The Sharing Tower by Vincente Guallart as an example for the ideological concept of contemporary data-architecture

By:

Ulrich Jacov Becker

Department of Architecture

Name of the course: "Contemporary theories"

Number of course: 7417

Date: August 2009

Handed In to: Prof. Arch. Zvi Efrat ( אפרת צבי' אדר' פרופ )

Department of Architecture

Bezalel, Academy of Art and Design

0. Index

1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………….Page 1

2. Associative fields………………………………………………………………Page 1

2.1. Hybridization………….….………………………………………………….Page 2

2.2. New Urbanism and Leon Krier…………………………………………….Page 3

2.3. (File) Sharing………………………………………………………………...Page 4

2.4. Narkomfin Block and Social Housing……………………………………..Page 5

2.5. The New Family……………………………………………………………..Page 6

2.6. The European City (Regionalism and Globalism)…………………….....Page 7

2.7. Conservation……………………………………………………………..….Page 8

2.8. The Middle Ages and Nostalgia...…………………………………..……..Page 9

2.9. Urban Landscape and Natural Influences………………………………Page 10

2.10. Responsive Architecture………………………………………………...Page 11

3. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………....Page 12

4. Bibliography…………………………………………………………………..Page 13

Addendum……………………………………………………………………….Page 15

1

1. Introduction

The project the Sharing Tower0F

1 by Vincente Guallart is here presented as the product of a

combination of different associative sources each with their own background, environment,

connections and history. The spreading out of this associative field allows a deep and multi-layered

view on the concepts, ideas and ideologies behind the Sharing Tower and behind the broader

ideology of Guallart and similar thinking contemporary architects.

The Sharing Tower is just one project in the larger urban experiment Sociopólis 1F

2 that was planned

near Valencia, Spain around 2004. Vincente Guallart also created the master plan for Sociopolis.

The project emerges here as an architecture of our time, an architecture of a global and interlinked

age. This is architecture after modernism and post-modernism, which still fights the conflict of an

objective or subjective design approach and tries to derive its triggers out of the computerized data

world, nature, social thinking as well as history.

If and in what way Guallart's maxim that "architecture must thus redefine its aims in the face of the

emergence of the digital world"2F

3 is true, is put to the test throughout the work.

The work does on purpose not enter into a detailed description of the programme and performance of

the actual project, but tries to enter the associative backgrounds around it. It should just be said that it

is a circular apartment tower which tries to offer its residents – mostly students – a minimal private

space and a larger shared space. Furthermore the tower is connected to various public functions in its

ground floor, including a plaza. Through a careful combination of all-day living objects like tables, TVs,

toilets, etc., Guallart created a matrix of objects and functions that can and can't be shared, and

taking them as a basis, developed different ground plans for each floor with different combinations,

which all have the common idea of surplus in living quantity through different shaped shared spaces.

This work thus tries to show what may lie behind its motives and to which concepts it connects.

2. Associative fields Of course it is hard to decide with which associative concept to start with, since they are not

necessarily casually determined and are like autonomous items in a picture, although of course there

are connection between them. Also sorting them according to importance would be hard to determine

and maybe even take out interest for the later points.

I will start with a point that Vincente Guallart names by himself as one of the first about his project -

which not necessarily needs to be the most important one:

1 See a model in Addendum 1. 2 See a model of the master plan in Addendum 2. 3 Guallart, Vincente, "MediaMountains&Architecture", http://www.guallart.com/04mediaMountainsAndArchitecture/default.htm.

2

2.1. Hybridization

On his official website 3F

4 Vincente Guallart prominently speaks of the "hybrid programme" of his project

"that includes 250 rental apartments, an arts centre and a technology centre."4F

5

It can be observed that the concept of hybridization or "mixed use" as well in the Sociopólis master

plan as in the Sharing Tower is a significant feature of a new data orientated architecture.

Interestingly the reasoning given by Guallart for a hybrid approach comes from an association to

nature.5F

6

"A neighbourhood or a city is an artificial ecosystem governed by rules similar to those of natural

ecosystems. For example, the more different species exist and the more equality there is between

them, the more balanced, the more balanced and consistent it will be."6F

7

The city, the neighbourhood and the Sharing Tower itself as well as many other single projects

throughout Sociopólis contain a hybrid programme.7F

8 But hybrid components are also very present in

other projects by Guallart - as for example the "multifunctional centre" in the Denia Cultural Park. 8F

9

This emphasis can be seen in relation to a current trend towards mixed use and hybrid programmes

of buildings and cities in strong opposition to zoning. Zoning developed on a large scale during the

19th century as a consequence of industrialization and divided the city into areas according to their

use (at the beginning mainly in housing and industrial uses) and thus also the buildings itself had only

one kind of use (e.g. living or manufacturing). There were approaches as the Garden City Movement

(since 1898) and Tony Garnier's Une cité industrielle (1918), who tried to counter negatively felt

developments of industrialization by a new design of the city, based on health or social factors, but

stayed in the pattern of zoning or advanced it even further. Modernism and the urban plans of Le

Corbusier celebrated zoning and the car that often comes with it as a way to urban 'redemption'.

