Fabian dos Santos (Theme 2)
«Yet, city planning does not sit outside of the eco-social realities co-producing the Anthropocene.» Houston & co. (2017, p. 190). For a sustainable urban space to emerge, heterogeneity plays a central role. Thus, the interaction between human and non-human actors is very important.
The fragmented city
Modernity is a formative period in our society. Enormous development thrusts occurred since industrialization, where monotony and mass production, drives the economy and at the same time dazzles today‘s consumer society. In architecture, internationalization has been a major theme, as well as car-oriented construction in urban planning. There are various utopias that show how the perfect city should work, «the total architecture». In parallel, cubism established itself in the history of art. Through the method of the paper collé, which Georges Braque used, the brico- lage was created. Thus Claude Lévi-Strauss: «In its original sense, the verbum bricoler can be applied to billiards and ball games, to hunting and horseback riding, but always to emphasize a movement that is not pre-drawn: that of the ball that bounces back, of the dog that makes detours, of the horse that deviates from the straight path to avoid an obstacle. Nowadays, the tinkerer is that person who works with his hands, using means that are aberrant compared to those of the professional.» Claude-Strauss (1962). The intention here is to think of the city as a collage in which the diversity of urban life, as well as areas of friction, find a place. For in this way synergies or symbioses can arise, which promote the ecologi- cal potential and foster an interrelationship, as nature shows us. This goal is only possible if we humans see ourselves collectively as part of the system.
Braque: Fruit, plat et verre (1. papier collé), 1912, 63×46, chalk, gouache, wallpaper on cardboard.
More than Human Urbanism
«Urban exceptionalism (like human exceptionalism) encourages modes of thought that regard cities as places that have somehow risen above the physical constraints of ‘nature’– as places of enlightened human value and technolo- gical mastery.» Houston & co. (2017, p. 193) The time of the Anthropocene demands radical changes, namely human actors must adopt a different perspective of ontology. Because connectivity is an important concept in our environment, and at different levels.
There is an urgency to promote the «Multispecies entanglement» that entails a social and political constitution for a good city. Because we humans try to control the city and nature, however, we are also just a species of the cycle. Let‘s take lawns as an example. It can be argued that lawns are seeded for purely pragmatic reasons. Green areas are a natural water retention system and protect the settlement area from flooding. This makes a valuable contribution to improving the microclimate. It also improves air quality by filtering dust or binding other substances.
The lawn is the triumph of mankind over nature. It reflects the age of the Anthropocene in our everyday life. Humans can afford to claim nature only for themselves. Because for non-human participants the monoculture offers no habitat. Yet it would be easy to create more biodiversity by restraining ourselves in caring for it. In the course of «More than Human Urbanism» and the insight how the species are linked, we should give up a piece of control and realize that the coexistence with non-human participants, like the lawn, is central and plays an indispensable role for a sustaina- ble development of the urban space.
The urgency of densification
What does a future scenario of urban densification look like? Heterogeneity is important in this aspect as well, because «Urban density is spatial density and density of interaction.» Espazium (2013). Urban qualities are influenced by various factors. The difficulty is to create a mixed program in which the social, economic and environmental issues are under one roof. «According to Jörg Stollmann (TU Berlin), the idea of social and cultural urban life of a neighborhood must go beyond the immediate creation of profit. Both the market and the city benefit from a social corporate culture in the long term. Stollmann defines urbanity as a culture of engagement, a mix of functions and potential for social and economic integration. Spatial density creates space for encounters, trade and commerce.» Espazium (2013)
Nowadays, one encounters such themes in cooperative housing or in communes. A well-known example is Kalk- breite in Zurich, where residents live and work together in a participatory interest. Issues such as energy and land consumption, car abandonment and integration, make up the cooperative and give new ideas on how to shape urban life. In addition, the society must be ready and open to new things and live out the culture of the city. The term
«culture» is a big topic, but it is not the final product that is meant here, but the practice that is practiced or the rou- tine that we get into. Today we talk about «doing culture». Everything that emerges, evolves and repeats itself and becomes part of our lives can be «Doing culture». «What does the contingency of practice mean for culture? First of all, that culture itself is a translocal, creative and explorative phenomenon and not a territorially fixed entity as modern (imperialist) theories of culture claim. Nonetheless, culture is always material culture, but materiality is not a physical or biological quantity.» Reuter (2015, p. 12). We humans develop a tendency towards the unique and feel the need to curate our lives. Since the collective can be more colorful than the person as an individual, there is potential for change in urban space. The relationship with the self-made or the identity-creating feature, in most cases is uniqueness or at least gives us the feeling of being unique. In general, our action and our attitude towards life is influenced when the conscious- ness towards the opposite is known, be it in human or non-human actors. In order to achieve this density that we are striving for, we humans need to rethink our way of life. The potential of density is not only to consider the social, but to integrate the free space for other beings and thus create, or transform, a qualitative urban landscape in which independence can be lived out. The way we use this world today is no longer ethically defensible, and those who think otherwise have already given up inside.
Conclusion
To achieve an urban density in which a large spectrum is to be covered, the fragmented approach is a must. In the mosaic, where interactions between actors happen and beyond that space is available for other beings. The space offers appropriation potential and accordingly creates identity and requires that the spaces, as in the collage, operate in a superimposed way.
References
Rowe, C. & Koetter, F. (1984). Collage City. Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1962). Das wilde Denken. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag.
Hörnig, K. H. & Reuter, J. (2015). Doing Culture. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. Harari, Y. N. (2015). Homo Deus. München: Verlag C. H. Beck.
Houston, D., Hillier, J., MacCallum, D., Steele, W. & Byrne, J. (2017). Make kin, not cities. Sage journals. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1473095216688042?cookieSet=1 (06.04.2022).
Von Büren, C. (2013). Urbane Dichte. Espazium. https://www.espazium.ch/de/aktuelles/urbane-dichte (06.04.2022).
Pöhner, Ralph. (2017). Die grosse grüne Verschwendung. https://blog.tagesanzeiger.ch/historyreloaded/index.php/265/die-grosse-gruene-verschwendung/ (06.04.2022).
Abb.1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papier_collé (06.04.2022).