Inbetweenness: Sporadicity and Contagiousness as twin paradoxes of Containment

8/13/2019 Inbetweenness: Sporadicity and Contagiousness as twin paradoxes of Containment

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Name: Ryan Shedden

Student Number: 0904608

Unit Code: CARC 6003

INBETWEENNESS:Sporadicity and Contagiousness as twin paradoxes of

Containment


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Introduction

In Architectural design, the concept of containment has been advocated throughout history

as what fundamentally denes what a building is. In focussing on urban planning either

expansion or containment must be considered. However, these are not mutually exclusive

and there is no right answer for all cities, most of which display a combination of both.

Surprisingly, with the plethora of communication growth, there has been little debate on how

todays hyper-connected world has affected containment, especially in view of how society

has become much less hierarchic

To achieve containment is a major function of the architects design role, implying planning

for the future, whereas alternatively by improvisation a slum-dweller creates it for the sake

of immediate needs. At the same time, though, as Jeremy Till afrms, We have moved from

seeing architecture as a xed and controlling frame, to understanding it as an open framework

that can accomodate the multiple actions of time. ... to be shaped by the contingent forcesof temporal ux. (Till, 2013)

Containment is both ambiguous and plurisignicant. Most obviously, it connotes enclosing,

bounding and bordering; less obviously, it connotes opening, liberating and what lies beyond

the border. Moreover, containment in its spectrum runs from micro to macro: from personal

space, through spaces from building, street, city, to county, country, continent, world, etc.

As city architects, we are engaged in designing space for humans to occupy, in providing

shelter surrounded by streets and in designing streets so that we masterplan cities. For now,

typically, the city is as far as our remit extends, but so much of what we plan depends on how

we use and approach lines and interpretations of containment. Therefore, our responsibilities

here invite analysis, discussion and evaluation.


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The aspects of containment that I am going to explore are, paradoxically, sporadicity

and contagiousness. While sporadicity imples erratic, impulsive and scattered growth,

contagiousness implies spread by contact, adjacency and immitation. Since containment

exploits both and blurs distinctions between both, this investigation must lead to explorations

of inbetweenness and its ambiguities.

My primary examples are Kowloon Walled City and Paris with subsidiary illustrations of

London and Barcelona. My eld trips for specic purposes of this architectural study have

been to Paris, to take a transect bicycle ride from one side of the peripherique to the other;

to London, to experience living within different boroughs of the village city, and to Barcelona,

to take a bicycle route surveying its grids over-riding inuence upon its historic centre. I shall

also consider the ramications of Berlin as the focal point for East-West division.

To begin, here is a diagram:

Fig 1. Front garden path diagram.

This front garden path has a fence that contains you in your own ownership. The connections

between your neighbour allow for the choice to be part of their containment. It is the one

place that is designed most commonly in traditional housing that allows this to be tested,

whether through an exchange of conversation or a passing nod. In so doing the garden path

creates communal containment, even though it is designed for the singular house. In itsbasic simplicity it illustrates already fundamental issues that urban planners and architects

have to address.

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Can they do so in their designs without ordering? Or do we need order to design? If

containment can be seen as an obstacle to freedom, the alternative of unfettered freedom

can cause anarchic consequences, as exhibited by Kowloon Walled City.

Kowloon Walled City

Fig 2. Kowloon in 1865

Because of societal change, Kowloon Walled City transformed from one urbanisation

to another. This space underwent several very different functions, one of which was a

housing complex that grew, paradoxically, by contracting. It was designed by inhabitants for

inhabitants with no architects input.

I am using Kowloon Walled City and Paris as two case studies that illustrate historicaldevelopments of sporadicity and contagiousness. Both underwent a series of contained

congurations.


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Kowloon, for many, evokes a slum and nothing more. Ironically, Engels, who called

Manchesters slums Unplanned Wilderness (Engels, 1844), collaborated with Marx in

promoting collective creativity in the Communist Manifesto, while Prince Charles, regarding

the slums of Dharavi, recognised ..how complex systems can self-organize to create a

harmonious whole. (Gordon Rayner, 2010).