In the sixties, starting with the book The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs in

1961, theoreticians started to critically rethink zoning, openly oppose it and were now arguing that a

mixture of uses is vital and necessary for a healthy urban area. 9F

10 Guallart openly criticizes the

"typically North-American low-density city"10F

11 and is thus in company of the co-author Dietmar Steiner,

who confronts the American city, zoning and even the New Urbanism for their middle-class bourgeois

character and sets Sociopólis against them, which will be the hybrid social town of Europe,

emphasizing his trust in the performance of the hybrid "old European town".11F

12

4 Guallart, Vincente, "Guallart Architects", http://www.guallart.com. 5 Guallart, Vincente, "Sociopólis Sharing Tower (2004-2007)", http://www.guallart.com/01projects/sociopolistower/default.htm. 6 See also 2.9. Urban Landscape and Natural Influences. 7 Guallart, Vincente, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, Actar/Architectektur Zentrum, Wien, March 2006, p. 23. 8 "In Sociopólis, each building has a hybrid programme…", ibid. 9 Guallart, Vincente, "Denia Cultural Park (2002)", http://www.guallart.com/01projects/deniaCulturalPark/default.htm. 10 Jacobs, Jane, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Random House, New York, 1961. 11 Guallart, Vincente, "Sociopólis: An opportunity for social innovation", http://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_textos&subsec=boton_v_guallart. 12 Steiner, Dietmar, "Sociopólis, European City of the Future", Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, Ed. Vincente Guallart, Actar/Architectektur Zentrum, Wien, March 2006, p. 7. For the European connection see also 2.6. The European City (Regionalism and Globalism).

3

Guallart's hybrid thinking also connects to several other associative points, as for example 2.9 Urban

Landscape and Natural Influences and 2.4 Narkomfin Block and Social Housing since in many cases

throughout Sociopólis and in the Sharing Tower green, social and historic programmes are part of the

hybrid plan. Diversion is one of the magical words in Guallarts thinking. Diversion of urban and single

house usage, diversion of inhabitants, diversion of floor plans in the tower, diversion of green and city

and so on.

Also the associated architect Izaskun Chinchilla who contributed a theoretical text to the Sociopólis

book sees Sociopólis as a city "heterogeneous in programme and spatial configuration" and praises it

for being a "hybrid of singular pieces".12F

13 Diversion is seen as a one-kind-fits-all solution to

contemporary architectural problems. In the quote of Guallart above shows, diversity is seen as a

guarantee for balance. It should thus be remembered that the ultimate aim of the project here is

named as balance, while diversity (which could also be understood as the direct opposite of balance)

is only the tool to reach this condition. Thus the motto is: diversity to reach harmony.

2.2. New Urbanism and Leon Krier The New Urbanism started from a similar critic of the American zoned city and took the European city

in parts as a model,13F

14 but for the architects involved in Sociopólis as Steiner they went not far enough,

but stayed to much connected to a façade centered thinking and in many cases did not abolish zoning

or the idea of the suburb.14F

15

Actually the thinking of 'Guallart and friends' is much closer to the originally major influence on the

New Urbanism movement, which were the writings of Leon Krier, especially in regard to his ideas of

the revival of the old European town and his strong critics against zoning.15F

16 Guallart's critic of the

"specialized American city, where the territory is functionally fragmented" and his demand that "each

neighbourhood will have to behave like a micro-city",16F

17 seem to be taken right out of one of Krier's

articles. 17F

18 When one reads Krier and compares only the headlines of his articles to the ideology of

Sociopólis, it is astonishing, how identical the approaches are: 18F

19 Articles by Krier as "Organic versus

mechanical composition"19F

20, "The city within the city"20F

21, "Town and country"21F

22, "Critique of zoning" 22F

23,

"Critique of industrialization" 23F

24 and "Critique of the megastructural city"24F

25 bring up the same critics and

supposed solutions as the writings about the Sharing Tower and Sociopólis, only that at Sociopólis

13 Chinchilla, Izaskun, "Sociopolis, Public issue", http://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_textos&subsec=boton_chinchilla. 14 Katz, Peter, The New Urbanism: toward an architecture of community, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1994. 15 Ibid. 16 Krier, Leon, "The Reconstruction of the European City", Architectural Design, No. 54, (Nov/Dec 1984), pp. 16-22. 17 Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 24. 18 See Addendum 3. 19 It is thus not clear how it comes that Leon Krier is not mentioned at all by architects of Sociopólis. But if they mention – as Steiner – New Urbanism one could presume that they have some knowledge of Krier's theories, too. 20 Krier, Leon, Houses, Palaces, Cities, Belvedere, Berlin-Tegel, 1980, pp. 110. 21 Ibid, pp.70. Compare to the neighbourhoods as micro-cities of Guallart. 22 Ibid, pp.30. Compare to the concept of "Rurban" by Guallart. See 2.9. 23 Ibid, pp. 32. 24 Ibid, pp. 36. 25 Ibid, pp. 20.

4

there are advanced with new technologies and the virtual component. Consequently also roots for the

historic enthusiasm of Guallart, Ito and others are already present in Krier's writings especially as he

points towards the medieval and Roman town.25F

26

The prominent dealing with hybridization in Sociopólis' can also be seen as a connection to a historic

urban model, as mixed use is of course nothing new, as also Krier emphasized. 26F

27 Actually it is very

ancient and the mixed use movement was only returned by Krier and today Guallart – although in a

more sophisticated way – although their basic aim and composition has been there long before the

industrial revolution. Ancient towns of the Roman Empire or medieval towns of Northern Europe or the

Orient were all mixed used towns, as well in the micro view of buildings (think of the typical Roman

insula building with shops on the street level and different income housing in the floors above) as in

the macro urban view (although there were also certain strategies of zoning).

But although Krier and others built their basis for a return to the hybrid city on ancient models against

the Modernist zoned city, Guallart also argues that the architectural shift towards hybridization was

only possible through the digital age with its basic hybrid approach.

