Partizan Publik has four main research projects at the moment: 'Liberty City: freedom fighters in Amsterdam', 'Social Engineering in the Amsterdam Metropolis', the 'Detroit Unreal Estate Agency' and 'Social Housing After the Soviets'
The action-research project at the A1-P11 Service Area this summer didn't make us much money in terms of sold sausages. It did however WON US THE COMPETITION! Joost Janmaat, artist Melle Smets and designer Stefan Bendiks presented their design of an architectural folly before a commission of artists and representatives of Rijkswaterstaat, the province of Overijssel and Kunstenlab Deventer.
1. Service Area P11 De Boermark, A1
Our pitch: all our designs to make the desolate and eerie A1 rest area into something spectacularly beautiful or intimate and personal resulted in compromised diarrhea art, misplaced mimicry and Disneyland (or Efteling) coziness. The highway - the largest monumental building of the Netherlands - doesn't allow for beauty or human scale: it is a world of rules and simplicity. Thus, we set out for a design dictated by the rules, very much like Hugh Ferriss did with the New York zoning law of 1916. Secondly, the design did not try to relate to its rural and cultural environments, but to the highway itself: the rest area relates more to faraway Minsk than nearby Deventer.
2. Discarted idea
This resulted in a feast of highway typologies: asfalt slabs and a massive, functionless gas station. We created a folly that only provides the most basic functions, and does not seek to be either pretty or intimate. As we are going to work on a next level design, a big salute to our honorary competitors Marc Maurer, Nicole Maurer, Boris Tellegen, JW Leug, Rob Sweere, Harro de Jong and Hans Jungerius.
What is the future of public rest areas along the Dutch motorways? Needed as they were a couple of decades ago (when cars were shitty and travelling was hard), they have become painfully redundant. Rijkswatersstaat, the owner of the highway, and the province of Overijssel have commisioned a project to get to a new use and design of these places along the A1 (the highway that runs from Diemen to Minsk). Joost has joined forces with artist Melle Smets and architect Stefan Bendiks.Last sunday was research day number one: apart from the ownership, the design, the spatial vision or economics of the place: who actually uses these rest areas, and what for? No matter how hard we tried, we did not find any Russian criminals, nor outdoor perverts, but did meet lone smokers, waiting truckers, old couples pauzing and young families with peeing kids.
A rest area like this, we concluded on the way home, is perhaps one of Hollands last truely public spaces. The highway environment has only very few rules (keep to the right, overtake on the left) and does not respond to policy changes from The Hague. The highway does not have to integrate society, or alleviate poverty: the rest area is a-political. It is furthermore a-commercial: it does not need to generate money. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it is a-moral. The rest area is anonymous. That usually is associated with bad things. But actually it only means that it has no specific owner, it doesnt below to anyone: we all own it, it belongs to everybody. Thus, the unmanned highway rest areas are radical public spaces: the P that denotes its presence is the P of Public.
Last week Partizan Publik worked with Urhahn Urban Design and Onlab on the design of the Spontaneous City book. Below you can find a visual summary of the discussion.
On the last research day in Cape Town we visited the Pan-African Market on Long Street. The Pan-African Market is a space with a really interesting history.
The market started as the first black entrepreneurial space in Cape Town's main street. The 4 storey building exists out of a great number of art and craft traders from all over the African continent.
We spoke with Vuyo who is the current director of the Pan-African Market. She explained how the space functions kind of as a cooperative and how it stimulates other black entrepreneurial activity on Long Street.
The traders, who import their merchandise directly from the artisans in the village of Congo, Cameroon, Senegal, Ghana or elsewhere, also form a community of informations for newcomers in Cape Town.
The Pan-African Market is mostly focused on an international tourist market, but the space functions also as a place of story readings, music events and the editorial office of the magazine Chimurenga. The Pan-African Space Station is one of their recent outreach events.
The Market feels the impact of the rising real estate prices in Cape Town for it becomes harder and harder for them to pay the rent.
The neighborhood of the new Cape Town soccer stadium is called Green Point. Being just outside of the city core this area was used during the colonial times as informal burial ground for slaves and the poor of the city. I did my research on this area in 2005.
[Green Point from Signal Hill]
Recent redevelopment of Green Point frequently uncovered the bones of those buried there. A construction project at Cobern Street and the construction of British Petrol building just at the Waterfront are a few examples. Most controversial though was the Prestwich Street exhumation in 2003.
As a contribution to the further gentrification of Green Point a developer envisioned The Rockwell a high-end mix-used complex at Prestwich Street and Napier Street. The construction work of the building’s foundation was stopped when human remains were found.
[interior of the Prestwich Street Memorial]
[Boxes containing human remains at the Woodstock Hospital before being interned in the Memorial. Photo SAHRA]
During a consultation process the official agencies tried to determine the significances of the bones. The graveyard was then already compared with the African Burial Ground in New York, a memorial place for the history of slavery. Due to forced removals the community who claimed these bones were there ancestors did not live in Green Point anymore. The descendants of slaves and other poors live currently in the Cape Flats, the city’s fringes. At Manuscripts and Archives at UCT there is an extensive archive of the consultation process.
Prestwich Street though did not became such a site of memory. Instead it was ruled that the bones were to be exhumed and interred in a newly designed ossuary at the site of an old protestant graveyard at Somerset Street. Moreover, the construction of The Rockwell continued. And as such also the history of Green Point became more inaccessible for the ‘people of Cape Town’ as historian Ciraj Rassool commented.
