Manuel de Solà-Morales

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Transcript of Manuel de Solà-Morales

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Pierre Olivier Bureau-Alarie
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THE GAZE UPON THE CITY

The projects that are brought together here can be considered as gazes upon the

city. We aren't tai king about 'hands on the city' from the Francesco Rosi film. We

aren't dealing with the top-notch designers of Harvard's Urban Design from the 70s

either, or the 90s French 'projet urbain.' 1 want this summary of my work to reflect,

above ali, the effort made to understand and to serve the interests of cities by an

insistent and eager gaze, and of the difficulty of carrying this out.

Underlying ali my work is an attentive and cautious approach to the richness of

urban sites- both their existing richness and, above ali, potential richness. This

assiduous gaze becomes the start point for resolutions, which though distinct in

every case are always bou nd up with the city th at lies beyond.

Narrative, a linked sequence of themes, defi nes how these projects come together

and is also a basic indication of how, ideally, they should be both used and observed.

lt is therefore far from strange, as 1 have often said, that the cross section emerges

as the essential too! in conceiving the project; it brings very different aspects into a

precise relationship with one another: the long horizontal distance set against the

tiny vertical variation. Levels and uses. lnterior and exterior. There is nothing like

the broad urban cross section for exploring the entrails of the city.

To establish the continuity of differences, wh ile taking dimensions into account; to

move within the simultaneity of scales. viewing the kilometre and the centimetre at

the same ti me; to understand intersections as vital points and longitudes as adjecti­

val attributes: ali these practices are essential to the urban project.

Acupuncture or prosthesis? Perhaps both. A systemic understanding is required, of

course, which expects the most interesting eft:ects of any intervention to stem pre­

cisely from those bundles of nerves and arteries that relate each point in the city

with neighbours and strangers. The selection of a point of view he re, as in photog­

raphy or cinema, goes a. long way to determin ing the resu lt. Gaze as interpretation,

project as idea.

The projects presented here are not ephemeral in themselves, they are not con­

cerned with the design of objects, ensembles, or spaces as such; neither are they

landscapes, in the synthetic, combinatory sense of the word. Rather, in every case,

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DISTORTED OROER

Buses, taxis, pedestrians, cars, bicycles, trains, the disabled. Ali have to fit into a

space of a thousand square metres, with peaks of traffic intensity at particular times

of day. Leuven (Louvain, Lovania, Lovai na) is not a large city, but every day thou­

sands of students and professionals pass through its station on their way to other

parts of Belgium. A circulation system that connects commuter trains with ali-day

parking lots and bus services, with pedestrian access that integrates the square in

the historie centre with the heavy underground t raffic, can perhaps be handled

without mu ch being visible from the outside. The environmentalists are nottoo happy

about the tunnel, the finance committee nurses doubts about the modern square,

the bus company wou id have liked a larger station, the engineers from the ministry

wou id have ·preferred a bigger tunnel and the railroad might have chosen to study

its own development separately, but the search for a compromise between the

different requirements is sufficient justification for the planning of the city, as a chal­

lenging effort to improvise a culture where no trace of one is to be fou nd, something

absolutely necessary if the city is not to be torn to pieces.

Leuven is a city characterized by its medieval and Renaissance institutions (the uni-

vers~ty, thef ity .~ali: the cathedral and the ab beys), wh ose splendid power has faded

into a conservative and suburban outlook, which finds expression in monuments

undergoing restoratiof1 and detached ho uses with gardens. Stone and wood are the .; . ·; ·.' :.:;.., ~

materials used to convey nobility and the only touch of modernity, perhaps, is

Braem's high-rise apartment block (c. 1940), forgotten amidst streets that are al most

devoid of traffic thanks to strict planning measures.

The station is about half an hour by train from Brussels. lt is true that the conven­

ience of such proximity has been negated by the advanced state of neglect into

which the rail infrastructure of Europe's capital has been aliowed to fall. The stations

are uncomfortable and dirty, and wh ile Brussels Centralisa fine example of art deco

architecture (Victor Horta), Brussels North is a horrible and inappropriate 'grand

project ' left incomplete in the sixties, and both are now sad, textbook examples of

the effects of th~ great changes th at have be en made to the railway system, changes

in which once aga in they were in the forefront.

Belgium was the first country, along with Great Britain, to build railway li nes, around

the middle of the nineteenth century. lts abundant coal and steel allowed it to book

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1 Before the intervention

2 The ftows of pedest rians, t axis , buses

and bicycles articulated o n the stat ion

environment

3 Square's pavements with marked

e nt rances to t he unde rg round level

4 Square's monument. Ent ra nee to parking

detail

5 View of the stâ.~ion . Former and p resent_

state

and a sense of weil being to situations that would otherwise only cause inconven­

ience. The easy flow of traffic, whether pedestrian or vehicular, and its simple and

immediate introduction into the city is intended to be t he project's central theme;

the fo rm of the city and of its use, not the form of t he build ings t hemselves. is what

is important.