Slum, inherently a disparaging word, actually describes valuable creative examples. Former

president of Brazil, Luiz da Silva said: Slums are not disassociated parts of the city. They

are city. They present a different paradigm and show that diverse urban spaces may coexist,

provided inequities are overcome and adequate living standards are universalised. (Silva,

2011)

As Peter Popham writes in City of Darkness; what fascinates about the Walled City is that..

its builders and residents succeeded in creating what modern architects.. have failed to: the

city as organic megastructure. (Girard and Lambot, 1993)

It is important to come back to Silva, where he states They are city. not a city, nor the

city. In doing so he allows city to become an object without boundaries - an organic

megastructure, whereas Kowloon exhibits a pure horizontal boundary. In Cantonese, known

as City of Darkness, Hak Nam (Nam meaning darkness), to us westerners it was known as

Kowloon Walled City. It lasted through various phases as a community system for just under

200 years.

Phase 1 (1810):

The territory was a small Chinese fort during the Song Dynasty, designed to defend and

protect salt deposits. In 1841, Hong Kong Island, excluding Kowloon, was handed over

to the British. To guard against British colonialism the Chinese then fortied Kowloon with

a defensive wall. Inside this walled fort, military camps and barracks were constructed,

constituting what we know now as the Walled City.


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Phase 2 (1898):

Qing China leased the land to Britain for 99 years, through The Convention for the Extension

of Hong Kong Territory. With the extension of territory the boundaries became displaced, and

so developed modern society in Hong Kong. Yet Kowloon was not part of this and remained

an enclave still ofcially owned by China. The surrounding area became known as the New

Territories. When the Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong, Stewart Lockhart, surveyed the

newly-leased New Territories in 1898, he described the walls impressive dimensions, The

wall is built of granite ashlar facing, is 15 feet in width at the top and averages in height 13

feet . A semi-parallelogram, measured roughly 200 metres by 100 metres, enclosed an area

of 8000 sqm. The New Territory became part of the Hong Kong extension, including Hong

Kong peninsula and Kowloon peninsula and made up 86 percent of the Hong Kong colony.

As soon as New Kowloon was demarcated it was urbanised and consumed into Kowloon.

Ironically, one year later the British declared the Walled City to be under British jurisdiction.

To re-inforce this annexation, an attack was launched, only to nd 150 residents and no

soldiers left. New Kowloon is now mostly treated as part of Kowloon instead of the New

Territories. In law, though, it isnt.

Phase 3 (1940):

All that was left of Kowloon was a former military residence and one house. The fortied

wall was removed during WW2 Japanese occupation and the stones were transformed intoairport runways.

Phase 4 (1945-1948):

With the Japanese surrender, China restated its claim, allowing refugees from WW2 to nd

protection within Kowloon no-longer-Walled City. The British government aimed to removethese in 1948 in an attempt to turn the city into what was to be known as a Garden of

Remembrance of Anglo-Chinese trusteeship - rejected by China! Riots erupted and the


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British decided to abandon any attempt at evicting refugees to re-concile their relations with

China. Thenceforth, the City of Darkness was left to its own devices.

Phase 5 (1948-1993):

A 1987 government census recorded Kowloons population as 33,000 - a density of approx.

1,255,000 per sq km. For Hong Kong, as a whole, famously one of the most populated areas

on earth, the density was 6,700!

Kowloon started - sporadically - to grow inwards and upwards, into a horizontally expanding

high-rise, fortifying itself by inter-connecting its internal elements.

Fig 3. Kowloon growth diagram


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1810 1940 1945 1987 1993

Fig 4. Infographic of Kowloon Walled City


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Although this area was subject to no laws, the residents still abided by the current height

restrictions. Buildings could reach only 14 storeys because of the local airport ight path.

Thereafter, residents began - sporadically and contagiously - to expand inward, building

balconies and widening upper oors, until neighbouring buildings were so close they could

touch. Staircases, alleyways and ladders became connections. Lower oors then rarely

received sunlight, giving rise to the nick-name, City of Darkness.

The government still supplied mail, water and electricity, and the city was fed by just eight

municipal water pipes. Electricity was supplied in the hope that it would prevent residents

from heating their homes with re (a hazard in crowded conditions).

Fig 5. Kowloon before demolition.

Phase 6 (1993):

In 1993, the city was ofcially demolished, right down to its foundations. An open park wasconstructed omitting any remnants from the mega-structure that the Kowloon residents had

produced; in fact, the aim was to eradicate all but military history from the site.


