Saturday,
September 16, 2006
The
ANNOTICO Report
Architecture,
after spending much of the 1980s and early 1990s mired in obscure theory, and
the last 10 years preoccupied with image, is moving into an encouraging period
of engagement with the future shape
of rapidly metastasizing mega-cities, with politicians and developers, with
poverty and with environmental destruction.
ARCHITECTURE
REVIEW
By
Christopher Hawthorne
Times Staff Writer
September 15, 2006
The Architecture Biennale tackles the problems stemming from the great
migration into cities.Venice, Italy
Paradigm shifts rarely emerge quite as dramatically as the one that dominates
this year's Architecture Biennale in Venice. In the curatorial equivalent of
capital letters, the exhibition announces what has become increasingly apparent
to those in the field: that architecture, after spending much of the 1980s and
early 1990s mired in obscure theory, and the last 10 years preoccupied with
image, is moving into an encouraging period of engagement with the future shape of rapidly metastasizing mega-cities, with politicians and developers,
with poverty and with environmental destruction.
The show, which opened to the public on Sunday, is organized by Richard
Burdett, a professor of urbanism and an advisor on architecture and planning to
the mayor of
The result is something like a Brueghel or a Goya scene as painted by Wayne Thiebaud: all the emerging woes of the world's cities desperate poverty, congestion, pollution lined up in neat, brightly colored rows.
Still, simply in its effort to grapple with such a massive and overtly
political theme, the show easily distances itself from typical architecture
exhibitions these days, which tend to be either hagiographic tributes to a
single architect often designed or curated by the architect herself or facile exercises in trend-spotting.!
This is true not only in the sections arranged by Burdett but also in the
national pavilions, which are organized by their host countries. The
In its broad scope and determination to be Highly Relevant, the show leaves
itself open to the complaint that it contains no architecture, or that it is
merely a throwback to the optimistic mega-projects of the 1970s. There was
plenty of griping along th! ose lines during the opening
weekend from the more-jaded-than-thou set, which is always well represented at
the Biennale. Yet the subject Burdett tackles here is, in many ways, the only
subject for architecture at the moment: the human and planetary costs of the
great migration into cities that is now taking place from
The statistics around which Burdett centered the exhibition lost little of
their force despite the near mantra-like way they were repeated throughout the
weekend. A century ago, 10% of the world's population lived in cities. That figure
is now 50%. By 2050 it will be 75%. Precisely how this massive urbanization
unfolds how politicians, planners
and architects wind up "settling these new arrivals," as Burdett put
it, "in three-dimensional space" will determine the stability of various
regimes, particularly in Beijing, the pace of global warming and the state of
the oil market.
Of course, the world's city-dwellers f! ace vastly
different circumstances depending on whether they live in a
One of the show's most compelling themes is the way it charts the rise of the
city-state on the one hand and of its chaotic sibling, the mega-city, on the
other.
The new city-state is a place more conversant in the language of global
capitalism and economic and cultural "flows" than of nation or
homeland. In other words, 21st century
The result of that effort is a new kind of urban p! lanning, one that combines celebrity architecture,
autocratic power and a Las Vegas-style emphasis on spectacle. Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, who curated a section of the show on the UAE, described
In the mega-city, meanwhile, the problem is simply finding room not to mention jobs or healthcare for the rural residents who continue to
pour into them by the day in massive numbers. Cities such as
With a dynamic mayor and residents increasingly receptive to the kind of
aggressive policy changes that might loosen gridlock, particularly on the
Westside, or extend the subway to the airports and beaches,
And in a larger sense, Burdett's interest in engagement cl!
osely tracks other
heartening changes in architecture. These include the rise of groups like
Architecture for Humanity, which works to build emergency housing and other
architectural services for the poor, and the growing fluency among younger
American architects in green design.
After a decade in which architects and their clients grew obsessed with image as digital technology made the stunning
two-dimensional rendering as powerful a force in the field as any completed
building the shift is overdue.
After all, the lessons seem all too clear at the
Even if it is overly optimistic to think that architects will be crucial pl! ayers
in the coming century of urban growth, there is something to be said for
Burdett's effort to sharpen their savvy and help them keep a place at the
table. They are going to need those skills in
The exhibition's major themes seemed not only to match the emerging zeitgeist,
in both encouraging architects to be humble and suggesting an expanding role
for them in shaping cities, but also seemed to rub off on the architects in
attendance. Koolhaas and the Swiss architect Jacques
Herzog, in a panel discussion with Burdett, barely spoke above a whisper and
took turns deferring to one another. Both endorsed, with seeming sincerity, an
architectural effort to slow global warming.
Still, the age of celebrity architecture has hardly run its course, as that
very panel proved. Before it started, students, architects and locals gathered
around the two entrances to the auditorium, clamoring and throwing elbows to get ! inside. Even if Koolhaas has morphed all of sudden into Nice Rem, he remains a superstar, at least in this particular
constellation.
http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/
calendar/cl-et-venice15sep15,0,7140274.
story?coll=cl-calendar
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