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Reprinted from:
Architecture & Urbanism magazine, No. 62 - 63
October 2001,
Tehran |
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Research
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Some
Issues Concerning the Foundation
of Cities
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Architecture
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The hegemony of two
urban foci, governmental compounds and religious
institutions, is ubiquitous in ancient cities. Around
these two foci, which determined their configuration,
we see people living and toiling in inappropriate
environments and with little say in the matter. This
is also reflected in the history of architecture and
urban planning, which distinguishes between major
architecture, meaning governmental complexes, and
minor architecture, that is the indigenous,
spontaneous architecture of the people, which was
often built with scarce means and with short-lived
materials and equipment. Thus, alongside these two
main urban foci, which coexisted in apparent peace and
union for gubernatorial reasons, we see many people
rambling in search of a daily livelihood, while denied
the right of taking any initiative or expressing any
opinion in this regard.
In these cities, the rulers had the last word, and the
people could only follow ideas they often found quite
useless, and so went on living close-mouthed and
frustrated. This has been the case almost everywhere
in the world, as is well reflected in numerous
literary works.
The contemporary world alter these relations to some
extent. Within the modern social context, the concept
of the city gives birth to modern spaces. In other
words, modern urban spaces cannot come into being
apart from adequate social conditions. With the
emergence of modern social, economic and technological
ideas, relations within the cities also change and the
citizens' right of expressing their opinion on the
conception of their environments comes to the fore.
The value of labor and the presence of life take shape
in that period's newborn social justice and the right
to adequate living conditions within human communities
take a different meaning. In the contemporary world,
people understand more and this awareness creates new
spaces, in which the individuals acquire greater
economic and spiritual comfort. Modern cities are
inseparable from the concepts of citizenship and civic
society, and, although they may lack the outstanding
beauties of ancient cities, this progress with their
past conditions and spaces.
A city based on social concepts and modern labor
production raises the problem of zoning, where living
and working areas are separated, to the detriment of
historic landmarks in new urban sectors. Residential
areas far from crowded, polluted production sectors
take shape, but the abruptness of this separation does
not appear appropriate either, which calls for new
ideals, concepts and theoretical bases to be
discussed.
Along this conceptual development, since ancient times
to the middle age, the Renaissance, the Period of
Enlightenment, and the modern era, we have witnessed
many urban theories, which have acquired a different
from today. Descartes believed that urban design
should be ruled by a logical and geometric reasoning,
and thus somehow proposed a regular grid of the Greek
and Roman type, which he considered a distinctive
achievement of man's ingeniousness.
In the 19th century, the scientific and technological
developments of the Industrial Revolution, in
conjunction with the time's progressive ideas, already
evoke present-day urban spaces, although mechanical
means of transportation and such other scientific
devices as automobiles, electricity, etc. have yet to
come into existence.
The revolutionary process of mechanization of the 19th
century has opened new fields of action, automation
has entered our cities, speed has become a foremost
priority, and immense rifts accompanying the survival
of the megalopolis divides it into different zones and
districts.
Today's city is one of sophisticated mechanical
devices and electronic communications, the frantic
pace, of which leaves no one untouched, because its
turmoil encompasses all social strata.
Crowded, bustling modern and post-modern cities, even
if they distance themselves from the nostalgic images
of the past, allow everyone to manifest themselves,
and the diversity of events that happen in them
creates new grounds that have forcibly shattered the
idea of ruling foci and relegated them to the realm of
fantastic tales.
This diversity, confrontation and explosion
necessarily imply new social rights. Important cities,
where large-scale production takes place and a
bustling life goes on, exert a powerful magnetic
attraction upon all individuals of all works of life.
Small towns and villages become empty, with everyone
rushing toward these overcrowded cities in search of a
job, a higher income, a better life; perhaps
eventually acquiring a new relative freedom and a
wider range of action by forgoing their individuality
amid the multitude of faces and streets. The liberty
of operations in megalopolises can undoubtedly have
the taste of freedom and make them appear as launching
pads for new ideas in comparison with the atmosphere
of villages.
Cities are transformed into megalopolises and then
into capitals with ten million inhabitants to which
haste, money and pollution soon give the real visage
of present-day cities. People are no more obliged to
commute between their homes and workplaces, and are in
constant contact with each other through instant
information, electronic communication devices, fax
machines, email, visual document exchanges, etc. We
have come a long way since the time of the modernistic
zoning concept. Leon Krier now advocates a reservation
to streets and neighborhoods. He considers the urban
nuclei of our megalopolises as complete,
self-sufficient units, whose models are ideally suited
to urban neighborhoods. Aldo Rossi, whose
rationalistic and classic views are similar to Krier's,
believes that the quality of the city depends on the
quality of its streets and square, and that a model
city is an agglomeration of harmonious buildings
created around one another and forming social
gathering spaces. Jane Jacobs also considers the
street as one of the most important urban constituent
elements, which gives priority to the quality of life
in the neighborhoods.
