The Ethics of Aesthetics
by Alan Mee
“It is my job to create universes…I have a secret love of chaos. There should be more of it. Do not believe -and I am dead serious when I say this – do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe”.[i]
No, not Rem himself, but the opening quotation chosen by him for the current retrospective exhibition at the Barbican, on the truly staggering output of OMA. In breadth and extent, as well as quality and overall geographical reach, there’s really nothing to touch this global spatial production machine, which originated in Holland.
One comes away quite shellshocked and overwhelmed, and if there’s any brain space left to review the prodigious heap of other OMA publications, books and graphical documents in the reception area, there must be an impression of a Spatial Superman forming, with a race of avid followers towing along behind, testing, thinking, sweating, making, making, making.
Then professional jealousy creeps in, as it would have to do, for any other designer visitor. Who could not be jealous of an operation which has re-invented the Map (and flag) of Europe, written key texts on urbanism and architecture, designed so many buildings of global significance, and still has a big order book of things to deliver and work on ?
But is it all a just spatial practice ?
On reflection, this is the key question which arises. When anything is possible, and clients and budgets invite the most preposterous of formal gymnastics and shape throwing, is there a need for a moral or ethical self-control button ?
The entry statement seems to suggest that there’s a justification being offered for what we are about to see, as if he knows how bold he has been. The problem is not just him, but also the armies of keen followers (and countries, and cultures, and clients) who are being set a poor example of vomiting creativity without a moral core.
Much much closer to home and us, (though not totally disconnected) the RIAI Conference 2011, in Carlow, was dominated by issues of ethical relevance. One session involved a very near miss between those in the room who are undercutting fees, and some of those most affected. Another had the Minister for Education describing the ethical aspects of locating schools on outskirts of towns, thereby sentencing generations of children to car based transport, the social segregation from the street, and ultimately, unsustainable ways to be. (Is it possible to do ethical mapping of our spatially chaotic condition ? ) Kenneth Frampton seemed to be updating critical regionalism with an ethical turn, locally inspired and modest architecture, with resonance in cultural terms. Conor Skehan exploded a few verbal devices as usual, predicting impending radical change in the very definition of the professional, and suggesting the Institute needs to re-examine itself and its position as regards broader types of architectural practice and membership.
The contractual and working conditions of young graduates were described by delegates and students as leaving lots to be desired, and the Director reminded the audience that the Institute and other authorities cannot act unless someone puts a head above the parapet to report those who may be acting unlawfully and unethically.
The question developing of course was ; What would a future more ethical model for the practice and culture of design in Ireland look like ? With our recent absences of monitoring of regulation, our neo-liberal models for urban form, which are unsustainable, spatially unjust, and economically self defeating, what have we learned ?
What would design output of an ethical cultural shift be ? Less construction ? Is it possible our current obsession with training ‘projective design’ architects towards more inclusion for the assessment / evaluative architects, those trained to make analysis and quality judgements, on whether something should be protected, adapted, demolished, extended, etc, without also having to produce more superfluous space ?
Imagine if our culture and designed environment became associated with ethical practices, in the processes as well as the output ? Maybe an island where positive cultural change can happen quickly could appear, as we re-invent ourselves with new priorities, linking theory on fairness and spatial justice to how we work, how we look, how we appear, and how we think.
[i] Dick, Philip K, (1978),‘How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later’.
This Article appeared in Architecture Ireland Issue 259
Urban Neglect
by Alan Mee
While it could be said that in Ireland, neglect in the countryside has been forever with us, and the isolated ruin has an almost romantic appeal[i], urban neglect seems to be more recent, and at this point, pervasive nationwide.
Do we neglect our designed environment in Ireland more than other cultures and countries? Given our historically lower densities of population over time, particularly in the countryside, Ireland has not been pushed to re-use its built heritage to accommodate expanding populations, and possibly we associated doing this with poverty, or not moving on.
More recently, with an actively densifying urban culture, it has seemed that generations of broadly suitable urban structures are consigned to some cultural scrapheap, as the newness of urban living is expressed through teen-like mutant building typologies alongside their silent, more mature building neighbours, such as the street shop with house over, most of which are respectably rotting in towns all over the island.