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The result is a place that allows only controlled movement by visitors. It may be a nostalgic

evocation of the past that seems contained, but, being a park, it abolishes containment and

simultaneously adds to the next contained area, exemplifying contagiousness and nally,

and sporadically, becoming part of the increasingly large areas beyond, and so existing in

notionally perpetual inbetweenness.

Vestiges of the Walled Citys limited residential life survive in items of popular culture, i.e. the

book Idoru, the lm Bloodsport, and the game Call of Duty.

Phase 7 (2013):

Every year on 1st, July, Hong Kong marches to celebrate the handover from Britain to China

in 1997. The Guardian reported This years protest was fuelled by anger at the unpopular

Beijing-backed chief executive and concerns ranging from growing inequality to the inuence

of mainland Chinese in the territory. (the Guardian, 2013) Within this context, even though

Kowloon has evaporated, the echoes of those abandoned by colonialism there survive in the

climate of persistent protest reported from Hong Kong in July last year.

Fig 6. Hong Kong protest.


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Paris

Another original walled city, Paris expanded as houses were built inside and outside its wall.

In time new city walls were built, replacing this as a road or boulevard. Some of the walls

were then incorpated into new buildings. Gradually over eight centuries, through stepping

walled boundaries and spiralled arrondissements the city grew until bounded in 1973 by

the completion of the Peripherique. So, the following sequence summarises how in various

ways since its origins Paris ws surrounded by walls;

Phase 1: A Gallo-Roman enclosure of the le de la Cit, the primary purpose of which was

defensive and protective of the Parisii, rst tribe of the island.

Phase 2: Two medieval walls, the second being the Wall f King Philippe Auguste, which

more substantially protected Paris from attack and allowed it both to consolidate and expand,

often breaching the containment of its existing walls.

Phase 3: Charles V wall, along the right bank.

Phase 4: Louis XIII Wall, on the western part f the right bank.

Phase 5: Between 1670, when Louis XIV ordered demolition of Louis XIII Wall and 1785.

Phase 6: The Building of the Farmers-General Wall fr tax assessment purposes on goods

sold in Paris.

Phase 7: The Thiers wall.

Phase 8: Peripherique.


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Fig 7. Paris Wall development diagram.

Only few traces f these walls survive: few sections f the Wall f Philippe Auguste, nd

sme pavilions f Claude Nicolas Ledoux whch formed part f the Farmers General Wall.

However, the walls inuence n modern Paris cn be seen n sme f ts major streetsnd concentric boulevards: Prior to the boulevards, is the historically signicant phase of

barricades.

While barricades offer containment, boulevards open up. Their duality embodies aspects

of Inbetweenness, as famously captured by Delacroix in his La Liberte guidant le peuple.

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Fig 8. La Liberte guidant le peuple by Delacroix

Here, there is no sense that the barricade is a blockage; rather it is little more than a dais

for Liberty to stand on (Douglas, n.d.). In fact, it is, paradoxically, a symbol of liberation,

shown by the bodies anchoring the image on the left and the forward movement of Liberty

as if leading.

In due course the barricades are replaced by boulevards, Paul Valery afrms Destroying

and constructing are equal in importance, and we must have souls for the one and the other

(Pallasmaa, 2003) Hausmann referred to himself as an artist-demolitionist (Lefbvre,

1991), declaring that destruction and construction are both equally capable of themselves

(Douglas, n.d.). He convinced the emperor to annex the surrounding municipalities toParis, doing away with the barricades so that all ow through the city. Ironically though, as

Carl Douglas observes, Perception renders Subjectivity and so some people can see a


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boulevard as a barricade, which in several instances is what it replaced. This replacement

process was varied:

The Grands boulevards (main streets), replacing the Charles

V nd Louis XIII Walls;

The outer boulevards, in place f the Wall f the Farmers-

General.

The boulevards des Marchaux (Boulevards f the Marshals,

loop encircling the city consisting f boulevards named fr the

Marshals f France), replacing the Thiers Wall;

The Boulevard priphrique, built outside the boulevards des

Marchaux, and over the old Thiers wall, its entrance/exit

ramps and interchanges coinciding with the 34 city gates

(Portes) in that wall. Interestingly, the peripherique consists of

two concentric carriageways; the interieur and the exterieur, a

further aspect of its duality and inbetweenness.

Fig 9. Nolli map of Paris.


