of the western notion of democracy.
Hi-Tech
Green Industry Revolution26
Financial Crisis24
Colonialism
Machine Power10
Created in China21
Post-Capitalism27
Consumed in the West19 China used to be one of the revolutionary powers against capitalism whose evil side (described by Karl Marx) has produced a ‘general crisis’ after several golden decades.
Global industry transfer was not only the buffer for the time-lag, but the amplifier of the crisis. What gunpowder and the compass unlocked from Pandora’s Box of capitalism was the desire for consumption19 and expansion7, or the expansion7 of consumption19.
As global capitalism preaches consumerism throughout the world it threatens the world with potential crises: unchecked consumption has led to climate22 and energy crises23, wonton credit spending has led to financial and economic crisis. Should global consumption cool down, the Chinese economy is compelled to relieve its production overcapacity into the hinterland. This is a de-globalized globalization and a backward option to its development tradition. However, more climate22 and energy issues can be expected to promote consumption within this huge domestic market. To maintain consumption will be a risky adventure in the nonlinear labyrinth of these intertwined crises. 19
Planning capitalism17 has recently become overwhelming as a Chinese model of modernization and an option for post-capitalism27. It’s not a new thing for China that laissez-faire must succumb to supervisory power in order to utilize the energy of Pandora’s Box without harming the patriarchical system or unitive politics12.
Given Chinese civilization’s longevity, more elements of modernity could be extracted from pre-modern China. Farming employs a recyclable form of productivity, while the industrial civilization is going to launch a ‘green industrial revolution26’ and ‘green energy revolution’ to match the recyclability and sustainability of agriculture. As pre-modern China utilized paper and printing over gunpowder and the compass, the culture industry might be the last sustainable way for consumption to expand7 into the interior of humanity instead of the exterior of space and time, as well as to slow down the stalling vehicle of modernization . The concept of a ‘Harmonious Society’ is officially cited from the Book of Rites – an ancient book on the diversity-ordered structure of an ideal society15 – as delayed compensation for the unaccom plished democratic revolution half a century ago. Balanced diversity conserves vitality and catalyses sustainability.
Wish Upon A Star Fairy tales resonate not just with children who wish upon a star, but also with intellectuals, cynics and even murderers. While fairy tales set young readers free to imagine fantasy worlds, they also serve as an adult pathway to a darker orbit of reality. to
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Volume 20
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Welfairy Tales Bjarke Ingels Interviewed by Jeffrey Inaba
BIG has employed Scandinavia’s famous social-democratic, ‘quality-of-life’ standards – as well as Danish fairy tale iconography – in Welfairytales, their winning proposal for the Danish Pavilion at next year’s Shanghai World Expo. Here, BIG principal Bjarke Ingels shares his proposal with Volume, explaining his version of a happy ending and exactly why Hans Christian Andersen is so relevant to China.
Jeffrey Inaba Tell us about BIG’s proposal.
tales are quite socialist, which is why China is so happy
Bjarke Ingels With Welfairytales we show that sustain
with him. In the People’s Republic of China’s public
ability is actually a question of quality-of-life. We’re trying
school curriculum they read ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’,
to bring specific stories to Shanghai from societies where
the story in which the king was basically naked. They
sustainability functions in this way. We’re reintroducing
also read ‘The Little Matchstick Girl’, a story about this
the bicycle – which has become forbidden in some places
poor girl who is selling matchsticks on Christmas Eve.
in Shanghai – by donating a thousand Danish bikes to
She is afraid to go home because her father has threat
Shanghai, and through water. The water in Copenhagen’s
ened that she can’t return until she sells all the matches.
port has become so clear you can swim in it. So we are
She is about to freeze to death so she starts lighting the
filling a container with a million liters of harbor water and
matches. She has fantasies about families celebrating
taking it to Shanghai. Even this is sustainable, because
Christmas together so she lights more and more matches
normally ships sail full of goods from China to Denmark
to keep her warm. Finally the last one is gone; she has
but sail back empty. They load water on to the ships
no more heat, but she doesn’t dare to go home. The
to keep them stable. We can hitch a ride for free with the
next morning she is found dead. It’s a sort of socialist,
water and whoever wants to experience it in Shanghai
sad story about rich and poor. Another Hans Christian
can put on a swimsuit and dive in to discover for them
Andersen tale Chinese pupils read is ‘The Little Mermaid’.
selves how clean metropolitan harbor water can be. At
We wanted to bring some real evidence and life expe
the moment the Huangpu River is seriously polluted but
riences rather than just images, slogans or statements
maybe in the future people could swim in it – now that
to Shanghai. So we’re not just talking about bicycles –
would be a true Welfairytale!
people can actually try them and see what it feels like to get a bicycle for free and ride around. We don’t just talk about harbor baths – people can jump in and feel if the
symbol of Denmark – the Little Mermaid statue
water’s clean and what it feels like to swim in the middle
located in Copenhagen Harbor which you’re
of the sea. Then, as an ultimate symbol of the real expe
moving to Shanghai. Why the Little Mermaid?
rience, we will actually give 1.3 billion Chinese the chance
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BI
And you’re topping all of this off with a
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JI
Hans Christian Andersen is central. A lot of his fairy
to see the Little Mermaid they learned about in school.
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Waves of Mermaid Mutilation C-Lab
Sometimes a fairy tale character takes on a life of its own. Though a fictional construction, the figure assumes such symbolic importance that it is regarded as a subject worthy of public commentary (e.g., former US Vice President Dan Quayle’s denunciation of the TV character Murphy Brown). The physical manifestation of a fictional character can even be the subject of real world violence. A case in point is the statue of Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid in Copenhagen harbor. Her head has been sawed off twice, her arm removed, her hand accessorized with a dildo and she has been used as a prop for many a political statement. Not to be mistaken for little fairies, alter native-rock progenitors The Pixies apparently were aware of these mischievous deeds when writing the song, ‘Wave of Mutilation’. An unreleased version
Image: flickr user maggiejp
recently discovered by C-Lab recounts the history of the violated sea creature.
Wave of Mutilation (Little Mermaid version)
Cease to resist, defacing the mermaid Tossed her head into the ocean You’ll think she’s dead, but she always stays On a wave of mutilation Wave of mutilation Wave of mutilation Wave Wave She’s fixed her gaze, draped in a burka Dildo in hand set to vibration Could find their way to the marina On a wave of mutilation Wave of mutilation Wave of mutilation Wave Wave Wave of mutilation
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Wave of mutilation
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Wave of mutilation Wave Wave
International Style Heritage
legislation of the rules of war since the Lieber Code of 1863. In part because of this
Lucia Allais
bad publicity, the museum was eventually secured – but only after the international art market had been flooded with antiquities. Soon Iraq’s archaeological sites also became the targets of a vigorous illicit digging campaign, fueling a growing black market in Mesopotamian artifacts. To heritage advocates, this lack of foresight showed that US military planners failed to grasp the concept of ‘cultural property’, as defined in postwar international law: a type of property which should, in times of crisis, be held in custody on behalf of a collectivity that UNESCO calls ‘Mankind’. Indeed the first codification of cultural property, the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, was designed to prevent exactly the combination of military neglect and civilian vandalism that occurred in Iraq. Nor did the US invoke the ‘military necessity’ clause of the Convention, which it negotiated along with the UK, based on the experience of World War II, to provide an exception when cultural property interferes with the attainment of war goals. This clause was originally meant to regulate the choice between preserving monuments and saving lives, but the meaning of ‘necessity’ is notoriously flexible, and in Iraq, Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld argued that looting was a symptom of freedom, with ‘freedom’ the avowed military goal. Rumsfeld might even have pointed out that the US never ratified the Hague Convention, even after having built such a major exception into it.3 But – to put it in terms familiar to Carl Schmitt – Rumsfeld d i d n o t e v e n b o t h e r making the exceptionalist argument available to him. Instead, he essentially accused the media of heritage inflation: ‘The images you are seeing on television’, he insisted, ‘you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it’s the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it twenty times, and you think, ‘My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?”4 Ironically, this cavalier attitude pointed directly to where the real crisis lay: the breakdown of the strict export regulations, also written into post
Heritage as Crisis
Heritage has become a way to stabilize crises by stabilizing meanings. It is an idea
war international law, that had hitherto carefully kept Iraq’s vast collection of vases
born of crisis: the crisis of the Enlightenment, or more precisely, the crisis of modern
and other artifacts ‘in the country’. If the US publicly snubbed the Hague Convention,
nation-building. When the r e v o l u t i o n a r y f e r v o r that swept late-eighteenth
quietly it abided by two other Conventions to which it is a party: the 1970 Convention
century Paris began manifesting itself in the destruction of aristocratic property and
on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of
religious monuments, cultural entrepreneurs designated fragments of these monu
Ownership of Cultural Property, and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention. In accordance
ments as republican patrimony in order to spare them from destruction. In a sense,
with UNIDROIT, the US military commissioned a follow-up investigation in collaboration
this was an emergency measure, devised to avert a crisis. Yet once salvaged, these
with INTERPOL, which published a list of most wanted antiquities. This investigation
spoils could not be valued by the same criteria that gave them legitimacy in the
has unmasked an intricate web of connections between the black market, the First Gulf
eyes of the monarchy: in the nation-state, they became icons of rupture, ‘national
War, and UN-imposed economic sanctions.5 So in a sense, the fate of Iraq’s heritage –
objects that, belonging to no-one, are the property of all.’ In this sense, the category
its dissemination to an unregulated international market – has been
of heritage was invented not to avert a crisis, but rather to make the crisis permanent,
perfectly consistent with the neo-conservative rationale for the invasion, which connected
masking the continuity between the cultural values of old and new regimes. Heritage
political liberation with economic liberalization.