Over twenty five years ago, Barcelona began a city led campaign called Posa’t Guapa (make yourself beautiful), which encouraged the renovation of buildings, as a visible first step in renewing the older building stock. In that time, over 30 per cent of the 87,000 buildings in the City area have benefited from public subvention to renew facades and other parts, and each was covered by the same branded poster during the works. As well as prolonging the life of such essentials to apartment living as balconies, shutters, and other architectural details, the urban image of the city became live again, more like a growing thing than a dying one.
The current mood amongst conservation professionals here in Ireland is dark, as they survey a rapid deterioration of structures and groups of buildings which managed to survive the twentieth century, but ended up in NAMA or attached to planning permissions which have not turned into reality. The sites most at risk seem to be caught in a fog of unclear ownership and responsibility, which in turn is working to the advantage of those who would be happier to see them gone. At this point, there is a need for national scale campaign, run by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and/or the Heritage Council to actively catalogue the urban properties most at risk, and re-state through action the position of the State as regards our urban built heritage.
On the most superficial of levels, the growing graffiti ‘creep’ across the built landscape of Dublin is observed officially, if at all, by the daily clean, scraping away at hundred year old walls, or re-painting surfaces only recently finished for the first time. The arguments for and against are made, and after a few minutes on www.dublincitygraffiti.com you will come away with a whole new reading of the “tags”, “throw-ups” and “pieces” of the city, whether you like them or not. What does this say about the current state of the place ? Is it an indicator of a vibrant visual culture with individual artistry on show on every street corner, or an increasingly depressing indicator of anarchy and urban breakdown ? The discussion internationally can be summed up in the thePolisblog.org discussion, “Graffiti as International Language” [ii], which elaborates on the themes without coming down on either side.
The fact is, that either way, buildings and streetscapes of value are being changed, some irreversibly, and there seems to be no mechanism to communicate the issues to a wider audience. Neither side seems readily identifiable, or even visibly engaged in an exchange, whatever the value this might have. Where are the officials to protect Iveagh Markets on Francis Street in Dublin, the frontage of which survived for over a hundred years until last month, when it was destroyed beyond repair by “artists” ? Graffiti could be argued to be one of the indicators of neglect, like buddleia[iii], and unlike Berlin or London, Dublin has only a relatively small number of buildings and streetscapes of quality, and worthy of care.
Is it possible that Dublin City Council, perhaps together with Dublin Civic Trust, could engage with some collective of the graffiti artists, to explain the craftmanship and dedication involved in making a piece of cut stone appear 100 years ago on a street corner ? As artists themselves, surely they could be brought around to an understanding of the complexity and creativity involved in realising a piece of architecture ? And the knowledge and care required to preserve and maintain it ?
As in the case of other cities like Barcelona, it is arguable that the evidence of care of the urban environment should be immediately apparent, particularly for visitors, and that certain places could be prioritized, related obviously to relative value, but also to urban prominence. As a pilot project this October, Urban Agenda, Open House and Dublin Civic Trust will organize an Urban Check-Up Walking Tour, centred on the Liberties in Dublin, which involves demonstrating methods of measuring and evaluating architecture and its context, and levels of apparent urban neglect, using various recording methods such as drawing, photography, video, etc, and then digitally submitting information to the relevant authorities to assist in addressing this urban neglect. The purpose is to demonstrate collective assessment and engagement in quality and care in architecture and the urban environment, but also active urban citizenship.
[i] as represented recently at the IRCHSS Summer School at Maynooth Lecture by Brian Dillon and Catherine Waugh, http://briangdillon.wordpress.com/my-books/
[ii] http://www.thepolisblog.org/2011/08/global-mobility-of-graffiti.html
[iii] Buddleia Open House Walking Tour, Irish Architecture Foundation, 2009
This Article appeared in Architecture Ireland Issue 258
Uirbeacha Láithreach (Instant Urban)
by Alan Mee
When travelling the Irish countryside, it is not unusual nowadays to come upon a car showroom in a pastoral setting, apartments in fields on country roads, and other arguably instant indicators of the Irish urban condition. It has been suggested that the island is now so urban that most of us expect to be able to buy a good Latte within 15 minutes driving, wherever we are. How this aspiration will fit with the Core Strategy and settlement hierarchy intentions of our legislators remains to be seen, but the gradations of urban, and some of the facts of the occurrence of the current and historic urban condition, are of interest.