[The central area of the Rockwell]
We met Ciraj at the new Prestwich Street Memorial building. He commented immediately on how instead of a place of memory, the memorial had become a heritage destination. A place with a coffee shop called ‘Truth’ and nothing representing the struggles and the controversies, which were part of the consultation process. It’s hard not to think of the irony of the naming.
Ciraj hoped for the historial wrongdoings of economic development in the light of the World Soccer Championship to be recognized. The problematic is thought that many we spoke enjoy The Rockwell and its luxurious rooms and grand views even though they knew about the story of the burial grounds. There seems to be a conflict between the significance of heritage and development playing out. Ciraj hoped also for great things to happen for the Green Point Stadium as a public place, which could potentially be filled up with people and voices from all-over Cape Town.
Nick Shepherd, my former professor at UCT, introduced me in 2005 to the old zoo of Cecil Rhodes in Cape Town.
[Entrance to the old zoo from UCT campus]
Cecil who had two countries named after him – North and South Rhodesia – had the zoo designed with the crocodiles in a pond down at the bottom and all the way at the top there were the lions in a cage. This was the evolutionary tale that Cecil preferred. The story goes that Rhodes saw himself as the lion of Africa. And, during the Anglo-Boer war (1879-1915) when Rhodes was under siege at Kimberley one of the Boer leaders threatened to parade Rhodes in a lion’s cage if he would catch him.
[Stairs going up from the crocodile pont to the lions' cage]
Some Capetonians still remember the roaring of the lions. Most of them though are surprised when asked about the old zoo. They know that there’s a new zoo at Tygerberg, but remember nothing of Rhodes’ project. Nick explained how the zoo works as an exemplary space and was to symbolize the grandeur of the British Empire, the victory of the colonials over wild Africa. Not only the animals, who came from all over the British Empire, but also the vegetation is carefully curated to create a particular experience for the visitor: Africa has been tamed. Obviously the relationship with nature during the days of colonial Africa was a different one compared to now. Nature was experienced as frightening and dangerous.
[The lions' cage]
Rhodes’ zoo which is located just east of UCT and north of the Rhodes memorial is currently in a far state of ruination. The animals are gone accept maybe for a voluntary snake. UCT had plans to transform the lower parts in a parking lot and the lion cage into a take-away restaurant. The space is overlooked by most people. Homeless people live sometimes temporarily in the left-over buildings; students visit the place to smoke dagga away from the restriction of the UCT campus and creatives use the site for photo shoots, art exhibitions or dance shows.
[Inside the lions' cage]
It seems like the heritage of a carefully designed experience of the old Empire is crumbling and slowly taken over by everyday life in contemporary Cape Town.
I'm back in Cape Town for the first time after five years. In the place where I did my Master's studies at the University of Cape Town and lived for a bit more than a year, I'm now researching with artist Andrea Brennen for a project on the visual representations and the accompanying narratives of a number of public spaces.
[Pinguins at Simon's town, a must-see for every tourist! / photo by Andrea Brennen]
Going down my own memory lane I visited my old house in Observatory, the university where I studied and some of my favorite coffee shops and beaches. Cape Town is still as beautiful as it was five years ago! I realized when thinking about coming to Cape Town that most of what I knew from the city I learned via other people. So, it made sense to start with trying to meet those individuals again and hear about what is different in the city. In the last couple of days I met with Ntone Edjabe, Nick Shepherd and Ciraj Rassool.
[University of Cape Town, Jameson Hall / photo by Andrea Brennen]
Nick, who is an archaeologist at the Centre for African Studies, mentioned something really interesting I thought, namely that South Africa seems to have lost its special aura or the accompanying great expectations of the rainbow society. The country turned ‘normal’ over the last couple years. Nick toured us and his two sons around at the old zoo. He explained that the zoo, which is located just below the Rhodes memorial, functioned as an exemplary landscape, a place where the superiority of the British empire over the African wild nature was portrayed.
[Nick pointing me and Charlie at the Lion / photo by Andrea Brennen]
In talking about the project with Ntone, we discussed the Joburg – Cape Town opposition and the ways in which academics who contributed to the Public Culture issue on Johannesburg tried to portray this city as the real African city. If I remember it well Ntone linked this attempt to ambitions, which were also part of former president Mbeki’s project to create an African Renaissance. Ntone, who is editor in chief of Chimurenga magazine, mentioned that Chimurenga tried to kind of dissolve Cape Town, or at least work against the idea that it’s possible to resolve the problematics of creating a coherent narrative for the city as a whole, with its issue on the city in 2005.
[Turth and coffee at the Prestwich Street Memorial / photos by Andrea Brennen]
Ciraj, as an historian part of the Project of Public Pasts and as a board member part of the District 6 Museum, focused our attention on the spatial and cultural effects of the World Soccer Championship to Green Point, but also the public transport system. He also mentioned that the discussions about the theme created around the Prestwich Street Memorial, with the Truth Coffee Shop as a center point of dispute.
The inspiration for this research project comes from an exhibition hosted by the Gallery of the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town in August of 2005, titled The Model Man: The Hero of His Own Drama. This show consisted of a series of illustrations and texts by Johan Schönfeldt and Ivan Vladislavic, and presented a coherent story line to connect the iconographic images. By writing the narrative after the images were produced, Schönfeldt references African oral societies, whose history, he argues, is constructed from objects. He asks the audience, ‘in speech, when does a speaker revert to visuals?'