1
All but two of INTERPOL’s Most Wanted Works of Art have been recovered.6
is a distancing device, a spacer. Instead of belonging to the realm of history in which wars and revolutions unfold, it belongs to an abstracted realm where ownership
Yet the dissemination of artifacts has also diluted media coverage. As a collection
is delayed.
under attack, Iraq’s heritage made the news. But once the crisis had been laid bare and the story became that of dispersed objects, tracked by INTERPOL, shadowed
This abstracted realm is now a few centuries old and has acquired a complicated the multi-layered nature of contemporary wars as image-wars. When, for instance,
iconoclasm. Advocates are now hoping to shame international agencies into stricter
the Iraq National Museum was looted in the early days of the US-led invasion in April,
enforcement by linking ‘trading antiquities’ with ‘supporting terrorism’.7 Yet it is not
2003, the New York Times reported that the Pentagon had been briefed on the location
clear how international legal instruments that were designed to protect institutional
of Iraq’s cultural sites but failed to secure them, and that, in contrast, the Allies had
concentrations of heritage will deal with a broad extra-national dispersal of value and
successfully protected the monuments of Europe using this same briefing procedure during World War II. Whether the precedent was applicable was irrelevant. The point 2
was to expose the
trampling of not one, but two mythical images: the image
of Mesopotamia as birthplace of civilization, and the image of the US as pioneer in the
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by traffickers and periodically appearing on eBay, it stopped being a newsworthy act of
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geopolitical history. When a crisis of heritage makes the news, it is usually to illustrate
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of attention. Even in its incarnation as a set of international laws, heritage continues to focus attention on political crises while obscuring the cultural continuities that lie beneath.
distinguishes between art and architecture as ‘movable’ and ‘immovable’ property. In theory, this distinction reflects a difference in protective mechanisms. In practice, the effect of this split is that theft is considered legally reversible, while destruction
UNESCO/J. Sorosh Wali
International Style Heritage
Today these cultural continuities reside in objects and buildings alike, but heritage law
bridge was rebuilt by NATO, through an agreement between Bosnians and Croats, with aid from agencies in the East and the West, and under the rationalized supervision of a French bridge engineer. The project unfolded over five years and under the banner of ‘integrity’, a preservation criterion that says reconstructions are authentic, rather than replicas, if they are conducted with a strict technological ethos based on detailed
is not. A stolen object remains ‘illicit’ until it is returned to its state of origin (UNIDROIT
documentation of the original structure. The NATO-led Stabilization Force, SFOR, made
1995), but an army that has d e s t r o y e d a b u i l d i n g is under no obligation
ample use of the engineering metaphor of integrity to publicize its success in enforcing
to rebuild it (Hague 1954). Still, even without this obligation, the crisis-relief potential
the ‘Stability Pact’.12 Yet as Michael Igniatieff has shown, all these efforts to maintain
of architecture has undeniably come to carry the same ethical charge – what Elazar
the tectonic integrity of the ‘new old bridge’ coincided with its
complete collapse as a political symbol of unification, except in the cynical sense that both
today an International Style of architectural heritage restoration, which is sustained
ethnic factions in Mostar agreed that the influx of money and attention was needed
worldwide by international agencies of conflict management. By helping to rebuild
to maintain their city’s value as a bargaining chip in a virtual war.13 It is the impulse
destroyed monuments, preserving the sites of war crimes and generally concerning
to bear witness that leads restorers to alternately erase or impose destruction. But the
themselves with cultural institutions in crisis, international actors such as UNESCO,
signature aesthetic that results – clean-lined and clean-cut, almost Brutalist – inevitably
the World Bank, NATO and a growing number of NGOs promote the idea that heritage
benefits the ideology of international bureaucracies, who imprint every project with
is a peaceful concern, and its preservation a humanitarian activity. These practices
a white-gloved neutrality that voids this witnessing act of much of its value. However
create a platform of exchange between certain tropes of architectural preservation,
authentically restored, the Stari Most is a stylized representation indeed, and the only Donar Reiskofer
Barkan has called an ‘international morality’ – as the restitution of objects.8 There exists
such as integrity and authenticity, and certain tropes of modern warfare, such as pro portionality and military necessity. It is the style of restoration, rather than the nature of what is being restored, that provides the crucial link.
lasting iconographic certainty to have been embedded into it is NATO’s ‘integrity’ as an international force. The phrase International Style is most useful, then, as an artifact of the twentieth century itself: as a historiographic construct, it is the result of a persistent search for
I use the phrase ‘International Style’ somewhat in jest, although it is a useful heuristic. The style has its origins in the middle of the twentieth century, the period
monuments to mirror on an aesthetic plane the nascent geopolitical order. The first
when art historians theorized the first International Style (Gothic art, circa 1400)
search found in the Middle Ages a c o n n e c t i o n b e t w e e n t r a u m a a n d
and architects formalized the second (Modern architecture, circa 1940). Early works
d i s p l a y , the second found in modern architecture a structural Esperanto, and both
include projects associated with World War II, such as the reconstruction of the center
built pious display into their historiographies, whether through medieval itineracy
of Warsaw and the transformation of the Genbaku Dome at Hiroshima into a memorial.
or modern museology.14 But it is only in the architectural heritage of twentieth-century
More recent examples include the reconstruction of the Old Bridge in Mostar (or Stari
warfare itself that the International Style has found a support for both the metaphor
Most) after its shelling in April 1993, and the preservation of the site of the Bamiyan
of structure as neutrality and the logic of conspicuous display as constitutive of a global
Buddhas after they were dynamited in March 2001. Like the first International Style,
aesthetic experience. Sadly, the monuments of this third International Style have little
with its monumental picture cycles sponsored by new patterns of courtly patronage,
left to display, aside from evidence that the very cultural politics they are supposed
post-conflict heritage acts as a vast iconographic program. It legitimates political insti
to represent – where international governance arises from shared global experience –
tutions of global governance, while seemingly arising from regional rebuilding. Taking
has repeatedly failed.
9
a cue from Erwin Panofsky, we may push the analogy further: just as late-Gothic art was a two-faced display of collective melancholia that announced the rise of bourgeois
Monumental Concentrations
urbanity while mourning the ‘autumn’ of feudalism, so International Style heritage
In the face of this continual slippage, heritage is equally available to iconoclasts
celebrates collective cultural identity while emitting an unmistakable nostalgia for heroic
and salvagers as a way to concentrate attention and formalize conflicts. The Bamiyan
authorship.
