Benign Modernism?

The campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (better known as UNAM, in Spanish) is an uncommon example of modernism. Ciudad Universitaria (or CU as it is commonly called) was built during the height of modernism in 1954. However, unlike other building complexes of that scale, that are infamously bland and monotonous, CU has been widely celebrated for its sense of place. The complex is an assemblage of monumental functionalist buildings decorated with murals, sculptures and linked together by a system of gardens and parks. The granting of UNESCO World Heritage to CU is part of the relatively recent phenomenon in which modernist architecture is beginning to be considered as historical patrimony. This is ironic, to say the least, considering that the modernists often prided themselves in completely breaking up with the past and always looking towards the future.

The modernist dogma of “form follows function” and its obsession with efficiency and rationality was applied all over the world, particularly after the Second World War. Its universal scope was the reason why in the 1950, people began to talk about an “international style,” rather than a distinctively German or Scandinavian or American modernism.

In the case of Ciudad Universitaria, even though a relentlessly modern project, many of the rules of XX Century modernism were broken, and that is in many ways the reason of its success. There are at least three that the planners and architects of UNAM deliberately broke in the construction of CU:

1.  Many architects instead of just one. While modernist architects were being commissioned to design full cities (e.g. Brasilia, designed by Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer or Chandigarh, designed by Le Corbusier), CU was designed by a vast group of architects. Architecture professors, students and young architects collaborated in the design of the buildings as well as the master plan and the landscape architecture of the complex.

2.  Plastic integrity instead of ornamentation. The modernists abhorred ornamentation. The elegance and simplicity of functions was always chosen above ornamental elements without utility. Ciudad Universitaria was designed under a different approach: the so-called integridad plástica. This entailed that, in the spirit of the architecture of the Renaissance, art, murals, sculpture, architecture are one and the same. Many of the architects that participated in the design of CU were consummated polymaths. Juan O’Gorman, the architect in charge of the Central Library of CU, designed and personally painted the murals that covers the façade, which is considered the largest mural in the world. Architect Mario Pani closely collaborated with Siqueros to integrate his murals into the building. Just to name a few examples.

3.  Parks instead of esplanades. The obsession with efficiency of circulation resulted in the creation of the typical modernist esplanades that plague our cities today. Often made from granite, esplanades are deprived of any obstacles in order to ensure the circulation of pedestrian. But they are also deprived of any benches, trees, planters or art on which you can rest your eyes. CU follows the rules of modernist modularity and seriality. However, instead of only using dry materials, they are often flanked by trees, bushes and the central esplanades alternate grass and stone materials.

Seventy years after the construction of CU, it is a good moment to revisit modernism and try to understand if there can be a balance between the rigidity and flexibility, between simplicity and complexity, and ultimately between order and chaos.

The Zima Blue in the city

Do you remember the first colour you ever saw? For artist Zima, that colour was the blue tiles of a swimming pool. Love, Death, and Robots is a Netflix series of sci-fi shorts and Zima Blue is the last episode of Volume One. The story of Zima Blue is a beautiful one in which I am deeply captivated by both its aesthetic and philosophical qualities.

The story follows an enigmatic artist named Zima who in the far future attracts a worldwide following of his mural artwork. Zima started his art career in portraiture; but the urge to search for deeper meaning led him to look further to the cosmos itself and that’s how the mural work started. Over time the artist’s murals begin featuring a blue square in the middle of the canvas. Starting with a tiny blue square in the centre of the canvas, over the next several decades the blue square becomes more dominant until Zima unveils an entirely blue mural.

Then the artist presents his final work—a swimming pool. It is then revealed that the artist’s existence began as a simple robot designed to clean the blue tiles of a swimming pool. Over time the robot underwent various modifications, adding on new features and technologies and “with every iteration it became more alive.” Consciousness, great intelligence, awareness and mind capacity cannot fill the void within the artist. After decades of searching for truth the artist knows what has to be done. Zima the artist immerses himself into the swimming pool he rebuilt with the blue tiles. As he does, he slowly shuts down his higher brain functions. The artist’s last words are, “…un-making myself, leaving just enough to appreciate my surroundings.”

