Good evening everyone. Can you hear
me? I think so. Yes. Thank you
all for coming out this evening. What you're about to
hear will be illumination. Any indication is on Monday
evening. I have a seminar and Rebecca talked through
books that our library has on them. Talked about
some of her knowledge program. Have a beautiful tour
Of Berlin through these books. I really look forward to her
view continuing. If I could make one request for
those who are here for the symposium as presenters or
IAWA board members, you could come down
here after the talk. We'll have some messages.
It's, um this is actually way. We're surprised
, though. It's only - The number is
four. This is the fourth symposium of
this kind the IAWA center
has sponsored here at Virginia Tech.
We made the move to make this in women's month.
So it is an offering to a university program.
Uh, but it's been a treat to
us throughout these four sessions, these four events, to
have a keynote speaker to have beautiful set of presenters.
Presentations will happen tomorrow. On Friday morning in
the Art and Architecture Library. So beautiful setting. Come
in. Thank you. Come in and listen a
bit. If you only have a short time or
listen longer it along so back forth. Say hello
to people. See a poster in stairwells.
Quite Incredible . We're so fortunate, as a Keynote
speaker to kick off this symposium that's expanding the archive
[inaudible] evidence and speculation That's the call that the
presenters are presenting. So I see amazing range
of things. But first of all, I'd like
to say thank you to the College of Architecture and
Urban Studies Diversity Committee. We received support
from that group. We're enlarging our ideas and supporting each
other. About what's there in the world.
Take a look. Find out more about it. So
thank you. Uh, Rebecca Chestnutt, our keynote
speaker, founded Chestnutt_Niess Architekten BDA, 1988 in
Berlin, with her partner Robert Niess. She is a registered
architect, chamber of architects, Berlin and a member of
Bund Deutscher Architekten. She has been recognized by multiple architectural
awards throughout her career, including recognition by
[inaudible], architectural prize for land, and
the IOC IAKS award. During the seminar,
She mentioned that she and her partner
entered a competition for the Jewish Museum and see what
Happens? It's like basketball. If you win
number one, you've got something. But if you
lose, But if you lose, you're really number 2,
right? That's actually good to be number two. So
hey, they placed in that competition. It speaks
to the level of practice they were engaging in.
She's served in several professional and honorary
positions, including member of the Advisory Commission for Architecture
and Urban Development for the City of [inaudible]
, Germany, from 2003 to 2013. Member of
the Professional Women's Advisory Council of the Ministry of Urban
Development, Berlin, Germany. Since 1995 she has served
as a member of the Advancement Committee, Advancement Society for
culture. She has also held several teaching positions
, beginning to the Year 2000 assisting professor Axel Busch
. A brochure later, Preven, the 2003 she
served as guests professor of architecture and urban design at
the coast. Oh sure let her land. Since
2013, she has been chair of graduate program in architectural
H F t Stuttgart, Germany. And! - Rebecca Chestnutt received her
Bachelor of architecture and Master of architecture
from Virginia Tech. Blacksburg, Virginia in 1981!
We're impressed. Uh,
just an aside, away from my notes.
One of the board of Advisors is guided by
the advice of 17 advisers from around the world.
One of those advisers is now an honorary adviser
. Would take Westbrook when Booth occasion to find out
about Rebecca meant for here. Who takes a Rebecca
We thought she was German. She speaks German
so well. So beautiful. Connection, but and founding
uh, Chestnutt Niess in Berlin. She and her
partner, Rebecca, her partner, Robert Niess,
entered into the practice of architecture in one of
the most vibrant cities at a time when the phenomenon
Berlin brought questions and new and urbanism to world attention
. Don't think about that. But through her to
realize this this was a case, um, there
are books that attest to it. That's okay.
All this charged her insights into the making of a
place of architecture. Please join me in welcoming
Rebecca Chestnutt this evening, as she reaches
into practical nature of utopian visions. Thank you, Donna
Oh, everybody always says it. It's a
pleasure to be here, but it really is.
Um, I'm very honored. Very impressed that you
have invited me, and I'm thrilled to share with
you, Uh, my experience of delving into this
theme. When Donna wrote me, would you like to
be the keynote speaker? I thought, Really?
All right. So I wrote Bob and said,
What do you think of this? He said,
Great. So that's kind of way our relationship works.
Then I had to think about - Donna
said you can talk about anything you want, so
I considered that issue and, um, came up
with this, um, theme for my talk might
seem contradictory. Yeah, but I, um I'm
going to try and show you that it isn't.
Yeah. Uh huh. When I chose this theme
, actually, after a while, I was thinking
back, and, um okay. Came upon the
issue that I have been interested in communicating, Let's
say fantastic ideas. Uh, ever since I really
got involved with trying to deal with, um,
participation in planning processes, how do you communicate with
people who do not have the expertise of your architectural
language. Your, um Also your language about understanding
space and or vanity and all of that stuff.
