Radical Architecture

77

JEPC 3 (1) pp. 77–88 Intellect Limited 2012

Journal of European Popular Culture Volume 3 Number 1

© 2012 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/jepc.3.1.77_1

Keywords

CIAMmodernist architecturearchitectural educationprogressive

architectureausterityPlymouth

Krzysztof NawrateKPlymouth University

New progressive

architecture: designing for

cities in end times1

abstract

Alongside investment banks and bankers, architecture and architects should be blamed for the global economic crisis that hit cities in 2008. Risky financial specula-tions were driven by a real estate bubble that relied on the production of spectacu-lar, expensive buildings by the architecture industry. Four years later, contemporary architecture (especially in Europe) still fails to engage with or promote socially aware, progressive urban thinking. The tradition of socially engaged architecture has almost vanished. That attitude is apparent only in remnant form – small initia-tives focused on buildings rather than on the built environment as a whole. Our new cities of austerity require a reassessment of this attitude, and a fresh generation of architects must be educated to address the challenges facing our urban environ-ment. This article presents a theoretical framework of a new paradigm of radical architecture and radical architecture education, as a function of strong social and political positions taken by students. This framework is the current result of three years of work conducted at the M.Arch. programme at the University of Plymouth, United Kingdom, including projects from 2009 to 2012: one in Riga, Latvia, the second in Gdansk, Poland and the most recent in Zielona Góra, Poland. It will illus-trate how architecture and urban design could become a tool for social and political change and a means to create liveable cities from the ruins of the neo-liberal model.

1. The title of this article is inspired by Slavoj Žižek (2010).

JEPC_3.1_Nawratek_77-88.indd 77 11/1/12 1:57:53 PM

Krzysztof Nawratek

78

2. Aneologismlike‘starchitect’–anungainlyfusionofstarandarchitect–wouldneverhavecaughtonifitdidnotfulfillsomedeepneed.Howelsewouldwedescribethearchitecturalcelebrityoftoday,withhisfull-timepublicistandarosterofprojectsinNewYork,BerlinandHongKong?Thisexclusivefraternity,withsuchmembersasFrankGehry,NormanFosterandTadaoAndo,dominatesthearchitecturalprofessioninmuchthesamewaythatafewdozenmoviestarsdominateHollywood:incastingafilmorselectinganarchitecttodesignamuseum,itisinevitablythesamesmallhandfulofnamesthatcomprisestheshortlist.Theemergenceofthisinternationalcelebritycultureisthemostimportantdevelopmentinthearchitecturalprofessioninageneration,andwehavescarcelybeguntotakeitsmeasure.[…]Theworksofastarchitect[…],arepoachedinthepersonalityoftheirmakers.(Lewis2007:4)

Architecture As A function of politics And economics

[…] architecture – not quite art, not quite science, not quite business .... (Frausto 2009: 20)

In 2010, the The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Silver Medal Prize for the best diploma was awarded to Kibwe Tavares’ film Robots of Brixton. With strong references to the riots of 1981, the film describes ‘future’ Brixton as a ghetto of cheap robot labour. On the one hand, it shows that riots are still selling well in popular and intellectual circles, but on the other, the reac-tion to the film exposed the uncertainty over what should really be taught in British schools of architecture. ‘What do robots have to do with architecture?’ asks Oliver Wainwright in Building Design (2012). What is worrying is that the main controversy generated by this award regards the importance of graphic presentation skills to the architectural profession and if the requirements for graduates can be reduced simply to graphic abilities.

Yet one might ask another question: whether the presentation of the under-class in this way actually aestheticizes the poor, or whether this project is a critique of the social segregation currently occurring in British cities? Or maybe: does it even suggest a way out of this situation? The real drama lies in the fact that almost no one asks these questions. It seems that contemporary archi-tects are rather afraid of closer ties with critical social thought and even more scared of engagement with a socially aware agenda. Of course, concepts such as ‘sustainable community’ (or generally anything that relates to the environment and ecology) and ‘social needs’ are well rooted in mainstream debate (includ-ing the RIBA Validation Criteria and other documents relating to architectural education), yet they are very generic and vague. This problem of the lack of engagement with the social and political aspects of the practice of architecture is certainly not new, it was at the very centre of the debate between the modernist architects gathered around the Congrès internationaux d’architecture moderne/International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM) at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, even then, there was a chasm between French formalists and German functionalists, as named by Charles Jencks. Because of these differences, the political dimension of modernist architecture took the form of an eclectic attempt to satisfy all participating groups, which was clearly shown in the Declaration of 1928. Jencks calls it a ‘political mixed salad’ and quotes: ‘This redistribution of the land, the indispensable preliminary basis for any town planning, must include the just division between the owners and the community of the unearned increment resulting from works of joint interest’ (reproduced in Conrads 1970: 111, cited in Jencks 1973: 37).

