Cuff, Dana. 2023. “Radically Public Architecture.” In Architectures of Spatial Justice, 75–124. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Radical Public Architecture (RPA) challenges the status the quo and opens the door to an alternative future where Architecture is once again a symbol of people rather than capital. RPA Aspires to be “equitable and dignifying, open-ended and fresh.” and it is important to define “who” the public is, specificity is important when designing. The work done by ArchiAid and Home For All in the Tohoku region of Japan, after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, are a case-study in RPA. While architects and often the former residents of the decimated towns were left out of re-construction efforts, ArchiAid and Home For All found a way to empower the displaced residents and give them a voice (equitable and dignifying) in re-constructing their home. From temporary “living-rooms” and “playgrounds” (open-ended) to permanent high-density housing with a focus on shared and social spaces (fresh), their work can be seen representing the tenets of RPA.
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
The grid is not a phenomenon of modernity but rather of antiquity. While ubiquitous in its presence around the world, its use has seen a greater contrast. Two case-studies to highlight this contrast are the use of grids by the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Colonial-Settlers. In Cusco, Peru, we can see the grid at work to connect people with land and sky as well as a symbol of the cosmos. Post-conquering by Spain we can see the grid being used to map power structures and hierarchies.
Dovey, Kim. 2007. “ ‘I Mean to Be Critical, But….’” In Critical Architecture, edited by Jane Rendell, 252–60.
“Critical Architecture” at its core, is a practice that deals with “architectures enmeshment with power.” Rather that complicity reproducing ubiquitous and identical symbols of capital – It is a call to design with an understanding of how we, socially, ascribe and construct meaning and value (Text), and how we represent that spatially (Program) – all towards the goal of building a better future. “[Architecture] enables and constrains; the question is not whether, but how it does so and in whose interest”. Daniel Libeskinds Holocaust Museum and Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial do this successfully by “affirming history as a question rather than reducing it to a dominant cipher”. A third dimension of “Critical Architecture”, inspired from Michel Foucoult, is an engagement with collective action and collective identity. “Critical Architecture” must be practiced in community, it is not the work of a “sole genius”.
“Radically Public Architecture.” Continued…
As I was reading this article, I was struck by how odd it was, that architects in Japan were left out of the re-construction and solution process. For me, it signaled a bigger issue, and prompted a question around perception of identity, roles, and values – “What is an Architect? What does an Architect do? What value does an Architect bring?”. Architects have strong-cross disciplinary training in representation, design, humanities, structural and mechanical systems, and ultimately is a profession that carries liability and is concerned with the life, well-being, and safety of humans. Yet it was civil and structural engineers, whom I appreciate greatly but have much more technical specialized training, that Japan turned to for mitigating the disaster and more importantly, preparing for the future. I find this odd and wonder if there are both cultural and professional stigmas at play here and whether this exclusion would happen in other countries around the world.
Building Application
SESC Pompeia by Lino Bo Bardi is exemplar of Radical Public Architecture. Formerly an oil drum factory (symbol of capital), after being abandoned, local residents took up social use of the building. When Bardi arrived with a commission to build a new sports and cultural center, and learned how locals were using the building, she was determined to preserve the factory and their reclaimed social space (equitable and dignifying). Rather than demolishing the factory (open-ended) to build the sports center and due to building restrictions from ground-water deposits, Bardi, moved the center to a different location and site and created concrete vertical towers to house it to reduce the ground footprint (fresh).
SESC POMPEIA FACTORY INTERIOR
SESC POMPEIA CORRIDOR
SESC POMPEIA
Takeways
- The important of social space for mental health and community health
- A little architecture can go a long way – especially for those in the periphery
- There are many different cultural interpretations of space and how we represent it
- Architecture, except in some fringe cases, is a practice with heavy social implications
- Architects are not “lone geniuses”
