Architecture In the Anthropocene E-Book

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 186

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

As a second attempt, after Architecture Beyond The Anthropocene, already available online, this book is presenting a new set of reflections in a time at a pivot point. 62 young architects to be, are facing their own future and roles in a world experiencing massive changes on all levels: climatic, economic, political, cultural, social. The confusions, the wonderings, the hopes, and maybe above all, the questions, amass. To navigate in this unknown and volatile territory, a series of speculating lectures on architectures varying foundations and possible creative paths were offered, along with a list of books, presented at the end of this book.

Leseprobe

Introduction by Elizabeth B Hatz

While We Forgot

What if time collapsed, and broke our speed to a point where we would slowly walk our way through the everyday, without an eye on mobile phones or clocks?

Would that ever be possible? Will it happen anyway, suddenly, when we least of all expect it, when the power is cut and the planned replacements haven’t really worked out? Things don’t always work out.

Some people do not have mobile phones. We have forgotten this. What then, when we remember?

Do they count? Will they help us, as we don’t anymore know how to act without them?

While we forgot that all we need is think differently, look elsewhere, act in other ways.

While we forgot we’ve known for 50 years we needed change our ways of living.

While we forgot we do not have to turn the switch, as long as there is daylight.

While we forgot so much, earth was all the time transforming. Painfully.

100 million products helped us forget, flickering lights, agendas, adverts.

The way things are.

There are questions – if we allow them time to evolve; answers might come from the least expected directions.

Wittgenstein’s words - that humanity’s grandeur in the future may lie, not in what it accomplishes, but in what it refrains from accomplishing – would still stir up indignation and opposition.

YET. Our mode of living has proven impossible to sustain.

Who will pull the break?

Are we at all capable of helping ourselves out of oblivion? Do we really even want to try?

What does it mean for architecture - in the everyday work and act - not just for the polished rhetoric?

Can the celebration of architecture as culture offer knowledge and help create the time gap needed for changing ways of seeing? Can reading, observing, thinking, drawing and understanding oppose business-as-usual, so inventive thoughts and acts are given a chance? Care and repair instead of replacing and building new?

Can architecture embrace its double origin, the rural and the urban, to allow nature to re-enter as an active partner?

Can we even image that the human species is not the crown of creation, the center of the world, entitled to use it for its own ends? Can we at all see the cultures that consider this differently?

While we forgot we have hands to care, eyes to look and hearts to open to a world, so much more physical than we were ready to admit…that world changed in no time at all.

We were so busy forgetting that we do not have all the answers. We forgot the deepest may be the wonder in front of what is possibly more important than us.

Other cultures have been different. But we forgot.

Architecture In The Anthropocene

Essays on Reflective Resistances II

As a second attempt, after Architecture Beyond The Anthropocene, already available on-line, this book is presenting a new set of reflections in a time at a pivot point. 62 young architects to be, are facing their own future and roles in a world experiencing massive changes on all levels: climatic, economic, political, cultural, social. The confusions, the wonderings, the hopes, and maybe above all, the questions, amass. To navigate in this unknown and volatile territory, a series of speculating lectures on architecture’s varying foundations and possible creative paths were offered, along with a list of books, presented at the end of this book.

Lectures by Elizabeth B Hatz:

Prime Permanence II:

architecture’s resistance to time as a durability of material presence and artefact (Rossi), ancient cultures before anthropocentrism, architecture beyond use and the myth of progress (G H von Wright).

Black Backsides II:

cultural back-sides and resistances, transition points (Anne Carson, “The Economy of the Unlost”), black insights (Rachel Carson), delaying obsessions, obduracy, fear of darkness etc.

Notes on Nothing II:

John Cage, Paul Valéry, elements of resistance, the jump into void as accessing new knowledge (Marci Cavalcante “Lovtal till Intet” essays on philosophical hermeneutics), un-building, “nothing” as creative proposition.

Lightening Lights II:

economy of means, lost architectural know-how, saving by knowing, understanding light and darkness and their fundamental implications in architecture, observation as architectural tool, the love for architecture as culture (“The Human Condition”, Hannah Arendt)

Ghost Gardens II:

non-urban origins of architecture, the idea of garden, nature hitting back, Fluxus, Bo Bardi, urban farming, critiques of the anthropocentric bias (Clive Hamilton, Niell MacGregor, Roy Scanton) etc.

Ambivalent Alterations II:

possible architectural stands in face of climate change, alteration as creative methods (Fred Scott), challenges in the interpretation of the existing (Ruskin), use / re-use, collapse of time.