Yet, all the cities of the world have problems and
particularities of their own, which cannot be
identified and recorded in terms of a model inspired
solely from theoretical fundaments. Therefore, many a
present-day social project lacking contextual linkage
has had to be reconsidered in terms of its
shortcomings. In fact, in cities, issues and
socio-cultural factors are as diverse as towns
configurations and development regarding land,
environment or culture. In other terms, we a re a
reflection of the image of the environment and, in
fact, every citizen has associations with some part of
the city, which image is soaked in memories and
meanings. In reality, moving actions of people,
activities, the pace of circulation, and human
exchanges are as important as physical parts,
buildings, streets or squares. An urban path, or
pattern, finds its true meaning through the atmosphere
of freedom, liberty and tolerance, which runs between
the city's spaces.
For example, by its flow across Paris, the Seine
divides this city into left and right banks, to which
its inhabitants are very attached in their everyday
lives and conversations. And each of its districts (quartiers)
bears a particular identity, whose distinctive
cultural wealth adds to the brilliance of Paris.
Geneva, whose population has remained unchanged at
350,000 for more than 40 years, follows a circular
pattern in its layout, radical accesses being assured
by several bridges, and pedestrian movement being
given entire priority in all the structures. In Morocco,
the presence of palm groves has created a green belt
next to the Casbah and the old Medinah, which, as in
many Islamic countries, has become bifocal, with the
so-called modern, anonymous city separated from the
old town by a boundary, in which the local
municipality carefully supervises the buildings'
colors, forms and heights.
In Jakarta and Surabaya, the explosive sprawl of
kampungs, i.e., popular villages, has resulted in
an unwanted central crowding, from which all adjoining
streets and avenues have been forcibly inspired, while
the historic presence of the kampungs dating back to
the past centuries, still play their role, albeit in a
different guise, in today's Indonesian cities.
In Berlin, after the downfall of the wall of shame and
the reunion of the city's eastern and western parts,
some 12 years ago, the Postdamerplatz, which is
perhaps the liveliest area for people and the youth of
gather, has become an arena of confrontation between
these two forces, across the trace of the invisible
barrier of a wall that divided them for 40 years, for
political reasons. This movement in Berlin is not
without reason, for the world's greatest architects
and urban planners, such as Libeskind, Renzo Piano,
Norman Foster, Venturi, Isozaki, Helmut Jahn and
others, have actively contributed to the design and
conception of its urban areas and buildings as an
international database of history. And finally, other
cities in the world each have their own configurations
and memories, and each one's particularity lies in the
components and factors of its own culture and
environment.
In philosophical and social terms, the meaning of a
city lies in the quality of its human interactions. We
are in the heart of complex diverse factors and
interdisciplinary entities which will constitute the
final formal space and the air we breathe, creating
urban synthesis through esoteric diverse actions and
spontaneous attitudes of the wider path frame of
environment. A city is a place, where people can
express their views and debate events, where problems
are discussed and human civilization is enhanced.
Where do we stand and how do we see the future? Is the
future built upon the past, or can it have an
independent present-day identity? In Iran, we may
praise the rational urban system of Safavid Isfahan,
the well-adapted desert vernacular architecture of
Yazd, or the unique mud architecture of Abyaneh,
Massouleh, etc.; yet, where do really stand today? And
where did we stop on our path towards creating
well-adapted cities?
As a contemporary example of uncontrolled development
and savage growth, what kind of a city is Tehran? A
city with 12 million inhabitants, in which all kinds
of events occur, where haste and pollution are
compounded by an ever-increasing car production, a
wholesale destruction of green areas and gardens, a
frantic population rushing to reach a second or third
daily job, aggressiveness and exasperation resulting
from life pressures, and alienation of individuals
with one another; but also as a counterpart of a
semi-promiscuity and perhaps paradoxically, where a
new experience of expressing one's opinions, attitudes
and aspirations, of a tentative democracy, is taking
place.
How is future urban planning determined in Iran and
what are its particularities? In new cities and human
agglomerations, perhaps following Rem Koolhaas'
revolutionary theory embodied in his declaration on
the generic city, every cause and action brings into
being something new and the infinite multitude of
unexpected causes eventually gives it its shape...
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Research:
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