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This illustrates how the wall is the boulevard is the barricade. Although these areas are given

different labels and forms, when re-conrguring them, whatever is done to them, they are

still features of inbetween-ness.

Similarly, the development of arrondissements owes much to Haussmann.

To impose a new order on the city the revolutionary government of 1790, re-arranged the

65 parishes within the wall (Ambiguously punctuated by Barrieres) into 12 arrondissements.

Fig 10. 19th century arrondissements

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6

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This pre-1860 conguration was altered by Emperor Napoleon III and his prefect Haussmann

through restructuring and annexation into the arrangement of 20 arrondissements that

survives today, spiralling out from the Ile de la Cite.

Fig 11. Re-congured arrondissements.

Some of the annexed areas retain traces of their bucolic past e.g. winding roads. One

in particular Parc de le Villete, has been designed by Bernard Tschumi, to be a spacefor activity and interaction that would evoke a sense of freedom within a superimposed

organisation that would give the visitors points of reference. .. and serve as A place of

culture where natural and articial are forced together into a state of constant reconguration

and discovery (Kroll, 2011). In other words, this suggests a coalescence of pastoral exurban

freedom and manufactured limiting containment with particular reference to the pre-existing

slaughterhouses, the only free land within the peripherique, which itself was squeezedinbetween areas of extremely high density development.

Also, this spiral pattern of arrondissement in going from 1st to 20th contagiously fortied

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itself. This self-re-enforcement takes place paradoxically at the same time as it is self-

destructive. This is implied by the loop system which cybernetically corresponds to Gordon

Pasks repulsive carapace, which extends to circular interactions (both clockwise and anti-

clockwise), similar to feedback loops - eating its own tail, said Pask.

On a larger scale, Lorenzo Veracini, in his article Colonialism brought home: On the

Colonisation of the metropolitan space (Veracini, 2005), discusses distinctions between

Metropole and Colony and how various trends contribute to blur such a distinction. At

the same time he cites Foucaults Boomerang Effect that colonial models had on the

mechanisms of power in the west, and on the apparatuses, institutions, and techniques of

power. A whole series of colonial models was brought back to the west, and the result was

the west could practise something resembling colonisation. (Melber, 2012) It is interesting

how it has been discovered that ethnic citizens tend to inhabit the outer areas of a city,

whilst white natives tend to occupy the centre. It has been observed that the outskirts of

Paris contain population of Franco-African and non-Parisian descent whilst the central

arrondissements tend to be the millieu of the Parisian bourgeoisie.

Stephen Graham, Professor of Urban Technology, in Cities under Seige - The New Military

Urbanism (Graham, 2010) argues that the far right tend to deem cities per se to be intrisically

problematic spaces. ... that these bastions of ethnic nationalist politics... tend to see rural

or exurban areas as the authentic and pure spaces of white nationalism, associated with

Christian and traditional values. He refers particularily to the British National Party and theFrench National Front as expressing such views of what lies beyond the peripherique (or

London Orbital).

Haussmanns boulevards and arrondissements did not prevent major obstruction, in

particular by the barricades of the Commune in 1871.


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Fig 12. Barricade at Commune 1871.

According to David Jordan, What Haussmanns destruction of the rabbit warren of streets

in eastern Paris had done was transform barricades and urban insurrection from a cottage

industry to a substantial and sophisticated undertaking. (Douglas, n.d.) Arguably it was

the people rather than the architect who created the architecture. In fact, according to Le

Corbusier, Haussmann was accused of Creating a desert in the very centre of Paris!.

(Benjamin, 1999) To others, the alternative barricades formed an architecture at the scale

of the city (Douglas, n.d.), As douglas reports, During barricade construction, passers-by were each invited to contribute a paver. Construction became a means of engaging

the disengaged, of converting observers into participants.(Douglas, n.d.) In other words

barricade-building, through almost spontaneous eruptions(Douglas, n.d.), accidentally

produced a communally more impressive aesthetic, A solution related to invention, based

on self-construction, on the rules of chance and the search for objects that might be

accumulated, used and intertwined unpredictably. (Cid and Fuster, 2012) Perhaps theCommune, rather than the architect, may have had the potential to achieve more through

re-conguration.