2.3. (File) Sharing Maybe one could have begun this work with the term of Sharing, since this was chosen to be the

name of the project and seemingly it has major importance in the planning associations. Shared

spaces and hybrid use are interwoven with each other here. The hybrid functions are demanding a

sharing, since every building has something different to offer and only through sharing it with

inhabitants of other buildings, everybody can reach an effective usage.27F

28 Sharing, being also strongly

connected to the social associative field, 28F

29 is a basic feature also of other buildings in Sociopólis as

for example Toyo Ito's project Apartments for the elderly, where "shared spaces and the terraces

have a specially important role"29F

30.

And of course also shared spaces are nothing new, if we just think of the inner courtyard of Roman

times that was a meeting, working and living focus of all inhabitants surrounding it, who shared this

space.

But in Guallart's view only the digital age makes a real shared approach possible, since the virtual

world "allowed us to develop the idea of shared resources"30F

31. Guallart namely mentions file sharing in

the style of Napster31F

32 and even quoted this to me via email as the main motivation behind the concept

of the Sharing Tower.32F

33 The idea of internet file sharing is that a person anywhere in the world that is

connected to a certain website allows others around the world to copy his digital files from him for

26 Jencks, Charles, “Post-Modernism and Eclectic Continuity”, Architectural Design, No. 57, (1/2 1987). See also 2.8. The Middle Ages and Nostalgia. 27 Krier, Leon, Houses, Palaces, Cities, Belvedere, Berlin-Tegel, 1980, pp. 32. 28 Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 23. 29 See 2.4. 30 Ito, Toyo, "Apartments for the elderly", http://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_edificios&subsec=boton_toyo. 31 Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 41. 32 See Addendum 4. 33 See Addendum 12.

5

free. Guallart takes the file sharing reference to create the concept of space sharing, which at the

same time also profits from the trend that some physical objects of our lives have been moved to the

virtual world (photo albums, folders, telephones etc.). For Guallart this shows that the "public is

prepared to give up part of their property so as to be able to do more things and be more efficient."33F

34

For Guallart it is "hardly logical" 34F

35 that every person should have all kind of dwelling objects (as

washing machine, fridge, TV, etc.) and not to share it, since that way people can "enjoy more space"

and "lower the costs",35F

36 which mirrors the main principles in his approach: efficiency and rationality.

However he does not relate to the morality or amorality of file sharing, since Western society still

protects creative property – even Napster has since been forbidden and closed. And even if this

would be legal – are people really giving up something from their digital property when they let others

use it as well? They have no actual damage from it. Can the digital code of a music file really be

compared to a physical kitchen when it comes to sharing it with another person?

2.4. Narkomfim Block and Social Housing Coming from the theory of Sharing, Guallart tries a quite experimental implementation. The project

assumes that sharing is possible on a great scale. A person can live on a minimum private space for

its most basic needs as sleeping, dressing and hygiene, while sharing a much bigger space for all

other activities as eating, socializing, laundry, cooking, watching TV etc.. As an positive example for

this kind of sharing Guallart names communist housing in the 1920s in the USSR. 36F

37

From the description of large communal kitchens in quoted project he seems to talk of the Narkomfin

housing block by Moisei Ginzburg, which he affirmed by email. 37F

38 The Narkomfin block (finished in

1932) was one of the revolutionist masterpieces of Moisei Ginzburg – a Soviet constructivist - which

he prepared for quite some time and can be seen as a continuation of ideas he applied in the OSA

headquarters (1927). Ginzburg called the project an "experiment of new housing type, where

individual spaces are combined with a full range of socialized functions (dining room, rooms for rest,

kindergarten and day-care rooms, laundry, etc.)"38F

39. The Narkomfin building took this ideas to a greater

scale of a 5 storey block so that "an enclosed walkway at the second level connects the housing to

the community building containing a kitchen and canteen, meeting and hobby rooms, and a

kindergarten."39F

40 It is shown that Ginzburg himself was inspired by workers' apartments projects of

Ernst May and Grete Schütte-Lichotzky in Frankfurt am Main. 40F

41 Reading this descriptions out of

Soviet Russia of the 1930s next to the description about the Sharing Tower one could be confused

due to the similarities in terms and arguement. But there is an important conceptual difference:

34 Ibid. 35 Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 39. 36 Ibid, p. 40. 37 Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 44. 38 See Addendum 12. 39 Souvremennia Arkhitektura, No. 4-5, (1927),p. 130. See also: Brumfield, William Craft & Ruble, Blair A., Russian Housing in the Modern Age: Design and Social History, Woodrow Wilson Center, Cambridge, 1994, p. 103. 40 Brumfield & Ruble, Russian Housing in the Modern Age: Design and Social History, p. 108. 41 Ibid.

6

"Yet despite the radical form of the Narkofim block [...] Ginzburg remained aware that such a

commune could only be humanly successful if it was induced rather than imposed."41F

42 Guallart does

not refer to any doubts or problems about the applicability of his project. But he does also not plan his

tower for the majority society, but for the marginal and socially weaker groups as young, old, low-

income and especially students and thus succeeds to avoid major critics, since such a concept could

most possibly be imagined as a kind of student dormitory or social housing. The whole project of

Sociopólis is thus also planned to operate on government rent-controlled 42F

43 housing which again

connects to the tradition of social housing and socialism. 43F

44 Also the government directed social

building can be seen as more characteristic for the European attitude in opposition to the American

privatively oriented building.