And so you have to find, ah, common
language on, um, this is this is going
to be something that you will see further on in
the lecture. But I'm of the opinion that the
good old collage can be a common language. It's
not difficult. All you have to do is,
you know, kind of jump over your shadow.
And in German, you say, Start using your
hands and feet to communicate. Yeah, so let's
get to the point. What is utopia for the
monk who climbs the ladder to go to the hut
to be there between the ground on the sky?
That's utopia for him or her usually not women monks
. But that might change anyway. Big question.
Is Utopia obsolete? What do you think? It's
an obsolete to think about visionary things? Is there
still a use for visionary thought? I think very
much so. This catalog of an exhibition, um,
was brought out during the I-B-A, IBA,
Internationale Bauausstellung Berlin. That
was way back in 1987 and I'll translate for you
, it means the adventure of the ideas. What
is the adventure of the ideas in terms of the
architecture's and urbanism? And I brought this up out
of the catalog because, according to um, Joseph
Paul Klee, who's who was the director of the
IBA At that point in time, I'll have to
translate this for you. But he says, there
, see there seven columns of architecture. Er one
is geometry. One is construction. One is Harmony
. One is completeness,
oneness, function. One is utopia. Utopia is,
ah, fundamental column of architecture and the last one
is really nice. But I'm not going to talk
about it tonight. And that's the poetry. So
according to a very famous architect who formed a lot
about what Berlin is today, Utopia is a issue
to be taken very seriously. This is this pair
here. This is the function, and this is
his sketch for what is utopia. I'm not going
to bore you and translate all of that. But
there's some nice things in their angel of the history
. Um um the invisible cities of happiness and,
um, sorrow. Yeah. So you can sketch
utopia. I think that utopia is, um,
a very fundamental tool for humanity to define what they
are searching for. Yeah. Uh huh. You
can read. I'll read it, though, Considering
that architecture in the urban fabric are the built expression
of a society, they reflect its character and structure
. Yeah, one point. As a young student
, you might think that architecture can change society,
but it's actually the society and its needs that changes
architecture and urban urbanist IQ, um, situations,
the urban urban growth, etcetera settlement. I have
a problem with the English definition of urban urbanist IQ
because actually, I'm always talking about settlement, if
little or big. So just keep that in mind
. One example. You could put any picture of
any culture in the world up there to make this
point. It could be the New York skyline.
It could be the Taj Mahal. I chose this
one. It's you probably know it if you don't
. If you're in our student of architecture, you
should, um, it shows the urban fabric of
the city of Rome, illustrating, um, public
space within buildings and the connections, uh, to
a public space outside of buildings. In the forming
of that space. Oh, So note that down
if you want. What am I trying to say
with that? What we're talking about, what I
want to talk to you about is the connection between
herbs and Civitas. Now, what is that?
You probably have an idea of what CV Tusk could
be. Could mean, But maybe herbs is.
You know, that's one of those little root words
. Um, the definition I found says that herbs
is the place of Union of or re union.
Um, yeah, for people, of course.
See, Vitter's is the Association off People's or you
could say tribes, families. So you've got our
association are society are relationships, but we need place
. And so what we're talking about is the fundamental
connection between civic society and the place it needs and
how that is defined by the society. Here is
one of our own little utopias art. And I
, um, submitted this. It was actually a
newspaper, a little newspaper, um, to an
exhibition at the storefront gallery in 19. I'll guess
86. The theme was that homes for the homeless
on. We said the homeless are not homeless just
because they don't have in apartment maybe it was wrong
, but it was our thesis on we said,
Actually, we wanted to make the city livable.
Like a jungle is livable for humans at times on
what is it necessary? And we played with elements
to redefine scale in the city. We took,
of course, New York as, uh, you
know, iconographic a city. And we said that
you have to make installments in the city so that
the different levels of society and clear, including the
homeless, can make the city their home. So
but what is utopia? I've used the word now
a number of times. What is utopia? All
of you probably have a thought about that. Well
, it was actually, let's call it a novel
. Sir Thomas More wrote a story about a place
, and he called that place utopia. And that
place Utopia, as you see in the Entitled In
the Cover of his book was an island. And
this island was obviously not easily accessible because it was
a very, very special place. In a nutshell
, he said it was a place where people were
relieved of the stress and strain of competition and enjoyed
a healthy life of industrial togetherness. Kind of like
that. Don't nail me down to these quotes.
You need to read this stuff yourself. I've got
a long list of literature for you. Um wow
. Okay, so he coined the word. It
was an invention. Utopia, obviously, was an
invention. It literally translates as nowhere. It is
the formulation of a vision of a better place.
And it was very popular to form visions of better
places in the late 19th mend on into the early
20th century, Charles for yea conceived it as,
let's say, a for sigh like palace. Um
, but it was not a sequence of rooms.