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Barcelona

The Iberian village Barkeno was, originally, an ideal defensive point on a coastal plain

between a mountain ridge and the Mediterranean. Over 2000 years later this is now a city

of more than 1.5 million and capital of Catalonia, to which George Orwell paid homage

from his experiences of the Spanish Civil War. His phrase, a nightmare of noise without

movement. (Orwell, 1989), convincingly evokes the horror surrounding barricades such as

the one pictured below.

Fig 13. Soldiers ring behind a barricade of dead horses.


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Barcino was a Roman colony under Caesar Augustus from 19 BC, as Barchinona the

centre of a Visigothic kingdom, as Barshiluna a Muslim city under Moorish rule and, at

last, as recognisably Barcelona under the control of Louis the Pious (Son of Charlemagne).

It then passed into the hands of the Spanish monarchy. This heritage of multicultural re-

congurations lies beneath the extreme geometric rigour and regularity of its grid designed

by Ildefons Cerda, a Catalan civil engineer, to whom, along with Georges Haussmann,

is attributed the origination of urban improvement through physical planning in Europe.

(Neuman, 2011)

Fig 14. Barcelona aerial view.


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He planned this famous expansion of Barcelona (Eixample) in 1859. Michael Neuman claims

that Cerd established modern urban planning and revolutionised the way we analyse and

intervene in urban space. (Neuman, 2011) His vision of interva (loosely translated as

block) really signies the interway which involves the spaces between buildings and the

relation of buildings, open spaces, and streets to each other. In other words it epitomises

inbetweenness.

Fig 15. Pair of blocks

The colloquial Catalan term for these is Islands, which allow ample access for light, air,open space and services, especially thanks to the chamfered corners, going even further

than Haussmann managed in Paris. These may even suggest the facets of cut gemstones

which both refract and reect light in angles which, because the corners are connected to

the straights, ensure that the streets are un-barricadable.

In 1812 Barcelona had been annexed by Napoleon and incorporated into the rst Frenchempire. In 1888 the Exposicin Universal de Barcelona stimulated further extensions of the

city, to be followed in 1897 by the absorption of six surrounding municipalities (a form of


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metropolitan colonialisation) and Cerdas new Eixample. In 1909, violence erupted between

the Spanish army and Barcelonas working classes, supported by Republicans. Riots

ensued and the event became known as The Tragic Week, when workers built barricades

partly from overturned trams, foreshadowing the grim events of July 1936 when an army

rebellion caused civil war. Urbicide was ordered against this Republican city by General

Franco, assisted by Mussolini, Italian aircraft dropping 44 tonnes of bombs and killing more

than 1000 people in March, 1938. Subsequently, although Franco suppressed Catalonian

autonomy, Barcelona prospered. Immigration from poorer regions quickly led to greater

urbanisation and the suburbs increased their population tenfold over ten years. This justied

the construction of the rst rondas (ring roads). After the death of Franco, Catalan autonomy

was restored.

Consideration of Barcelona cannot ignore the spectacular contributions by the well-known

Antonio Gaudi, in particular the Sagrada la Familia, the cathedral targeted by Mussolini, at

one point proposed as a re-congurated train station, and still in construction today. Also his

Parc Guell, exemplies the open framework afrmed by Jeremy Till in my introduction.

Although the Olympic stadium in Barcelona was built for the Exposicion in 1929 it was not

until 1992 that the city hosted the Olympic Games, and exuberantly displayed itself, as can

be seen in this view from the elevated diving pool. Playing host to the Olympics and gaining

entry to the EU have accelerated Barcelonas urban regeneration and economic condence.

Fig 16. Olympic diving board, Barcelona.


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London

London is essentially a city of multiple re-conguration, originally an area inhabited by the

Trinovantes, with the Thames as a tribal boundary. The Romans established a small civilian

town around AD 50. Urbicide by the Iceni tribe destroyed the town in AD 60. Thereafter it

was rebuilt as a planned Roman town, becoming the capital of Britannia during the second

century, at the end of which the defensive London Wall was constructed and has since

dened the perimeter of the City of London, the nancial area. Following several Saxon

raids, a second riverside wall was constructed, as were the traditional seven gates, e.g.

Aldgate.

With the decline of the Roman Empire, the Anglo-Saxons settled outside the Roman walls

and developed the grid pattern for a population of about 10,000. After incursions by the

Danes, Alfred the Great re-settled the city in 886. However, it was not until the seventeenth

century that London expanded rmly beyond the original City area, principally throughannexation of countryside and draining of numerous elds, e.g. London Fields.