One should also not forget the name of the urban master plan in general: Sociopólis. Not just the

master plan, but the separate projects integrate social programmes, as for example the project of

Toyo Ito, while for Greg Lynn "community" and "social" seem to be kind of magic words for his

planning.44F

45 And Guallart even calls the basis of his Sharing Tower the "foundation of the collective45F

46".

The book Sociopólis deals a lot with socially weak and margin groups and their housing and living

conditions, which according to Guallart represent together a large part of society and they take the

main role in Sociopólis architecture – again - in opposition to the traditional middle class and

traditional family in America. The idea of private property is of course strongly connected to the

capitalistic and liberal American idea, while the idea of sharing and communal property, or the blurring

out of the difference between private and public space as Guallart describes, 46F

47 is of course a classical

socialist feature. This tendency can reach quite totalitarian quotes as "It is the urban space of the

citizen, who knowingly plays their role in society, embedded in the social network of power."47F

48 And as

communism referred to a new family, the approach of Sociopólis, too.

2.5. The New Family Strongly connected to the socialist background is the relation to the family in Guallart's project. Gullart

agrees that Communism tried "to destroy the traditional family set-up" via it's shared housing projects

(Narkomfin) that he uses as references.48F

49 His architecture's aim is less to destroy the traditional

family, but rather to offer fitting solutions for the in wide parts already destroyed the traditional family

of the European society: "The traditional family of two parents and one or more children now accounts

for less than 50% of households in many regions of Spain." But not just that this society has virtually

42 Ginzburg, Moisei, Style and Epoch, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, 1982, p. 7. 43 "…fulfilling a much-needed social function, making housing available at a controlled price to a great number of people." http://www.guallart.com/01projects/sociopolismasterlan/default.htm 44 Guallart, Vincente, "Sociopólis: An opportunity for social innovation", http://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_textos&subsec=boton_v_guallart. 45 Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 74. 46 Ibid, p. 53. 47 "…middle ground between the private and the public ground", Ibid, p. 41. 48 Steiner, Dietmar, "Sociopólis, The new European city", http://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_textos&subsec=boton_steiner. 49 Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 44.

7

stopped to reproduce itself and have children, but also the relationships have changed. There are

unmarried couples, single mothers and elderly, students or other young singles,49F

50 that live

unconnected to their families in single or communal apartments or dormitories. Guallart and other

Sociopólis architects want to offer housing solutions for the disintegrated 'post-family'.

And thus also this motivation draws a contrast to the typically American suburb home of a typical

traditional family. As the American suburb is shaped according to the ideal American suburb family, 50F

51

and the Soviet social block is shaped according to the ideal communist "family", 51F

52 so too the Sharing

Tower is shaped according to the ideal family in Guallart's head, and this is the disintegrated

European "post-family" that – going one step further - is replaced by Guallart with the "Virtual Family",

"in which peoples of various generations who are not blood relatives behave to some extent as a

family, sharing resources or activities."52F

53

2.6. The European City (Regionalism and Globalism) Globalism with its interconnectedness of humans, resources, places, knowledge, etc. has created

new challenges and questions for contemporary architecture. In recent years different theories were

formulated on how architecture should position itself towards this challenge. Should it support a global

style or ideology? Should it support regionalist styles and particularistic tendencies? Should it connect

both? Should it be critical? Should everything be allowed and no more qualitative judgment be

allowed or even possible? A very profoundly discussion was presented by Alexander Tzonis in his

thoughts of an Critical Regionalism, emphasizing the adoption of local architectural features, but in a

way that does critically approach Regionalism as well as Globalism. 53F

54 While others might favor a

globally customer orientated "assimilated" architecture approach, using whatever means to satisfy the

economic needs laid out before the architect. This is a kind of uncritical capitalistic approach as

presented by Michael Speaks.54F

55

Of course it can be expected that a thinking like in Sociopólis that tries to position itself against an

universalist approach of Modernism and modernist urbanism would oppose globalism - at least in the

form of an universalist globalism. And thus Guallart and similar thinking recent architects are returning

to a certain kind of regionalism. However they do not reject globalism, but see it as two developments

happening next to each other, while a developing global society needs in their view, regionalist

refuges.55F

56 Their ideal human is a cosmopolitan, but at the same time very locally rooted:

50 "The project promotes the construction of housing that responds to the needs of the new types of family unit (young people, the elderly, single-parent families, etc.)", http://www.guallart.com/01projects/sociopolismasterlan/default.htm 51"The family is crucial […] to the whole suburban way of life", Thorns, David C., Subrubia, MacGibbon & Kee, London, 1972, p. 87. See also: Gruenberg, Sidonie Matsner. "The Challenge of the New Suburbs.", Marriage and Family Living, No. 17/2, (May 1955), pp. 133-137. 52 Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 44. 53 Ibid, p. 19. 54 Tzonis, Alexander and Lefaivre, Liane, "Why Critical Regionalism today?", Architecture and Urbanism, No. 236, (May 1990). 55 Speaks, Michael, "Design Intelligence and the New Economy", Architectural Record (January 2002). 56 "…, we travel to distant places by high-speed transport systems, but at the same time we affirm the quality of the local…", Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 39.

8

"Faced with an increasingly uniform global society, we need to recognize the specific cultural and

landscape values of each territory as fundamental to the quality of life of the people who live there

and to asserting a distinct identity that can bestow a competitive advantage."56F

57

Thus here is a connection of regionalism while keeping up the awareness that globalism can't be

redone, (similar to Tzonis) while at the same time a design relativism is taken (similar to Speaks), but

still preferring a socialist approach against a capitalistic one.