The narrative of modernist architecture, however, was skewed and appro-priated by critics such as Jencks, grown in the western tradition, and shaped by architects who cared above all for their individual success and the promotion of their own name-as-a-brand. They included Le Corbusier, Mies van de Rohe, Gropius; the people who paid homage to any and every government and took almost any job they were offered. It is their heirs who are now the Starchitects.2 The story of western modernism almost forgets that amongst the people who formed CIAM, many also originated from Eastern and Central Europe – includ-ing, to name just a few of them: Szymon Syrkus, Barbara Brukalska, Jirí Kroha; or from a later generation, Oskar Hansen – names that are almost completely unknown in the west. The tradition of central and Eastern European modernism,


New progressive architecture

79

intellectually mature before World War II, was a tradition of community and not individuality, as Czech architect Jirí Kroha wrote:

Analytical studies always led these pioneers towards the necessity of a new philosophical and political culture. They considered architectural space as a community space which should be arranged in a new way, and applied to this purpose all available technical contrivances, replacing symbols and other fancies with a respect for the positive needs of an individual or of a collective community.

(1933: n.p., emphasis added)

This course of pro-social orientation was reinforced by the various communist regimes that took power in these parts of Europe after 1945.

This relationship was obvious in Italy and Germany prior to World War II and it is a general rule valid in any political regime. Of course, we can speak of ‘socially responsible’ private houses built where the price of land is mini-mal and about schools or clinics built by organizations such as Architects for Humanity, but all these examples lie far beyond the mainstream construction industry of western countries. In the mainstream, the majority of architects work for conventional developers or for the few Starchitects, designing costly buildings for wealthy investors. Public bodies in general are not (and have not been for the last few years, beyond a few museums) significant clients of most architec-tural offices (the most recent blow being the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme in the United Kingdom), and therefore government cuts and savings are rarely of major concern to mainstream architects. Indeed, during the ‘difficult’ year of 2011 the largest British architectural companies actu-ally increased their profits by 25 per cent! (Of course, this was thanks mostly to projects in Asia. This demonstrates even more clearly the relationship – or rather the lack thereof – between big business and social problems in Britain). Therefore when the relationship between the political regime and architecture is not dependent on finance, it is not necessary for the state to act as a client. It is impossible to build large, complex buildings without a lot of money, but also without an investigation into sufficient social and legal context. The erection of any building requires building materials, construction and finishing materials. It needs appropriate technology to heat the building, to ventilate it, to provide water and collect waste. It needs to meet specific standards and to implement specific recommendations: the size of individual rooms, their heights, escape routes, the size of windows, how the building is positioned and so on. If the building is more complex, it is also part of a more complex network of depend-encies: a network that deeply penetrates the social, economic and political realm. For this reason, the political context of architecture is critical. Despite the formal similarities and similar democratic and egalitarian ambitions, the modernist architecture that arose in Britain after World War II was very different from the modernist architecture that emerged in Eastern Europe. They were shaped by different standards, regulations, ways of funding and finally by different users.

ciam aNd the traditioN of the egalitariaN project of moderNity

The practice of architecture has always been a function of politics, culture and economy; historically, architects served only those people or organizations who had power and money. However, nearly 100 years ago, the modernist


Krzysztof Nawratek

80

architects gathered around CIAM began to attempt to go beyond this ‘archi-tecture for the elite’. They were not the first architects with these intentions – similar ideas were, for example, at the centre of the British and Scottish social reformist movement of the late nineteenth century. However, CIAM raised their banner on the ideas of democratic and egalitarian architecture. We do not know what would have happened to the social ideas of modern-ism if World War II had not occurred. The consequences of World War II – social, political, economic and spatial catastrophe – created the conditions that enabled modernism to gain broad support. This is a very important moment – if today we are talking about savings and budget cuts, it helps to remem-ber that modernist, socially and politically radical architecture flourished after World War II, precisely because it was a time of poverty and austerity.