10
Certainly the practice of turning sites of humanitarian tragedies into
Buddhas are a case in point: the Taliban’s 2001 announcement of their intent to
popular tourist attractions has produced a c o m m e r c i a l a e s t h e t i c o u t
destroy the statues triggered a cycle of intensive cultural diplomacy, where UNESCO
o f r e t r o s p e c t i o n a n d m o r b i d i t y . But the point is not to force a
and various member states proposed to dismantle the statues and reconstruct them
historiographic parallel. The point is to re-politicize heritage alongside other large-scale
outside Afghanistan. To justify this drastic measure preservationists appealed once
iconographic programs that have been vehicles for consolidating power by spreading
again to ‘integrity’, this time invoking the 1972 World Heritage Convention, a third
a cultural message.
legal instrument whose sole purpose is to ensure that the world is always ‘briefed’ on
With the architectural modernism of the mid-twentieth century, International Style
the location of its heritage. But the Mullahs considered their edict against the Buddhas
heritage shares a more obvious set of architectonic traits, based on structural integrity, volumetric legibility and material consistency.
11
a type of ’briefing’ too, and after some debate, they proceeded with the destruction.
International norms of preservation
Theirs was a pre-emptive image war, a cultural equivalent of the scenario that was later
hood. The similarity is helped by three facts: that many monuments to twentieth-
diplomacy became plainly evident in the statement made by Information Minister
century warfare belong to utilitarian typologies, that applied decorative elements have
Qudratullah Jamal after a week of silence, when footage of the destruction was finally released: ‘The destruction work is not as easy as people would think. You can’t knock
nineteenth-century restoration theory has combined with twentieth-century international
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played out in the UN as a build-up to the Iraq war. The stylisic stakes of this heritage
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treat every monument as if it were a work of modern architecture, designed for object
diplomacy to produce an unmistakably modernist style of tectonic neutralization. The
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same strict professional ethic as reconstruction – it was based on material integrity.
usually long disappeared and that their preservation has museumified them into neutrality. The Stari Most exemplifies how the structural rationalism inherited from
down the statues by dynamite or shelling as both of them have been carved in a cliff. They are firmly attached to the mountain.’15 Destruction, in other words, followed the
Joanne Farchakh-Bajjly
UNESCO has now placed the empty niches and the remains of the colossi on the World Heritage List, and is laying the discursive groundwork for an International Style com memoration at the site: debates over how to reconstruct, plans to display fragments in a museum and bittersweet discoveries of cultural heritage made visible by the destruction. To UNESCO, this project will be a monument to a new type of image war
ends against civilian means) and proportionality as a cultural control-mechanism (that transforms historical crises into global display objects).22 If much of what passes for straightforward ethical discourse in heritage management today is in fact a set of
massmelancholia will be to let these tropes reflect more accurately how heritage
highly sophisticated architectonic tropes, then one way out of the current
fare that occurs exclusively in the cultural realm.16 To the Taliban and its observers,
transforms historical continuities into spatial ruptures: not through neutral integrity
the episode commemorates the humanitarian crisis that befell Afghanistan as a result
but through consolidation of power; not by spatial proportionality, but by historic con
of UN-imposed economic sanctions.17 Where both sides agree is that the physical
densation. Left to its own devices, International Style heritage will continue to mask
detachment of the heritage project from any specific site of humanitarian tragedy has
the growing remove between humanitarian crises and international intervention. This
only
is because international bureaucracies, like nation-states, favor monumental concen
amplified its humanitarian overtones.
This detachment of heritage-commemoration from the sites of humanitarian
tration of every kind: of funding, of effort and of attention.
trauma marks a shift in the iconography of International Style heritage. A return to the precedent of World War II is useful. If the twentieth century added a humanitarian dimension to the original humanist dilemma of heritage, it is because specific urban morphologies ensured the proximity of mass-murder and monument-reconstruction.
tion.18 In short, a European urbanity is built into current heritage law. This is why the reconstruction of the Stari Most has been an attractive project for aid agencies: apart from being a model of early-modern engineering and a symbol of multiculturalism, the bridge fits into a familiar urban morphology and a reassuring
Tracy Hunter
has been based on this coincidence of population density and monument concentra
Jesse Wilson
spaces as the civilians that they attacked from the air, and all subsequent heritage law
Permission from Art Resource
The cultural sites protected by the Allies in World War II existed in the same urban
image of public space that legitimates a concentric type of power. The concentration of effort, on one monument, at the center of one town, in the middle of one region was presented as a model for conflict-resolution worldwide. The hidden continuity here is between war-time heritage reconstruction and peace-time preservation, both practices invested in urban contextualism. (Hence the first person to petition for bridge recon struction was the architect-urbanist who spent the 1980s restoring the Mostar city center to a pristine medieval state.)19 In contrast, the shadowy world of internet-antiquities
Three international styles since the black plague. Clockwise, from top left: Gothic Art: Duc de Berry, Meeting of the Magi (1411–1416); International Heritage: Jan Letzel, Genbaku Dome (built 1915, bombed 1945, inscribed 1996); Bamiyan Buddha Niche (built 507; dynamited 2001; inscribed 2003); Modern Architecture: Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona Pavilion (built 1929, disassembled 1930, reproduced 1986).
trading – which links tax-haven art collections and mainstream cultural institutions, invisible archaeological diggers and ubiquitous souvenir-hunters – probably offers a better model for understanding the public space in which ‘Mankind’ resides today, or at least a better medium for the public opinion in whose name image wars are fought. As international legal instruments designed to deal with concentration and proxim ity are increasingly deployed against dispersal and remoteness, the two spatio-temporal categories built into heritage law – movable/immovable and war/peace – become increasingly difficult to sustain. E v e n e m b e d d e d m o n o l i t h s c a n b e c o m e m o v a b l e (as the Bamyian Buddhas show), and even war-time protection requires peace-time institutions (as Iraq’s antiquities show). This blurring of categories goes directly against the stylizing tendencies of international heritage practices, which concentrate in space phenomena that were once distributed in time. Nowhere is this clearer than in UNESCO’s struggle to curate the geographic ‘diversity’ of its World Heritage List, as if global proportionality had its own iconographic value. Finding the Stari Most and the Bamyian Buddhas in the List is revealing: they belong, along with other sites of humanitarian significance like the Hiroshima Dome, the Island of Gorée and the Aapravasi Ghat, to a rare list of sites valued according to ‘Criteria (vi)’ alone, which derives value from ‘an event’.20 The first site in this exclusive list, the
As with the politics of integrity, this stylization of history relies on heritage to perform
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camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, was inscribed in 1979 only on condition that no other
a crucial conflation: between proportionality as a military variable (that weighs military
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‘sites of a similar nature’ be inscribed in the future.21 World Heritage only had space for the Holocaust as one ‘event’, and this precedent has been followed ever since.