In Sociopólis and the Sharing Tower the local identity is European and as mentioned before many

features of the project position themselves against a projected American identity. 57F

58 Also

characterization of Sociopolis as a "pedestrian city"58F

59 heads in the same direction.

Guallart does not reach a critical deepness as Tzonis in his regionalist approach. As will be shown, he

openly and uncritically connects to medieval European themes in a tradition of a Leon Krier.59F

60 Guallart

is critical of an universalist ideology like Modernism, but he is uncritical with a sanctification of

diversity. The whole project speaks diversity and hybridization in any kind of view, and thus connects

much more to a regionalist romanticism that is however globally interlinked and not nationalistically

hostile to other cultures. He favors a kind of all welcoming relativism with many regionalisms living

side by side, and that he see as its international potential.

2.7. Conservation

It is striking to what lengths the architecture of Guallart and other architects of Sociopólis go, in order

to protect and conserve existing conditions. May it be the surrounding of the construction sites, nature

or historic landmarks.

In his project of Denia Quarry, the "conservation and protection of the castle" and "the protection of

the Hort de Morand, which contains the remains of the Roman town" 60F

61 are named as two of the five

basic principles or the project. The protective and historic themes take also a very prominent place in

the description of the Sociopólis masterplan, where a major care is taken for the "maximum protection

for the existing huerta (one of the traditional agricultural zones surrounding the city of Valencia)

irrigated with waters from the River Turia by way of channels originally dug by the Arabs some 800

years ago".61F

62

This is no coincidence. The architecture of Guallart & Co. has a strong aversion to interference in the

existing. This becomes such a major concept in their thinking that "to ensure the continuity of the

natural networks" they develop the whole new term and approach of "dis-dense" ("a city that is

57 Guallart, Vincente, "Sociopólis: An opportunity for social innovation", http://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_textos&subsec=boton_v_guallart. 58 See Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 17. 59 Ibid, p. 39. 60 See Krier, Leon, "The Reconstruction of the European City", Architectural Design, No. 54, (Nov/Dec 1984), pp. 16-22. 61 Guallart, Vincente, "Denia Cultural Park (2002)", http://www.guallart.com/01projects/deniaCulturalPark/default.htm. Note the Roman connection. 62 Guallart, Vincente, "Sociopólis Master plan (2005-2007)", http://www.guallart.com/01projects/sociopolismasterlan/default.htm.

9

discontinues").62F

63 Thus the principle of conserving the existing and the rejection of any intervention

becomes one of the basic pillars of this architectural thinking.

Chinchilla summarizes their rejection of "the kind of aggressive, steamroller urbanism that is based on

autarchic structures which impose themselves on the context with a logic external to it."63F

64

Here it also becomes clear that the reasons for design should be a kind of 'internal logic', something

immanent to the project that will lead the architectural process, not certain positivistic or universalist

'outer' approaches. It is a kind of relativism that tries to take its design reasons out of the project

itself.64F

65 It should only be noted that in the rejection of a precasted ideology, and positivistic planning

as in Modernism,65F

66 they also distance themselves here from socialism – being a positivistic ideology

by itself -, which otherwise very much influences Sociopólis and the Sharing Tower.

2.8. The Middle Ages and Nostalgia But this way of conservatism is not only a rejection against imposing a positivistic design, it also

expresses its admiration for history, especially medieval history. It seems strange, but many of the

architects connected to this "City for the future" take their very ideas and triggers from medieval

models. Guallart himself explicitly compares the Sharing Tower to "the style of a medieval tower".

Toyo Ito describes how the idea for his project in Sociopólis came up: "I was greatly impressed by

Vincente's images of medieval gardens" and portrays medieval imagery. 66F

67 And as I asked Guallart via

email, what role he things that medieval references have for his design, he answered me that "the

medieval times were very social. The people made cathedrals as a share icon, payed by the city.

There were craftsmen designing and making things by themselves. I very much like the medieval

times."67F

68

I think that his statement fits perfectly in what has been detected so far. This architecture longs for the

medieval times, since they connect a kind of conservative, social image with a European identity,

while it stands against Modernism and values associated with industrialism. It is a kind of romantic

looking backwards while using the most modern tools. Also landmarks (as the Cathedral) are a

positive value in Guallart's Urbanism, 68F

69 as he for example describes in the Denia project.69F

70 In

Sociopólis he calls for protecting certain existing buildings and landscapes "like shrines".70F

71

But not only historic themes and site conservatism are resulting from the negation of Modernism and

Positivism, but also a strong emphasize on the design patterns of nature and a strong foible for floral

63 Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 26. 64 Chinchilla, Izaskun, "Sociopolis, Public issue", http://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_textos&subsec=boton_chinchilla. 65 How this should be done is nearer discussed in 2.10 Responsive Architecture. 66 The explicit rejection of Modernism can also be seen, as Chinchilla names in high favor Latour, B., We Have Never Been Modern, Prentice-Hall, 1993. 67 Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 211. 68 I corrected the grammar and spelling a bit. See Addendum 12. 69 Which again is a strong feature in Leon Krier thinking, too. 70 Guallart, Vincente, "Denia Cultural Park (2002)", http://www.guallart.com/01projects/deniaCulturalPark/default.htm. 71 Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 26.

10

patterns. Fittingly to the floral foible Guallart expressed also an affection for (medieval) craftsmanship,

which can be seen as a slight connection to the Arts and Crafts movement.