So if today, as clearly demonstrated by Naomi Klein, neo-liberalism uses crisis to promote privatization (2007), to destroy what is public and in effect increase social inequality, it is worth recognizing the historical moment when a real crisis, the true catastrophe of war, provoked our predecessors into choosing an alternative way of thinking. CIAM and the modernist tradition of socially aware architecture from the 1950s and early 1960s teaches us an important lesson: that politicians influence architecture more than intellectu-als and architects are ready to admit. Political decisions in both the west and the Soviet Bloc were behind the emerging trends in architecture during this period. But we also have to remember that the modernist architecture of the west – especially during the era of McCarthyism – tried to present itself in opposition to the emerging architecture of the Soviet Bloc (Popescu 2009). If for architects within the Soviet Bloc, architecture was a tool to solve social problems and establish and maintain political order, for architects from the west it very quickly became a tool to flaunt technological superiority. This technological progress became a driving force for western architecture. The famous ‘kitchen debate’ between Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev on kitchen equipment illustrates this contrast. However, even then – as this debate proved – the well-being of citizens and egalitarianism in society was an important part of political discourse. The period after the war was a time when community and the idea of ‘togetherness’ had sufficient importance and power to influence the political agenda. Therefore, today the problem actually lies not in cuts and savings – they could provide an oppor-tunity for architecture that is not the excess of the wealthy, but one meeting basic living needs – but the lack of ‘togetherness’. What if society does not really exist in the United Kingdom any more?

Neo-liberal city aNd progressive architecture

In pedagogical practice the connection between academia and the ‘world outside’ is important. This is true today, more than ever, because the modern university has become above all a place to acquire specific skills needed in the labour market. Employability has become a keyword. This relation-ship between what students learn, and the world outside also has an ethi-cal dimension. We need to remember that students take loans to study and therefore the duty of the university (and tutors) is to teach students the skills and provide them with the knowledge that will enable them to repay this monetary debt.

Architecture by its very nature is a discipline that cannot be practiced only within the walls of academia, because architecture transforms the world and



81

interacts with it. Therefore, the fundamental question arises: is the existing political and economic context in the United Kingdom a place for progres-sive architecture? In other words: is radical, socially sensitive, egalitarian and democratic architecture at all possible in the neo-liberal city? Is it possible to teach this kind of architecture in contemporary Britain? This is a question that must be answered positively. Of course, the scale of radicalism, social sensitiv-ity and so on will depend on the socio-political context, but if the neo-liberals can use the crisis to promote their ideas, even in a situation of deepening crisis, then should not other parties also use a similar tactic?

The starting point of such progressive architecture is neither in sharp opposition to the existing regime nor to the existing model of the university (no institution will support activities questioning its legibility) but rather, it requires the expansion of the field of discussion. The one phrase which univer-sities should never accept is, ‘There Is No Alternative’. Searching for alterna-tive paths of development and asking the question: ‘what if we are wrong?’ allows for adopting a pluralist paradigm. Even now, the contemporary British University accepts non-market relations with the outside world – primarily through the model of ‘social enterprise’.

The trick is how not to change the University into another type of consultancy, but to keep the openness and ability to follow the prevailing socio-political forces and also to shape the future. On a local scale, the answer could be to combine the idea of Ideopolis, the city based on knowledge (predominantly produced at the University) with the notion of the University as based on the ‘social enterprise’ model:

The role of universities in the creation and maintenance of knowledge cities is not simply that of business engagement but a far wider remit; one of unlocking, nurturing and championing socially responsible busi-ness and community activity, developing not only the opportunities for business but also for the community, harnessing talent in a socially inclusive manner.