It was a village, if you want to call
it a village. And it had a particular system
to it. Um, in any case, it
was the palace as a community with look. Presumably
, the first idea about the interior street. Um
, it's just a example. People were thinking about
this. Yeah, And if you delve into these
guys back then who were writing about utopia and finding
physical built forms for it, you'll realize that historically
, utopia have provided the catalyst for social improvement because
they were addressing issues that were not addressable. Yeah
, So what's that mean for us? It means
we need toe use, utopian our visions, maybe
a little bit analytically, and find out what they
do for us. Some basic components I've found out
. This is not all inclusive, but some basic
components of utopia have been emancipation, Um, of
all kinds. I'm not only talking about the man
woman relationship, you have to remember and look at
where society is in different places. To date,
emancipation is a major issue consistently, and everybody who
wrote utopian visions was talking about emancipation as a key
issue, then self sufficiency. Now that's utopian,
right? Felt sufficiency and communal property. We could
get a little bit dangerous with that. Anyway,
some of these guys actually even realized, um,
but not completely. That's the point that's coming.
This is an ideal drawing of the Town of Show
that was designed by Claude Nicolas Lou do, um
, and as you see, his idea of utopia
centered around a particular industry, and it had the
form of a circle, and it had the form
of out laying public institutions, and the housing was
actually in the middle. One model of a utopian
, um, town, you can go there.
You can see it. Like I said, Onley
half of the, um of the Ellipse or the
Yeah, I got got realized. Then there was
Robert Owens getting a little bit closer. Tow home
. This is a utopian idea that got, uh
, exported to the United States. If you look
for the Town of Harmony in Indiana, you will
find it. There was a number of attempts to
establish a utopian town, according to Owens. There
also, As you see, it's some sort of
a connection between a clearly defined place in the landscape
. That's the point we're going to get to further
, um, and in harmony, there was a
number off attempts to actually do that again. It
had to do with this principles I was talking about
. Here is a drawing off what harmony should look
like also. I mean, you have to remember
these, um, concepts are being developed in
the age of the Industrial Revolution, with all of
its, um, the social inadequacies for people.
Uh, and here you see these lovely little town
houses, row houses, forming the border, all
looking out, not being defensive, and the industry
in the middle Now we come to the things about
names and and how, um, land it's developed
. Uh, this is the American approach with the
the segmentation of the parcel down to the smallest or
the naming off towns like Eden. That sounds pretty
utopian, Um, or here also the formal plans
that were conceived as How does the built world in
a weave the man made environment in a we've with
the natural environment. So we are to the point
of are the terms utopia and architecture a contradiction?
Historically, they have inevitably, inevitably been built entities
and as an expression of utopian visions. So one
you might be well familiar with the society of Shakers.
. We're getting a little bit closer to practicality.
Mount Lebanon was one of their major settlements, and
also they had a very, very let's call it
geometrically ideal plan of their town. And the interesting
thing is, is this has nothing to do with
the physical plan, but it has a huge amount
of symbolism in it with, let's say, the
satellites of the town of the different areas of the
town, using the circle as a and perfect ideal
, um, geometric expression, what it really looks
like Well, I don't know if it really looks
like this, but the drawing of the settlement It's
very interesting, a road that goes through the entire
thing. And as you see the different so called
families and the families were had, each of them
different. Um, let's say positions as the communicators
to the rest of the world. The so called
Northern family located here had was more the what's called
the communication, um, to the outside world,
that was their main responsibility. Now then, the
Shakers. There was one little problem with their utopia
, but it was based on the thought of I
don't know if you know this, um that overpopulation
was a concern to them, and that is why
they were celibate. And they only took at it
adoptive Children into their community. They were a society
. Let's call it that conceived itself as a new
orphanage in the best sense. So, uh,
but it is difficult to run a society where,
um, sexual intercourse is banned up for any animal
, including humans. Um, they were very,
very practical people, but there idea of utopia was
also based on these common factors of there. is
, um, theme property is communal, that the
goal of the society is to be very, very
efficient and simple, and that they expressed in their
industries. The Shakers were the first people in the
United States that developed horticulture in the sense of harvesting
seeds to be sold. They were highly industrious.