2.9 Urban Landscape and Natural Influences A strong connection to nature can be seen throughout the Sociopólis project and throughout other

projects by Guallart. The master plan of Sociopólis is build around the idea of a hybrid agriculture-city

area. Guallart calls this "Rurban" (Rural+Urban): Here the idea of agriculture and conversation are

combined, so that existing farm houses and farmlands are preserved and the city is build in their gaps

(see dis-dens in 2.7). Thus the existing agricultural structure becomes the trigger for the planning of

the whole are. 71F

72 Not just the garden houses of Toy Ito have a dominant green theme,72F

73 but also the

project of MVRDV in Sociopólis was explicitly planned "in response to the groves of fruit trees in the

surrounding area".73F

74 The project by Greg Lynn is called Onion Blossom,74F

75 while Lynn is referring to it

as "floral architecture"75F

76 and an "agricultural space", while "the whole project really derives from

agricultural, vegetable products of this kind" 76F

77 And finally the Sharing Tower by Guallart – a project so

obviously without (real or façade) greenery is described by Guallart as deriving from an analogy to

nature, as he seems to refer to a tree-like net: "planned as nature, from bigger shared to smaller

private spaces".77F

78 Dietmar Steiner names this interwoven natural and city elements the "Urban

Landscape", which when it reaches its theoretical peak "the town itself is subsequently seen as

landscape" while the aim should be "integrating the qualities of the countryside, of agricultural land, in

the town itself".78F

79 And again Leon Krier's thoughts could be placed alongside: "A charter for the

reconstruction of the city is the necessary complement to a charter for the reconstruction of the

countryside".79F

80 And this seems to be the correct consequence for an architecture that takes its

"ideology" and Data out of its environment: It becomes like the environment. And if this architecture is

very impressed by nature and natural forms and takes nature as its model, 80F

81 it should only be logically

that such an architecture would in the end design its cities as woods and meadows, hills and lakes –

they would build nature itself. And that is exactly what happens in the most recent projects of Guallart

(and others). In the Denia project, which Guallart fittingly names "Howtomakeamountain", he finds

nice words to express that he actually imitates nature: "The geological structure of the hill, on the

72 "Within the neighbourhood has four well-conserved historic farmhouses, and around these will be the focal points for ‘urban farm’ zones cared for by the local residents.", Guallart, Vincente, "Sociopólis Master plan (2005-2007)", http://www.guallart.com/01projects/sociopolismasterlan/default.htm. 73 See Addendum 6. 74 MVRDV, "Huerta Tower", http://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_edificios&subsec=boton_mvrdv. See Addendum 7. 75 Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 67. See Addendum 8. 76 Ibid, p. 71. 77 Ibid, p. 73. 78 Ibid, p. 52. 79.Steiner, Dietmar, "Sociopólis, The new European city", http://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_textos&subsec=boton_steiner. 80 Economakis, Richard (ed.), Leon Krier: Architecture & Urban Design 1967 – 1992, Academy Editions, London, 1992, p. 16. 81 There even could be a discussion started here in which degree the data architecture of Sociopólis with its admiration of nature as its model can be be seen in connection to Classical Greek design…

11

micro, the medium and the macro scales, offers us rules with which to put forward a mineralogical

system that will guide its functioning81F

82".

The best example however may be the "Re-Naturalization of Territory" by Guallart: Giant organic

formed structures appear in the city as artificial mountains and woods and landmarks and cathedrals

at the same time, what he calls "natural-artificial".82F

83 Asked by me via email what in Guallart's view is

the connection between Data architecture and nature, he answered that "Nature is a way of Data".83F

84

That organic forms and a mimesis of nature is a symptom not only of Guallart or Sociopolis, but of

data architecture in general, can be seen for example in the Gwanggyo City Center designed by

MVRDV, 84F

85 whose data approach is notorious. The project looks very much as Guallart's Re-

Naturalization of Territory.

2.10. Responsive Architecture Chinchilla summarized the nature of the here presented "Sociopólis architecture": "Understanding,

ordering and structuring the territory is a matter of revealing the hidden laws that nature, logistics and

sociology have embedded in the environment".85F

86 This is – in my view - the belief of the Guallart and

other Data architects in a nutshell. A positivistic, formalist, artistic, ideological or any other approach

coming from the architect are rejected. The only way of 'planning' can only be to collect data that will

determine the design process. But this data is again not coming from the inside of the architect's brain

or other sources, but from the project itself, from its site, its history, its people etc. And it is believed

that when one only decodes this hidden secret plan for the project, one actually reaches a kind of

objective and optimal design. Thus one can see this approach as a kind of objective design out of

relativism and particularism. Everything is seen as determined by its circumstances and

understanding the circumstance and designing according to it is seen as the correct way, while an

outer impulse or a directing human intellect – not to say the word 'genius' – is firmly rejected.

The term Responsive Architecture was coined by Nicholas Negroponte in the late 1960s, when he

proposed that architecture would benefit from the integration of computing power into built spaces and

structures, and that better performing, more rational buildings would be the result.86F

87 Since then

Responsive Architecture stayed more a label for architecture that knew to react to its environment

(especially light, temperature and wind inputs). But the feature of an architecture that is responsive

not only to real physical inputs, but also responsive to natural data during the planning and design

process is in my opinion what can be found in Sharing Tower and Sociopólis and in a lot of

contemporary architecture that is designed according to a data-approach.