Tending Tendencies II:

beginning of the era of CARE?, revealing the tyranny of newness (A Caruso), obliteration of authorship, the obsolete strive for originality, creative opportunity in tending (Fred Scott), victory of knowledge over object (1300 years of Ise Jingu temple rebuilding).

With just a hope to open for thoughts, this book wishes to inspire more reading, observing and pondering.

Elizabeth Bonde Hatz

Texts by

Adam Holm

Agathe Guyard

Alexander Hallberg

Alexis José Rodríguez Pérez

Amanda Hjälmeby

Anna Malin Grønsberg

Anton Andreev

Arif Reza

Bingrong Huo

Boyd Hellier Knox

Cecilia Tibald Johansson

Christoph Leitner

David Shanks

Dimitri Kasparian

Edoardo La Cava

Emelie Ahlqvist

Erik Sandsten

Erik Schönning

Fang Beichen

Feng Yang

Fredrik Wadensten

Frida Torstensson

Gabriel Blomberg

Hagob Manoukian

Hongyu Wan

Ingrid Westermark

Isak Boardman

Jakob James Lalor

Jakob Lif

Jeff Ranara

Joel Ejeby

Julius Puttkammer

Kerim Comaga

Leopold Reich

Lina Wittfoht

Linnea Lowden

Louise Björkander

Lukas Lyttkens

Magdalena Bjerkfors

Mariona Figuera i Utges

Martin Lindfors

Martin Piazzolla

Martin Thunberg

Martino Montresor

Melchior Dechancé

Nadja Qtet

Nastaran Ravadgar

Nikola Postran

Niklas Dierks

Nozomu Tamushi

Pamela Davila Robledo

Paulina Aydin

Raphael Mertin

Roderik Crafoord

Rosanna Rydholm

Samuel Oskarsson

Sijia Peng

Siri Fritzon

Tess Tressler

Thomas Donoghue

Toby Richardson

Victor Johansson

Table of Contents

Growing Pains: Reflections on ”The limits to growth”

Endless Circle

We’re doomed. Now what?

Memories

Future about Permanence

Only that which can be switched, can be

Dreams of Change

Illusion of Progress

The Brief Comment On Small Is Beautiful

Hand-me-down

Nothing is Progress

Anthropocene and end of Man

Human nature

What remains?

Experiencing Architecture, today.

observation / memory / translation / cultivation

Architecture and Global Economics

Bird Fenix

A short comment on In praise of shadows

Build a Ruin in Anthropocene

Is it all Pointless?

On ”Myth of Progress”

Thoughts on darkness

the Space for Design

Passion for Creation

As Little as Possible

A Precious Dot

Future Fossils

An Undiscovered Architectural Approach

Alteration: First Possibility

Balance

Enoughness

What is natural in the anthropocene?

A reflection on living deliberately

Mans’ Obsession With Death

November Afternoon Reading in 2019

Tension

Light And Shadow

A Wider View

Absence

Re-Civilize

In Praise of Shadows

Discourse on Georg Henrik von Wright

To balance out is to balance in

Learning from Marcus Aurelius

Architectural Act

Architects in the Anthropocene

Care in Anthropocene

Thoughts on our Relation to Things

Restoration - Ruin -

There is still hope

Open to Things to Happen

Artificial Cities

Transient permanence

Sand Castles

DDT and Arsenik on your strawberries!

Rebuild The Public Realm

The End

Life Cycle

Becoming Conscious

Collective Futures

Perception of Progress

Literature

Growing Pains:

Reflections on ”The limits to growth”

As ecological disaster approaches and we slowly realise where we are, a psychological shift is emerging. Reactions to the imminent collapse often fall in one of the stages of mourning - some are in shock, some in complete denial, others already resigned to fate. The Great Grief has started to envelop our society. This is a significant shift, and it feels sudden, but it′s been coming for a long time. When something large and slow gains momentum the force of its acceleration can be surprising.

This unexpectedness is key in The limits to growth, a 1972 report describing a computer model simulating the effect of human activity on the world system. Ridiculed and forgotten for many years, it has been partially redeemed due to its proven accuracy. Primarily, it describes our inherent inability to deal with exponential growth and how this shortcoming leads to chaos. The storybook example is the creator of chess presenting his invention to the king. Delighted, the ruler offers a reward. The game designer asks for a single grain of rice to be put on the first square of the board. Two grains on the second. Four on the third, and so forth, doubling every square. Believing this to be a modest request, the king accepts without second thought, not realising the amount of rice on the 64th square will weigh more than 200 billion metric tonnes.

