Le Corbusier dreamt up Ville Contemporaine. Frank Lloyd Wright envisioned Broadacre City. Now, add into the mix Rem Koolhaas' design for the Waterfront City in Dubai - some 1.5 billion (yes, with a 'b' people) square feet of development.
Yet again, one of the notorious Starchitects proposes an urban development plan that is suspended in hypotheticals in lieu of considerations for practicality. While the New York Times gushes over the prospect of the project, here are shortcomings that we see:
- In a nomadic society that embraces mobile technology - laptop, wi-fi, collapse of tangible networks and support systems - how can the premise of a densely populated urban environment succeed anymore?
- The glossy review reads as though this city will emerge practically overnight. Let's not tease ourselves as this plan will take time and energy to evolve. The imagery is lovely, but the ramifications of practicability for the project need to be reviewed and resolved - i.e. transportation, water and sewer, electrical needs, and any ecological impact(s).
- The shear amount of materials and manpower to construct this vision is staggering. Can the global economy afford such an undertaking and depletion of resources in order to permit this project to move forward?
- Lastly, the project appears to be nothing more than a urbanized Baudrillardian Disneyland. Banal buildings are a backdrop to articulated, well-formed buildings. Ultimately, the development forms its own context, culture, society and - ultimately - economy. It is displaced from reality as it acts as its own Garden of Eden. And, by doing so, Koolhaas ultimately fails to deal with the context of an existing environment as his romanticized writings in 'Delirious New York' imply.
The disappointment that arises from reading this article is that once again architects are failing to observe, review and propose for the current built environment and landscape. Where cities are experiencing declines in population growth, planners and officials demolish vacant properties and seek resolutions for redevelopment. The redevelopment projects are consistent from one city to the next - demo this, mixed use here, redistrict there, and recall the 'Main Street' concept.
When one looks at the proposal for Dubai, one must begin to question what examples from these proposals can be (if at all) used for redeveloping our existing cities and trying to make inhabitable areas better. We need to bear in mind that our level of comfort in nostalgia is inherently flawed and new planning techniques need to be considered in order for our society to continue to evolve (note to self: modern cultures don't live in caves anymore).
The success of Rem's plan for Dubai is not what may or will be built for the Waterfront, but what the global society can extract from the plan and apply to their own city.
1 comments:
1.A ‘nomadic’ society moves from one location to another for specific reasons, it, more than any other term you could have used presupposes a reliance on place. [Nomads follow seasons, grazing patterns, and harvests, this means that movement was not arbitrary but rooted in a need for specific location]. In fact physical transportation networks are at their peak in all of history primarily because technology; and the distance it allows us to connect across, gives us reason to go elsewhere. Leaders in business spend 75% of their time traveling, this inherently suggests that one location, where one is in closer proximity to those with which one is dealing, is superior to the long distance communication this travel is created to overcome. For a good read on some of these concepts see Edward Soja’s Postmetropolis, or Marco Cenzati’s analysis of industrial districts in New York.
Additionally, for the first time in history more than 50% of the world’s population lives in cities, this number continues to increase. While Cleveland is perhaps losing people, world city density overall is increasing exponentially. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8Q18TN00&show_article=1
2.This is a moot point as these issues always need resolved, even in our already existing fair city. I don’t know if this comment suggests you like the imagery or that it’s too beautiful/optimistic. Personally, I’m not sure I put a value judgement on the imagery at all, it’s fine, glossy and well rendered just like everything else you see in any field. What’s the alternative?
Additionally, this stuff may actually arrive [relatively] overnight; estimates say that 15-25% of the world’s cranes are in Dubai, in architectural terms that means as close as you get to overnight capacity. [Brazilia was built in less than 5 years back in ‘56]
3.The Global economy has very little to do with it, just look around the UAE.
4.To this, here is from the above linked article
Some writers in their manner and stance intentionally provoke challenge and criticism from their readers. Others just invite you to think. Baudrillard's hyperprose demands only that you grunt wide-eyed or bewildered assent. He yearns to have intellectual influence, but must fend off any serious analysis of his own writing, remaining free to leap from one bombastic assertion to the next, no matter how brazen. Your place is simply to buy his books, adopt his jargon, and drop his name wherever possible.[18]
Stan’s assertions about comfort and nostalgia are essential and well-considered, but his facts are wrong, cities are increasing in population and density. In accusing another architect of not looking at context or current relevant conditions, which is I believe, the argument being made; I would suggest the accuser be more clever than a link to a Youngstown, Ohio in the context of Dubai.
Accusing Koolhaas of dealing in “hypotheticals in lieu of considerations for practicality” is an Ill-concieved criticism that you yourself identify as inherently conventional and nostalgic in Part 4 of your essay. Can one be both overly hypothetical and overly conventional?
Koolhaas’ has a long discourse on Utopianism, I think we can look at this scheme with interest because of what he doesn’t do. It is actually far more serious than his previous propositions for cities, ultimately his proposal seems to be New York, delirious or not. A banal grid, towers and heights based on zoning codes, and a position about Urbanity that suggests place matters, constraints matter, he even throws in the ‘UN Building’ Deathstar along the periphery. Probably more comparable with Pittsburgh’s logic behind the Golden Triangle than anything in Youngstown, he suggests that space is important. Is Rem actually an environmentalist? Or maybe he loves Jane Jacobs?
Ultimately what Koolhaas does better than anyone is marry optimism to reality. Great architecture is a fairy tale that gets grounded in fact, like Kafka might, we are offered a ridiculous suggestion, carried out to its logical conclusion, answering all of the questions along the way. He doesn’t ask for your faith in him, he tells you were your going, proves out the rational consequence of decisions, and what results is something that couldn’t be otherwise.
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