Download Theory and history of housing – setting the stage

The Social in Architecture
26. August 2013 / Eli Støa
Questions given to students:
1. What are the main social challenges of our time?
2. How may architecture make a change?
3. Can you think of any examples where architectural interventions have
contributed to social change?
In this lecture:
 Start with a few words about the background for this topic
 Then some general reflections about the purpose of architecture
 Present briefly some theoretical approaches to how to understand the
relationship between architecture and social life
 Present and discuss some examples of social visions within architecture
 Finally – together - outline some issues which exemplifies the relevance of this
topic
Background
Most architects are concerned about social issues – and as you have read in the text
by Awan et al – most of them, and at least most students, claim that they want to
design buildings and make the world a better place (p37). By the way, quite in line
with the vision of our university: Knowledge for a better world.
However when it comes to the daily working life of most architects, it may seem that
other agendas play the dominant role: Being more or less dependent on the visions
and money of investors and developers (or lack of visions), objectives related to
profit, branding, market etc seem to overshadow ideas of social equity, well-being for
vulnerable groups, social integration and so on.
Still, I believe – even if it may be easy enough for me being paid by the state and not
having to compete so much for commissions out there in the ‘real world’ – that there
are areas in our society where we as architects could and should play a more active
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role. One way of doing so, I believe, is through being attentive to commissions that
may mean something for people and even vulnerable groups, that deals seriously
with social and other challenges in our time, and not only the ones that strengthen
our status within the profession (such as prestigious cultural institutions, housing for
the well off etc). Examples of such tasks are social housing, housing for homeless
and refugees – and one of the reasons why we have chosen the latter as the topic for
housing design studio for the second time this semester.
Teddy Cruz as an example: Casa Familiar as an alternative client
Process initiated and led by a community, non-profit organization (not private
investors developers). This organization has been a mediating agency between the
municipality and the neighborhood – facilitating knowledge, policy, micro-credits. And
the architect’s commitment is to this group and not to the buildings authorities and/or
developers. Interesting aspect of this project – which is about building housing for
poor people, but still they emphasizes the public rooms and social meeting places such as church, marked places etc.
The purpose of architecture / ethical considerations
So to return to the fundamental question: What is the purpose of housing?
There are several reasons for making architecture. And architecture may be
conceived and appreciated from many perspectives.
Since Vitruvius, it has be common to talk about three dimensions or qualities of
architecture: Utilitas – Firmitas – Venustas. Translated into purposes or objectives
this would be something like:
Utilitas / Commodity: Buildings should be fit for the purpose for which they were
designed (functonality)
Firmitas / Firmness: They should be soundly built and durable (technology)
Venustas / Delight: They should be good-looking; their design should please the eye
and the mind (aesthetics).
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These three dimensions of architectural quality are probably well-known for all of you
- It may seem obvious that architecture should meet functional, aesthetical as well as
technical needs and requirements. If we start digging a bit more into these concepts,
it may however not be so simple after all.
For example: What do we mean by functional? Or what is it to fit the purpose? It
depends on who you ask: The end-user (future residents?), the neighbors, the
general public, the investors, the politicians ..? The same questions could be asked
when it comes to the aesthetic dimensions. What is best for the individual is not
necessarily best for society as whole and vice versa. (I won’t deal so much with the
technical elements now – but also in this case: we are all fully aware of the fact that
there are several schools and movements / ideologies also when it comes to which
technical solutions are the right ones)
As architects we make choices. When we make design proposals or plans, and our
ideas are based on our professional judgment of what the best or most appropriate
solution is. But this judgement is based on values. Who is the design solution good
for? (the single individual that may be able to afford it? Or the society?) Who decides
if a project is successful? The end user, the developer or the professional community
of architects? In which ways is it good or appropriate?
And which criteria are quality assessment within our profession based on? Usability
for whom? Aesthetical – from which perspective?
What we do as architects will directly and indisputably affect people and the society.
This may seem obvious – and something you have all heard several times. The
reasons why I would like to focus on this, is that although obvious – it is not quite
clear how this happens.
We would all without doubt agree that the aim of architecture is to add value in some
way or another. Isabelle Doucet problematize the question of added value in
architecture in one of the articles in your reading list (strongly recommended!).
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“Architects may intend to add value, to bring something good to the world, transform
it or make things better, yet despite such good intentions they have also been
blamed for making things worse” (p27)
She uses the modernist architecture as example and concludes that “architecture’s
adding of value is anything but straightforward” (p28)
Example: Pruitt-Igoe, St. Louis Missouri: Completed 1956. Architect.