(Chipperfield 2009)

NoN-maiNstream architecture aNd the (post)capitalist city

There is a strong tradition of architecture that can be defined as non-mainstream, its most famous representative being perhaps the Rural Studio, but of course there are many similar groups and institutions. It is important to mention organizations such as Architecture for Humanity and Architecture Sans Frontière, but they also are on the outskirts of the mainstream (and way beyond), as they write about themselves: ‘We strive to make architecture rele-vant to people who […] are marginalised or living in poverty’ (Architecture Sans Frontière 2011).

The characteristic feature of ‘alternative architecture’ is primarily a kind of civilization regression. Whilst architecture designed by the biggest companies engages with the latest technology, ‘alternative architecture’ is deliberatively primitive. There are several reasons for that and one of the most important is the fact that this architecture is targeted at the poorest parts of society and must necessarily be cheap and relatively easy to construct. Therefore, ‘alterna-tive architecture’ is clearly distinct from the architecture imagined and built by architects connected to CIAM. Modernism was highly interested in the latest


Krzysztof Nawratek

82

technologies, perceiving them as a chance to solve social problems. The other difference is that modernism aspired to become the mainstream practice, not simply an alternative.

The most important achievement of CIAM was to put socially commit-ted, egalitarian architecture at the centre of mainstream discourse. This is also a critical challenge for contemporary architects. Progressive architecture must be seen in the context of the European contemporary neo-liberal city, shaped by right-wing dogma on the superiority of the private over the public and by the glorification of the capitalist Übermenschen who built their fortunes in a heroic struggle against the administration (Rand 1957) (which is always corrupt). Is it not this similar to the anti-bureaucratic agenda of contempo-rary conservative governments? Where more sophisticated (bureaucratic?) social structures are rejected, there remains the family, the mafia-clan and the tribe-nation. The contemporary, post-neo-liberal, ‘Big Society’ city is located in this ideological landscape.

The city is a social structure, but it is very different from simple communi-ties such as the family or a clan. Neither does it possess the seductive power of the nation. In the city, therefore, there is no ‘natural’ bond between people who come together into a direct relationship, but neither is there a vision of a community based on a common language, culture or even ‘blood and soil’. The contemporary city – not a Polis with several thousand citizens, but rather a metropolis with hundreds of thousands or millions of people – is a network of relationships, interests and institutions, something extremely complicated, which cannot be restored quickly and easily. If the management structure of such a complex organism is dissolved (even partially), what remains and how can it be rebuilt?

If individual survival is what counts above all in a post-crisis (post-apocalyptic?) landscape, individual careers and individual success are the most important considerations in contemporary cities. What is common does not count anymore and social structures that go beyond ‘natural’ relationships between people are in decline. And yet, something – at least here and there – is starting to change. Groups of urban activists continue to appear, trying to rebuild the ideas of urban community. They are different people with different political beliefs and a variety of aims. Because today the city is a resource – of people, buildings, land – fed upon by huge sharks, our brave activists are trying to transform cities from resources into autonomous entities. But how to transform self-organizing groups of enthusiasts into a mature social structure? How can a group of students planting shrubs recreate the subjectivity of a city? Although we can quite easily imagine the end of the world, it seems we just cannot imagine the beginning of a new one.

architecture beyoNd desigN

Please allow me to make a personal digression. My father was an architect who never really worked for large corporations, neither for private investors. Throughout his life, he tried to work for groups of people, mostly parishes and local communities. The most interesting from this point of view was a period of several years of his life when he worked almost exclusively for a small town, numbering just over 10,000 residents. He designed a school, interiors and extension of three kindergartens, a centre for the elderly resi-dents and other similar objects. All these buildings served the local commu-nity, all were ordered by the local community and funded by them. My father



83

cooperated very closely with the town’s elite and the interested residents. He became a strong part of the kind of plexus, which worked to improve the qual-ity of life and social cohesion of the town. I would say that if one defines a role of an architect as someone who designs buildings, my father could easily be replaced in the network. However, when he died, no one took his place. Indeed, for some time the community continued to invest in buildings of social infrastructure, but after a while this interest ceased to exist.

