Metropolis - Utopia vs. Dystopia

Urbanism - way cities are built and lived in

Modernity - talk of freedom but less actual freedom

1st industrial rev. - tech. progress (coal and steam power)

2nd industrial rev. use of steel and chemical production

creation of Bourgeoise and Proletariat

The Metropolis - division of labour and division of class

Marx - “alienated labour”

Engels - Modernity and Ind. Cap. as paradox - the more impressive the progress, the more spectacular the rev. - the more built-up the society, the more badly the majority live

The industrial city - feeling isolated in the crowd but free at the same time

This lead to a Blasé attitude - feeling of indifference to many different and constant stimuli

Engels - Modern Metropolis is signified by segregation - historicist architecture disguise awful Proletariat living conditions

Modernizing the metropolis - Haussmannization of Paris - large avenues, open space, uniform buildings, squares, public parks, sewer system, street furniture, 2x trees, more police patrols - BUT city in ruin for 20 years, working class left for outskirts, city became very expensive and empty, filled with Bourgeoise - city became place of conspicuous consumption (show-offy) - Bourgeoise also used the outskirts too, but for leisure - painting of beautiful woman being attacked by barbarians

Modernizing the metropolis - Ringstrasse (ring street) in Vienna - Sitte vs. Wagner - replace city walls with Ringstrasse, channeled main river to protect from flood, first hospital, improvement of streets and buildings, appearance of rental “palaces” (historicist architecture - look nice but still shitty), opening of new public buildings (also historicist style), many new symmetrical open spaces

Sitte against Ringstrasse - too geometric and symmetrical, resulted in agoraphobia in society (fear of open space), angered by destruction of old town-scape, wanted self-enclosed “asymmetrical” open spaces, “for him Ringstrasse was not simply open space but a careful sequence of open-spaces leading to one another”

Wagner for MORE Ringstrasse - designed Viennese infrastructure with exposed iron, made iron beautiful, introduced more Ringstrasse’s, designed developed land “modules” to house 150000 people, modules essentially self-sustained, modules are outside of the city to extend urban life out of city centre

Questions about urbanism in 20th century• How to deal with pre industrial city center?

• demolish, modernize, preserve (Sitte)• How to expand the metropolis How to distribute congestion?

• Center, Periphery (Wagner), Satellite• How to organize spaces of metropolis?

• built/open - public/private, street/open space

Modernizing the metropolis III - CIAM (congress of modern arch) - Avante Garde (group of artists) challenged academism and claimed to be at forefront of artistic developments, associated with the modern movement, 20th c., a narrowing of modern art and arch

• Le Corbusier• Contemporary city for 3 million inhabitants• Plan Voisin

• takes a plan of Paris after Haussmann • draws a rectangle over it and proposes to demolish the centre (financial district) and create uniform skyscrapers and leave the rest

as green-space• the skyscrapers would be for business and housing is on peripheries• does not conform to urban-block

• replaces logic of street with logic of open-space (buildings separated by open-space)• became associated with CIAM

• out of 1st and 4th meeting of CIAM he created the Athens Charter and Radiant City, CIAM urbanism• marked by idea of separating cities into function-based zones• to decrease commuting time• an example of destruction being as important as construction

• example: application of CIAM urbanism to Berlin lead to more destruction AFTER WWII than during

Postmodern Critiques of Modernizing Attempts

• utopian living in early modernism became seen as dystopia by 1970s• the Radiant City became rampant with crime

• the failure and death of modern urbanism• Jane Jacobs argued against CIAM urbanism and vicious infrastructural planning

• argued for mixed-use pedestrian life streets• Venturi, Scott Brown, Izenour - Learning from Las Vegas

• thought architects should learn and record instead of intervene• Rem Koolhaas - Delirious New York

• here we see how to deal with capitalism

ARC132 Jan 17 Lecture Summary