1 ‘Que le respect public entoure particulièrement les objets nationaux qui, n’étant à personne, sont la propriété de tous.’ Abbé Grégoire, ‘Rapport sur les destructions opérées par le vandalisme’, in Patrimoine et Cité (Paris: Confluences, 1999), 37. Translation mine. This ‘public respect’ was to be the antidote to ‘vandalism’, a term Grégoire also coined. 2 Frank Rich, ‘And Now: Operation Iraqi Looting’, New York Times, April 27, 2003. 3 For a parallel history of the Lieber Code and ‘military necessity’ see Burrus M. Carnaha, ‘Lincoln, Lieber and the Laws of War’, in American Journal of International Law, 92/2 (Apr 1998), 213-231. On the U.S and Hague 1954, see ‘War and Cultural Property: the 1954 Hague Convention and the Status of U.S. Ratification’, in International Journal of Cultural Property, 10/2 (2001), 217-245. 4 Transcript of DoD News Briefing – Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers, April 11, 2003, 2:00pm. 5 First-hand accounts include: Matthew Bogdanos, Thieves of Baghdad (New York: Bloomsbury, 2005); Geoff Emberling & Katharyn Hanson, eds, Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past (Chicago: University of Chicago Oriental Institute, 2008); Lawrence Rothfield, ed., Antiquities Under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection After the Iraq War (Lanham: AltaMira Press, c2008); Peter G. Stone and Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly, Eds, The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2008). 6 ‘[T]he four items displayed on the left have meanwhile been recovered. Only the two on the right numbered 3 (gaming board) and 6 (lioness attacking a Nubian) are still wanted.’ INTERPOL General Secretariat, Works of Art Unit: Unpublished email communication with the author, 4 December 2008. 7 Matthew Bogadnos, ‘The Terrorist in the Art Gallery’, New York Times, December 10, 2005. For more on shame see Thomas Keenan, ‘Mobilizing Shame’, in SAQ 103:2/3 (2004), 435-449. 8 Elazar Barkan, The Guilt of Nations (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2000). Barkan’s optimism has been challenged, but the phrase has stuck. 9 The expression International Style is attributed to André Courajod, a sculp ture historian who curated in the 1890s the revolutionary spoils Grégoire helped save a century earlier. The high point of usage was the 1962 The International Style exhibit at the Walters Art Gallery; the best review of sub sequent work is Paul Binski, ‘Court Patronage and International Gothic’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History Vol. VII (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995-2005), 222-233. 10 The ‘autumn’ formulation belongs to Johan Huizinga’s 1919 The Autumn of the Middle Ages, until recently translated as The Waning of the Middle Ages. Panofsky complicated Huizinga’s story by describing a dichotomy between a ‘flamboyance’ due to the ‘fluidity … between art production and art consumption’ and a ‘nocturnal aspect’ reflecting the way ‘melancholia… assumed its modern meaning of a purely psychological dejection—a state of mind rather than a disease.’ Erwin Panofsky, ‘The Early Fifteenth Century and the ‘International Style’, in Early Nederlandish Painting (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), 72. 11 Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style: Archi tecture since 1932 (New York: 1932). Alfred Barr summarized the three criteria invented by Hitchcock & Johnson as volume over solidity, regularity over symmetry, and rejection of applied ornament. 12 As a stabilization force, SFOR operated between NATO’s implementation force, IFOR, and the E.U.’s peace-keeping mission, EUFOR. The rhetoric of constructive success spans from the first report (‘Operation Complete’, SFOR Informer, 12 Nov 1997) to the last (‘Mostar Bridge is standing up’, SFOR Informer, 7 May 2003). 13 Michael Ignatieff, ‘The Bridge Builder’, in Empire Lite (Toronto: Penguin, 2003). 14 Art historians and curators actively theorized the relationship between modern and medieval culture: Millard Meiss recounted the variations of the concept of International Style with contemporary moods in his 1974 The Limbourg and their Contemporaries, and Hitchcock saw Modern Archi tecture as born in ‘the chief engineering architecture of the past, the High Gothic of France.’ Hitchcock, Modern Architecture (New York: Payson & Clark, 1929), 161, 223-229. Adjoining these two narratives yields a grand conspiracy, where the same international style has reigned uninterrupted since the thirteenth century.
15 Interview with CNN, 12 March 2001, cited by AP, 12 March 2001. 16 Francesco Francioni, ‘The Destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan and Inter national Law’, in European Journal of International Law 14/619 (Sep 2003). 17 We are very disappointed’, said Ahmed Faiz, chief of the Afghan Foreign Ministry’s press department, ‘that the international community doesn’t care about the suffering people but they are shouting about the stone statues of Buddha’. Kathy Gannon, Associated Press (26 March 2001). 18 This spatial and strategic conflation is the subject of a chapter in my doctoral dissertation, Will to War, Will to Art: Cultural Internationalism and the Modernist Aesthetics of Monuments 1932–1964. 19 The original restoration provoked a debate on heritage inflation when it was awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. See ‘A Call for Affirmative Action’, in Architectural Record (Jan 1987), 94-99. Echoes of these disci plinary debates are heard in recent complaints that heritage inflation is at work in the undeserved attention paid to a utilitarian Ottoman bridge. Image wars and disciplinary wars are complicit in determining the type of international action they attract. See Mostar ‘92: Urbicide. (Mostar: Hrvatsko vijeće obrane Općine Mostar, 1992) and Inga Saffron, ‘Mostar’ in Metropolis (October 1994), 46-54. 20 Criterion (vi) carries a caveat: ‘The Committee considers that this criterion should preferably be used in conjunction with other criteria’. http://whc.unesco.org/en/criteria/ 21 ‘The Committee decided to enter Auschwitz concentration camp on the List as a unique site and to restrict the inscription of other sites of a similar nature’ UNESCO World Heritage Commmittee, Report of the Third Session, Paris, 30 November 1979. UNESCO/ CC-79/CONF.003/13. 22 A similar historic stylization is evident in UNESCO’s division of heritage into two timelines, World Heritage and World Heritage in Danger, all while suppressing the one spatial distinction that is consistently encountered by practitioners and scholars alike, namely, the tension between national and international values. See John Henry Merriman’s seminal essay, ‘Two ways of thinking of cultural property.’ The tension can be felt by comparing the discourse nation-states must use to get a property listed as World Heritage list, writing long essays on the value of their heritage that avoid any mention of national history in favor of a proto-internationalist history of civilizations, with the nationalist arguments they must make to appeal for objects to be repatriated, that unless it is physically embedded in a national narrative, cultural property loses its value completely.
Alibi
June 24, 2009
Isle de San Cristobal de Groüt
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Farming / Geothermal Energy / Water Management / Ecology, Animal, and Human
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Welcome to another edition of ALIBI, the travel guide that enhances your journeys with information about urbanization past and present. In this issue we take you to one of the world’s most remotely populated territories: the Isle de San Cristobal de Groüt. IdSCdG is an extreme example of island living. Although it is rare for a single island to possess nearly all the elements which have enabled island cultures around the world to survive, the practices of island urbanism are more commonplace than one might think. Island urbanism exists in every corner of the planet and collectively constitutes a large area of land. There are over 100,000 islands the largest 150 of which have a landmass equal to Europe. Islands are also home to a significant proportion of the earth’s inhabitants: one in ten humans today is an islander. Thus the story of IdSCdG and all the features that support its natural and built environment in effect provide a condensed overview of the day-to-day existence of island cultures. With climate change and the threat of rising sea levels, islands have become symbolic of a global condition, microcosms that will be the first to experience one possible outcome of our common situation. In November of 2008, Mohamed Nasheed, President of the Maldives, announced his plan to relocate the entire population of the island to another country due to projections that rising sea levels will subsume it this century. His state ment prompted a journalist for The New York Times to declare, ‘We are all Maldivians.’1 If islands as universal symbols and test sites have the ability to serve as particular cases of a general phenomenon, then the Isle de San Cristobal de Groüt crystallizes the paradoxes and challenges of every island. C-Lab takes you on a tour of this unusual example of survival against all odds – an island that incorporates every manner of technological and natural miracles. IdSCdG is a small dot of land in the middle of the Indian Ocean midway between Asia, Africa and Australia. No one knows its exact location because an electromagnetic field emanating from its volcanoes disables satellite navigation. But anyone can find it – it is the only piece of land for hundreds of kilometers and ocean currents converge on its shores, drawing ships to its harbor. IdSCdG isn’t really an island at all, but a group of atolls formed over thousands of years by coral sedimentation. The inhabitants have ingeniously pieced together these land outcroppings to form a continuous land mass.2 Even so, its peculiar make up (island made of numerous islands) has allowed the various zones of IdSCdG to evolve independently, preventing any catas trophe from obliterating it in its entirety and creating a series of miniature ecological systems in which cities can coexist with untouched nature. IdSCdG only emerged as a tourist destination when its airport was enlarged and modernized in the 1990s by the ISRO (Indian Space Research
Organization) as an emergency landing site for their space shuttle.3 Its terrestrial isolation made it all the more desirable as a spaceport for interplanetary travel and ISRO quickly expanded its operations. The Grand Duke of IdSCdG shrewdly negotiated for ISRO to finance additional facilities for commercial aircraft which along with its beautiful beaches and tropical forests has made the island an eco-tourism destination.