I am deeply captivated by the artist’s performance of immersing into the water, disassembling himself, and enjoying the simple pleasure offered by the surroundings. I love cities. In my years of studying, researching, and working in the field of urban studies, my passion toward cities grows and so does my knowledge. The knowledge. We are trained to see and study the city through various lenses—the city as marketplace (space of exchange of information and commodities), the city as an assemblage, the city as organism, as nervous system, as a laboratory, as an archive, as text, language, and speech, as performativity…and the list goes on. Studying the city and urbanity through these lenses is and has always been a thrilling and exciting adventure.  

But Zima the artist sends me a reminder. The urban environments. Urban environments are clusters of mediated information and sensory experience. In my gracefully-frantic search to understand cities and to apply and witness theories, I at times neglect the urban environment itself. The urban is also understood through the senses and the sensory experience urban environments offer is immense.

So tonight as I take a walk in the city I let go of my thoughts on insurgent urbanism, performative urbanism, ecological urbanism, splintering urbanism…. I, following the artist, shut down my thoughts and leave just enough to appreciate the urban surroundings. As I look up I am pleased to know that I can still extract some simple pleasure from the urban environments. The vintage neon signage is my Zima blue—the simplicity—in the city.

Figure 1. Archambault Musique. Image source: Judy Chen. Montréal, 2021.

Figure 2. Miss Villeray Café. Image source: Judy Chen. Montréal, 2021.

Figure 3. Château Lafeyette. Image source: Judy Chen. Ottawa, 2021.

I couldn’t decide whether my fascination toward the city is because of what the city is or how the city works. This fascination I carry with me, I know, is a precise thing.

Block X Block: Building Real Cities Using Minecraft Video Game

Block by Block is a foundation in collaboration with UN-Habitat and Mojang (Minecraft creator) to use video game Minecraft as an urban planning tool, making it accessible for all city residents. The joint program of Block by Block provides a visualization tool that is easy to handle for all people, ranging from kids and youth to women and refugees. Through setting up workshops available across the world, more than 30 countries have successfully implemented dozens of projects led by local communities. The first workshop was held in Nairobi in 2013, paving the way for many more other inclusive experiments globally. 

The approach considered in this program aims to empower unheard voices in our communities, letting them explore their potentials in improving their surroundings. Through a digital platform, local participants, usually left out of the conversation, are being consulted in the process of shaping the public spaces they occupy on a daily basis. The spaces that this program targets are shared spaces such as parks, waterfronts, squares, etc. Upon completion of the design proposals, participants present their projects to local stakeholders, who then choose what to utilize from each proposal. A final model is therefore assembled, based on the local community choices and preferences. The model is then sent to professionals and architects who advance the virtual work into reality. 

The result is a co-created shared space, engaging people interested from all backgrounds and parts of society. This participatory approach merging two seemingly incompatible ideas, a video game and city planning, proves effective and succeeds in promoting a better urban future. A future where a sense of neighborhood ownership is ingrained among all types of residents, including the normally hard-to-reach groups. 

Urban Tranquility

Summer 2020 adventures often seemed to include some sort of escape from the four-walled, cemented city structures we live in. Gaspésie became a key destination for Quebecers: French-speaking small towns at a safe distance from skyscrapers. This summer has yet to reveal which destination might become #1, but the answer will soon be revealed as the construction holidays have begun.

The mass temporary migration reveals a deeper dilemma for city planners: there is simply not enough tranquility in cities. Public spaces often tend to have elements of greenery and are usually placed at a walking distance of people’s homes, providing both accessibility to nature and sound barriers. However, they are often too small, therefore unable to host a variety of activities. This encourages situations with a conflict between peace and excitement, such as the overcrowding at Îles-de-Boucherville, where partygoers will blast music on boats until sundown and overturn kayaks and canoes (Radio-Can, 2021).

Silence and space have been somewhat rediscovered with social isolation. Although we do need interaction, a balance of both crowded and clear is necessary for inner peace. The future calls for better preservation and development of our green spaces by offering enough services and activities for the growing demand.