From this story, one can draw two lessons. First, that progressive architecture on a larger scale may arise only when it has significant social and political forces behind it. Second, that architecture as the skill of designing buildings is of the same – or of even less – importance as architecture as an element of the socio-economic and political plexus. Just as commercially minded architects spend a lot of time creating intricate social network links to sustain funding from the elite, progressive architects must in the same way build broad coalitions of progressive social and political forces in order to be able to design socially responsive archi-tecture. This idea is not my own – Jeremy Till has been arguing for a progressive definition of the architect’s role for some time. In his latest book he writes:

Protection of a small part of territory – that of designed buildings – has allowed others to claim the larger networks. Now is the time to step over the self-defined boundaries of the profession and share in that expensive spatial field, or more particularly to act as spatial agents.

(Awan et al. 2011: 30)

And further, defining different types of spatial agency: ‘Architecture is imma-nently political because it is part of spatial production, and this is political in the way that it clearly influences social relations’. This is one way that architecture should be understood: the process of creating a network which enables the construction of a building. The architect is then simultaneously an actor/agent and a kind of ‘circular reference’ (as described by Bruno Latour).

how to teach (aNd what is) progressive architecture

There is an ongoing debate about the funding of British universities, which is obviously part of the wider debate in the western world concerning the nature of the contemporary university. From J. H. Newman’s idea of the university (1902), there is a long way to the concept of the entrepreneurial university (Slaughter and Leslie 1997) and there is a clear shift from research based on curiosity, on the quest for truth (Newman as a Catholic believed in one Truth), to research as a part of the capitalist economic system (with a much more pragmatic and postmodern notion of Truth). However, one aspect remains the same: the university was and still is a part of the socio-political realm.

British universities have always claimed to be autonomous yet that auton-omy was and is limited by political context (Cowart 1962). The white paper on higher education, The Future of Higher Education (Department for Education and Skills 2003), published before the current coalition government came to power, expresses the current socio-political context in which British universities have to operate. That context is clearly described by Professor David Eastwood, HEFCE chief executive: ‘universities are very often the key economic drivers and providers of civic and social capital’ (cited in Blair 2006).

The idea of the university as an active agent in regional (and national) devel-opment and the shift from an elitist to egalitarian (mass and democratic) model


Krzysztof Nawratek

84

and notion of higher education significantly changed the way that research activities are perceived. It is understandable that older universities, which bene-fited (and still benefit) most from the existing research funding system maintain an ‘old school’ perception of higher education as just the consequence of highly sophisticated research, conducted by high profile scientists.

Jens-Christian Smeby (1998) describes different studies on the relationship between teaching and research going back to the Humboldtian University. That university’s model was based on the Enlightenment concept of an abso-lute truth: the university is an institution where tutor and student search jointly for that truth. Nowadays, a postmodern approach understands truth as something constructed, not found. As Smeby points out, the contemporary relationship between research and teaching depends on many factors – such as the level of study and field of science, to highlight two of the most obvious. Social science (and architecture definitely has a social science component) could be considered as a potentially challenging field where, together, student and tutor construct the truth or body of knowledge (Hattie and Marsh 1996).

However, architecture also combines different disciplines, including, for example, a very strong engineering component, firmly connected with a prac-tical and pragmatic approach to studying. As Ron Griffiths writes:

For many, the primary focus of their learning is to know about ‘how to do the job’, rather than to gain the intellectual skills associated with recognizing and handling complexity, uncertainty and contested concepts. The ambivalence about the value of ‘research’ among many academics and students is also bound up with an awareness that, in the context of the built environment disciplines, advances in the field of practice are not, by and large, driven by discovery research.

(2004: 723)

For years, the practical engineering aspect of architecture was the core of teaching practice in former Polytechnic-based schools of architecture, such as Plymouth University. Currently, there is a strong ambition to move towards more socially engaged aspects. There is an interesting contrast between conti-nental, profession-oriented, technical architectural education and the much more conceptual, artistic education in the majority of (but obviously not all) British architectural schools, where the practicalities of architecture are ignored and regarded as something almost disgusting. However, from a political point of view, both the paths seem to be impotent. ‘Technical architecture’, fixed on the problem-solving approach, is not able to go beyond the existing socio-political and economical paradigm. It might teach how to solve the problem, but it is not able to question the problem itself. Conceptual architecture is politically and economically on the neo-liberal side of the spectrum. It can only engage with fantasies created by developers; it is able to produce an image, whilst completely ignoring socio-economic reality. The way forward probably lies – as suggested by Ann Marie Hill (1998) – in engaging with live problems beyond the abstract world of conceptual fantasies, requiring ‘techni-cally oriented’ design to interact with real people and problems. The Master of Architecture programme at Plymouth goes even further – engagement with projects outside academia aims to conceptualize particular design solutions into the wider context of our current failing neo-liberal socio-economic model. Solving problems is not enough; fixing some urban flaws cannot be an aim of an academic programme.