They were not reclusive. But like I said,
each family had their own little or little own position
within the community. What they're very well known for
is their furniture. This'll book is in your library
on Found it. Yesterday they there was a lot
of let's say, clear line simply nous but utility
utilitarianism in everything that they did here is the the
tool box. Some of the little details that they
develop their very telling, for example. No,
this picture is not upside down. This little ah
molding on the wall was you will always find it
in every, um, house or building of the
Shakers because it provided them for the ability to remove
everything from the floor so that it could be efficiently
cleaned. Now I know efficient cleaning is getting a
long ways away from Utopia. But what they were
achieving with their basic social thought for the and the
products that they were then producing, I think was
very impressive. So they did not survive. Unfortunately
, fortunately, life or let's say, history marches
on the settlements that have been realized under utopian,
um, thought have been conceived and realized they have
often failed, but some have survived. More importantly
, they have led to changing ideals in urban design
processes. So everybody knows. Frank Lloyd Wright,
right, is an American architect and student of architecture
. You know Frank Lloyd Wright? Well, Frank
Lloyd Wright was a utopian in his development of broad
acre city. You see again, Oh, a
little while later that you see again basic element of
small industry, little farms, recreation, big arena
, and so on so forth. This is now
the model that he built, but the thing that
I thought was really truly amusing about broad acre city
where his visualizations Now, this is not, um
, a harmless project from Frank Lloyd Wright. But
look at this. Here you see these funny little
car sort of things halfway between. And then there's
some sort of flying machine and the air and a
nice tower, and, uh, you foe that
landed somewhere here in an area across from the arena
and so on and so forth. Well, what
did Frank Lloyd Wright's, um, brought a car
city lead leave to it led a little bit,
too. Um uh, the sort of thing that
we have of, Ah, house and a parcel
in a house and a parcel in a house and
a parcel. And then somewhere there's a center of
the town. And then there's a house and a
parcel in a house and a parcel, and that
has gotten somewhat problematic, to put it mildly,
in the development of the American city. Yeah,
so but taking that point, I came upon the
thought that I've wanted toe. That's look at what
are key factors in these issues of utopian visions as
and as an idea to follow in terms of settlement
and yeah, the common trends of thought reflect,
among other issues, these air what I have filtered
out, Ah, dualism of the natural environment and
man made structures and the interface between individual space and
grades of social and communal space. Take those two
factors, and that's what we're struggling with. Continually
. I have two graphics for you. That kind
of look at this interweaving of the manmade and the
natural environment. One is Martin Wagner out of Martine
Wagner's dissertation. You may not know who Martin Wagner
is, but he was a huge figure in German
urban planning theme. The end of the, um
, 19th century going into the 20th century. And
what has he drawn here? What is he illustrating
? This is, Ah, plan of Berlin with
the Mass, the body of the built urban form
in the middle, and let's call them strains of
vegetation leading into town and free areas around it.
And he didn't abstract study asking, How does how
can the natural landscape I'll say, infiltrate the city
? How do you structure that? How do you
structure that? And that was one of his and
whole breaks major contributions to the quality of the city
of Berlin that, um, it does. They
considered green space to be a net necessary, um
, infrastructure for a Vince city. Anyway, you
can have green filter in, uh, finger like
you can do it in concentric circles. You can
do a combination of the two, um, so
just illustrating that that might be an issue. Helmand
heads Bagger. You certainly know the architect Hermann Harris
Burger. He illustrated it in a different way.
In his book Lessons for Students in Architectures, he
calls it traditional. He says a city block has
a green interior. That's not completely true then he
says, But you turn it inside out and that
might be more interesting. Maybe. And then he
says, Oh, why do you need streets anyway
? Little, um, tip, by the way
, On the basis of that, graphic is,
if you're dealing with a design problem, turn it
inside out. It always helps just to make sure
that you understand how it works. We're getting to
the idea of the Garden City. I'm still talking
about this crucial, crucial issue of what is the
interface between the man made environment and the natural environment
. Yeah, Ebenezer Howard started the Garden
City movement in England, and, um, I
think this is always very amusing again. It's a
plan of, ah, particular size of area for
population. This is ideal 5000 acres for 32,000 people
he's got. That's the agricultural land. Excuse me
. The city should take up 1000 acres of that
he's got a central park in the middle houses and
gardens around it. Rail station. It's all there.
I find this to be quite amusing. Um
, diagram only! Plan cannot be drawn until site
selected! And always, I think, it's amusing.
. But he had an affect. This is the
point that at that point in time, a Garden
City waas uh, utopian idea now the Broadacre
city from Frank Lloyd Wright. And this is maybe
even, um, at the same time, you
just always have to put things in a row.
But we're now with the Garden City. I
wanted to tell you that, um, it is
a concept that really took hold and was realized in
England - in Letchworth initially and it highly affected,
um, the urban development of Berlin. To the
extent that today there are five garden cities that were
developed as a = let's call it antithesis to the
densely built block of the industrial um, substance and
and housing Berlin. Um, that provided, uh,
space for families in a living condition that they
was smaller scale and yet conceived that it provided community.
This is just the picture of the plan.
This is what it looks like and this is and
it works. This is the Hufeisensiedlung
in Berlin, and it works. It's
a major artery with this large form with the let's
call it a head frontal building for the shops and
services. And these are all apartments and these
are smaller apartments and they have central garden within the
horseshoe form. But look at this. This is
the street that connects these row houses in each of
the row houses has a garden in the back and
there is what you can't see. Hear exactly.
There's also a small, um, cart path and
footpath separating the gardens there to to be able to
, um, service them so to say, um
, beautiful place to live. And it results out
of looking back at that point time, a utopian
vision. Henirich Tessenow. Also a
German architect within this kind of a movement. Um
, not exactly the modernist that Bruno Taut ws.