The renewal project of Leuven's Stationsplein is intended to reshape the spaces

near the railway station to host the necessary exchanges between commuters, bus

and taxi services, private vehicles - parked or waiting, and the dist ribution of peo­

ple - walking or cycling, to the city streets.

·2 As does any railway station square, the Stat ionsplein in Leuven represents an

'avant la lettre ' intermodal function of vestibule and hal l of city arrivais and depar­

tures. The planimetrie of Leuven suggests t he deep order dominant in al most every

aspect of life in t his city: t he centrality of institutional powers, the high level of intel­

lectual and architectonical culture in its centric spaces, the arborescent arrangement

:o-f 1t_~ ~streets and passages, the ambient quality of its calm t raffic, t he absence of

noise of its streets, its civilised residential areas.

3 And this is al i t rapped by a circu lar ronda that marks the shape of the interior

body anq establishes the tangency w ith t he rai lway. lt is precisely the re that a one­

kil ometr: ~~~ii l inear rad ius establishes the geometrical order t hat links t he cathedral

and the cüy hall w ith the station, which is f ramed by a 100-square metre square .

The circle, the straight li ne and the square are the geometrical design lin es of t he

place where circulations and symbolisms are brought together.

4 Indecision as how to complete t he unfin ished square, together w ith a growth in

traffic , have made its surface a continuous conflict , bringing only damage and t he

invas,ion of the space by the most coarse uses against the most delicate ones.

Pedestrians and cycli sts and taxis had to dodge buses and cars parked in disorder.

Vehicles appropriated the space of pedestr ians and provisional barrack blocks that

of permanent buildings. The memorial to the war martyrs, un able to hold out against

so much erosion, was ruined.

5 The difficulty lies in finding a new law of space implantation adapted to the

present density of t raffic and movements. First of ali, t he alignment of the nortn-

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'=-!.. south street, shou ld be adjusted with parai lei acc'uracy to the front of the station. ln

:."e geometry of t he square defined by the cardinal axes, everything should enhance

:- s north-south alignment, as the front of the square and as the main orientation of

:-e project.

6 On this premise, the project doubles the historical square, saved from the fast

:·aAc and reserved for pedestrians as a static and representative place, and adds

z..,other, with a dynamic movement of vehicles centred on t he new bus station, the

arrivai and departure of trains, t he underground connections and the tunnel fo r fast

c rculation.

7 The static square is configured to the north by the new administrative buildings

c= the LIJ N (buses) and sN cs (railways). A pavil ion with resta~,~rants and services, to

::-e south, closes the built se al. The surface is stone paving, marking the large access

c:::>enings and lightening the look of the parking lots.

8 The new bus station with its high sheltered platforms 'gathe~Ùhe movements of

n.:mlic transport in a dynamic and mechanistic square. Being in contact wit h the ·,.

arriving trainS and parking for buses, it becomes_the CeQtre,.?f exchange of a w ide · . ,

.crety of movements. The visual image of such movements (vehicles and people)

5 ~e main characteristic of this spa ce.

9 -o confer priority onto this street, of lower functional importance rather than

co:"'lpositive, it was necessary to change its slope and to unify it in a constant gradi­

e-:. This detail of the project, apparently of second order, becomes extremely

-::xmant wh en the space of the two squares is recognized as unitary.

10 The orthogonal character at the corner of the Martelarenplein and the Di este­

e~ s the project's decisive key, the origin of the rest of the l~yout. lts materializa­

-o~ nas to stand out as an urban fact of great scale and meaning for the new formai

:·::er of this sector of Lovania, the capital and centre of Bravante.

1 Model. Static s quare and dynamic square

2 Model o f ove rail intervent ion

3 Model. Relation between levels, entrances

and infrastructures

4 Stat ion square with the new bus building

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.;j 1 Section along the square across the

entrance in the monument ...> w 2 Section ac ross the station' s square

3 Axonometric view of the proposai. lnterre-

lat ion of spaces, levels and entrances

4 View of the historie train station and the

new bus station

5 Tunnel's longitudinal section .:

6 Station square view

7 View of the new station and contact with ...> the t rain station 00

8 The dynamic square

9 Tunnel and station v iew

10 View from the station's corner towards

the square

11 Corner of De Lijn build ing in the station

square

12 De Lijn building facade

0 ~ 13 Entrance to the parking level on the

...> square from the monument "'

14 Tunnels beneath the square

15 Parking surface treatment as transition

between leve ls and s paces and as place of

social encounters

16 Entrance ramp to the t unnels with a

lateral v iew of the station

17 Facade of the station towards the square

18 Acces s to t he parking from the dynamic .., square 0

19 Dynamic square. Bus station waiting

...> spaces

"' 20 View of the parking s paces be low the

v. square

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