Lara, Fernando Luiz, and Felipe Hernández, eds. 2021. “Indigenous Modernities: The Tocapu and Other American Grids.” In Spatial Concepts for Decolonizing the Americas, 22–47. Cambridge Scholars Publishing

• Grid is convenient device used for millennia
• Grid is also an instrument of colonialism to transform landscape into property

Indigenous and Colonial Grids

• Destruction of landscape using grids
• Central spaces in indigenous cultures connected with the sky and ceremony rather than places of congregation
• European grid based on representation of power
• Transformation of landscape into capital
• Spanish came in a segmented off parts of the central spaces to make European plaza size
• Fragmenting the central space reduced its cosmic power
• Tocapu: graphic motif on Inca clothing
• Inca gridded mapped Andean cosmology
• Fixating discrete categories in order ot establish their dissolution

Mountains and Monuments

• Commodify the earth with latitude and longitude
• These two opposing impulses—to understand one’s position within the totality, on the one hand, and to cover and dominate the whole, on the other—stand at the crux of the modernity of the grid.
• Humboldt relied uon grid to document Indigenous objects
• Humboldt interested in mountains and pyramids, slavery and colonialism, blind to other realities
• Teotihuacnan’s buildings were no pyramids
  • Humboldt still viewed them as such
• Humboldt ignored the mountain’s context
• Humboldt also viewed Teotihuacnan’s buildings in isolution from the surrounding buildings.

Settler-Colonial Grids

• Jefferson’s grid in America made land property. Infinite grid
• No-stop City: Capital as overarching context
• Continuous Monument: Single form of architecture capable of shaping the earth
• World uniform because of imperialism
• Grid is instrument to abstract and appropriate territory

Conclusion: Wiphala and the Decolonization of the Grid

• Indigenous cultures also used the grid as a symbol of resistance

Dovey, Kim. 2007. “ ‘I Mean to Be Critical, But….’” In Critical Architecture, edited by Jane Rendell, 252–60.

• Critical architectural practices:
  • Formal construction of meaning
  • Spatial mediation of everyday life
• Truly critical architecture needs to unsettle architectural field
• Social engagement in architecture criticism not investigated
• Products of deconstruction are stylistic effects
• Architecture and power
• How and in whose interest does architecture construct identities and stabilize meanings?
• Architecture always mediates spatial practices, it enables and constrains
• Contemplation is just one part of architecture, primacy in everyday life
• Use of buildings teach their meaning
• Link habitus to the discursive field
• Architecture as a field of power
• What was deemed “critical” architecture was just a show of power
• Critical architecture should affirm history as a question rather than reducing it to a dominant cipher
• “Critical” architecture reproduces the social structures that it purports to challenge.
• Critical architecture needs to destabilize field

Cuff, Dana. 2023. “Radically Public Architecture.” In Architectures of Spatial Justice, 75–124. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

• Many people died and many others lost their homes in March 2011 after the Great East Japan Earthquake.
• Tsunami walls and emergency temporary shelters went up after, but no architects consulted.
• Suicides increased and lonely deaths
• Little connection made to specific social and cultural circumstances of the towns along the coast during reconstruction
• Architects can adopt extreme public orientation
• How to enhance the temporary structures?
• High-density housing with community socializing and new building scattered throughout the post-recovery city.
• Homes For All built play buildings for dispersed children within temporary housing areas
• ArchiAid, rebuild communities not just the houses
• More voice given to community members
• Architectures can advance new public imaginaries in built form.
• Radically public architectures aspire to be equitable and dignifying.
• Buildings are like living organisms
• Fresh engagement depends on its connection to its occupants
• Norms established on enforcement of segregation
• Reclamation movements happening in some US cities
• Collective land ownership would decommodify the housing market and would build community empowerment.
• Design needs to embody the collective
• Needs to resist displacement
• Rebuilding after the Great East Japan Earthquake is an example of how different groups and leaders, such as the government and community volunteers and architects, coming together can build back communities

Reading Response

This italicized excerpt of “Indigenous Modernities: The Tocapu and Other American Grids” explained the two opposing impulses of the modernity of the gird: “To understand one’s position with the totality…and to cover and dominate the whole.” I never thought of the creation of latitude and longitude as a dominating invention because it was presented to me just like any other form of measurement. Geolocation is critical to mapping data and explaining to someone the precise location of something on planet earth. While the grid system can be used for appropriating territory, it can also be very useful for data science and other non-colonizing location needs. Much of the time when a tool is developed, it can be used for good or for bad. Examples could be the internet or simply a knife, when placed in the wrong hands it can be destructive, but in others’ hands it can provide great benefit.

Application and Interpretation

Singapore has built communities in the sky to keep up with its growing population. Thinking about how it is important to build for community, the Housing and Development Board (HDB) has come up with creative solutions. The city-state has been praised for its public housing model through its intentional urban planning. Slab blocks began being constructed in the 1960s by HDB, consisting of simple apartments along a common corridor that were quick to construct and low cost. The void deck on the ground floor fostered community in slab block housing. It promoted cross-ventilation and lightened the appearance of the block. It was designed to be large and flexible with multiple programs. Typically, they have shopping centers and gathering spaces. As iterations of the slab block model took place, design choices were considered with community in mind. 1970 slab block models do not have long corridors, instead they were split up to form smaller communities with a maximum of seven units in each group, Encouraging frequent interactions with neighbors.

Takeaways

• Grids can be used to dominate groups of people and accumulate property
• Buildings are like living organisms
• When rebuilding, build community, not just buildings