Following the model set forth by Schönfeldt and Vladislavic, we intend to make images documenting a series of places in Cape Town. We thought then to augment this visual documentation with audio fragments collected from interviews with a number of individuals who have a proven knowledge regarding the design of the specific sites, buildings, and monuments in Cape Town. Every day though our ideas of how the project could unfold is shifting a bit.
After earlier talks with Van Abbemuseum director Charles Esche about community art in Detroit, conservator Wilem-Jan Renders invited Chris Keulemans, Joost Janmaat and Christian Ernsten to Woensel-West in Eindhoven.
Woensel-West is a quarter of Eindhoven that looks strinkingly similar to the Van der Pek neighborhood in Amsterdam-North.
In this working class area the Van Abbemuseum rents two homes for curators and artists. Moreover they are in contact with the local housing cooperation and the community centre about organizing a local art project.
We discussed with Willem-Jan the problematics of organizing a neighborhood art projects and compared activities in the Van der Pek neighborhood with Woensel-West.
In Amsterdam-North Chris Keulemans has a longer history with community-based cultural activities, but we have not set-up a neighborhood artist-in-residency yet. Instead we have a residency in the Tolhuistuin.
We intend to collaborate with the Van Abbemuseum on an exchange with artists from Detroit in the fall of this year. Sharing experiences between Woensel-West and the Van der Pek neighborhood seems logical.
the constuction site of a part of the Skopje 2014 Urban regeneration scheme
The Pretext The Dutch Embassy wants to promote the 'Creative Cities' concept in Skopje, and they would like to see the municipality, the independent arts & culture scene and NGO's to collaborate. Together with Robert Kluijver (who worked for NGO's the UN and his own cultural heritage institution in Kabul) I went to Skopje, uncertain what to preach and what role to play in this post-colonial creative class propaganda scheme. Personally I have been very skeptical and critical of the projects that are rolled out under the banner of Creative Industries/Class/Cities etc. Being teleported to Skopje has been an interesting confrontation with my own temperaments an opinions on the matter. In Amsterdam I am critical of everything branded as 'creative', here in Skopje I find myself preaching the creative city, an awkward feeling...
The Context The reason is quite simple, before I can be critical of a concept, the local authorities must first have adopted it as policy, which is not the case in Skopje. Here the municipality thinks of arts & culture as handicraft and traditional artisans; like blacksmiths, weaving rugs or manufacturing baskets. When you associate culture and art with urban development in Skopje it is mainly instrumentalized to broadcast the nationalist agenda of the ruling party as put forward in the Skopje 2014 plan. Skopje 2014 is an urban regeneration plan for the city that was presented a few weeks ago which has caused quite a stir and lots of discussion in the cultural scene and society at large in Macadonia. Without any open or transparent process, the future vision of the city came as a complete surprise. See the video below they posted on Youtube
The plan consist of the installation of a dozen statues of national heroes, like a 30m high statue of Alexander the Great, a triumph arch, a huge fountain, an orthodox Christian church, and a series of neo-classical and baroque museums and institutes. A celebration of a manufactured national identity based on glorifying icons and very selective and flimsy historical arguments. So pick your way of reading this: an enormous investment and support of Macedonian culture and arts or a impressive piece of propaganda of the ruling nationalist party. Oh, and by the way the project costs something between 150 and 200 million euro. (here you can read more on the local turmoil around the 2014 plan)
So, there we are with our mission to enlighten the locals with the idea of a 'creative city' suddenly all your criticism starts to evaporate in a context like this, the propagation of the creative class emerges as a lesser evil, or as a much needed alternative to rewriting history in support of nationalist propaganda. If only the government would realize that vibrant contemporary culture is essential for modern urban life and would attract the high-educated creative class, in other words money. But it's impossible to convince them that gays, subcultures and espresso-bars are good for the city's economy.
In Control That the authorities cannot make this leap of imagination is understandable, and not even the most problematic issue here. Cultural and creative scenes can flourish without authorities stimulating or heavily subsidizing them. But the first step is acknowledging that there can be such a thing as an independent cultural scene. One that is not under direct supervision and control of the state. 'Why would you give money, if you cannot control it?' is the governments logic. All public funds should be under absolute government control. Macedonia does has a Ministry of Culture, and you can apply for funds. But although democracy is installed, the Ministry of Culture basically is working as a favor system. There are no criteria formulated upon which applications are judged. The independent art scene hardily gets funds granted from local government institutions.
Basically there is a lack of trust that is bothering civic society on all levels. In the span of little more than a decade real estate property for instance was transfered from the Federation of Yugoslavia to the Republic of Macedonia, and then again de-nationalized to municipalities and/or privatized. All this causes a lot of ownership disputes within the government itself, where members of parliament are claiming and having disputes over property, in other words mafia practices. People remain loyal to their own networks, their own groups and are quick to distrust others. This is not a fertile ground for giving space, time and trust to things you are not in absolute control of.
The Paradox of Criticism The paradox that I experienced in Skopje is that I am criticizing the status quo, in order that it will develop in a certain direction. Progress is the aim right? The status quo is different everywhere, and progress as well. The paradox is that the direction I'm preaching for in Skopje, is the one I'm trying to overcome in Amsterdam. It's the tragedy of criticism and progress, and that as the critical intellectual you are integral part of the causing the perpetual crisis that causes the system (and what 'system' actually?) to develop. The system will perpetually encapsulate, incorporate and claim all critical inquiry and proposed alternatives. A mixed blessing, cause you got what you wanted, ... right?