82 82 Guallart, Vincente, "Denia Cultural Park (2002)", http://www.guallart.com/01projects/deniaCulturalPark/default.htm. See Addendum 9. 83 Guallert, Vincente, "The Re-Naturalisation of Territory", http://www.guallart.com/11re-naturalisation/default.htm. See Addendum 10. 84 See Addendum 10. 85 See Addendum 11. 86 86 Chinchilla, Izaskun, "Sociopolis, Public issue", http://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_textos&subsec=boton_chinchilla. 87 Negroponte, Nicholas, Soft Architecture Machines, MIT Press, 1975.

12

3. Conclusion

Most strikingly, an architecture that declares of itself to be the architecture of the future - being a

political correct architecture - and is proud to have found a kind of 'objective' design approach by a

strong nature and environment responsive data-approach, has some quite nostalgic, radical and

conservative features on a closer look. It praises the medieval Europe, Soviet communism and

mother nature as architectural utopias that should be imitated. At the same time it becomes clear that

this approach is neither future orientated nor objective, but sanctifies environmental features to which

it can be responsive to prevent any conscious and ideological design decision. The ideology here is

the absence of ideology – as it should be for a good relativism. But at the same time the architects by

themselves prove that even for them a pure responsive design isn't possible and again and again the

architects present design triggers, although they might try to make them as 'responsive' and 'natural'

as possible as for example the onion in Greg Lyyn's design. The question can be asked, if the age of

digital knowledge and virtual spaces was really essential for an approach that basically goes back to

the anti-industrial theories of a Leon Krier? In nearly all projects the actual connection to the internet

world is quite thin and their mentioning seems to be more to justify a 'future' characteristic of the

project, than being a real pillar of the design of the project. Of course the digital world saves physical

space, so that a more "efficient"87F

88 housing as in the Sharing Tower becomes more probable, but

Guallart himself makes a perfect distinction between virtual sharing and physical sharing and sets it

equal without explaining how this can be done in reality. 88F

89 In my view Guallart's approach fails here in

the same point, socialistic design failed, too: In a insufficient research on the human nature (which

should actually have been expected from a data architect). Furthermore I do not agree with Guallart,

that blind trust in diversion will lead to a balance 89F

90 and that the imitation of the natural world is the

highest level of design possible. An architecture that sanctifies nature and a relativistic automatic

responsive behavior has no real values attached to it and will in the end not divide between 'good' and

'bad' design. Everything is possible as long as it is responsive. But when a cook throws everything

into the soup that he finds in the kitchen, it does not have to be tasteful. And thus the school of data

architecture or responsive architecture even today departs from – in my view - important

achievements, as the value of quality over quantity and the critic of the ornament and propagate even

in Sociopólis already baroque ornaments.90F

91 And finally I would summarize that an architecture that

sees (relativistic) nature as its perfect model, ultimately believes that nature and the world is a perfect

model. I can't see that nature or the world of today is perfect, but that much should be bettered –

especially by architects – and you can't better a world when you just copy it.

88 See Guallart's definition in 2.3. 89 Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 67. 90 See 2.3. 91 Guallart, Sociopolis: Project of a City for the future, p. 79.

13

4. Bibliography

• Brumfield, William Craft & Ruble, Blair A., URussian Housing in the Modern Age: Design and

Social HistoryU, Woodrow Wilson Center, Cambridge, 1994.

• Chinchilla, Izaskun, "Sociopolis, Public issue",

Uhttp://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_textos&subsec=boton_chin

chillaU.

• Economakis, Richard (ed.), ULeon Krier: Architecture & Urban Design 1967 – 1992U, Academy

Editions, London, 1992.

• Ginzburg, Moisei, UStyle and EpochU, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, 1982.

• Gruenberg, Sidonie Matsner. "The Challenge of the New Suburbs.", UMarriage and Family

Living U, UNo. 17/2U, (May 1955).

• Guallart, Vincente, "Denia Cultural Park (2002)",

Uhttp://www.guallart.com/01projects/deniaCulturalPark/default.htm U.

• Guallart, Vincente, "MediaMountains&Architecture",

Uhttp://www.guallart.com/04mediaMountainsAndArchitecture/default.htm U.

• Guallart, Vincente, "Sociopólis: An opportunity for social innovation",

Uhttp://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_textos&subsec=boton_v_g

uallart U.

• Guallart, Vincente, "Sociopólis Master plan (2005-2007)",

Uhttp://www.guallart.com/01projects/sociopolismasterlan/default.htm U.

• Guallart, Vincente, USociopolis: Project of a City for the futureU, Actar/Architectektur Zentrum,

Wien, March 2006.

• Guallart, Vincente, "Sociopólis Sharing Tower (2004-2007)",

Uhttp://www.guallart.com/01projects/sociopolistower/default.htmU.

• Ito, Toyo, "Apartments for the elderly",

Uhttp://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_edificios&subsec=boton_to

yoU.

• Jacobs, Jane, UThe Death and Life of Great American Cities U, Random House, New York, 1961.

• Jencks, Charles, “Post-Modernism and Eclectic Continuity”, UArchitectural DesignU, UNo. 57U, (no

1/2 1987)

• Katz, Peter, UThe New Urbanism: toward an architecture of communityU, McGraw-Hill, New

York, 1994.

• Krier, Leon, "The Reconstruction of the European City", UArchitectural Design,U UNo. 54, U

(Nov/Dec 1984), pp. 16-22.

• Krier, Leon, UHouses, Palaces, CitiesU, Belvedere, Berlin-Tegel, 1980.

• Latour, B., UWe Have Never Been ModernU, Prentice-Hall, 1993.