Reference

Lefebvre, K. (Host). (2021, July 14). Une cohabitation difficile sur le fleuve, avec Philippe-AntoineSaulnier. [Radio episode]. In Le 15-18. Radio-Canada Ohdio. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/

Botanical garden of Montreal. Image source: Author.

Tactical Urbanism Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is a warning to our cities to be prepared for the next crisis. It teaches us lessons on the necessity of maintaining strong community bonds and the importance of spaces for developing and benefiting from such bonds. Due to lockdowns, people had more time to explore their own neighborhoods, which led to a greater recognition of the need for access to community hubs within walking distance. We also witnessed experiments in “Tactical Urbanism”, as streets in cities all around the world were given over to cyclists, pedestrians, and restaurants to meet the spatial requirements for physical distancing. Tactical Urbanism, also known as Guerrilla Urbanism, refers to an approach to modify urban built environment, using temporary, low-cost, and scalable interventions to improve local neighborhoods or city gathering places.

In response to the pandemic, cities had to quickly repurpose public spaces to facilitate outdoor gatherings. OpenNorfolk Program, in Norfolk, Virginia, applied tactical urbanism tools to benefit its residents. This program implemented three kinds of projects to address the problems caused by the public health crisis: 1) “Streateries” or outdoor dining in the street, which allowed small businesses to continue operating safely. 2) Prioritizing pedestrian mobility and providing safe outdoor activities through changing streetscape. This slowed down traffic and encouraged pedestrian activity. 3) “Neighborhood Spots” – pop-up community squares or hubs, which kept talented artists employed. Therefore, OpenNorfolk Program, as the result of a successful collaboration among designers, city staff, and other partners, helped Norfolk city back on its feet, and lifted the spirits of the residents in the time of pandemic.

Utilizing Feng Shui Principle in Urban Planning for Harmonious Spaces

Today, approximately 7 billion people inhabit the world, and over half of them now reside in dense urban areas. Yet, civilization developed and resided in rural spaces for most of human existence. Hence, cities - living, breathing organisms - are a fairly new idea for society. This matter hence raises the question: how can cities' increasingly crowded spaces adapt to provide citizens comfort, practicality, and charm?

Feng Shui (風水), otherwise known as Chinese geomancy, is a philosophy, practice, and art, which grew from early Chinese cosmology and divination traditions and has been used for over three millenniums (Madeddu & Zhang, p.3, 2021). While today it is commonly sought to arrange private spaces, the concept can be applied to larger extents like urban planning. Feng Shui translates to 'wind' and 'water' - two of the five components vital for the movement of energy and the force of any living entity referred to as qi (氣) in Daoism (Madeddu & Zhang, pp.3 & 4, 2021). In practice, Feng Shui involves arranging an environment's amenities to stimulate harmony, stability, and practicality. As a result, the conscious flow of energy fosters well-being for those living in that environment (Madeddu & Zhang, p.138, 2021). For this reason, particularly in China, cities have adopted Feng Shui in their design to utilize the stream of qi between humans and their inhabited space (Madeddu & Zhang, p.138, 2021). Feng Shui is rooted in cultural and spiritual beliefs but works on concrete principles that evaluate adequacy of the space to serve as a thriving living environment for citizens; these principles include access to water, air, light, greenery, and more.

In April 2021, Manuela Madeddu and Zhang Xiaoqing published Feng Shui and the City. The authors pay special attention to Feng Shui's transformative role: while it was mainly used and based on symbolic considerations, it is increasingly applied as a means of commodification (p.1, 2021). Madeddu and Zhang further evaluate this idea by reflecting on Lefebvre's (1991) view of absolute and abstract spaces and presenting two case studies of Feng Shui in Guangdong and Hong Kong, respectively. Ultimately, seeing that Feng Shui values the bond between humans and their environment, Madeddu and Zhang underline its relevance for our contemporary crowded living settings (p.137, 2021). This book provides valuable insight in understanding Feng Shui's evolving operation in urban spaces, particularly in domestic, public, and commercial spheres. Feng Shui and the City is a significant contribution to the concept's research and is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in cities of harmony, stability, and practicality.

References

Madeddu, M., & Zhang, X. (2021). Feng Shui and the City: The Private and Public Spaces of Chinese Geomancy. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0847-6