Fig 17. Panorama in London, 1543.


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Gradually, London became overcrowded in relatively un-sanitary conditions, leading through

contagiousness to The Great Plague, only to be purged a year later by The Great Fire,

which destroyed about 60 percent of the City.

Rebuilding plans included John Evelyns re-conguration, showing the elds all around due

for gradual sporadic absorption through contagion.

Fig 18. John Evelyn plan for rebuilding of London.

Villages were sporadically incorporated too, as, for example, when William III moved the

court to the village of Kensington, because the City smoke gave him asthma.

Through such expansion, both sporadic and contagious, London grew into the worlds largest

city with over 6 million population by the end of the 19th century. Although ourishing with

wealth, it was also a city of poverty with millions of slum-dwellers, who, unlike in Kowloon, in

this comparatively regulated environment are un-able to improvise their own structures for

living. However, railways, sewers and services did enable development of suburbs to which

the wealthier classes emigrated (a process which continues today), leaving the poor behindin the inner city with a lack of sanitation (causing in 1858 the Great Stink) and uncontrolled

pollution (causing in 1952 the Great Smog).


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By 1888, London had grown so huge that a new County of London was established, covering

the whole conurbation and later divided into 28 metropolitan boroughs. Conversely, numerous

immigrants setted within the city. Between the two world wars the suburbs expanded

contagiously beyond the county of London into Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Middlesex (once

only for middle Saxons) and Surrey.

Fig 19. The County of London Plan by Sir Patrick Abercrombie.


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To curb the spread of suburbs The Greater London plan of 1944 demonstrates Londons

potential concentricity through the Four Rings identied by Sir Patrick Abercrombie as Outer

County, Green Belt, Suburban and Inner Urban. Also planned was decentralization of more

than a million people... to be accommodated in a ring of new towns beyond the green belt

(Oxforddnb, 2014)

Fig 20. Greater London plan by Sir Patrick Abercrombie.

William Wiles writing of Stephen Walters exhibition The Island: London Series describes

London as at rst impression an undifferentiated, sprawling mass, which then partially

claries into a cacophony of disorganised detail, and ultimately resolves into a fabulous

mosaic of the familiar and unfamiliar. (Icon Magazine, 2014) The apparent amorphousness- Abercrombies uncharted sea of terraces - became an even more perplexing challenge

after Blitzkrieg, Hitlers attempt at urbicide, had reduced much to rubble. To any urban planner


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multiple reconguration was obviously necessary, especially changing the skyline with the

erection of tower blocks. In his book High Rise, J.G Ballards main character describes the

tower block as overpriced cells becoming a small vertical city (Ballard, 1998).

These problems of over-population increased from the 1950s with numerous immigrants

from Commonwealth countries turning London into a very diverse city with integration

difculties, especially of containment and boundaries.

Fig 21. Ethnic density map.

This gave rise to such eruptions as the Brixton Riots of the early 1980s. Co-existence

among the population has become even more problematic in recent years with the advent

of EU immigration. Lines of containment in London are blurred for their denitions, are

uncontrolled and uncontrollable, so that development is a haphazard mixture of sporadicityand contagiousness, so uid and unstable that there is almost only inbetweenness. Such

inbetweenness seems to be fostering so much insecurity and anxiety and frustration that an


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obvious outlet is attempts at urbicide, as exemplied by the London Riots. Although

Fig 22. London riots.

(Ironically, this picture might have been photographed in Blitzkrieg.) these appeared perhaps

spontaneous eruptions, the sometimes forgotten root cause was the stinging injustice of

the changed policy on university fees which had provoked earlier riots, relatively minor in

comparison to those of the 6th August 2011, which chaos affected many of Londons boroughs.

Riots spread contagiously and, because they were organised by mobile communication,

were nick-named BlackBerry riots.

The Metropolitan Green Belt (1955) slowed the outward expansion of London and was itself

an instrument of containment for about 60 years, until areas were newly designated in 2009,

to the extent that 19 of Londons 32 boroughs have Green Belt land. Is this not perhaps

a policy of inexible over-containment which is perhaps aggravating the inbetweenness,

especially as all these sites lie inbetween built-up areas?