Tijdens een ruimte-tijd odyssee door drie decennia van stedelijke ontwikkeling, overheidsbeleid en ‘counter culture’ in Amsterdam zou u het volgende retrospectief zien: de overgang van sociale maakbaarheid naar ruimtelijke maakbaarheid of van volksverheffing naar de verheffing van een locatie.
Het huidige station in deze reis is I Amsterdam™, een sterk merk vergezeld van het ‘broedplaatsenbeleid’ oftewel de Amsterdamse poging tot city branding in combinatie met een interpretatie van het stimuleren van de ‘creative city’. De vraagt die opkomt is echter: wiens creatieve stad, wiens Amsterdam? Filosoof Henry Lefebvre benadrukt ‘the right of the city signifies the right of citizens and city dwellers [...] to appear on all the networks and circuits of communication, information and exchange.’ Is de volgende stop van stedelijke ontwikkeling daadwerkelijk het Amsterdam waar burgers van alle rangen en standen meegenieten van creativiteit en rijkdom, en het recht kunnen claimen op de stad? Aan de hand van drie kritische onderzoekers van de Amsterdamse ontwikkeling, Justus Uitermark, Merijn Oudenampsen en Eva de Klerk, resumeren we pogingen in de afgelopen dertig jaar om de het recht op de stad in praktijk te brengen.
Tachtiger jaren: ‘De stad is van ons’
In de jaren tachtig was kraken een vorm van ‘politieke ideologie en strijd’. Het streven was een ‘staat in een staat’ omheind door fysieke barricades, als militante en exclusieve vorm van een vrijstaat met de neiging tot generieke verwerping van gezag en instituties. De beweging werd gekenmerkt door een ongedifferentieerde kritiek op de ‘heersende klasse’, het stadsbestuur, de speculanten, ‘de staat’ en de sociale democratie. Belangrijk voor de lokale, stedelijke gebiedsontwikkeling in deze periode is een strategiewijziging van de gemeente Amsterdam, die vanaf midden jaren 80 ontruimingen van kraakpanden gaat combineren met de bestuurlijke aankoop van de panden in kwestie. De panden blijven zodoende behouden voor huisvesting. Aan de krakers wordt daarmee een gewetensvraag gesteld: zijn zij bereid te verhuizen om zo het algemeen belang boven hun eigenbelang te stellen? Dit is het begin van de selectieve toenadering van de overheid, of zoals Uitermark het noemt de ‘omarming van de subversiviteit’.
Negentiger jaren: 'De stad als Casco'
‘Geld verdienen in de panden, niet aan de panden’, dat is het credo van de stad-als-cascomethode. Zowel in theorie als in de praktijk keert zich deze coöperatieve stadsontwikkelingmethode tegen de gemeentelijke, op winstmaximalisatie gerichte, grondprijspolitiek. Om met het top-down ‘een ontwikkelaar, een financier’- paradigma voor een heel gebied te kunnen breken, legt deze strategie de nadruk op de collectieve verantwoordelijkheid van gebruikers voor de ontwikkeling en het beheer van stedelijke gebieden. Van meet af aan worden eindgebruikers (wonen, werken, recreëren) als actieve partners bij het ontwikkelingsproces betrokken. Collectieve afspraken vormen de basis voor een geleidelijk stadsontwikkelingsproces van onderaf, met zeggenschap en verantwoordelijkheid aan de kant van de eindgebruiker bij kwesties omtrent financiering, ontwikkeling en beheer van zowel de bouwstructuur als de omliggende buitenruimte.
Nu: broedplaatsen en de creatieve stad TM
In het ‘Creative City’ paradigma worden kunstenaars omgevormd tot creatieve ondernemers, (sub) culturen vermarkt en de ‘lokale cultuur’ moet een trekpleister zijn voor toeristen. Het beleid is gericht op de annexatie van de culturele sector, waarin een versmelting plaatsvindt van het culturele veld met de politiek-economische agenda van de overheid. Cultuur als ‘software’ voor de bestaande of nog te ontwikkelen ‘hardware’. ‘Creativiteit’ wordt eerst gelokaliseerd, gehuisvest, in haar fragiele fase door beleid en regelgeving beschermd en gemest, om na een periode van groei geslacht te kunnen worden. In principe is dit zowel van toepassing op grootschalige top-down projecten als, op het eerste gezicht meer radicale, nicheprojecten.
Partizan Publik bezoekt op zaterdag 13 maart het Gangeviertel in Hamburg en spreekt ook onder de titel 'Sprechtstunde Amsterdam'
Referenties: Justus Uitermark ‘De omarming van subversiviteit’. Agora 24.3, (2004): pp 32-35, Merijn Oudenampsen 'Back to the Future of the Creative City: An Archaeological Approach to Amsterdam’s Creative Redevelopment'. MyCreativity Reader (2007): pp 165-176, http://www.evadeklerk.com/downloads/stad%20als%20casco.pdf. Photos of NDSM by Christian Ernsten
The russian revolution of 1917 unleashed the biggest experiment in applied social utopia in human history. For more than a decade, the bolsheviks set off a barrage of extravagant visions for the total transformation of their world. They were in search for the Happy Man.
At the Institute, Gastev became one of the most active advocates of taylors scientific management. He set about to transform Russia into the Soviet Union - a rural society into an industrial society - by developing means to engineer mass behaviour. People that had worked with a shovel for generation had to be taught mechanical, repetitive motions. To promote an ultimate symbiosis between man and machine, worker and factory, he developed the Social Engineering Machine.