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IdSCdG is home to immense biodiversity including hundreds of species not found elsewhere. Its natural wonders were first chronicled by Jean-Louis Lamarck, a distant relation of the better-known French naturalist and a contemporary of Darwin who advanced his own theory of natural selection based on his observations of IdSCdG’s Pink Swamp-hens.4 Unfortunately, Taiwanese pirates captured Lamarck’s ship on its return voyage and he was killed, leaving his life’s work unrecognized. But the animals he studied remain. Many of IdSCdG’s species are unique to the island, though not, strictly speaking, native. Rather, they were brought there on ships from other small islands, only to become extinct in their native ecosystems. All told, IdSCdG supports 8,000 plant and 600 vertebrate endemic species.5 Nevertheless IdSCdG’s isolation contributes to weaknesses in the gene pool. The impossibility of migration means that any threat to its environment is disastrous for animal populations. Because of this, the island has more extinct species than anywhere else in the world despite its diversity.6 Its civilizations have led an equally precarious existence. A succession of famines, diseases and internecine warfare from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century effectively wiped out the earlier island settlements. All that remains of the first inhabitants are a series of enormous coral mono liths vaguely shaped like ships.7 (Some believe that the monoliths were the remains of an extensive shipbuilding operation in preparation for a mass exodus.) The monoliths serve as a reminder of the fragility of human existence on the island and as such are a popular sight for tourists. The island’s history is thus a succession of discontinuous inhabitation punctuated by social collapse. The island’s modern cities were only established in the 1960s when the island was resettled following French nuclear tests.8 In exchange for use of part of the island, French officials agreed to relocate the IdSCdG’s population – who were then in the midst of a great famine – to Nice and compensate them with land and money. After the dissipation of radioactive fallout the island was resettled and rebuilt in its current form. Many animal species were made extinct by the tests, though some have speculated that the radioactivity might also account for the greater rates of mutation and the emergence of new species in subsequent decades.
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Ecology
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Tourism is indeed an important aspect of the island’s ecology. The beauty of its white coral beaches, virgin rainforests and mysterious artifacts of earlier civilizations attract tens of thousands of visitors annually. Popular activities include swimming with Cristobalian River Porpoises and excursions into the heart of the island in search of rare species like the Panther Chameleon and the Razor-beaked Nightingale.9 The industry helps pay to maintain the environment, the island’s cultural resources and funds groups like the Society for the Preservation of Island Patrimony.10 Nevertheless the influx of tourists has begun to threaten the island’s oldest sites, and garbage and wear on the coral monoliths and other archaeological sites have led to calls for more regulation of the island’s heritage.11 To stem the tide of vacationers the Ministry of Tourism has devised a brilliant strategy: every time the island receives a positive review from a travel writer, the government leaks a story of a fresh environmental disaster to counteract the potential onslaught of new visitors. Likewise, when a new luxury resort is planned, the Ministry constructs an artificial neighborhood of simulated urban decay in order to discourage tourists and preserve a veneer of authenticity to the island’s cities. As with all islands, for IdSCdG to maintain its balance and prevent tourism from crowding out its inhabitants, it must offset its attractiveness while still drawing capital and visitors. Agriculture
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IdSCdG has little land for agriculture. It has compensated for the lack of space with six underground farms that produce many of the fruits and vegetables the islanders eat. The farms are lit by vast arrays of LEDs, with fertilizer and carbon dioxide supplied by spraying. They use hydroponic growing methods to maximize the yield from a relatively small area.12 In addition to under ground farms, many of the residents have plots of land on their terraces for personal use and a few larger buildings have public farms on rooftops. Despite these efforts the island relies on imports for many foods that can’t be grown in large enough quantity in underground and rooftop farms alone. Over time the islanders have found it more economic and a better use of their limited land to pay for food to be imported from the continents and use the underground farms to ensure an independent source of staple crops. In this respect the inhabitants of IdSCdG are similar to those of other islands in that they meet their demand through virtual farming, using their economic resources to pay for food to be grown elsewhere.
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Energy
IdSCdG needs to generate its own energy. Nuclear power is not an option because the island has no place to store radioactive waste and is located in a seismically active zone near the fault line between the tectonic plates of
India, Africa and Australia.13 While the volcanic activity on IdSCdG constantly threatens to annihilate its inhabitants, its physical geography is also critical to the island’s survival and self-sufficiency. The continuous seismic activity provides vast quantities of power which the islanders harness with geothermal plants to produce most of their energy. The island has become an experiment in carbon-neutral energy production and the plants themselves are a tourist attraction.14 Water
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For many years IdSCdG took its water from an aquifer at the center of the island. The gradual draining of the aquifer caused the ground to subside and seawater to flow in, however, leaving the urban center flooded and abandoned.15 A technological solution was devised to save the water supply and carry it throughout the city: a 300-foot fountain with flexible conduits that directs freshwater from the aquifer into a series of aqueducts. Eventually the aquifer ran out of water, so the government is building a dam at the mouth of the bay to turn it into a freshwater reservoir through natural flushing.16 The reservoir will ensure safe drinking water and nearly double the agricultural production of the island. As a consequence of IdSCdG’s relatively successful technological inter ventions there is a new threat to the island. After years of struggling to maintain its endangered existence, some scientists have speculated that soon IdSCdG could become the victim of its own success by achieving an almost magical equilibrium. Balancing its collective consumption and production, its use and replenishment of potable water, energy and food, it runs the potential risk of ecological stasis. The limited influence of external factors and the rigorous environmental practices among its inhabitants pose the possibility of a supernatural harmony with negligible growth and change. But for now the island is safe, its population and environment neither too fragile nor too stable.
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1 Nicholas Schmidle, ‘Wanted: A New Home for My Country’, The New York Times, 8 May 2009. 2 Similar to the land reclamation projects in Venice. 3 This was a response to NASA’s construction on Easter Island of an emergency landing strip for its space shuttle. 4 As the Galapagos Islands were for Darwin. 5 The island of Madagascar has 8,000 endemic plant species, twice the number of the entire US. The Philippines’ 7,100 islands contain more endemic vertebrate species (460) than anywhere else on Earth. 6 Like Madagascar. 7 Similar to the monolithic heads of Easter Island. 8 Similar to the US test near Tristan da Cunha or the Bikini Atoll. 9 Like Madagascar. 10 As in Venice tourist industry revenue helps support preservation efforts. 11 Applies to many islands, for instance, the Galapagos or Venice. 12 As in Japan. 13 Similar to Indonesia. 14 Like Iceland. 15 Venice’s subsidence in the middle of the twentieth century was due to ground water depletion. 16 Similar to the plan for Singapore’s bay.
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News Report Nicholas Lemann Interviewed by Jeffrey Inaba and Talene Montgomery
As a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine and the current Dean and Henry R. Luce Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Nicholas Lemann plays a major role in shaping the priorities that go into news reporting. Volume recently met with the journalist, educator and author to discuss just how news stories are told. He discusses journalism’s responsibilities in constructing news accounts and within the media landscape. The principles of journalism Lemann advocates are described in his fascinating roadmap ‘The Journalistic Method’, accompanying the interview below.
Carbon-neutral Energy Iceland
Land Reclamation, Tourism Driven Preservation, Regulated Heritage, Subsidence from Water Depletion Venice, Italy
Underground Farming Tokyo, Japan
Nucleat Testing Bikini Atoll Eco-Tourism and Offshore Operations Bermuda Islands
Eco-Tourism and Offshore Operations Cayman Islands
Endemic Vertebrate Species Phillippine Islands Desalination Reservoir Pungol Bay, Singapore
Jeffrey Inaba Fundamental to how we cope with crisis is how we understand it. And how we under stand crises is through news narratives. Compre
Seismically Located Indonesia
hension comes to us through how the story is told – by way of its stated context, problem or conflict, the people and events included and its subjects’
Endemic Plant Species, Isolated Extinction Madagascar
NASA Landing Strip, Monolithic Heads Easter Island
implied motives. To what degree is the narrative of the news considered or observed within the profession of journalism?
as journalists apply some version of the scientific method?’ For the class I teach we show some exam ples of these narratives or framing devices that get so a b s o r b e d i n t o y o u r h e a d you may not even be aware of them. If you’re aware of this tendency you check yourself instead of falling into it. I’m proposing the Journalistic Method as a new way to practice journalism. It’s a methodical and rigorous process.