The history of what has been urban on the island is a fascinating area, one which still seems open for examination and investigation at many scales. An ISUF Paper by Loughlin Kealy and Anngret Simms of 2008 [1] has many insights, including the proposition by Wallace that “urbanism took root in Dublin before the end of the ninth century”, stressing the importance of early property boundaries, though this view was contested by medieval historian H.B. Clarke, who warned that “house plots standing side by side cannot be used as a sole criterion for urban form”. Andrew Kincaid, suggests in his 2006 book [2] that urbanism and architecture arrived with the Anglo-Normans in the twelfth century. It seems that a fuller account of the lineage of Irish urban form would be of interest, particularly given the recent expansion of the areas of Irish studies, urban geography, and the humanities generally here.
Amongst our archaeological sites, Clonmacnoise in particular suggests urbanity with churches located less than three metres apart, facing west, alongside each other. At its peak, it is suggested that up to two thousand people could have lived here, before the rise of Athlone as a crossing point to the north. Almost no above ground evidence of this level of urban density remains, though archaeology has established the urban nature of the place to the extent that the recent draft nomination for inclusion on the World Heritage List is titled “The Monastic City of Clonmacnoise and its Cultural Landscape”. The statement in support of the nomination suggests that, as an urban place, “its dates are relatively early in the chronology of the urban development outside the boundaries of the old Roman Empire”.
On an entirely more modest level, anyone who has studied a rural Ordnance Survey Map will know of historic clachans [3], nucleated groups of farmhouses, which have mainly disappeared over time, but once strongly represented communal and social space in rural Ireland, despite the absence of shops or other service functions. Another spatial manifestation was the handball alley, sometimes located at rural crossroads, and representing public life that was shared and enjoyed locally. Indeed many instances of built crossroads invited social functions over time, even if they have mostly died and rotted back into the ground at this stage.
The appearance, disappearance and re-emergence of the urban condition in unexpected places is not so new here, and may be testament to the fact that the landscape, as well as being intensely inhabited at certain times, and socially and culturally rich, also has the ability to change physically quite quickly in relative terms. Derry O’Connell, at the School of Planning and Environmental Policy at UCD, has undertaken a study of Irish satellite morphotopes, with the morphotope being defined as “the smallest distinct type of morphological region” [4]. He has examined these in relation to the small Irish town, showing somewhat hopeful isolated urban terraces in the countryside for example, or other indicators of urban densities in unexpected locations.
The inference from a quick overview of historic patterns of urban settlement on the island may suggest that a form of ‘Instant Urban’ character, or even a feeling, impression or temporary sensation, might not be unprecedented in our landscape. As parts of our inner cities now start to loose their urbanity, the current challenges include the definitions and evaluation of the quality of the Irish urban condition, wherever it occurs, the understanding by designers and others that these particular formal impressions on the landscape may well melt away over time, and the possibility that in some cases they could even be allowed or planned for as ‘Instant Urban’ for a time, and then removed in a planned way at another time in the future.
Notes
[1] Kealy, Loughlin and Anngret Simms (2008), The Study of Urban Form in Ireland (Paper) Urban Morphology, International Seminar on Urban Form.
[2] Kincaid, Andrew (2006), Postcolonial Dublin: Imperial Legacies and the Built Environment., Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[3] Duffy, Patrick J. (2007), Exploring the History and Heritage of Irish Landscapes, Four Courts Press, Dublin. (Pg 79, Small Farming in Ireland).
[4] International Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF), Glossary, http://www.urbanform.org/glossary.html
This Article appeared in Architecture Ireland Issue 257