I'm sorry I didn't mention the name a moment ago
Bruno Taut very, very important, um,
German architect who wrote a lot of theory about the
role of architectures and, um design as a defining
factor for society. Um, anyway, Heinrich Tessenow
wasn't quite so visionary, but I thought
that this drawing showed you very well the
thought of the self sufficiency. Remember that term,
um, was provided for through the fact that every
family has a garden. And yet it is
a new urban entity, not some sort of every
man for himself. Sprawl. So the essence of
, ah, utopia of a new utopia is that
it - It's very goal is to place everything in
question, even reality, which is exactly It's very
useful aspect In the world of scientific research. The
most important results generally occur while trying to obtain fundamentally
inaccessible knowledge. That means experimentation, free experimentation.
I can't give you those great examples in architecture,
but I can give you one example of a man
who tried to redefine what Berlin would be could be
. Let's start with a small little thing.
Hans Scharoun is the name of the architect. And
this was his general plan for the Hansa Vertel in
Berlin. That was Berlin's first international building exhibition.
And if you look at that, that is the
let's say that's the antithesis to the Garden City.
It is the object in the garden concept for
Hansa Vertel. This is, uh is in
the center of town at, um, right next
to the tear garden. But more importantly, with
Han Scharoun was his concept of the, um he
called it Stadt Landschaft. He wanted to say
that the city is no longer city. That city
can be formed as landscape. That was this theoretical
basis behind his design for this Kultur form in
Berlin, in Berlin. This was his model.
I looked at it again and thought, Wow,
you know, why don't we just finally really do
this idea with the, um with the square in
front of the church? But that's a tip for
insiders. Excuse me. Anyway, the Philharmonie in
Berlin and the Stads Bibliotek the, uh
, city and state library were the realization of
what he had defined as the city as landscape and
that was absolutely, completely revolutionary. Also has created
problems ever since. But now I've come to the
best example. In my opinion, there's certainly a
lot of them but the best example, in my
opinion of what is truly the practicality off realizing a
utopian vision as, ah, form of settlement.
Um, this one might surprise you, but it's
very interesting and touches on very relevant issues today.
I believe so, referring back to the built environment
. The question is, if utopian visions come provide
a basis of communication in order to redefine architectural urbanist
IQ ideals. What? We're looking at our two
attitudes to planning the keep its in at that point
in time. Palestina, the founding state of Israel
. The kibbutz- I don't know if I'm pronouncing
that correctly or not. Um was the form of
settlement, um that was developed and realized by the
Jewish as the as the immigration process was um uh
, occurring out of Europe into Palestine and into the
founding state of Israel. And it was a community
based on those principles of common property communal space,
agricultural self sufficiency, um, educational, um,
um, freedom, emancipation, etcetera. And there
are two different attitudes here. This is the first
one, um, from Arieh Sharon and his
design was how the seed of the settlement would grow
as the plots would be laid out as the settlement
center would be established first with the communal um,
institutions. Usage is always revolving around eating. And
, um um, uh, entertainment, social intercourse
and so on. And then first the the individual
housing. Now, then, the next one I
fell in to be even more interesting because I'm coming
back to an issue that I I thought I was
going to be talking about. Um, and I
will be! Excuse me. Um, Samuel Bicklels
believed completely that if a community was supposed to,
um, live peacefully prosperously and industriously, then that
community needed that the able to help plan, help design
there. Settlement. And so this was his idea
That looks familiar. The radial form of the different
things. The most important. The dining hall and
the daycare center and stuff like that in the middle.
Um, but he developed this model of kit
of parts to design with the community. There are
a lot of things I could tell you about the
kibbutz, but I picked one thing that I think
is, um maybe opens the window thio some of
today's issues. This is Maika Haas. She was
not an architect. She was, um, teacher
, pedagogue. And she believed very much that Children
should not only have freedom in their movements, but
also gain a freedom in, or, let's say
, lack of, um, fear, of, waste.
But I have to turn that inside out. Meaning
there should be no waste. Meaning that she said
one of the most important pedagogic elements of the schools
and day care centers she helped design was the so
called junk yard. Everything that was somehow no longer
needed waste whatever junk what became the playground so that
the Children would find continuously ways to deal with,
experiment with, play with these things and think about
our issues today. What are we doing with our
waste? Yeah, so I thought that was very
fascinating. Now, getting back to that point of
what got me into this, um, experiments in
communicating utopia. Um, the collage. This is
not a collage that my office did. This is
a collage that friends colleagues of ours did. Um
, yes. Actually, it's just a design for
a big amusement park on a peninsula in Berlin,
as a matter of fact, with the river running
around it. And yet, if you look in
there, you find all sorts very, very interesting
situations. Yeah, um, that kind of I
saw that kind of parallel and I was invited as
a speaker and the leader of a workshop, Um
, at this conference in Kiev two years ago.