Nicholas Lemann It’s very hard for non-journalists to
accept (about journalism) that although narratives are incredibly important there is no process by which anybody sits down and says, ‘This is the narrative, go follow it’. It’s a powerful, distributed process that’s very hard to explain exactly. Most people think that there’s this thing called ‘the press’ that decides on narratives for various reasons and them on events. It’s a lot more complicated than that. Much of what we do in journalism – not all, but much – is narrative. I’m not saying eschew narrative, but I am saying be more aware as you use narrative. Be aware of how it can mislead, be aware of these master narratives floating around, whether or not you’re being unconsciously drawn into them. I started working with social scientists around Columbia and asked them, ‘To what extent can we
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imposes
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Nuclear Testing Tristan da Cunha
Darwin’s Observations, Regulated Heritage Galapagos Islands
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JI What are examples that approximate the Journalistic Method? NL No one’s ever seen this except my students, but
George Orwell at his best employed the Journalistic Method because he’s saying ‘I am not accepting the received wisdom at the moment in my world, and instead I am trying to see things in a completely different way.’ Talene Montgomery In the piece you wrote in April for the New Yorker titled ‘Paper Tigers’, you talk a lot about the storytelling of Pulitzer and Hearst’s age. How is that different than the shorter news cycle reporting that is going on now? NL I’d say it’s different in the particulars but not in
the fundamental process. In other words, if you watch
just CNN, which is fairly good and respectable, there’s a very powerful set of rules, unconscious rules. Ask yourself why what’s on CNN is on CNN. If you used a Venn diagram to rationally and scientif ically map what important events you would expect to see on an international news channel and then compared that to what actually is on CNN there would be some overlap, but not that much. the overlap on CNN that So what’s wouldn’t be on your map? First of all, you’d see a lot of these narrative hook stories: a little girl or a cat falls down a well. That will be on CNN even though it’s not really of world importance. And that’s a good third of what’s on CNN, what we call ‘human interest stories’. Essentially what drives that is audience. They appeal to people because they’re human stories. That’s very much like the days of Hearst and Pulitzer – working in real time to get the largest possible audience for a journalistic product.
outside
JI In general how is this effort to attract audience
and opinion sharing is replacing it for financial,
The Journalistic Method
social and technological reasons?
Nicholas Lemann
NL It’s all in play. Journalism is in a very dire
A central problem in the practice of journalism is that most of the time, we are trying to engage in narra tive and analysis at the same time. They don’t naturally go together. Journalists more often unwittingly let the narrative distort the analysis than vice versa. What follows is an attempt at a journalistic version of the scientific method, aimed at protecting us from writing stories that are factually accurate and narratively compelling, but still fail to capture the truth of a situation.
situation. The old distinction in journalism between news and opinion is useful. This participatory style works better in the realm of opinion than for news. There have been many claims made online over the last few years that news – the actual gathering of information, assessing its importance and con sidering its presentation – could be done through, as one of my web guru friends calls it, social production, where social production refers to a good being produced by a l a r g e d i s t r i b u t e d n e t w o r k of people without any money changing hands. It’s the idea that in aggregate the function of jour nalism is not to produce information but to produce the flow of information. And more information would come out if you didn’t have journalist ‘gate-keepers’. The view is that journalists are ‘discourse-restricters’, not ‘discourse-enhancers’. And I just don’t believe that. But that’s where the debate is now.
through human interest stories balanced with the notion that the press reports news such as political
JI You’ve discussed reporting by CNN and The
events in the public’s interest?
New York Times. Are there significant differences
NL The press is, generally speaking, a commercial
1. Awareness. On any complicated subject, beware, when you set out, of overly simple concep tions of what ‘the story’ is. Often these involve your having unwittingly accepted somebody else’s frame of reference, or having been primed to see the story in a certain way, or having mistaken correlation for causation, or having succumbed to some other form of embedded misperception. As a first step, you should always stop and ask yourself what you have bought in before you have begun.
NL There’s always a focus on the White House,
which actually is important, but it also works on TV because it fits with the narrative nature of journalism because there’s a character. It’s very hard in conven tional journalism, particularly television, but even print, to deal with issues that are incredibly important attached to it. if they don’t have a So if you’re covering the White House you can fairly seamlessly move back and forth between the Obamas’ dog and Chrysler going bankrupt because it’s got a narrative frame. If the Federal Reserve or the FDIC does something that fundamentally changes the lives of millions of Americans, it’s incredibly hard for television to cover this.
person
JI Because there isn’t a character we already know to establish the plot? NL Exactly. The White House is kind of like an
model of reporting has gone by the wayside and
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ongoing family drama, especially now. It’s a TV show and there are characters who deal with things.
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institution driven by audience-building imperatives, at least to some extent. So one could say, well, if you’re Hearst or Pulitzer or Fox News or whoever and you’re trying to build the largest possible audience, then the decisions that build the largest possible audience are in the public interest, since more of the public are coming to your publication – that’s the proof. That’s generally not the way the term is used. What journalists are supposed to do is follow the commercial imperatives up to a point and then set them aside and s e r v e t h e p u b l i c . But what that really means is: ‘operate according to internally-generated professional principles which may or may not be right.’ I think they are usually right, but calling them the ‘public interest’ is a little tendentious because there was no mechanism for the editor of The New York Times to consult the public and decide whether it’s in the public’s interest. It’s what he thinks is most important. But we in journalism tend to cloak ourselves in the public interest and say that journalism’s a public trust and that is where we get squishy conceptually.
in telling a story on TV compared to in print?
that the many-to-many participatory model of news
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JI Is it a foregone conclusion that the professional
2. Forming a hypothesis. It’s healthier to admit to yourself that you have one than to go into a story with the idea that you have no presuppositions at all – that would be impossible. You should state a working hypothesis (to yourself, anyway), and then ask yourself what would prove the hypothesis false and what would be an alternate hypothesis to explain whatever it is you are investigating. As you report, you should try not just to prove but also to disprove your working hypothesis, and you should engage in a continuing process of revision of the hypothesis, if necessary. If you don’t design your reporting in such a way that if your hypothesis is flawed you will find out before you finish the story, then you are leaving yourself open to getting the story seriously wrong.
3. Mapping the discourse. On any important issue, there is likely to be a long‑running debate with a set of established compass points. Therefore the idea that you can find ‘an expert’ who can explain the issue quickly over the phone is unrealistic, and probably, so is the idea that you can find two experts, one on each side, who between them can do justice to the subject. Instead, you should familiarize your self with the expert discourse on the subject. You don’t need to read everything, but you need to know what the major schools of thought are, and where the debate stands at present, and you should be able to read the primary material for yourself as a way of enriching what other people tell you about it. 4.
Evaluating the data. Never accept a con clusion from an expert at face value. Instead, you should follow the steps that led to the conclusion, and you should make some judgment as to whether the methodology and presentation are sound. You should also find out whether somebody else has drawn a different conclusion about the same subject. 5. Transparency. Journalism is not scholar ship and does not generally use bibliographies or footnotes, but you should use attribution in your work in such a way that readers and colleagues can see, to the greatest extent possible, where your information came from and how you have reached your conclusions. Therefore, the use of anonymous sources should be kept to a minimum – you should always try to avoid saying something important with only the testimony of an unnamed person as proof. Even your journalistic competitors should be able to tell, from your work, how to pursue your story further.
Fact and Friction
other responsibilities too. People want to know not just what occurred, but also how they can affect things. Their participation and their power to affect the situation has something to do with their interest in information and there’s a vital connection between those two things. Also, there are normal political situations in which values conflict, where the press doesn’t have to take any particular side because the situation is well repre sented. Yet there are lots of other situations in which if you just let the existing players play, lots of things aren’t going to get represented. So the press obviously has a duty to do that. And there are other exceptional circumstances in which the powerful players them selves have an interest in t e a r i n g d o w n the accumulation of facts in order to present the truth as untrue. When that happens, journalists have a duty to be involved – I would say this in much stronger terms than they would – to reverse that behavior or penalize people for trying to do it.
Jay Rosen Interviewed by Jeffrey Inaba and Talene Montgomery
How do journalists decide how to tell stories? What are their responsi bilities when reporting a story? And to what extent do they write in the public’s interest? New York University journalism professor and press critic Jay Rosen discusses these issues in the context of the long-standing debate about whether journalists represent or create the public. ‘The public is there to be informed and it’s something we have to bring to life’, says Rosen. Adding to this debate is the advent of citizen journalism and in particular the role of the public in formulating the news story. Rosen guides Volume through the landscape of traditional journalistic methodologies, pinpointing the ramifications of new models of journalism on the stories told.