However, the exact plans to this contraption appear lost. They probably were destroyed when Gastev fell from grace and was executed during Stalins Reign of Terror. For a brilliant and beautiful introduction into Gastev, his machine and the social engineering of the early Boshevik, watch Adam Curtis' Pandoras Box, part 1: The Engineers plot.
'Since the development of technology and the dissapearance of ideological differences has led to a globalization of economic, cultural and social life on our planet, the horizontal frontier is vanishing.'
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This writes Bart Goldhoorn, former editor in chief, in Project Russia (2000/1). He follows by saying: '[...] our challenge lies in the vertical direction - in space.' But what is the value for contemporary culture of the exploration of the cosmos does Goldhoorn ask.
2.
He suggests that the key for solving this question might be found in the work of Igor Kozlov. He and his colleagus tried to find an answer to the question: 'how to create satisfactory living conditions in an environment that does not offer physical impulses.'
3.
Here above some examples of his work as published as published in Project Russia.
4.
5. Cosmic architecture and the Russian Avant-garde
Partizan Publik's Christian Ernsten and architect Andrea Brennen are leading a Volume research project on the relation between architecture and science with as a case study the Moon.
Or actually - finding a wind turbine - for electrification was one of the outcomes of a meeting Partizan Publik had with people from the Tolhuistuin about designing a self-powered Neighbourhood-Coffee-Bar-Bus.
1. Bus, Buiksloterham. 24 January 2010.
Inquiry with our friends from Design 99 in Detroit proved very usefull. Mitch Cope explained that for their Power House project they use the Air Breeze wind mill. Mitch also explained he's using a Deka 8a8d 225 amp/hr battery.
2. Power House by Design 99, 16 December 2009. Air Breeze on the roof.
3. Power House by Design 99, 16 December 2009. A Deka 8a8d 225 amp/hr battery.
4. 'Look Out with Wind Turbine' by Marjectica Portc. 24 January 2010 Piraeus Building
5. 'Look Out with Wind Turbine' by Marjectica Portc. 24 January 2010 Piraeus Building
It will be an interesting assignment to figure out how to use a wind turbine for the electrification of the bus. But besides that we still have to do work on isolation, heating, the roof, the floor and furniture. Help and advise is more than welcome.
Housing Corporation Ymere, which owns about 100% of the housing stock in the Van der Pek neighborhood in Amsterdam - North has made two buildings available for testing out future model homes.
1. Looking from the Van der Pekstraat towards the Tolhuistuin.
2. The boarded up building on the Van der Pek Street.
The buildings at the Van der Pek Street and the Begonia Street, which will be transformed from eight household blocks into something new, are boarded up at the moment. The neighborhood use to be totally social housing for lower income families.
The families are in a process of being relocated to elsewhere in Amsterdam and during the last years these houses where inhabitants by artists.
3. The Van der Pek Street
4. Side view of the building on the Van der Pek Street.
A critical discourse on these urban renewal development in Amsterdam is coming together. Take a look for example at the Nomads in Amsterdam - West project or at the work of academic Justus Uitermark.
5. Gardens behind the building.
6. The boarded up building on the Begonia Street.
7. Front view of the building on the Begonia Street
8. View from the Buiksloterweg on the transformation of the former Shell terrain.
In fields of business, politics and design unfamiliar partnerships focused on the necessity of radical urban change seem to be occurring. These collaborations are focused on sustainable innovation among communities of different types of users. Local neighborhood strategies are enriched with experiences from elsewhere on the globe. Industrial research organizations are trying to mobilize knowledge from across the globe to innovate better and faster. Municipalities are trying to stimulate neighborhoods and their industrial base.
The incentive of these experimental collaborations, which could perhaps be referred to as ‘community labs’ is a refreshing type of culture of engagement: a process–oriented collaboration, with an open type of communication, which is not necessary end-goal driven, yet focused on sharing knowledge in order to improve.
This type of engagement can be observed among artists and architects. It is emerging out of a sense of urgency and seeks to exploit the opportunity for a new kind of artistic agency in post-industrial cities, in which, to paraphrase curator Charles Esche, ‘regional art and site-specific production are combined, a kind of everyday life art’. The role of Design 99 in Detroit is notable in this context. The architect and artist that make up this collective do not only work as commercial design consultants, they collaborate with neighbors in a social and economic deprived neighborhood where urban governance has failed to make a difference in order to develop a more sustainable security level in terms of energy and security.
These unfamiliar partnerships can also be seen to emerge in business and social institutions. The roundtable projects of economist Jeremy Rifkin are of interest. In collaboration with national and city governments Rifkin intends to develop a system for generating clean energy and of sharing the production surplus through an exchange network with the neighbors. In collaboration with architects as Stefano Boeri, he is developing a scheme for buildings that can produce energy.
A third example is the lightning division of the Dutch company Philips, which is collaborating with local governments and museums in Eindhoven in order to further develop their society driven innovation approach. In a quest to find the successor for their successful home lab, an innovation test facility, Philips opened its communication channels to communities.
As Rifkin says, if successful, these projects could very well help what explore different types of human settlements. These cooperative projects, which have a clear local basis yet are very globally linked in the peer-to-peer world wide web. They could represent a form of transformation in which a small community supervises a process of improvement in close communication with the larger urban community, which is perhaps more skeptical and less flexible.