85

An online edition of the magazine DOMUS – one of the most prestigious architectural magazines in Europe – featured the article ‘Revolution from the periphery’ (Szczelina 2011), a piece about the Master of Architecture programme at Plymouth University. The specificity of the programme was defined thus:

Six years ago, Illinois native Bob Brown became the director of the Master of Architecture. Brown gave the programme a very strong char-acter of social responsibility. Students began to work on projects in line with the slogan ‘real places, real people, real projects’. Second year students began to study sites outside the UK, typically in cities experi-encing rapid social and spatial change.

(Szczelina 2011)

And further: ‘Interestingly, in Plymouth, architecture is contextualised not only in the field of social sciences, but also from a highly practical engineering perspective’ (Szczelina 2011).

What distinguishes the M. Arch. programme in Plymouth is its scale. Students work in the scale of the city, preparing an ‘urban strategy’, which becomes the context and framework for specific building projects. One can imagine a single progressive client wanting to build one progressive build-ing. But it is impossible to build part of the city whilst ignoring the socio-economical, political and cultural context of the project. Have no doubts: on such a scale architecture is political. From the pedagogical point of view this is a key issue – students understand that they must take a certain political posi-tion that they cannot retreat to the safe and neutral position of ‘just’ being the building’s designer. At the scale of the city, it becomes clear that each design decision reinforces specific groups, specific interests and weakens others. It does not prejudge what those choices are; it is just that there must be some.

In the context of the post-crisis/post-apocalyptic imagination expressed in mainstream popular culture, we should not be surprised that the majority of students from recent years proposed anarchic responses to the ideas of the ‘Big Society’. Their strategies tried to produce autonomous zones rather than hacking the existing system, finding voids and cracks to be explored and used instead of entering into open conflict. The following descriptions of projects give an indication of how this approach was utilized. One of the most fascinat-ing proposals was for a pirate wastewater treatment plant. This project care-fully presented a process of hacking into the urban sewer network in order to return to people – by producing fertilizer and building materials – what the state/city takes from them. On a theoretical and social level, this project was a polemic aimed at the obsession with ‘clean’ sterile cities and space, the political effect of which is often some kind of fascism. This project is a typical example of attempts to create an autonomous zone (the author refers here to Polish history, when the structures of the underground state often occurred in parallel with formal structures of power). It is a utopian project, ignoring the wider political context, and feasible only in a situation of the breakdown of official structures of the state/city or in a context of revolution.

Another project attempts to design radically low-cost housing. In this case, municipal authorities play a key role, allocating land and funding. The radicalism of this project is expressed in the way it rejects the paradigm of profit-oriented housing, and instead switches to a paradigm focused on satisfying the basic necessities of life. This housing scheme is an interesting example of a project that requires collaboration with the structures of the


Krzysztof Nawratek

86

(post?) neo-liberal city. The project assumes that for some reason the city would be keen to give free land to construct social housing, a utopian belief that the city would prioritize social needs and the state over neo-liberal profit-based development. However, belief in the necessity of cooperation between grass-roots organizations and institutions of the city represents an important moment of transition beyond a purely regressive utopia.

Another project expresses disappointment with the broken promises of the postmodern world and tries to reclaim the (neo)modernist idea of the city as a machine. In that city everything is connected, built on systems of synergies and everybody has their own place and meaning. This project combines the idea of a city as a strong, defined subject with a concept of self-organized community. In a city like that, the architect is not an artist (like Plato’s Republic, poets are not welcomed there) but a ‘worker of art’, a kind of ‘socially aware engineer and craftsman’. In this model the connection between all people involved in a process of creating and using a building is very tight: architecture is not a kind of abstract art, but its role is to fulfil basic human needs.