Talene Montgomery What is Citizen Journalism? JR The great press critic AJ Liebling once famously
public. You seem to be suggesting that it is by no means a stable entity and thus ‘public interest’ is a mushy term. Can you describe the role of the press in defining the ‘public’? Jay Rosen This goes back to a debate that Walter
Lippmann and John Dewey had about the nature of the public and whether we just represent it or do it? Lippmann’s argument we also have to was: If you look at the public you’ll see it has very limited capacity. It can say yes or no, it can throw politicians in or out, but ultimately its perceptions are manipulated and that’s inevitable because the public is doing other things. He was trying to be a realist about it. Dewey said, ‘You know, I can’t disagree with you Walter. I see that, but you’re overlooking some thing. We have more and better tools than ever to bring the public alive and surely this is what we’re supposed to be doing. So you, Walter, and me, and all the other people involved in arts, culture, educa tion and politics, have to figure out continually how to bring the public alive.’ It’s not just a question of information either, its also one of art. Because engaging people successfully is a social problem we have to figure out. So to me, yes, the public is there
create
to be informed and it is something we have to bring to life. There’s no objective way of doing it; it’s an art and a commitment. I think really good journalists who care about telling the truth, who care about their stories and about having an effect are really saying, ‘I’m going to awaken the public’. And that’s what Dewey meant. JI
So you are saying that the press has a public
responsibility. How does that play out in the
TM What is the prevailing argument about profes
telling of the story, in the reporting of facts and
sional journalism compared to citizen journalism? And what is your take on it?
events? Does this responsibility imply that jour nalists report comprehensively and impartially
JR Well, we shouldn’t see them as opponents that
with the aim of informing the public or does there
meet and struggle. That is pure fiction. But I would say the important issues are the following. First: we need verified information. The most impor tant reason for having professional journalism is it represents a verification system we otherwise would not have. The essence of what they do is not just report stuff, but they report stuff that’s verifiable. Second: there are some kinds of stories – investiga tive journalism, for example – that you can only get if somebody is working on them full-time. Finding out facts requires somebody working on it. That argues for professional journalism. There’s a whole class of things for which that is true.
need to be a degree of interpretation as to just what the public’s interest is and to construct the story accordingly? JR Journalists have a responsibility to tell us
truth
and that what’s going on and tell us the does require impartiality. We know this from our normal lives. It doesn’t require you to be a journalist. If you went to a contentious meeting – and other people who also have a stake in what you have wit nessed couldn’t go and they ask you what went on – you have a responsibility to report to the other people accurately and impartially. Yet you have
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nalists For’, you describe the fragility of the
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Jeffrey Inaba In your article, ‘What Are Jour
said about freedom of the press, ‘Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one’. And blogging means anyone can own one. That is a switch and ‘citizen journalism’ is simply a name for this fact. People have the tools and therefore they also have the powers of the press. Citizen journalism is when ‘The People Formerly Known as the Audience’ pick up these tools and use them to inform one another. Now, what does that means for the profes sion? Will they replace the press? That’s a whole other thing.
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Third: we need people with power, including and especially people in government, to provide access to the public itself. But it’s not practical for them to provide access to the public at large, so we need representative figures to pose questions. And obviously that, in a practical way, argues for people who have that access, because certain stories can only be gotten that way! So a l l o f t h o s e t h i n g s a r e a t r i s k and insofar as professional journalists are saying ‘Wait a minute, we can’t lose those things’ – I totally agree. I’m in their camp. What’s good about citizen journalism? Well, there is tons that citizen journalism can’t do. At least fifty percent of the arguments that journalists want me to have with them engage in the proposition that citizen journalists can’t replace what ‘we’ do. Well, no! It’s a completely different activity. That’s like saying – and this is borrowed from another writer – that farmers’ markets can’t replace restaurants. Just because people are going to the farmers’ market doesn’t mean they aren’t going to go to a restaurant. They’re going for a totally different reason. So what is citizen journalism good at? We don’t nec essarily know entirely yet, because we haven’t built good structures for it. But one of the things that it’s good at is having people who about issues guide you to news about those issues, which is a better way of learning about them than depending on, say, the LA Times. What’s great about citizen journalism is that it is born from participation and it is created for your participation. The bloggers have been the ones – like amateurs in other new arts – who have actually pushed the craft forward. They’re the ones who learned to write with links; they’re the ones who learned to take the freedoms of the web – which are vast – and bring enough discipline to them through forms that make blogging intelligible.
really care
JI
You’ve discussed a hybrid form of journalism.
Can you talk about that? JR I’m interested in this thing people are calling
Pro-Am journalism.1 Ultimately the strongest forms and the best discoveries will be made with ‘pro’ journalists working with networks of amateurs, connected through smart web tools and applications and motivated to produce new information.
1 For more on Pro-Am journalism, see Rosen’s site, www.NewsAssignment.net
All images by Talene Montgomery
Letters From the Editor Lewis H. Lapham Interviewed by Jeffrey Inaba
After serving thirty years at the helm of Harper’s Magazine, literary icon Lewis H. Lapham launched Lapham’s Quarterly in 2008. Investigating one theme per issue and enlisting ‘the council of the dead’ as well as material from the public domain to do so, the quarterly is where Dorothy Parker, Marco Polo, Karl Marx, Charlemagne, Ayn Rand, Notorious B.I.G. and Aristophanes exchange ideas. It’s also where the financial costs of all US wars are charted alongside body counts from the Rambo franchise. Volume recently met with Lapham to discuss his use of history to assess current affairs.
aspect of your quarterly is that it contextualizes current events within a long historical arc. Lewis H. Lapham Right, that’s what I’m trying to do.
See, history is a continuum. It’s all narrative. I mean history is story. It’s not so much what happened, it’s w h a t p e o p l e b e l i e v e h a p p e n e d that is apt to carry more weight. And the only thing we can really change is the past. I can’t change the present, I can hope to change the future, but I can change the past. So I take a subject that’s in the news, a current event. The first issue is on ‘war’, the second is on ‘money’, the third ‘nature’ and the fourth ‘education’, then ‘eros’ and ‘crime’. The one we’re now doing is ‘travel’, because various facets of those questions, problems and concerns are in the news all the time. And the object of the Quarterly is to provide some kind of historical perspective: to bring the experience of the past to bear on the questions of the present. There’s an old Arab proverb: ‘We have less reason to be afraid of what might happen tomorrow than we do to beware of what happened yesterday.’ What this is getting at is that there is a historical root to most everything. What I’m trying to do in this journal is to
supply some of those roots. There are infinite numbers of them, as you may suspect, but at least some of them are present in Lapham’s Quarterly, so you can see what astute observers of the human predicament have noticed over the last few thousand years. Good writing is always new. I mean, that’s why Shakespeare is still being performed in Central Park. It’s the p o w e r o f e x p r e s s i o n a n d t h e f o r c e o f i m a g i n a t i o n that keeps the narrative in print, even for a thousand years. You can read the debate in Athens prior to their expedition to Syracuse in 415 BC, which essentially destroyed the Athenian empire; it was an act of sub lime hubris that brought the collapse of the Athenian empire. There’s a debate in Athens before the fleet sails with one general maintaining that it’s utter folly. When I was still at Harper’s Magazine, in the early days before we invaded Iraq, I wrote a long piece and brought that into the conversation. I also brought Twain’s great letter to children sitting in , which is his polemic against the notion of colonialist, imperialist expansion into the Philippines in the early part of the twentieth century. It bears rereading in these circumstances. I think history is full of navigational lights that can be useful on our voyage through time.
ness
dark
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reporting with the 24-hour news cycle. A unique
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Jeffrey Inaba There’s an obsession in current
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JI
Yes, so it operates like a news aggregator,
only it uses history largely from the public domain as its source. LL Yeah, that’s right. At the back of each issue we have living authors, but otherwise I draw on the public domain and it is an aggregator. We have a new website in development and it won’t be just the magazine on-line. It’ll be more fun than that – really it’s own thing. We have one lovely feature we call ‘Déjà Vu’ in which you take something right from the news, right from today, a paragraph out of a newspaper or a magazine or a recently published novel or a speech with a photograph. Then you do a – just like in a film – and you’re taken back in time to a juxtaposition with an analogous photograph and an analogous event or problem or commentary. For example, we have an image of a person being censured for obscene speech or some media gaffe resulting in his dismissal and a related short paragraph news story. We then dissolve to the Earl of Rochester, who was court poet for Charles II. He was a court favorite. He was a libertine, as was Charles II, and there was a lot of what our celebrity press would call ‘misbehavior’ but what was stand ard operating procedure in London during The Restoration. [laughs] The King asks Rochester for his latest and wittiest poem, because he was good at that, and he reaches into his pocket and hands the king the poem, but it’s the wrong poem. The poem that he receives is an attack on the King’s dick. It’s a very entertaining poem, but it makes fun of the King. So he is dismissed. He falls from favor, his disgrace is p e r m a n e n t . He no longer enjoys the privileges of the court and he drifts into obscurity and drunken bankruptcy. In this feature you also have a wonder ful picture of the Earl of Rochester and the poem.