Today we face a similar problem. We live in a world of fixed size but are dependent on perpetual growth to prevent unemployment and provide pensions. At 2% yearly growth, the economy doubles in 35 years. For it to double again, only 12.5 years is required. Then 6 years, 3 and so forth. Now apply this to industrialisation, pollution, consumption and land available for food production, thusly:

This is the rice piling up on the board. Our immediate future, simulated almost 50 years ago, and so far proving accurate. When one of the variables reach a certain point it will trigger a collapse in the other ones. The key takeaway is the dynamics, not which variable who will be the trigger. If one would be reduced to a sustainable level, another will take its place. For example, let′s assume we could end pollution overnight. This would lead to continued production which would, in turn, increase the population until we overshoot. We run out of fertile land quicker than we can control, the population dwindles and we enter a death spiral. If we double the amount of food we can produce we delay the collapse with one or two years, after which another doubling is required, now at a much higher cost. Any technological innovation or change in just one of the key vari- ables is irrelevant since it doesn′t adress the underlying problem - exponential growth in a finite world. Ultimately, the problems are not material but political and social.

Every functioning system has its checks and balances. If a herd of deer multiply and consume excessive amounts of grass, the ensuing food shortage will increase the death rate, giving the grass a chance to grow back. This keeps the system relatively stable. Similar balances exist in global economics, an important difference being that the effects are delayed. When humans overshoot, it will take decades before we feel it, during which we have time to cause exponential amounts of damage. Also, there is nowhere to run.

The solution is to understand the world as one system, seeing the key variables as part of a finite whole and actively cap them. A radical shift in economic policy, unpleasant to some, but preferable to swift uncontrollable collapse. At the time of the books release, the changes needed would have been significant but not tremendous. This is no longer the case and it gets harder by the day. The population is thankfully starting to plateau but the fundamental problem is not adressed. If we don′t, we vill be unable to prevent ecological collapse by the middle of the century.

So what can a westerner do? We could definitely insulate our buildings, support strong progressive governments and invest in clean energy, especially in poor countries. But just as often it′s about what we can not do, like drive, fly, eat industrial meat and multiply. Capitalism, and possibly even democracy, is not built for this, being systems designed for expansion. We need a distribution machine that handles poverty and unemployment while accepting equilibirum in growth, meaning decreased physical production and more idle time. A first step could simply be four day workweek. Can a market economy allow this or is the dystopian power of an authoritarian government required?

As a growing immature civilisation we have usually seen limitations as something purely external, a challenge to overcome, enhanced by the relative size of the world compared to the small and fragile human. What happens when we, like when facing the mortality of a parent, realise the world is suddenly the small one? Do we embrace adulthood and adhere to its rules of restraint and responsibility? Or will we only learn through death?

Inspiration : The limits to growth, Meadows et al, 1972 Limits to growth: the 30 year update, Meadows et al, 2002 2052: A global forecast for the next forty yeats, Randers, 2013

Endless Circle

Without light, no view, no space, no architecture, no life. That’s why light is so important to humans. When night falls, we all observe the same phenomenon in cities. Little by little all the lights of the apartments come on. Darkness is absorbed by hundreds or thousands of small yellow squares. In each windows a different light allows the inhabitant to practice his space. Thanks to the darkness we can enjoy the light. The contrast is maybe the most important thing to enjoy an architectural space. The book’s title ’In Praise of Shadow’ is a good expression to explain this idea. Sometimes peoples don’t really like the darkness. It often relates to bads things like hell or danger. But we always need darkness to see light. Light and Darkness is about relation. This interplay is fundamental to our understanding and appreciation of both light and darkness. And about the lights of cities? Or even light in show case in the middle of the night? For the author Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, all public areas are too bright. City lights help people in the city to feel safer and promote traffic. However, public lighting also serves to decorate some prestigious spaces. It is important to sublimate the city. On the other hand, when light is used for showcase or is used before dark, it is waste. We need darkness to appreciate the light. It is not just a waste of light but also a waste of energy. Indeed, it takes energy to feed an artificial light and this light then produces heat. When we have too many artificial lights we have too much heat. To remedy this problem, the easiest way is to use a fan or an electric ventilation system that also uses energy. This is perfectly absurd but it is what we see most of the time. It’s like an endless circle. In addition to this waste of energy, artificial city lights also pollute our vision. I still remember witnessing some of my friends who have always lived in the city observing stars in the wild for the first time; ”I did not know there were so many”. Public lighting absorbs the darkness that allows us to observe the contrast between the stars and the black sky. I think watching the stars is one of the shows that can never become boring. It is also amazing to know that thousands of years ago peoples where following stars to know where they go and now some people just have not seen them.

