[EN] - Utopias Return ?

In my researches about Metamodernism, and investigations on metamodern architecture, I come ask myself about utopia, as the dutch theorists Van Der Akker and Vermeulen claim, utopia could be on it's way back, as we have kept a post-modern attitude but with the return of Modern positions. Antoine Picon has written about this in architecture, and in 2013 Ursprung held a workshop at D-Arch in Zurich, let's see what they have to say. 

Utopia may well be back, but what we must question is how it is manifesting itself? and also, why has it returned? 

-------------------

A few years ago, the subject of utopia and its relation to architecture was solely of historical interest. The utopian character of modern architecture has often been denounced, and is held responsible for the mistakes of modern urbanism. Modern architects, it was said, had jeopardized the quality of life in their attempts to change society. In his 1973 essay, Architecture and Utopia, the Italian historian Manfredo Tafuri was even more severe.

He believed the utopian streak of modern architecture was based on the fundamental delusion that Capitalism needed architectural and urban order to function in an efficient manner. In order to counter this, Rem Koolhaas and his followers tried to connect architecture with the real trends of the times, beginning with the accelerated circulation of people, goods and money, as well as sprawling urbanization. In order to cope with the prevailing conditions of the "generic city", architecture had to abandon its pretensions to change the world in a demiurgic manner.

It had to become realistic, in tune with what was really happening in the world, rather than pursuing the old pipe dreams of modernity.

For Koolhaas, this meant the study of urban areas such as Lagos, which present great problems for mainstream modern architecture and urban planning.However, there have recently been some changes. Utopia is returning to favor, such that it is being mentioned again at architectural exhibitions, and in books and lectures.

Considerable interest has developed in post-war utopian and counter-utopian movements. The megastructural projects of the 1950s, the Archigram legacy and the provocations of early 1970 Radical architecture movements, are being scrutinized in detail, not only by theorists and historians, but also by a growing number of practitioners.

These movements have created an agenda that we still share today. The early megastructures and other radical provocations offered the possibility of redefining design objectives and methods, by taking intoaccount new technologies emerging at the time; electronics, computers and new media were playing a more prominent role.

And because architectural discourse and practice are usually about endorsing the present state of things instead of proposing alternative futures, there is a growing dissatisfaction with the estrangement of architecture from political and social concerns. Megastructural and radical architecture interest us today for their capacity to imagine a different future. Conversely, the influence radical architecture has exerted on designers such as Koolhaas or Tschumi tend to demonstrate that utopia is not necessarily a sterile concept, that it can steer architecture and provoke its renewal.

Thus we clearly have something to learn from the utopian tradition, but we must avoid the temptation to idealize it, after having discarded it for so long. Despite its ambition to

transcend the flow of historical conditions, utopia is actually deeply historical; its status and content have changed throughout history, and its connection to architecture is thus more complex and ambiguous than usually assumed.

Let me be clear that I am notagainst the architectural star-system, globalization, and

digital culture, nor the transformation into icons of projects like the Guggenheim

Museum or the Seattle Library. But do we need perhaps to replace them in the perspective of a different future? How can we otherwise restore hope? In the past year, we have forgotten that architecture is also about the hope of a different and better future, and this is its real political and social function. This hope cannot be found in traditional formulas; the issue is no longer to design ideal cities or plans. The first lesson of history is to try not to repeat itself; a new kind of utopian perspective is needed today. Its starting point must be present day conditions, one of which is the blurring between nature and technology. Sustainable development also has to start from this point; for instance, in projects like the Fresh Kills Park, in New York, created on one of the world's largest dumps, the designers have had to put vents for the gases still produced in the underground as well as all kind of monitors.

Indeed, the true importance of the individual in a world that is unfolding before our eyes

remains unclear. Our age of paroxysmal individual expression, from iPod playlists to

blogs, is also one of increased anonymity, because of the sheer number of potential authors. Should architecture participate in the individual screening that is going on from consumer markets to security administrations, or should it rather play on the new conditions created by modern communication media? The answer is far from clear. Speaking of the individual, one cannot but be struck by the importance of faculties such as sensory experience. Architecture has recently preferred abstract schemes; a return to experiential dimensions may bring back richer sensory experiences. However, the advent of the digital age implies that these sensory experiences differ greatly from traditional ones.

Ultimately, a new utopian concept may necessitate a different sort of relationship

between image and practice, which will determine architecture’s social impact. The hope it inspires is linked to the perception of how images and projects relate to reality, and how they can be realized. This in turn raises the question of mediation and media. Key moments in the history of the interaction between architecture and utopia often correspond with a redefinition of the relationship between image and practice. One such instance came at the end of the eighteenth century,

Boullée produced spectacular, innovative drawings at a timewhen architecture was being regarded as an integral part of the public sphere, and was widely discussed. The press became the dominant medium during the nineteenth-century. New journals, e.g. the Saint-Simonian Le Globe and the Fourierist La Phalange appeared, and many former members of the Saint-Simonian and Fourierist movement became founders of, or contributors to, such journals. Similarly, one could argue that Archigram and Radical architecture reflected the reorganization ofthe relations between image and practice implied by the media of their time, from television to the first computers. Like Pop Art, they participated in this reorganization. The utopian dimension of architecture is inseparable from the question of how we communicate architectural concepts to the public; digital media present the obvious route, although this is more problematic than usually assumed. Take Toyo Ito's Sendai Mediatheque, or Foreign Office Architect’s Yokohama Terminal; not withstanding the continuous chain of computer documents linking the initial concept to the finished structure, the eventual realization differs markedly from the initial idea. Reinventing utopia today might ultimately not only be about sustainability or contemporary emergencies, as considered by Shigeru Ban;these issues are of course absolutely imperative, but we need also improve the linking of digital imagery to reality.

What radically different future lies in such links? This may prove to be one of the questions

architecture has to address today. 

-------------------------------

Discussion between Ute Meta Bauer (middle) and Pedro Gadanho (right), moderator Mechtild Widrich (left). First AAHA meeting at ETH Zurich, May 2, 2013

 

Utopian thinking in art and architecture today demands crossing the line between freeform planning and precise observation. Therefore, limits will occupy us both in the form of borders (real or imagined) between the disciplines of art and architecture as well as theory and practice and as literal political demarcations of great urgency within contemporary art and architecture. The three sections of the conference are organized around the themes of geographic boundaries (Tensions), utopian worldmaking (Visions), and production of social effects (Agency). The participants come from theory as well as from artistic and curatorial practice.

This public workshop is the first meeting of the international network Art and Architecture History Assembly, which was founded by scholars at ETH Zurich, MIT, and the University of Western Australia. The AAHA approaches the porous boundaries between art and architecture and the less steady academic dialogue between these disciplines from a global perspective, concentrating on themes of interchange between countries, regions, and cultures.

------------------------

http://www.gta.arch.ethz.ch/events/utopias-return

http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/10579145/Picon_LearningFrom.pdf?sequence=1