Sources: Jeremy Rifkin, The Hydrogen Economy (New York 2003), URL: http://www.bamboostones.net/, Stefano Boeri Lecture, 'Sustainanable City', Amsterdam 18 March 2009.
As a supplement to VOLUME # 22 The Guide, Partizan Publik presents the separate publication Beyroutes, a guidebook to Beirut, one of the grand capitals of the Middle East. Beyroutes presents an exploded view of a city which lives so many double lives and figures in so many truths, myths and historical falsifications. Visiting the city with this intimate book as your guide makes you feel disoriented, appreciative, judgmental and perhaps eventually reconciliatory. Beyroutes is the field manual for 21st century urban explorer.
Beyroutes was initiated by Studio Beirut in collaboration with Partizan Publik, Archis and the Pearl Foundation. Supported by Prince Claus Fund, Fund Working on the Quality of Living and the Netherlands Embassy in Lebanon.
The launch wil take place at Athenaeum News Centre, Spui, Amsterdam, December 22, 5-7pm.
As a supplement to Volume #20 the Warren Special Report: From Crisis to Project imagines the redefined American Dream. Analyzing an utilizing the current crisis, the report seeks to imagine future suburbia taking Detroit's largest suburb Warren as a rolemodel. Bold visions, tools for transitionmanagement and new forms of organization and collaboration are the result of an ongoing research practice leading the way from Crisis to Project.
Was the Apollo 11 moon landing a hoax, a Stanley Kubrick studio recording? Dark Side of the Moon, a French documentary by director William Karel claims to present the truth: the moon landing was a brilliant piece of science fiction, instead of a major scientific and technological breakthrough.
How far was the US government willing to go in their competition with the Soviets? Karel poses that not only did Kubrick help the USA fake the moon landings but that he was eventually killed by the CIA to cover up the truth.
As a supplement to Volume 21 Partizan Publik published Microrayon Living, which is basically an inventory of everyday life strategies and D.I.Y. practices in the Post Soviet Microrayon. Together with several local partners we conducted research in Gldani, Tblisi and in Veshnyaki, Moscow, two identical city quarters in terms of layout, the former at the periphery of the former Soviet Union, the latter in the center of power. Striking similarities and differences came to the fore.
Vast urbanizations in developed, developing and under-development countries have one common denominator: an immediate need for quality housing. Housing the billions: never before were those involved in architecture and construction confronted with such a challenge. A one-fits-all solution seems unthinkable since most mass housing schemes in the past failed and originated in dictatorship or total absence of power. Based on an analysis of one of the housing experiments of the past, the Soviet Microrayon, Volume proposes a new prototype. A housing block, which is custom-made but mass-produced and conceived via open source standards.
Today we met at de Balie to brainstorm how the exhibition and publication could look. We heard from the NAi that our space will be a 3×3m room, and we developed the following concept:
As our space is located at the exit point of the “collective city” exhibition, the idea is to build a portico entrance in the space, either at the exit from the rest of “collective city” exhibition (conceptual coherence) OR as the exit into the stairwell to the rest of the “open city” exhibition (visual coherence? – exit into the stairwell).
A stack of newspapers will allow visitors to take home the content of our exhibition, while newspapers in the rack will be for on site consumption.
Mock-up Portico entrance at the biennial exit (collective city section): - two sofa-chairs - stack of give away newspapers - bulletin board - newspaper rack (grand cafe style) - painted wall (funky -cheapest- green) - code-lock/intercom on the door - extra authentic details … like garden, etc
Students Joeri Jörg and Koen Elzerman initiated a place where people can leave items (clothes, books, sleeping-bags and domestic products) which they do not need anymore, while other people still might be happy with it. In this manner people can contribute to the daily-struggle that people have to cope with their limited economic situation. Amsterdam North is a district with many socio-economic problems, and the exchange closet delivers a micro-economic service for those who need it.
Similar to this alternative form of recycling, the focus lies on informing people about homelessness and addiction as important societal issues. The city of Amsterdam wants to initiate new asylums spread over the city, but history has shown some bad examples of starting such an asylum. The NIMBY-effect (‘Not In My Backyard’) can ruin the relation between asylum and neighbourhood, while people rarely realise that the asylum fulfils an important part of the societal needs. Above that, the line between having a house and homelessness is not that big as people might think. It does not take very much to lose your house and become homeless, especially in Amsterdam North.
The crew exists of people who have lived on the street, have been addicted or have worked in prostitution. They concentrate on telling their personal stories to the visitors of the Mosveld market, the place where the closet is situated. Goal is to decrease the NIMBY-feelings which people have in relation to these marginalised groups of society.
The launch on Saturday 13th of June showed that people respond very positive on this form of interaction. Most of them understood the importance of facilities for homeless and addicted people, and several people spoke out their enthusiasm about the project. One of the strengths of the closet is that it does not only serve the homeless and addicted people: it also benefits the local residents and the deprived neighbourhood around the Mosveld market.
Publications in the media (NoordNieuws (2), De Echo and Het Parool), widespread enthusiasm by project partners, the city district of Amsterdam North and housing corporation Ymere, social partners and the local residents form the basis of a long term continuation of the project.
After the successful launch of the closet, both students are now in discussion with several social partners, in order to ensure the sustainability of the intervention. The students will be related to the project until these negotiations result in a societal coalition which can maintain the exchange closet as a social facility, embedded in the neighbourhood.
You can also view the final presentation of the ‘Addicted to the City’ case at the Amsterdam City Hall last week.
Is there a way to involve neighborhood residents with a developing city park?