dissolve
Once you’ve an idea how to frame it, that gives you a reason to choose this manuscript and not another. The next issue, which is on travel, is divided into four parts. The first is departure, the second part is in-transit, the third part is arrival and the fourth part is returning home. In the departure part this kind of question comes up. We have the wonderful opening of Melville’s Moby Dick: ‘Call me Ishmael’, and ‘dreary island of my soul’, and ‘I leave the Isle of Manhattoes and set forth on a voyage’. We have quite a few other pieces in that section and they’re all about ‘setting out’. We have Matsuo Basho on the road north on the first day of one of his journeys. We also have a very fine passage from Defoe talking about r u n n i n g a w a y t o s e a when he was young and the arguments he was having with his father. There’s no point in using both the Melville and the Defoe. Do you see what I mean? Once you’ve decided on the structure, then you can make those kinds of decisions. Otherwise it becomes such an embarrassment of riches that you’re easily lost. And that also allows you to make juxtapositions, because then we look at it and say, ‘My god, there are fourteen pieces in this section and ten of them are from the nineteenth century, and of those five are American’. So we clearly must do better. That tells us what else to look for, who else to call up and say, ‘Talk to me about the thirteenth century’. JI
state. They know they don’t have any answers yet – there’s no answer on the Left that I know of – but a lot of people are trying to do that and at some point that notion will emerge. JI
magazines are obsessed with predicting the future. What you are doing with the Quarterly is moving us forward by giving us sources to apprehend the future. So rather than anticipating the ‘next big thing’, Lapham’s Quarterly uses history to show us what we may be encountering. LL Yeah, you’re likely to see the ‘next big thing’
in the rear view mirror.
What are themes you want to address
in the future? LL I’m trying to figure out how to address govern
ance. I mean, do we call it the body politic, do I try to do an issue on democracy, should it be on the state? JI
What is your impression of the current state
of politics? JI
Each issue is centered around a topic. Usually
the issue’s content is divided into several sections.
LL I think Obama is trying to keep the con
game going.
Within each section there’s a sequence of material.
adjacency. Could you speak about constructing these adjacencies? LL That’s the interesting part. You’re dealing with an enormous subject and there’s no possible way you can be definitive, comprehensive or have the last word on anything. So how do you organize the mate rial? How do you give it structure? Some of the issues are divided into four parts, others into three or some times five. But again, you’re trying to provide an arc. Doing that is the most challenging part of editing.
What con game?
LL That we have a democracy. That there is no serious class division in the US. That we can still play the part of the imperial power in Afghanistan. That we still are giving pride of place to banks and property. In other words, the freedom of the market instead of the f r e e d o m o f t h e m i n d . I don’t know how to phrase the new political idea. A couple issues ago in The Nation there was a piece by Barbara Ehrenreich and Bill McKibbon groping towards some sort of community-based politics and a notion of society as opposed to a notion of the
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comparisons or relationships of ideas through
JI
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That material is not chronological, rather it forms
Lapham’s Quarterly seems to be a polemic
about the future more than anything else. Some
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VOLUME Independent quarterly for architecture to go beyond itself Editor-in-chief Arjen Oosterman Contributing editors Ole Bouman, Rem Koolhaas, Mark Wigley Issue editor Jeffrey Inaba Managing editor Gavin Browning Editorial consultants Carlos Betancourth, Thomas Daniell, Bart Goldhoorn, Markus Miessen, Kai Vöckler VOLUME is a project by ARCHIS + AMO + C-Lab + … ARCHIS Lilet Breddels, Joos van den Dool, Christian Ernsten, Edwin Gardner, Rory Hyde, Amelia McPhee AMO Reinier de Graaf C-Lab Jeffrey Inaba, Juan Pablo Alcalde, Shumi Bose, Jenna Barclay, Gavin Browning (Studio–X), Benedict Clouette, Day Jimenez, Daniel Koppich, Kate Meagher, Talene Montgomery, Lukas Pauer, Johann Schweig Materialized by Irma Boom and Sonja Haller VOLUME’s protagonists are ARCHIS, magazine for Architecture, City and Visual Culture and its predecessors since 1929. Archis – Publishers, Tools, Interventions – is an experimental think tank devoted to the process of real-time spatial and cultural reflexivity. www.archis.org
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Contributors Anirban Adhya is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Lawrence Tech University. Lucia Allais is a Behrman-Cotsen Fellow at the Princeton University Society of Fellows. Berenika Boberska is Principal and Design Architect of Feral Studio Architects. Erik Carver is an architect in New York. Roger Dean is an English artist and architect. Neil M. Denari is Principal of NMDA and a Professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA.. Catherine Hardwicke is the director of Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown and Twilight. Todd Hido is a photographer of landscape and people. Alexander D’Hooghe is an Assistant Professor of Architectural Design at MIT. Bjarke Ingels is the Principal Architect of BIG. Jiang Jun is the Editor of Urban China. Janette Kim is the Director of the Urban Landscape Lab at Columbia University GSAPP. Lewis H. Lapham is the Editor of Lapham’s Quarterly. Nicholas Lemann is Dean and Henry R. Luce Professor at the Journalism School of Columbia University. Brian Louwers is a journalist for C & G Newspapers in Warren, Michigan. Tom McCarthy is the author of Remainder and the General Secretary of the International Necronautical Society (INS). Geoff Manaugh is the writer of BLDGBLOG and THE BLDGBLOG BOOK. Robert McLeman is an Assistant Professor of Geography at The University of Ottawa. Dave McKean is the illustrator of Coraline and The Sandman series, among others. John McMorrough is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Ohio State University. Andrew Oswald is a Professor of Economics at The University of Warwick. Gonzalo Puga is a designer and photographer in Santiago, Chile. Smiljan Radic is an architect in Santiago, Chile. John Paul Rea is Associate Planner of the Macomb County (Michigan) Department of Planning and Economic Development. Jay Rosen is a professor of journalism at New York University. Christopher A. Scott is Assistant Research Professor of Water Resources Policy at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at The University of Arizona. Deane Simpson is an Instructor in the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich. Stephanie von Stein is the Asia Program Director of Waterkeeper Alliance. Joseph Tainter is Professor and Head of the Department of Environment and Society at Utah State University. Nato Thompson is a curator and producer at Creative Time. Kazys Varnelis is the Director of the Network Architecture Lab at Columbia University GSAPP. Make Believe Research and graphics by Talene Montgomery, Daniel Koppich, Kate Meagher and Day Jimenez. There’s No Place to Roam Research and graphics by Juan Pablo Alcalde and Talene Montgomery. Facing the Crisis Research and graphics by Day Jimenez. Wish Upon a Star Graphics by Daniel Koppich. The Technostrich/The Technology Narrative Research and graphics by Kate Meagher and Juan Pablo Alcalde. Wave of Mermaid Mutilations Research and graphics by Daniel Koppich. Alibi: Isle de San Cristobal de Groüt Research and graphics by Juan Pablo Alcalde, Day Jimenez, Benedict Clouette and Daniel Koppich. Ostrich Flipbook Research and Graphics by Johann Schweig Warren Special Report designer and contributors on p. 79. Corrections/Additions The colophon of Volume 19 includes: Emanuela Bonini Lessing teaches and works as freelance in the field of strategic and communication design. She holds a Ph.D. in Design Sciences (Iuav University of Venice). Disclaimer The editors of Volume have been careful to contact all copyright holders of the images used. If you claim ownership of any of the images presented here and have not been properly identified, please contact Volume and we will be happy to make a formal acknowledgement in a future issue.
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