Pruitt-Igoe has lived on symbolically as an icon of failure
The Pruitt–Igoe complex was composed of 33 buildings of 11 stories each on the
Near North Side of St. Louis. Designed by Minoru Yamasaki who later designed the
World Trade Center in Manhatten, New York.
In 1951 the journal Architectural Forum praised Yamasaki's original proposal as "the
best high apartment" of the year. Residents were raised up to 11 floors above ground
in an attempt to save the grounds and ground floor space for communal activity. The
layout was praised as "vertical neighborhoods for poor people". However, parking
and recreation facilities were inadequate; playgrounds were added only after tenants
petitioned for their installation. Despite this and poor building and material quality,
Pruitt–Igoe was initially seen as a breakthrough in urban renewal.
During the years to come the area deteriorated and by the end of the 1960s, Pruitt–
Igoe was nearly abandoned and had become a decaying, dangerous, crime-infested
neighborhood with many empty flats and a lot of social problems. In the period
between1971 and 1976, the state and federal authorities agreed to demolish the
whole area.
Designed by a leading architect and won a "building of the year" award (though no
professional awards), the failure of Pruitt – Igoe is often seen as a failure of the
modern movement and its failure to create socially well-functioning neighborhoods.
Others argue that location, population density, cost constraints, and even specific
number of floors were imposed by the federal and state authorities and therefore
cannot be attributed entirely to architectural factors.
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Isabelle Doucet questions in her article if adding value through building is principally
in the hands of the architect, and argues that value is just as much created by use –
that is by the users of the building and the society it is a part of. And she further
concludes that “the added value of architecture is not something one can pin down
once and for all. (..) not something we can define in theory and then apply as an
analytical tool to practice” (p29)
As you understand, there are no simple answers or straightforward correlations, but
my hope for this semester is that we all bring our self a small step forward in our
reflections about the relationship between architecture and society (opening up for
“.. exploring the complex workings of architecture and its messy engagement with the
world” Doucet, p29).
In order to do so, it may be helpful to introduce a theoretical framework and some
concepts – before we look and discuss some architectural examples.
Theoretical approaches
The idea of architecture as a tool for social change is not new. However, our
understanding of the relationship between the built environment and its users has
shifted during the course of history, from rather simplistic beliefs in deterministic
correlations to strong doubts regarding the impact of architecture. Today, there
seems to be renewed interest in the idea of architects and planners as agents of
change, and of architecture’s capacity for agency.
What is agency in architecture??
Is it possible to say that architecture is an agent?
In order to discuss these questions, we may get help of some social scientists and
thinkers.
We start with the concept of Habitus. Already in 1977, the French sociologist Pierre
Bourdieu made an influential contribution to the conceptualization of the role of the
built environment, not only as a cultural expression but also as a factor in the process
of continuous cultural modification. He regarded the layout and practice of a house
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as essential for individuals’ appropriation of “habitus,” defined as “schemes of
perception, conception, and action common to all members of the same group or
class.” (Bourdieu, 1977).
“..a practical sense, an acquired system of preferences for how the world should be
perceived and divided (…) Constitution of habitus is closely related to the social
space where one grows up and by that related to the cultural and economic capital of
one’s parents” (Gram-Hanssen et al, 2004:19)
The way that our dwellings are physically and socially organized influences the way
we understand our society and the way we act as members of it. At the same time,
habitus influences our dispositions when we design and build our homes, as well as
our patterns of everyday use of them.
Bourdieu wanted to provide an alternative to more extreme comprehensions within
sociology. On one side: Social structures as determining for individual actions and
possibilities to act.. (objectivist). And on the other hand a subjectivist point of
departure focusing on the freedom of each individual to act voluntarily and in a way
they find meaningful. I will return to this dualism later on.
Habitus is the dispositions humans acquire through a lifelong socialization process.
Not rules for social behaviour, but rather a feeling or a sense for how to handle a
situation. Not given once and for all. Habitus is according to Bourdieu flexible and
adaptable – it can both explain the stability of social structures and the fact that the
same structures are continuously changing.
Bourdieu is still criticized of drawing a much too static picture of cultures – putting too
much emphasize on individual unconscious schemes, excluding the possibilities of
people acting differently and making active and willed choices. More relevant in
traditional societies perhaps? And Bourdieu uses his study of the Kabyle House in
Northerne Algeria as an illustration:
The Kabyle House: (Inhabited by Berber people in Northern Algeria)
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The lower, dark part is opposed to the higher lighter part in the same way as the
female is opposed to the male. Women are responsible for the activities and artefacts
that belong to the dark, lower part: taking care of animals, getting water, firewood and
dung. The opposition between higher and lower part within the house reproduces the
opposition between outside and inside, the male and the female domain.