It's got a odd title there violence and architecture and
urban space. And it was a woman's conference on
this issue. What is that? What does that
mean? And the they were addressing their problems in
Kiev. Kiev is a city where I'll say capitalism
. Um, run amok after the, um
you know, in simple terms, the wall came
down after the demise of the Soviet Union,
to the point that nobody that they have going on
there, let's call it pirating off important spaces to
, um, uh, pipe. I'll just leave
it at pirating and abuse anyway. So this conference
was told I was supposed to come in and give
a talk and lead a workshop, As I said
about realizing, um, the principles of gender mainstreaming
in participation off in participation process for designing public space
for a group of young women. So we went
to the site. This is a very practical little
exercise. We went to the site and looked around
, and it was, um, such a complete
chaos of completely different influences and situations and so on
and so forth. This is a major barracks right
downtown. This is huge housing complex is going on
. This is the answer to a playground within a
housing complex of thousands of families. Um, this
was the path, um, around the complex,
back to the barracks and whatever in ST situation,
maybe it's not that important. But so for these
women with having no, um, tools whatsoever to
affect the decisions being made about how these, um
, spaces were to be developed, the sheer thought
of we can express our visions of what needs to
be utopian. All right, so let's make a
collage. There's a whole process. I don't want
to bore you with it, but we establish what
are their issues? We established What are their concerns
? We establish what they might think could be solutions
. We categorized and organized and debated and laid it
all out and came up with this plan. Now
that plan is not very readable. I know I'm
terribly sorry, but I'll zoom in a little bit
for you anyway. This is the form of the
barracks. Amazingly interesting space when you look at it
. These here, That's the actual plan of the
city. The map of the city that I've got
my hand right there. That led to this.
Now then these are, interior waste garden or
not, even garden wasted interior spaces of a major
huge housing thing. This is a main road in
that they thought should be designed in a particular way
. Let's just say they had a day and a
half to define their issues and come up with their
vision a day and a half. And they did
it and it was great. This was so to
say, the last little, um, finish line
situation you're seeing there. And then they presented it
. These are some zoom-ins of the collage
. Um, you have to bear with us.
You know, we're trying to visualize utopia here.
Uh, here. What could happen is public space
in in, um, that little square. But
I don't need to go into it. Look here
. The the that closed off area of the the
barracks is in the in the army base should be
opened up for events. Uh uh, yeah.
Here. The obviously the playground in the in the
inner court, etcetera. Then they also came up
with these statements. These statements of Vince City is
not only an issue of urban space, it's an
issue of urban activity. Is there statement there?
Um, the not profit. First people first,
the neighbors living room. How do you interface private
and public space for issues that for these women,
it was not possible for them to articulate in a
planning context? Um, and then they did in
this manner. And then they went out and,
um, started using these collages, to create
discussion. So where is this leading us? Yeah
, that was a little exercise. What is envisioning
the future? What are we talking about today?
What's wrong way? Sorry. Change is discontinuity.
This was an article in online magazine from the
Ball Vet recently. A couple of years ago.
People all over the world are working currently on utopian
visions. Now you may or may not understand them.
This one is odd, very difficult to read
, but it is a model of a place where
you can travel without moving. traveling without moving.
It's an odd idea, but here, um,
from the UAE factory, every city should get a
second layer of green buildings above them in order to
generate good growth, air, etcetera. Or this?
Um uh uh, this is a It should be
a factory for, uh, for recycling and burning
waste. Yeah. Oh, are we going to
start making architectures look like landscape, or be landscape? I
was recently at a meeting where a colleague of well
known by the name of Max Dudler was bitterly complaining
because the, um, representative of the Green Party
was saying your building, it doesn't have enough green on
it and, um, you need to make it
, you know, put more vegetables in your architectures
, basically, And Max said, Well, you
know what I really do think that there has to
be integrity between what is architecture and what is natural
environment. It's not going to - in his opinion - he
thought that was a difficult issue. And I think
it is a critical issue whichever way you think about
it, however, which way you go with it
. So what does vertical density development look like?
Is there the possibility of communal urban space in here
again from the wife factory? They were death and
they go out, they go out and build these
things as urban interventions. Uh, in our seminar
, we were talking about urban activism. Um,
chatting them. You've got the leave planet Earth scenarios
. What does that look like? Is that Ah
, Utopia. I mean, sure, look at
all that great stuff, all of that. You
know, in a weaving of place for people.
Our herbs, place for union, reunion, on our Civitas,
and farming is everywhere. They're they're developing farms for
your refrigerator, you know that? Anyway, beautiful landscape
, it's in outer space. It's that utopia.
But it will lead us somewhere. I'm telling you
so that's what the whole That's what the architecture looks
like. Yeah, One quick little thing. Real
Opportunities for utopias. The International Building exhibition I've There
was one. They've been numbers off them throughout Germany
. It's a fabulous institution, the International Building Exhibition
, because it has this one great aspect to it
. You can say all planning regulations are off.