14

• MVRDV, "Huerta Tower",

Uhttp://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_edificios&subsec=boton_m

vrdvU.

• Negroponte, Nicholas, USoft Architecture Machines U, MIT Press, 1975.

• Speaks, Michael, "Design Intelligence and the New Economy", UArchitectural Record U (January

2002).

• Steiner, Dietmar, "Sociopólis, European City of the Future", USociopolis: Project of a City for the

futureU, Ed. Vincente Guallart, Actar/Architectektur Zentrum, Wien, March 2006.

• Steiner, Dietmar, "Sociopólis, The new European city",

Uhttp://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php?lang=en&sec=boton_textos&subsec=boton_stei

nerU.

• Thorns, David C., USubrubia U, MacGibbon & Kee, London, 1972.

• Tzonis, Alexander and Lefaivre, Liane, "Why Critical Regionalism today?", UArchitecture and

UrbanismU, UNo. 236U, (May 1990).

Addendum

1.

The Sharing Tower, Vicente Guallart Floor with colored shared space.

2.

Sociopólis, Master Plan by Vicente Guallart

3.

Urban planning according to Leon Krier.

4.

Symbol of Napster.

5.

Narkofim Social Apartment Block, Moisei Ginzburg, pictures from the 1930s

6.

"Garden Houses" (in Sociopólis), Toyo Ito.1

7.

"Huearta Tower", (in Sociopólis), MVRDV.

1 It should be noted that Toyo Ito seems to have pulled back this design from the official Sociopólis website (although it has been published in the Sociopólis book) and replaced it with another project. At other places he seems to have eliminated all records of this project, too.

8.

"Onion Blossom" in Sociopólis), Greg Lynn.

9.

"Howtomakeamountain", Vincente Guallart

10.

"The re-naturalisation of territory", Vincente Guallart.

11.

"Gwanggyo City Center", MVRDV.

12. Email exchange with Vincente Guallart Con fecha 10/8/2009, "Ulrich Becker" <u.j.becker@googlemail.com>

escribió:

>Dear Dr. Vincente Guallart,

>

>I am an architecture student from Jerusalem and did a presentation one

>several of your projects and to your architecture in general for our course

>"contemporary theories in architecture" and I am right now writing my

>seminary work on your project "Sharing Tower" with a German student.

>My work tries to catch a view on the motifs, backgrounds, triggers and

>ideologies of your architecture and especially the Sharing Tower. The work

>is written around an associative field of all kind of influences you name or

>we see that could be important for your progamme.

>

>I would be very interested and highly delighted by a short answer from you

>to the following short questions:

>

>- What would you name the main motivation behind the concept of the Sharing

>Tower?

I USED THE CONCEPT THAT IS USING THE POELPE IN INTERNMET SHARING MUSIC,

AND PICTURES. I APLIED THIS CONCEPT TO THE PHISICAL SPACE.

>- In what form was the computerized DATA age essential for the design, or

>would it have been possible with "ordinary" architectural methods?

OF COURSE. THIS IS A QUESTION OF ORGANIZATION OF THE SPCE. IN THE

BUILDING NARKOFIN, MADE IN RUSSIA IN THE 20 THEY HAVE GLOBAL KITCHENS.

I'M NOT DOING A COMUNICT BUILDING BUT AN INFORMATIONAL BUILDING.

>- In what form did communist design and socialist ideas influced the

>building?

COMUNIST WANT TO DESTROY THE FAMILY. I CREATE INSTANT FAMILY RELATIONS

WITH PEOPLE NOT RELATED WITH THEIR BLOOD. IF YOU HAVE A BUS WITH 40

PEOPLE THIS IS A PUBCLI BUS. IF YOU HAVE A CAR WITH 4 PEOPLE THIS CAN BE

A SHARED CAR. IN ORDER TO SHARE THING IN THE PHISICAL WORLD IS CRUCIAL

THE NUMBER OF USERS.

>- Do you see your design with its social and sharing components as a

>destinct European approach or should this be an example for the whole world?

I'M PRESETING THIS PROJECTS IN NEW YORK CITIY IN SEPTMEBER. SHARING IS

GLOBAL.

>- Do you see your design more as an universalist (everybody should design

>this way) or relativist (everybody should design his way) approach?

THE NATURE IS GLOBAL AND SPECIFIC SIMULTANEAOSLY. DESIGN SHOULD BE THE

SAME.

>- Would you say that your design is an objective design that dervies

>necessarily from the data research? Is the motto "research in order to

>act" mean the the research shows in which way should be acted or is it just

>a tool for a free and creative architect to design?

WE NEED TO THINK WHAT TO DO BEFORE TO THINK HOW TO DO.

>- What role play historic and especially medieval connections for the design

>(you name the "medieval tower"). In what way has the medieval tower

>influenced you?

THE MEDIEVAL TIMES WAS VERY SOCIAL. THE POEPLE MADE CATEDRALS AS A SAHRE

ICON, PAYED BY THE CITY. THERE WERE CRAFMAN DESIGNING AND MAKING THINGS

BY THEMSELVES. I LIOKE VERY MUCH THE MEDIEVAL TIMES.

>- How do you see the connection between nature and data in your design?

NATURE IS A WAY OF DATA,.

>- In what way were the works "Shopping" by Rem Koolhaas and "Las Vegas" by

>Robert Venturi important for your way to start design from Data?

ZERO.

>Sorry for the many questions, but I would also very happy, if you could

>answer only to few of them!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST.

VICENTE GUALLART