The house is organized according to oppositions: dry – humid, high – low, light –
shade, day – night, male – female, culture – nature etc. Parallel to the opposition
between the house and the rest of the world.
“The house is an empire within an empire, but one which always remains subordinate
because, even though it presents all the properties and all the relations which define
the archetypal world, it remains a reversed world, an inverted reflection” (Pierre
Bourdieu: “The Berber house and the world reversed”. First published, 1971)
I believe that the concept of habitus opens up for an understanding of the relationship
between house and culture that is relevant in modern societies as well:
The architect and theoretician Neil Leach describes it like this: ”..a non-conscious
system of dispositions which derive from the subject’s economic, cultural and
symbolic capital. (…) a dynamic field of behaviour, of position-taking where
individuals inherit the parameters of a given situation, and modify them into a new
situation” (Neil Leach, 2005?)
In his article “What buildings do,” the sociologist Thomas Gieryn, criticizes Bourdieu
for not taking human agency sufficiently into account, both in terms of designing and
defining buildings (Gieryn, 2002). Gieryn supports an understanding of a building as
“the object of human agency and as an agent of its own actors” and further as
“simultaneously shaped and shaping.” This brings us to the concept of agency, which
has emerged more and more frequently in architectural debates and writings during
recent years.
Agency was traditionally seen as a contrast (or rather: in a dialectic pairing) to
structure (Awan et al). (the same dualism that Bourdieu opposed to)
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Agency: “the ability of the individual to act independently of the constraining
structures of society” (ibid:30)
Structure: “the way that society is organized” (ibid)
The eternal discussion has been about: Which of the two has primacy over the other?
“Do the accumulated actions of individuals constitute the overarching societal
structures, or are the latter so overwhelming as to allow no scope for individual action
and freedom?” (Awan et al 2011:30)
The relevance for architecture is quite clear: What freedom do we have as
architects? Or are we totally constrained by economic and social forces?.. Often we
tend to regard our freedom as rather limited – which means lacking agency / power to
act freely. And the result may be frustration and withdrawal of architecture from
critical engagement with societal structures.
Awan et al therefore argue, just like Bourdieu again, that one should get away from
the idea of agency and structure as two opposing conditions (p31). Instead, they
refer to Anthony Giddens structuration theory in which he maintains that agency and
structure should be understood as a duality, two linked but separately identifiable
conditions:
“Human agency and structure are logically implicated with each other” (Giddens,
1987)
“For architecture, this means that buildings are not seen as determinants of society
(the primacy of the individual) nor as determined by society (the primacy of structure)
but rather as in society (..).. agents are neither completely free as individuals, nor are
they completely trapped by structure” (Awan et al, 2011:31)
Spatial agency (new slide)
Agency reflects an approach to architecture as not only autonomous products and
objects, but also continuously changing entities entangled in and dependent on
social, cultural, economic, and political contexts. Within this understanding,
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architecture has the ability to make changes and even “lead to other possible
futures.” (Doucet and Cupers, 2009).
The term “spatial agency” (used by Awan et al – in order to expand the concept of
architecture to include not only buildings but also social spaces and networks of
spaces ) implies that “action to engage transformatively with structure is possible, but
will only be effective if one is alert to the constraints and opportunities that the
structure presents” (p31)
“..attention is shifted from architecture as a matter of fact to architecture as a matter
of concern. As matters of fact, buildings can be subjected to rules and methods, and
they can be treated as things on their own terms. As a matter of concern, they enter
into socially embedded networks, in which the consequences of architecture are of
much more significance than the objects of architecture” (Awan et al p33)
When dealing with architecture and built environments, it is self-evident that
architects have the power (even if it may be limited) to act upon the design of a
building (even though they rarely do this without the participation of other actors,
such as owners, developers, and consultants).
ANT (new slide)
What is even more interesting, and also somehow much more controversial in
theoretical terms, is that buildings as material structures also may be regarded as
agents within a total network consisting of human as well as non-human actors (nonhuman elements are not only material objects, but also institutions, legal systems,
policies etc). (Latour)
To talk about non-human actors when it comes to shaping society is not indisputable.