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In addition, the whole of London, once encircled by the North and South Circular Roads, has

subsequently been circumscribed by the London Orbital, similar to the Parisian peripherique.

Iain Sinclair, in a lecture I attended at CSA, Canterbury, declared that, because London had

expanded to the West as far as the M25, further expansion could now take place only to the

East. The key example of this is the Olympic Park, with its underlying plan to regenerate East

London. Principally responsible for this is The London Legacy Development Corporation,

whose title implies that it is in an open framework for future expansion rather than a scheme

for containment. Since the Olympic Games of 2012, it has transformed not only the brown-

eld site of the Lea Valley, but the surrounding boroughs as well. The whole approach route

has been recongured/refurbished to achieve cosmetic improvement - arguably not the

most profound metamorphosis of London, but testament to the value of allowing nascent

inbetweenness. This also shows that London can easily be recongured from mud to

concrete.

Fig 23. Before and after shot of Olympic Park.

London is therefore both stied and released by various modes of containment and inspiredby various modes of inbetweenness.


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Conclusion

These four cities provide comparative case studies of approaches to urban growth. Whereas

Kowloon is essentially unplanned except in its reincarnation as a contained open park, the

cities of Paris and Barcelona are indebted to the vast and liberating visions of two celebrated

architects, Georges Haussmann and Ildefons Cerda, and London, idiosyncratically, seems

to have evolved erratically - from a collection of scattered village communities (Utopia

London, n.d.) through a sporadic mixture of collective village contagiousness and policy-

making advisory bodies, a sign perhaps of its inherently democratic nature.

Fig 24. Map showing Wall within Soviet zone of occupation, whilst at right map showing

sectors.

Churchill in his famous 1946 The Sinews of Peace (Feldman, 2014) speech in Missouri

declared - From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended

across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and

Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Soa,

all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet


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sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet inuence but to a very

high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. The Iron Curtain, on

a continental as opposed to urban scale, was a universal symbol of containment. The city of

Berlin was itself divided not only into four sectors (French, British, American, Russian) but

also by the notorious Wall. It was not until 1990 that in a changed political climate, inuenced

greatly by the Perestroika policies of Mikhail Gorbachev, the wall was demolished. This

event brought together not only West and East Germans but also contagiously affected the

whole Eastern bloc, instigating a major disolution of soviet power through processes of de-

annexation by several states.

This enormous, radical change can also be seen as an agent of globalisation, releasing

countless people from some types of control and attening distinctions of the pyramidal

hierarchy. Therefore, the ambiguous line of containment between East and West, displaying

both positive and negative aspects, defensive and aggressive attitudes, divisive and unifying

factors, lets both sides become porous. The aftermath has not yet arrived because the

uidity, sporadicity and multiplicity of re-congurations and re-identitications is ongoing i.e.

Inbetweenness is still taking over from inbetweenness. In fact, this characteristic is truly

universal.

Fig 25. Liberating containment diagram

At the other end of the scale containment can be used to control, through nothing more

than a series of bollards. The gaps between the bollards, although visibly empty, are in fact

part of the interconnectedness, demonstrating that containment has become liberating and

unifying, especially now that we can never be truly disconnected because communication

networks are totally global. These bollards can be stepped through and passed, but eventhough we are publicly permitted to step through this boundary, the bollards indicate that the

area is under private ownership - a further instance of the ambiguity of inbetweenness.


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Fig 26. Rubens vase illusion.

This enigmatic elusiveness is akin to the famous Rubins vase illusion, When two elds have

a common border and one is seen as gure and the other is seen as ground, the immediate

perceptual experience is characterised by a shaping effect which emerges from the common

border of the elds and which operates only on one eld or operates more strongly on one

than on the other. (Rubin, 1958) Therefore one of the virtues of inbetweenness is you can

potentially see a multitude of perspectives. The difference lies between the optical versatility

of a kaleidoscope and the tunnel vision of a singular line.

A singular line is also to be found in the timeline of a designed architecture. As people

intervene, so the border is tested, whether it be motorway, building or bin. The line uctuates

sporadically between the events that happen inside and outside the line; therefore, it is the

events that test the uctuating line. Whether the event is universally vast or innitesimally

small, the principle still holds.It follows from the foregoing that in different cities and contexts from different perspectives

and interpretations there is a recurrence of unavoidable ambiguities, contradictions and,

even, absurdities - all of which suggests that paradoxes are inescapable in dealing with

issues of containment, especially the various manifestations of inbetweenness. At which

point, it is perhaps wise to rest, and to accept that one must accept paradox unless one is

ready to limit ones vision and to resign oneself to being contained.