It's a free for all if you convince people of
the idea that we can experiment with architectures. So
anyway, the region of Stuttgart is planning an IBA
for 2027. It's the centennial of Weissenhof
Siedlung. I hope that says something to
you. And they will be continual summer schools for
all of the architecture schools in, uh, Stuttgart
and the area. And, um, internationally,
also invited to envision the future of Stuttgart. And
I had a little seminar with some graduate students.
Um, in preparation of that summer school, and
we started off with the big map, the the
zoning map of, um, of the area of
Stuttgart. And I said, Okay, put in
your claim stakes there. What do you want?
Just place them somewhere, and then come start putting
in imagery. Now, I know you can't read
this, but well, again, go in a
little bit. So and they started coming up with
whatever. Um, curvy highways. Um uh,
mobility instruments of the future. Um, uh,
water Buses. They were very interested in green vegetable
like architectures. Um, highly, highly interested in
that, Um, and then we started going in
a little bit further and getting some clear images of
different areas. Um and then where maybe the,
um, real expansion of the city could be because
Stuttgart is kind of in a bowl and kind of
got itself into a dead end there, So Yeah
, And that was the basis, Then, um
, for them to go into the summer school Because
with that, they had their visions and could communicate
with the other students involved from a idea. So
and then this year, um, the summer school
2018 had the motto of the future will be bright
and shiny. I hope so. And that was
a vision. Uh, uh huh. That was
a not a collage, but a visualization of what
the summer school thought. Maybe downtown Stuttgart could end
up looking at. So that is where I brought
to tell you about Utopia. And it's practical nature
. Thank you very much. Okay. Yeah.
I hope it wasn't too long. Oh, questions
discussions. Absolutely. So how do we get the
lights back up? Yeah, yeah, yes.
Fine. The human. The party? Yeah
. Final. Uh huh. Uh, have emerged
It's was fire Cool. Absolutely busy.
I flew with, uh, make it possible at
least, uh, yeah, mhm. That was
in an example of a utopia as a let's say
, self sufficient entity of the foundation of a,
um, secure society for the Jews. I'm well
aware of the the flip side, the colonial issue
. Um, and, um, I found it
to be fascinating. It's now. Then, from
my point of view to say, who else could
out of there, um, history out of there
, trying to maintain their culture, actually have the
inner power to realize and live a utopia that we're
disregarding what you're talking about, which is obviously also
a valid point. But for me, that was
the connection. Yeah, And if you study the
cape, it's It's also, uh, uh gives
you examples of all of these issues of in a
while tweeting in a interweaving of the natural landscape,
the placement of agriculture in relationship to the built areas
. The communal space is the, uh, the
relinquishing of private space, etcetera. So I would
be thrilled if someone else has a statement or a
question. My intention was to open a dialogue here
, right? Yes, it's Yeah. Are Uh
huh. Yeah, and there's not right medication.
A modern Yes. Yeah, uh, see what
they are all disaster. That's Yeah, violence
and start. Begin. 15. Okay. You
about the world? I just Mm. Yeah,
um, my feeling is we desperately in need of
utopian visions. that Z and I have a lot
of literature. And I didn't quote anything because I
was going to get myself into a quagmire. Uh
, quotation. So I'm sorry if it's remained a
little bit on the surface, but there's a fabulous
article here about the necessity to go back to Utopia
as a means of emancipation of positivism. Uh huh
. What? Yeah, and but now we're looking
for the positive, right? We're looking for the
solutions. And the point is, is that you're
not going to get there if you just start keep
on looking at Where's the solution to my problem?
Yes. Could never have been incredibly with 24.
Look great, Because what is the whole point?
Something totally. This was moderate. I was told
. You know myself, right? The warrant was
so our bill so hard of botanist apartment. Sorry
was what was so bad. So do you wake
up that occupant? It would have been impossible said
there's you tell me this. I think it does
. Take what kind of post post bar t right
to make impossible to even write something like what you
just wrote. Yep. Yeah, yes. Beautiful
stuff. Technical prospects. I'm doctor. That excuse
? That's good, because you already mentioned last matter
the last talk about Let's take the idea of sauce
, right. Our these are It's also speak.
It's back, man. So? So So?
Yet? Yeah. So it up to today back
there is a line. Okay? Yeah, exactly
right. I mean, along those lines. You
know what? You're much better expert on the subject
. That is what I understood already through our little
chat. This this afternoon s Oh, no,
I did not delve into the Sun City. But
what occurs to me is that a something that is
going on very much in, um, Germany and
specifically in Berlin is this thought of the urban intervention
. The activism of we will change a piece of
city even if it's on Lee Street Corner, because
we're going to come in with a army of urban
activists and we're going to work on it for a
week and Macon installation that changes the place radically as
acupuncture. Sort of an attitude. And that is
one side of the story, the other side of
the story or the other aspect, which is clearly
clearly missing is that the fear off really truly socially
conceptual thought about urbanism today. Um, who's out
there? Yeah. I mean, yes, I
just is there in Tokyo that exists a dark.