However, all these projects are still stuck in the current paradigm of city and architecture of late capitalism; they cannot escape the current horizons of post-crisis/post-apocaliptic thinking. Therefore we see a regress, a return to pre-capitalist social structures (family, clan, tribe, religious community). On the other hand, these projects are aware of the existence and effectiveness of institutions and contemporary technology. Students are aware that tech-nological progress cannot be achieved without these institutions. There is an obvious and intellectually stimulating understanding of the tension between the capacity of ad hoc self-organized groups and the institutions of neo-liberal global corporations. There are many tools applied to deal with this tension – from Actor Network Theory, to the Marxist general intellect concept as promoted by Italian autonomists, as a new definition of the ‘common good’ (Virno 2004). Based on the optimistic scenario of a post-crisis future mentioned above, students tend to analyse the ‘enemy’s’ effectiveness – and weaknesses – in order to find progressive solutions to contemporary crises.

coNclusioN

In the post-war period, democratic and egalitarian progressive architecture became a response to the crisis founded on a sense of community, on architec-tural space as communal space: the idea that ‘we are all in this together’ was taken seriously. Today, therefore, radical, progressive architecture and urban-ism must again be founded on the support of a broad coalition of social forces and on the idea of a wider community. Education must go down a parallel path: students have to learn how to work together, to reject the egocentric mentality of the Starchitects and to learn not to compete but to cooperate. As part of this, they should engage with ‘real places, real people and real projects’. Students should have the opportunities to expose their works to the general public, a lay audience, and to learn how to listen to what people have to say. Finally, students should learn how to identify the cracks and gaps in our legal and socio-economic structures and then how to hack these existing systems that they might be prepared for a post-neo-liberal future. The idea of ‘togetherness’ is the key to creating new, progressive architecture. Austerity is not a problem – it is an opportunity. We just need to act as if we are all in it together.



87

refereNces

Awan, Nishat, Schneider, Tatjana and Till, Jeremy (2011), Spatial Agency: Other Ways of Doing Architecture, Routledge: London.

Architecture Sans Frontière (2011), Who we are, http://www.asf-uk.org/about.htm. Accessed 28 December 2011.

Blair, A. (2006), ‘Top universities fear loss of research funds’, The Times, 21 November, p. 1 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/educa-tion/article643905.ece. Accessed 28 December 2011.

Chipperfield, C. (2009), ‘Thinkpiece – universities and social enterprise. The role of universities in unlocking social enterprise and creating a sustaina-ble and future-facing knowledge city: A University of Plymouth perspec-tive’, http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=26363. Accessed 28 December 2011.

Conrads, Ulrich (1970), Programmes and Manifestos on 20th Century Architecture, London: Lund Humpries.

Cowart, B. F. (1962), ‘The development of the idea of university autonomy’, History of Education Quarterly, 2: 4, pp. 259–64.

Department for Education and Skills (2003), The Future of Higher Education, London: The Stationary Office.

Frausto, S. (2009), ‘Introduction to the topic’, Hunch, no. 12, p. 20–21.Griffiths, R. (2004), ‘Knowledge production and the research–teaching nexus:

The case of the built environment disciplines’, Studies in Higher Education, 29: 6, pp. 709–26.

Hattie, J. and Marsh, H. W. (1996), ‘The Relationship between research and teaching: A meta-analysis’, Review of Educational Research, 66: 4, pp. 507–42.

Hill, Ann Marie (1998), ‘Problem solving in real-life contexts: An alternative for design in technology education’, International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 8: 3, pp. 203–20.

International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM) (1928), ‘La Sarraz declaration’, http://modernistarchitecture.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/ciams-la-sarraz-declaration-1928/. Accessed 28 December 2011.

Jencks, Charles (1973), Modern Movements in Architecture, New York: Anchor Books.

Klein, Naomi (2007), Shock Doctrine. The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, London: Allen Lane.

Khrushchev, Nikita and Nixon, Richard (1959), ‘Nixon–Khrushchev kitchen debate’, http://watergate.info/nixon/1959_nixon-khrushchev-kitchen- debate.shtml. Accessed 28 December 2011.