At least there is a discussion about whether the relationship between human and
non-human (material) actors is symmetrical. Many would argue that people have a
larger degree of responsiveness / free will, while objects of course are indifferent –
and that they therefore will have to be treated differently –when it comes to
discussions and analysis of the dynamics of this relationship.
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What interests me, and what I would you to investigate further through the essays
you are going to write, is how buildings in a network with human actors have a
“capacity for agency” towards environmental, social, and other goals. How material
artifacts and the designers of them may play specific roles in social transformation
processes.
Architecture’s ‘capacity for agency’ is perhaps more clearly articulated by British and
Canadian social scientists Shove et al. in their book The Design of Everyday Life:
“[D]esigners have an indirect but potentially decisive hand in the constitution of what
people do. If material artefacts configure (rather than simply meet) what consumers
and users experience as needs and desires, those who give them shape and form
are perhaps uniquely implicated in the transformation and persistence of social
practice” (Shove et al, 2007:134)
(new slide)
When discussing agency related to design of housing and neighborhoods more
particularly, residential practices has turned out to be a useful concept. It is
understood as a dynamic sociotechnical network in which material structures
(technology, buildings, and physical environment), socioeconomic conditions and
practices, and ideas, meanings, and values interrelate and mutually affect each
other. (Parallel to the concept of Housing culture that I introduced in the previous
lecture)
Within this framework, architectural design can be seen as both a result of social,
economic, cultural, and political contexts and as a tool for changing these contexts.
Agency in architecture, understood within this framework, thus constitutes a basis for
analyzing and discussing specific architectural and urban design proposals as well as
the role of architects and designers in the shaping of future societies.
(new slide)
Before I end this part, I will return briefly to a quotation from Isabelle Doucet.
According to her, agency: “allows for exploring the complex workings of architecture
and its messy entanglements with the world (..) Looking at architecture through
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agency is, therefore, a plea to stop reducing the complexity of architecture. It is a
plea for no longer evaluating architecture’s value-adding through a priori ideologies,
theoretical constructs pursuing the decoding of architecture’s ‘meaning’, oppositional
pairs between which one has to choose, or though the reduction of architecture’s
complexity to only a few stakes or stakeholders” (p29)
[Break]
Examples of social visions within architecture
I would like for this part of the lecture that you gathered in groups and discussed
some selected housing projects or visions..
In fact I want you to select the examples yourself. I have a list of proposals, but I
would like you to use your pcs and find information about some of them. Then you
should discuss how the projects or rather the architects:
(1) aim to shape social life / meet societal challenges?
(2) succeed in their attempts?
(3) shortcomings and strengths
But first a quick look at to quite diverse examples – as a start. The first one – an
example of grand visions about a better world. The second one – much more
modest: Hoping for a better future of it’s residents.
Frank Lloyd Wright – The Usonian Culture – Broadacre City
Start with the FLWs idea of Broadacre City – first formulated in the late 1920s/early
1930s, and then further developed throughout the rest of his career with three books.
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K. Frampton (1980: p186ff): [in the late 1920s / early 1930s] “Wright was induced to
formulate a new role for architecture in restructuring the social order of the United
States”
He coined the term ‘Usionian’ in 1928: “an egalitarian culture” based on grassroots
individualism – a new, dispersed form of civilization – made possible by the recent
mass ownership of the automobile car (democratic mode of transportation) – antiurban model: Broadacre city “in which the concentration of the 19th-century city was
to be redistributed over the network of a regional agrarian grid”. A kind of dispersed
city – or rather suburbia – an alternative to the density of urban areas developed in
the 19th and early 20th century.
‘Organic’ architecture: “the use of the cantilever as though it were a natural tree-like
form” (p188) “seems to have eventually meant for Wright the economic creation of
built form and space in accordance with the latent principles of nature as these may
be revealed through the application of the reinforced-concrete construction” p190
New forces which would transform the basis of Western civilization: Electrification
(‘source of silent power’), mechanical mobilization (automobile and airplanes) and
organic architecture. (architecture in accordance with natural principles)
The Usonian house (new slide)
Usionian culture and Broadacre City inseparable concepts. Usonian houses:
“..something altogether more modest: warm, open-planned small houses designed
for convenience, economy and comfort” p191.
And while Broadacre city was never realized, several usonian houses (altogether 60 /
100?) was built.
Herbert Jacobs house (1937)
“Usonian” house type, suburban (ideally agrarian)
Single story built on a monolithic concrete slab and joined to a carport and not a
garage. Central fireplace mass
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Finished simply, but warmly inside and out with its own structural wood and brick,
built very cheaply,
Wright believed that it could be replicated all across the country.