Of course, there isn't a utopia that exists.
Utopia does not exist. Uh, well, yeah
, that's a very, very big issue. And
that is a very big issue that also, particularly
here, leads down that very slippery path towards socialism
. Mo. Um, just to get that clear
, I am not a socialist or communist, but
it has every single utopian, um uh, model
that I have come into contact with to this point
in time of my short little wonderful research that very
glad I had the opportunity to, has had that component
. But I'll give you an example in housing.
I don't know if this is arrived here, but
in housing design in Germany and Switzerland, the buzz
word the buzz um uh, idea is so called
cluster apartments. The cluster apartment has the basic thought
of will turn an apartment into a village. This
sort of entity, everybody who lives in this building
or this apartment or this level or this whatever will
only have a very, very minimal little private
space But since we all get together and all of
us have only that little minimal private space, we
can use all that other space that usually gets built
anyway. Four more of everything for all of us
. Um, work space will, um, recreation
, space, living space, dining space, whatever
. So that's a, um, but yes,
that's who gets to - who has to live in the
dumb old apartment. Oh, yeah. Yes,
yeah. Not that How [inaudible[ families spaces? Uh
, angrily. Yeah, Yeah, I It is
. What? Z uh, so a glass case
has It's horrible work. That's great. That's spoken
A Yeah, but that investment Mhm. So maybe
that's a good place to stop. Fine. Are
there other questions, people Rebecca will be here to
hold participating in the symposium will have many opportunities for
you all the way. Yeah, the parts abilities
. And if you see a to see a talk
that's going on our other please engage that person.
I think the question it is interesting, particularly the
last part of about co housing and utopian United States
. And my question in Berlin Oh, there,
like we're starting out here, we live green work
that I'm not familiar with the term we lived through
ISS A business? Um Hmm. Where those who
work. Are you also? Yeah. Oh,
yeah. Sorry. The are you all familiar with
? We live, we work. It started.
It started Thio course Come about. Because department crisis
, where five was interesting, actually pay at the
end of the day, if you're actually more than
that, but its destruction kind of housing, but
managed housing where you buy into the situation with rent
, you have a very small room. Perhaps a
bathroom, Likely Not likely. Not a kitchen.
The managing entity. Then bring us that group of
people together on a regular basis. It's a way
to live in a city. That's but it has
a very strong commercial faces. I don't know where
really work are on the stock exchange. Sure,
they're very close. You? How did your e
housing You want e houses? Three years. So
, uh, but co house, I think it's
different because the house is so much about protect.
Uh huh. His co housing with beautiful utopia.
Question Our utopia is possible. The whole Aziz said
that term means no both good places, no place
. So it's something that's never actually possible. But
the idea of housing has all together is that it's
It's so different from the way we live because it
is completely organized by the residents because it's always exclusive
in south way or something. That's not who did
it. And it is manufactured but chosen, manufactured
by the residents, that doesn't have the commercial hole
. That this element of centralized commercial control So not
utopia complete opposite of emancipation. It's self determination.
Control. This is ultimately a corporate venture. Yeah
, course. And all those were prevention workers.
So good way. Essentially slaves. Yeah, talk
about e the way the idea of pushing forward,
Uh, what are what are dark sides? But
I think what you're seeing is really interesting is that
we need visionary aspects in order to imagine Absolutely.
Yeah. Uh, it's a catalyst of the imagination
. Yes. All right. The second okay is
actually his patient Sounds like sweets. Residents? Yes
. Expensive. Officially. Get watch. Mhm bathrooms
. Now, students have a different desire. There
is someone Would you like? Yeah, this year
, things like that. Our house is are working
others Currently it's next. Okay, Vegetables there.
So such work allows transition from hiring especially martyrs.
My work that they didn't have. Mm, that's
that's an interesting point. But, um, if
we're going to wrap up, I'd like Thio move
this a little bit away from the one issue of
housing and back to a a little bit broader.
Um, of ah, what's call it playing field
. You might call it battlefield on. That is
what are we going to dio? How are we
going to integrate the necessary natural environment into our cities?
How are we going to maintain the density that
the city needs? Although we're integrating that because we
need the infrastructure that demands density, how are we
going to meet? Deal with the rampant, um
, use of resources and resources and production of waste
? What's going to happen? And how can that
be addressed? Yeah, and that is why I've
read a lot of voices over the past few weeks
that called very, very specifically for the next necessity
of freedom of vision. Because we're not gonna get
to a sustainable, viable global society. The way
we're going talk about exclusionism. Yeah,
so I would be very interested to talk
further with anybody who wants to debate those issues with
architectural and urbanistic ideas. No, thank
you. Very welcome.
[Applause]