Kroha, Jirí (1933), ‘Ideology of architecture’, Modernist Architecture, http://moder-nistarchitecture.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/jiri-kroha%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cideology-of-architecture%E2%80%9D-1933/. Accessed 28 December 2011.

LaBarre, Suzanne (2009), ‘Life after Sambo’, http://metropolismag.com/story/20090722/life-after-sambo. Accessed 28 December 2011.

Lewis, Michael J. (2007), ‘The rise of the “Starchitect”’, New Criterion, 26: 4, pp. 4–9.

Newman, J. H. (1902), The Idea of a University, New York, Bombay and Calcutta: Longmans, Green, and Co, http://www.newmanreader.org/works/idea/. Accessed 28 December 2011.

Popescu, Carmen (2009), ‘Introductory argument: Architecture of the commu-nist bloc in the mirror’, The Journal of Architecture, 14: 1, pp. 1–6.


http://www.asf-uk.org/about.htm

http://www.asf-uk.org/about.htm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/educa-

http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=26363

http://modernistarchitecture.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/

http://watergate.info/nixon/1959_nixon-khrushchev-kitchen-debate.shtml

http://watergate.info/nixon/1959_nixon-khrushchev-kitchen-debate.shtml

http://moder-

http://metropolismag.com/

http://www.newmanreader.org/

Krzysztof Nawratek

88

Rand, Ayn (1957), Atlas Shrugged, New York:Random House.Tavares, Kibwe (2011), Robots of Brixton, http://vimeo.com/25092596 Accessed

26 September 2012.The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) (2011), ‘RIBA validation crite-

ria 2011’, http://www.architecture.com/EducationAndCareers/Validation/UKvalidation.aspx. Accessed 28 December 2011.

Slaughter, S. and Leslie, L. (1997), Academic Capitalism: Policies, Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Smeby, Jens-Christian (1998), ‘Knowledge production and knowledge trans-mission. The interaction between research and teaching at universities’, Teaching in Higher Education, 3: 1, pp. 5–20.

Szczelina, M. (2011), ‘Revolution from the periphery’, http://www.domusweb.it/en/op-ed/revolution-from-the-periphery/. Accessed 28 December 2011.

Virno, Paulo (2004), A Grammar of the Multitude, Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).Wainwright, Oliver (2012), ‘What do robots have to do with architecture?’,

Building Design, 16 December 2011, http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/analysis/what-have-robots-got-to-do-with-architecture?/5029457.article. Accessed 28 December 2011.

Žižek, Slavoj (2010), Living in the End Times, London: Verso.

suggested citatioN

Nawratek, K. (2012), ‘New progressive architecture: Designing for cities in end times’, Journal of European Popular Culture 3: 1, pp. 77–88, doi: 10.1386/jepc.3.1.77_1

coNtributor details

Krzysztof Nawratek is a lecturer in Architecture, M.Arch. and M.A. in Architecture programme leader at the School of Architecture, Design and Environment, Plymouth University, United Kingdom. Educated as an architect and urban plan-ner, he has worked in Poland, Latvia (e.g. for Riga City Council) and Ireland (Principal Urban Designer at Colin Buchanan, Dublin). Nawratek worked as a visiting professor at the Geography Department at the University of Latvia and as a researcher at National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis, Maynooth, Ireland. Member of Board of Experts European Prize for Urban Public Space 2012 and member of selection panel for the Polish contribution to the thirteenth International Architecture Biennial in Venice in 2012. Krzysztof is an urban theo-rist, author of City as a Political Idea (Plymouth, University of Plymouth Press, 2011) and Holes in the Whole. Introduction to the Urban Revolutions (Winchester Zero Books, 2012) and several papers and chapters in edited books.

Contact: School of Architecture, Design & Environment, Faculty of Arts Roland Levinsky Building, Plymouth University, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK.E-mail: [email protected]

Krzysztof Nawratek has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.


http://vimeo.com/25092596

http://www.architecture.com/EducationAndCareers/Validation/

http://www.domusweb

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/

Radical Architecture

Documents

Transcript of Radical Architecture