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Figure index

Figure 1. Shedden, R , 2013, Front garden path diagram

Figure 2. Kowloon in 1865. < http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rAJ-oomCl00/T0ugEzY6zaI/

AAAAAAAAE9Y/z4uCndlJYkk/s1600/Hong-Kong-Kowloon_history-1865.jpg>

Figure 3. Shedden, R , 2013, Kowloon growth diagram

Figure 4. Infographic of Kowloon. < http://ad009cdnb.archdaily.net/wp-content/

uploads/2013/04/516edf02b3fc4b8f69000136_infographic-life-inside-the-kowloon-walled-

city_scm_news_1-1-nws_backart1_1_0-528x860.jpg>

Figure 5. Kowloon before demolition. < (http://www.doobybrain.com/2013/11/10/hi-res-

images-life-kowloon-walled-city/)>

Figure 6. Hong Kong protest. < http://media.salon.com/2013/07/hong-kong-democracy-

protest.jpeg2-1280x960.jpg>

Figure 7. Shedden, R, 2013, Paris Wall development diagram.

Figure 8. La Liberte guidant le peuple by Delacroix. < http://www.histoire-image.org/

photo/zoom/tsi5_delacroix_001f.jpg >


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Figure 9. Nolli map of Paris < http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/09/12/paris-from-

above_custom-d07ebae90daa45a402db29ec158c75c916949ee4-s3.png >

Figure 10. Shedden, R, 2013, 19th century arrondissements

Figure 11. Shedden, R, 2013, Re-congured arrondissements

Figure 12. Barricade at Commune 1871 < http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/

commons/8/87/Barricade_rue_Royale_Commune_Paris_1871.jpg >

Figure 13. Soldiers ring behind a barricade of dead horses.< http://25.media.tumblr.com/

dbad5e8de35f57251df71e6d643e54af/tumblr_mw2ggpNNIJ1qz4txfo1_1280.jpg >

Figure 14. Barcelona aerial view < http://barcelonalu2010.les.wordpress.com/2010/05/

cerda-54.jpg >

Figure 15. Tarrag and Magriny 1996, p. 171, Pair of blocks

Figure 16. Olympic diving board, Barcelona < (http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/04/12/

article-1169486-00279DA300000258-329_468x273.jpg) >

Figure 17. Panorama in London, 1543 < http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Panorama_of_London_in_1543_Wyngaerde_Section_1.jpg >

Figure 18. John Evelyn plan for rebuilding of London. < http://www.british-history.ac.uk/

image-thumb.aspx?compid=46732&pubid=332&lename=g1.gif >

Figure 19. The County of London Plan by Sir Patrick Abercrombie. < http://www.mediaarchitecture.at/architekturtheorie/patrick_abercrombie/content/Map%20of%20

London%20%28Social%20and%20Functional%20Analysis%29%201943.jpg >


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Figure 20. Greater London plan by Sir Patrick Abercrombie. < http://www.

mediaarchitecture.at/architekturtheorie/patrick_abercrombie/content/greater_london_

plan_1944.gif >

Figure 21. Ethnic density map. < http://blogs.lshtm.ac.uk/news/les/2013/12/ethnic_density.

jpg>

Figure 22. London riots < http://markaeology.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Riot-in-

Tottenham-London-001.jpg >

Figure 23. Before and after shot of Olympic Park. < http://www.aecom.com/deployedles/

Internet/Geographies/Europe/Capabilities/Design%20Planning/Projects/london_olympics_

site_before_after_mainimg.jpg >

Figure 24. Map showing Wall within Soviet zone of occupation, whilst at right map showing

sectors. < http://www.voicesunderberlin.com/1959.html >

Figure 25. Shedden, R , 2013, Liberating containment diagram.

Figure 26. Rubens vase illusion. < http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-np5_8cL8zac/UM6JbalSbvI/

AAAAAAAAAdc/GLa23zd_QxI/s1600/Facevase.png >

Inbetweenness: Sporadicity and Contagiousness as twin paradoxes of Containment

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