The 4 students of the ‘Green Team’ of the minor ‘Social Engineering in the Amsterdam Metropolis’ researched the development of the new ‘Noorderpark’, an urban park that is now being developed into one of the largest city parks of Amsterdam. Compared to other parks in the city, the Noorderpark is lagging behind in the number and diversity of its park visitors. Can the Noorderpark become as widely and highly appreciated as the popular Westerpark or the Vondelpark?
The Green Team observed a remarkable ‘invisibility’ of the Noorderpark within the adjacent neighborhoods and the borough of Amsterdam Noord. Together they created an elaborate ‘visibility’ campaign with green ‘welcome in my backyard’ posters on the windows of empty social housing, with guerilla sign posting all over the neighborhood and, together with the people of ‘Streetprov Amsterdam’, they organized a performance and a video about the ‘secret of North’: the beautiful Noorderpark.
How can old and new communities be connected through a new form of social architecture?
The 4 students of the Overhoeks/Van der Pek case researched the possibilities of improving social ties between two neighbourhoods in Amsterdam: Overhoeks and Van der Pek. The former is being developed at the moment, the latter is and ‘old, traditional neighbourhood in town. What’s special is that the two are situated literally in each others shadow. According to the students, improving social ties implies “encountering each other on a regular bases in a natural and informal way”. To empower this process, the students developed the concept of the ‘Floating Market’. Their pilot was situated on the Johan van Hasseltkanaal, which wasn’t more than a physical barrier between the two neighbourhoods before their intervention. The ‘Floating Market’ transformed this barrier into a place where people can meet. The concept is based on the floating gardens developed by ‘Provo’ Robert Jasper Grootveld. The gardens consist of 1,00 x 1,00 x 0,50 foam blocks, each of them having a floating capacity of 500 kilograms. Tied together, these foam blocks form an incredibly stable floating surface.
Based on a purely economic relation the market could function as a shared icon for the two neighbourhoods and also as a positive impulse for the wider area as well.
You can also view the final presentation of the Overhoeks/vd Pek Team at the Amsterdam City Hall last week.
Last week the university minor program ‘Social Engineering in the Amsterdam Metropolis’ reached it’s ‘official’ tipping point at the Amsterdam City Hall. The students presented the results of their 16 weeks lasting full time research trajectory to the mayor of Amsterdam Job Cohen and an elaborate jury of professional social engineers. The jury consisted of Linda Brasz (foreperson, chief secretary borough Amsterdam North), Franka Kanters (manager at private social housing cooperation Ymere), Jos Gadet (senior policy maker at the Department of Spatial Planning Amsterdam) and Bert de Reuver (member directory board IIS). The students seized the moment to put forward their case in front of this audience of influential ‘agents of change’.
To what extent do rules and standards lead to a just society? Planned utopias proved not to lead automatically to a free and equal way of living, or all-inclusive solidarity for that matter. State governance seems fated to produce a certain form of social marginalization.
Could engineering a just city entail the conscious incorporation of the lawless, the untamed and the subversives within our city borders? Do these groups, which are evading or excluded by the system, represent a way of living that we could learn from? How can their rules inspire us in engineering a more righteous place, a just city?
Yale University Professor James C. Scott is author of the most eloquent critique of the tradition of high modernist planning Seeing like a State (1998). His latest research focuses on the contrast between the lowland city-state and its labor control vs. the non-state-hill periphery in South East Asia. Based on this expertise he will comment on how the city should be studied as a living, breathing and dynamic process.
To what extent can a brave city be planned? History shows that Dream + Power + Lack of Resistance = Utopian Totalitarianism. The reign of big ideas over a blissfully ignorant society.
Engineering happiness could potentially mean balancing out planned utopias. We wonder, how to practise our urban freedom? Blissful ignorance or freedom of initiative? Routine or improvisation? What’s the function of spontaneity in pushing the boundaries of public normality? Can improvisation improve urban daily life? Raise awareness of the collective and forge solidarity? What are the rules that keep our society alive and which boundaries do we need to push to give our cities future?
American and international media coverage of the cultural activities by actors as Design 99, the Detroit Unreal Estate Agency and others in Detroit tends to highlight how artists makes use of the current real estate crisis, how they are attracted by easy living in $100 houses and the post-industrial spectacle of the city. Without trying to negate these qualities of Detroit, I would like to argue that there might be something more to it.
Speaking as a member of the Detroit Unreal Estate Agency, I'm curious about the lessons that can be learned from Detroit. Learning from Detroit starts I think with a re-evaluation of the urban development discourse that engineered the city, and a different understanding of what engagement with this place and its people means.
Below I drafted some of the credentials of the Unreal Estate project: The Unreal Estate project intends to tap into the inventories of local assets and expertise in the city. In an interdisciplinary team we imagine stimulus strategies for local make-ability. As such, we don’t necessarily work against the effects of deindustrialization, suburbanization and outsourcing. Renovating the postindustrial city - along the lines of Richard Florida’s creative class – or, in turn, seeing the urban ruins as artistic opportunities is not our central motivation.
We respect that Detroit’s urban environment is still the home of many individuals and families, who ‘built’ their lives here. Align to this, it is our ambition to design or support stimulus strategies for urban transformation that lead to a resilient user-based city, which is enabling a vision on local opportunities. And, simultaneously, we intend to re-interpret and built on the value of decay, as well as, the intrusion of wildlife in the city. Decline is also creation and growth of something else if we can reframe our expectations, and offers different potential for co-existence, and strategies for urban development.