Inspiration : In Praise of Shadow by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki

We’re doomed. Now what?

”I think it’s too late to stop it. It’s possible we’ve already gone over the tipping point.”

This is Roy Scrantons own words when answering a question about what his response would be about how to deal with the climate change and the global warming. This question was raised on a lecture at Evergreen State College in 2018.

In his book ”We’re doomed. Now what?”, Roy Scranton talks about the threats of climate change to the anthropocene society and planet that we, the human species, are creating ourselves. He raises questions and discussions like if it necessary to save a planet that’s already dying? Stating that we do not build to save the planet, we build to save ourselves from the planet. By constructing breakwaters and earthquake proof high rise buildings we are just finding ways of dodging the problems we put ourselves in.

In one of the essays of the book, the author draws parallels with his experiences from the war in Iraq with todays climate realization in the anthropocene society.

”Baghdad was shattered by the bombings and similarly today we see how cities and regions are shocked by natural disasters, storms and fires.”1

With his driving thesis that we cannot save the earth, but that we must relate to the realization that it is lost, he manifests through a kind of angry, and at the same time stated, passion that we must reimagine humanism. That it’s all about preparing and adapting to the fact that we will be extinct. This new way of living will be the biggest challenge for the human race and how to handle this inevitable scenario of a civilisational collapse.

1 Roy Scranton, We’re doomed. Now what?, Paperback, July 17 2018.

Memories

Memory /’mεmri/ n. 1 the faculty by which things are recalled to or kept in the mind. 2 this faculty in an individual. b one’s store of things remembered. 3 a recollection or remembrance. 4 a part of a computer etc. in which data or instructions can be stored for retrieval. b capacity for storing information in this way. 5 the remembrance of a person or thing. 6 the reputation of a dead person. 7 in formulaic phrases used of a dead sovereign. 8 the length of time over which the memory or memories of any given person extends. 9 the act of remembering.2

Gio Ponti says ”Italy was made half by God and half by the architects. God made the plains, the hills, the waters, and the skies; but architects created the domes, the facades, the steeples, the towers, the house on the hill”. 3 But I wonder where do the memories created by man remain in this statement?...

We never think about all the joy, drama, tragedy, laughter, cries, dreams and hopes that architecture confines.

The walls of the house are secret witnesses of our life. Only they know the truth of our life; only they know our feelings and have heard our dreams. The floor knows every tear shed. Understand if our crying is of joy or sadness. He has heard our laughter and felt our best dance steps on those party nights. The windows have seen us spend hours in front of them with their eyes lost in the horizon, disconnected from the world around us, daydreaming. The window has become our only company in those moments of solitude and introspection where we seek to reflect on our deepest mental states.

Architecture is our ally and advisor, the secret keeper of our life. But how can we experience through architecture all the actions and memories that people left behind? How can we feel, only by looking at empty rooms?

Every time I visit my grandparents’ home, the memories of laughter and good conversations come to mind; I remember my grandfather always telling stories of his past. I was surprised by the level of detail his stories possessed. It seems like he is tired and disinterested in the present but still very immersed in his past.

I admire his ability to recollect events and spaces in such acute detail, and even though the memories of people have blurred with time and faces have merged, the memories of the architectural features remain clear. He was motivated to reconstruct and return to these places to relive those moments of youth, adventure, discovery and bonding with my grandfather and his family. He visited his childhood villa, his former house, and the little summer house in Spain where he liked to spend vacations. He was reviving his memories and uncovering images buried in his subconscious mind since childhood.

And as cemeteries preserve people’s remains and photos help us remember their faces; the city preserves and celebrates the collective memories of what it once was and today is only a memory.

Memory of a man and his truck

2 Oxford English Dictionary

3 Gio Ponti, In Praise of Architecture, F.W.Dodge Corporation, page 2, 1960.

Future about Permanence

A lonesome grave area, the isolated industrial estates, faraway farming land and the human being. To understand the direct and indirect impact of our surrounding, we have to make it easier in terms of experienced knowledge. Place the human being with in her fundamental need. A future without need. Is that what we are trying to create?

Knowth, a 5200 years old burial ground, where used to be a place for honor and celebrate the ancestors and the earths power of taking care of birth and death. This could be a way of thinking of a garden, and a living area, to include all kind of production. Start to think of the living environment for a human being and include everything the human being need and not need or produce and reuse. It is interesting to be aware of a living area as an area with all the peoples needs.