30 August, 2010
The Abandoned City
It does not seem relevant to me to outline and re-iterate the steps that Mateo applies to a project for two reasons. (1) The article defines the steps that we have been taught to apply to any project; one comes up with a concept, defines the problem(s) and then addresses that problem in a concrete manner. (2) Before you can apply those steps, one is in need of a project, of an idea which can define it. However, the following quote’s seem likely to implicate the process as the project itself.
“The project is phantom-like: a mass which, though imprecise affirms a number of questions while being only partially committed to many others … an attempt to define with precision the basic issues to be developed, without becoming trapped by them.” [1]
“… it is like the organic growth of cells which little by little fill the organism eventually to give it flesh and body.” [2]
I still have yet to find that one defining issue (an organic growth of cells) upon which a project (phantom) depends. Perhaps it is the abandonment itself and the space that is left behind. It could be the movements that no longer exist there, the movements that now exist in replace of the old, or those that may happen in the future. And whether anyone is there to see that movement of not, can that be considered an event?
An interest in urban decay leads me to find inherent beauty in architecture that has lost its purpose. Much of the nation’s most industrious cities have undergone dramatic levels of population decline, abandonment and urban decay, sometimes coupling failing industry with social, racial and political tensions. In stark contrast to these, there are suburbs all over the country that have been planned and built, yet stand completely vacant with no one ever having stepped foot within their limits. Eco-disasters that have left cities in ruin; inhabitants are asked to leave and then to never return. There are dilapidated areas to every city that seem to have been neglected, with vacant and abandoned buildings plaguing those urban areas throughout the country. This leads me to wonder, why place so much emphasis on the built environment and those who live there everyday and then leave it and them to disintegrate?
Architecture is abandonment and the unused space it leaves behind.
“The project is phantom-like: a mass which, though imprecise affirms a number of questions while being only partially committed to many others … an attempt to define with precision the basic issues to be developed, without becoming trapped by them.” [1]
“… it is like the organic growth of cells which little by little fill the organism eventually to give it flesh and body.” [2]
I still have yet to find that one defining issue (an organic growth of cells) upon which a project (phantom) depends. Perhaps it is the abandonment itself and the space that is left behind. It could be the movements that no longer exist there, the movements that now exist in replace of the old, or those that may happen in the future. And whether anyone is there to see that movement of not, can that be considered an event?
An interest in urban decay leads me to find inherent beauty in architecture that has lost its purpose. Much of the nation’s most industrious cities have undergone dramatic levels of population decline, abandonment and urban decay, sometimes coupling failing industry with social, racial and political tensions. In stark contrast to these, there are suburbs all over the country that have been planned and built, yet stand completely vacant with no one ever having stepped foot within their limits. Eco-disasters that have left cities in ruin; inhabitants are asked to leave and then to never return. There are dilapidated areas to every city that seem to have been neglected, with vacant and abandoned buildings plaguing those urban areas throughout the country. This leads me to wonder, why place so much emphasis on the built environment and those who live there everyday and then leave it and them to disintegrate?
Architecture is abandonment and the unused space it leaves behind.
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