We intend to understand in artistic ways how urban engagement, as well as, urban play work under this condition. The collapse of the free market ideology creates a sense of emergency and the opportunity for a new kind of artistic agency, in which, to paraphrase Charles Esche, regional art and site-specific production are combined’, a kind of everyday life art.
Thus Unreal Estate project poses these questions: How to intervene on the city seeking the participation of the less advantaged people? Is it possible to start urban transformation as artists avoiding the traditional patterns of gentrification and economic exploitation of symbolic values? How to imagine a new equilibrium between the city, the human communities and the natural elements (plants, water, wilderness)? How to exchange culturally between this particular (urban) situation and other places in the world?
We realize that Detroit is an important example of contemporary urban living and, potentially, a case for a hands-on study on future urban scenario’s, which are also applicable for other places in the United States and in the rest of the world.
Yesterday I made a 20mi / 32km bike trip in Detroit. From Hamtramck to Downtown and back. Traveling this distance by bike gives you a good sense of the vast scale of this city, although this distance is but a small fragment of the size of the entire Metropolitan area of Detroit.
Where some of my initial thoughts on the derelict homes, factories, warehouses and skyscrapers were tainted by romanticism, now they're drained in the realization that this is an urban reality that is everywhere. An omnipresent sprawling landscape of destruction, generated by the rationality of hyper-capitalism. Fed by the misplaced escapism of the American dream, of starting over-and-over-and-over-and-over again in the suburbs, sub-suburbs, exurbs to the point that the notion of urbanity evaporates completely.
How to reinvent living together, 'a community' and perhaps even civilization on top of the ruins of the raison d'être of the previous one...
Can we build a happy city? Can we engineer happiness?A Masterclass on creative industry, social cohesion, participatory planning and creating new worlds. What is left of the highmodernist ideals? How do they translate into the Wijkaanpak, the national push to uplift the Dutch ghettos? And what instruments have we got to engineer society and change people in their beliefs and behaviour?
The American philosopher and architectural critic Nader Vossoughian wrote on the global polis and its engineer of happiness Otto Neurath.
He has a strong vision on the knowledge economy, how it creates ignorance and intelligence. Is ignorance bliss? Or do we set course to develop a responsible participatory community? What is the ethics of urban transformation?
With workshop-contributions by No Academy and Design2context.
Presented by the Office for Social Engineering, Fund BKVB/355, Art Beyond Borders and Felix Meritis.
Our days are gloomy days. Yet all these crises present opportunities for a positive outcome as well. They could open the way to a fundamentally different way of social engineering, green planning and a new financial system. In the reshaping of our world after the crisis, a sustainable city is possible.
Stefano Boeri understands non-growth and human retreat as producing valuable urban eco-systems. Reforestation protects natural zones and green corridors shelter animals from the anthropocentric world. These potentially create new ways of exchange between wildlife and human beings, a new ethical order of urbanity.
Stefano Boeri (1956) is an architect, director of Boeri Studio and editor in chief of the international design and architecture magazine Abitare. Boeri teaches urban design at the Milan Polytechnic, he is visiting professor at the Harvard Design School and he is the founder of the research agency Multiplicity. With Rem Koolhaas he co-authored the immensely influential Mutations project. Boeri will share his visions on sustainable utopia and dystopia in an urban context.
A story of how innovation and creativity may change the way we build, engage and live… for decades to come.
BEIRUT: Walk its streets, visit its hip quarters, check the destroyed but completely resurrected city centre, talk to the armed soldiers at the street corners, listen to the old and not-so-old war stories from the cab driver, explore its old, new and upcoming neighborhoods. Only a few cities in the world offer so many layers of hidden meaning as Beirut does. In the public realm of this town there seems to be merely suggestion, projection and differences of opinion that somehow interact with people’s daily movements and actions.
Participate in the BEYROUTES guide project organized by Studio Beirut, Partizan Publik, Pearland Archis. A project that enables you to go beyond an exotic visit to the people, buildings and places of Beirut, and to get engaged: in its past, present and future. To produce a guide that provokes to construct your own anecdotes, actions and architecture of the city.
If you want to contribute in writing, drawing, research, photography or design: sign up now for the 2nd RESEARCH workshop at ranije[at]yahoo[dot]com
The agency will produce, collect and inventory information on the ‘unreal estate’ of Detroit: that is, on the remarkable, distinct, characteristic or subjectively significant sites of urban culture. The project is aimed at new types of urban practices (architecturally, artistically, institutionally, everyday life, etc) that came into existence, creating a new value system in Detroit.
During the Beirut Summer Workshop on Public Space, Partizan Publik conceptualized a side project. Together with the workshop participants we re-designed the Lost of Room of the Lebanese National Museum.
In the Lebanese National Museum the room dealing with modern history is not there. Apparently there is no agreement on what Lebanon’s ‘National History’ is. Yet Lebanese seem to be united in the love for their capital. Although it is a contested and violent city, Beirut encapsulates many places, which are full of sweet, loving, memories and nostalgia. Indeed it is a city saturated with favorite places.
Click here to view the online result of this project.
Partizan Publik is devoted to a braver society. The Partizans explore, produce and implement social, political and cultural instruments, which generate positive and sustainable change to people and their surroundings.
To what extent do rules and standards lead to a just society? Planned utopias proved not to lead automatically to a free and equal way of living, or all-inclusive solidarity for that matter. State governance seems fated to produce a certain form of social marginalization.
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