“the house extended Wright’s Broadacre City concept into the realm of feasible small
house building and was, at its own scale, as intrinsic a work as “Falling Water”. It too
marked a kind of climax in the long contemporary search, both American and
European, for a reasonable and expressive dwelling form” (Scully, 1960:27)
“The Disappearing City” (1929/32) new, expanded edition: “When Democracy Builds”
(1945)
Imagine spacious landscaped highways …giant roads, themselves great architecture, pass
public service stations, no longer eyesores, expanded to include all kinds of service and comfort.
They unite and separate — separate and unite the series of diversified units, the farm units, the
factory units, the roadside markets, the garden schools, the dwelling places (each on its acre of
individually adorned and cultivated ground), the places for pleasure and leisure. All of these
units so arranged and so integrated that each citizen of the future will have all forms of
production, distribution, self improvement, enjoyment, within a radius of a hundred and fifty
miles of his home now easily and speedily available by means of his car or plane. This integral
whole composes the great city that I see embracing all of this country—the Broadacre City of
tomorrow.
“The Living City” (1958)
http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/frank-lloyd-wrights-utopian-dystopia
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S UTOPIAN DYSTOPIA
New York, San Francisco | 04/08/2010 10:12am KATHERINE DON
“Even in the 1930s, urban planners were disgusted by Broadacre. Its philosophy was deeply
individualistic; its layout was conspicuously wasteful. Liberals of the time who emulated the
socialist spirit of Europe classified Wright as an anti-government eccentric, which indeed he was.
In 1938, Marxist art historian Meyer Schapiro condemned Broadcre City as “perfectly consistent
with physical and spiritual decay.””
“Yet Wright’s intention was to create a functional community, not a conglomerate of individuals.
He was disgusted by the squalor and aesthetic ugliness of city life, and craved a return to the land.
In 1932 he wrote that man needed “more light, more freedom of movement and a more general
spatial freedom in the ideal establishment of what we call civilization.””
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“Wright imagined a flowering of small cities covering the entire United States, all connected by a
superhighway. Each city would be embedded in nature and have its own cultural and educational
centers. Wright’s “larger villages” would contain only about 10,000 individuals. In every way,
Broadacre was an alternative to the mega-city.”
“At Broadacre’s center were one-acre land units meant for nuclear families. Expanding from this
center, Wright designated distinct areas that included: little farm units; “luxurious” type (nonfarm) housing; orchards; hotel; sanitarium; music garden; zoo; aquarium; little factories;
scientific and agricultural research; and a “small school for small children.””
“Wright really wanted the city to fall out altogether, and like a post-apocalyptic pioneer, he
wanted to shape its replacement. The closest he ever came to Broadacre’s realization was in 1943,
when he compiled a “Citizens’ Petition” signed by sixty-four Broadacre sympathizers, including
Albert Einstein, John Dewey, and Nelson Rockefeller. He sought unlimited cash flow to dot the
American landscape with Broadacres. He never got it. In the petition, Wright wrote:
Inevitably, there will develop a new form of community life, but just what it will be except as
Broadacre City tentatively outlines it as free to grow, who can say? Not I. Who is going to say
how humanity will eventually be modified by all these spiritual changes and physical
advantages, sound and vision coming through solid walls to men, each aware of anything in or
of the world he lives in without lifting a finger, making it unnecessary to go anywhere unless it
is a pleasure to go. The whole psyche of humanity is changing and what that change will
ultimately bring as future community I will not prophecy. It is already greatly changed.”
The writings about Broadacre city express a strong belief in architectures role in
shaping social life. Being criticized at the time and afterwords of drawing an
unrealistic picture of the quality of suburban life + deeply individualistic and based
totally on the use of private cars – as we know today not compatible to a sustainable
urban environment.
Veiskillet
Housing for homeless people in Trondheim. Architect Bård Helland.
One of the main objectives here was to create dwellings that gave the residents
dignity and hopes for their future.
Every dwelling emphasised clearly as a separate unit, with glass walls in both ends –
letting the light through, opening up totally towards the south and screened towards
the neighbors north of the building with bamboo weavings.
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Many have been surprised and have also criticized the large window openings, but
the architect had specific intentions with this.
Contemporary issues
I asked you to consider a few questions before this lecture:
1. What are the main social challenges of our time?
2. How may architecture make a change?
3. Can you think of any examples where architectural interventions have
contributed to social change?
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