when Hugo Chávez Frías assumed the presidency of Venezuela. New Urbanism as a New Modernist Movement: A Comparative Look at Modernism and New ...
URBAN DESIGN, PLANNING, AND THE POLITICS OF DEVELOPMENT IN CURITIBA Chapter in Del Rio, Vicente and William Siembieda (eds.). Contemporary Urban Design in Brazil. Abstract - This article examines the urban governance, the planning model, some major urban design projects, and citizen involvement in Curitiba, and their impact on urban development in the city since the 1960s to the present. Over the past decades, Curitiba has been frequently referred to internationally as an environmentally sustainable “model city” and as a remarkable example of a planning process that worked out. This article summarizes some of the major urban design interventions in Curitiba; and claims that while there are many reasons for the city to deserve the praise it has gotten, some of its current urban governance and planning problems ought to get closer attention and scrutiny. The article proposes that there is an adequate qualitative and quantitative level of citizen involvement that better promotes effective planning, and argues that Curitiba is an instance where too little and poorly-managed participation is starting to delegitimize the planning process of decision-making and implementation that had a brilliant start in the 1960s, and an outstanding implementation process in the 1970s.
Kitsch is dead, long live kitsch: The Production of Hyperkitsch in Las Vegas Clara Irazábal ABSTRACT This study investigates the production of hyperreality and kitsch in the last generation of hotel developments in Las Vegas. In these environments, visual imagery is manipulated for the creation of spectacle and a sense of alienation from time and reality. This suspension of real time and space is aimed at both facilitating the deceiving perception of constructed ‘natures’, and producing ideal sites for pleasure and consumption. I engage this exploration through two main analytical concepts: hyperreality and kitsch. Building upon this theoretical framework, I propose the term hyperkitsch to denote the phenomenon in Las Vegas, and suggest that people’s fascination with hyperkitsch iconography that relates to the urban world results in part from their alienation from their real cities. Thus, in Las Vegas Strip, there are simulated urban landscapes upon where visitors may enact fantasy lives and ease the emptiness and estrangement derived from conflicted urban identities and poor citizenship. This study focuses on four specific examples of urban-ish recreations in The Strip. First, hyperkitsch simulacra of Rome and New York at
Caesar’s Palace and the New York-New York Hotel/Casinos. These two hotels established a new fad in hotel design in The Strip, and have since then become recurrent referents for the new hotel-casino complexes. Second, the essentialized urban microcosms of The Venetian and Aladdin as examples among the newest hotels that feature an ever more perfected versions of ‘natural’ cityscape. The study is a contribution for understanding the current social crisis of urban identity formation—for both the human subject and the public sphere—amid the accelerating metamorphoses of our contemporary culture of spectacle, hedonism, and consumerism. “Reconfiguring a Metropolitan Region: Corporate Architectural Typologies in Portland, Oregon.” Proceedings of “(Un)bounding Tradition: The Tensions of Borders and Regions.” 8th Conference of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE). Hong Kong, China. December 12-15, 2002. Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Working Paper Series. Volume 146. Berkeley, USA. 2003. The recent architecture of global corporations in the metropolitan landscape of Portland is examined in Chapter 9, ‘Nike vis-à-vis adidas: Spatializing Regional Planning Discourse in Portland’s Global Corporate Architecture’. Through the study of two main examples, Nike’s and adidas’s headquarters, the chapter investigates how these complexes have originated as products of or reactions to some of the main stances of planning discourses in the metropolis. Specifically, the comparison of the two corporate projects embodies the tensions between a triad of opposite planning premises—the creation of suburban vs. urban typologies, the protection or production of nature vs. community, and the process of top-down vs. bottom-up design. These premises are conceived as extreme values of primary conceptual continua in Portland’s planning discourse. The architecture of Nike World Headquarters (WHQ) is conceptually constructed based on a few of the main and most popular general premises of Portland’s urban planning creed and Oregonians’ deeply engrained ethos: the protection and enhancement of the natural environment, and the desire to incorporate it into people’s everyday life. The architecture of the adidas Village, on the other hand, is also founded on some of Portland’s main planning benchmarks, but, on the contrary, they are the ones that emphasize the push towards the creation of denser, more livable and inclusive urban physical environments and social communities. Nike WHQ’s design is thus supported on more environmentally-related, conservative planning goals. Although they continue to be strong pillars of Portland’s planning agenda, these goals originated and are best related to the first phases of planning in the metropolis, during the 1960s and 1970s. By contrast, the planning goals that form the basis of adidas Village’s urban design are more socially progressive, and best correspond to the more recent move towards a more urban, socially-oriented planning mode and governing agenda in the metropolis,
with emphasis on social inclusion and promotion. Beyond the differences in the selective usage of aspects of Portland’s planning discourse as rationales for Nike and adidas headquarters’ architectural and urban design, the chapter also discusses some impacts of the new world order of global labor relations and practices of production, consumption, and promotion on the corporations’ cultures. The aim is to demonstrate how the companies’ distinct, local cultural and spatial stances, as expressed in the architecture of their headquarters complexes, are also related—sometimes in a paradoxical way—to their global promotional and labor practices.
"Ultrapassando o debate entre convergência e divergência urbanas: a arquitetura e o urbanismo em um contexto global" (Beyond the Urban Convergence / Divergence Debate: Architecture and Urbanism in a Contemporary Global Context). In: Cadernos IPPUR/UFRJ, Instituto de Pesquisa e Planejamento Urbano e Regional da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, vl. XVII, n. 1, jan/jul 2003, pp. 111-132. This book opens with a general theoretical discussion of local spatiality in a global world. Citing economic indicators and planning practices, some scholars have argued that cities of the First and the Third World are becoming increasingly similar. Others disagree with this convergence theory, claiming that these similarities are only superficial. Chapter 1, ‘Beyond the Urban Convergence/Divergence Debate: Architecture and Urbanism in a Contemporary Global Context’, addresses this debate, arguing that discrepancies between the two theories are more apparent than real. It further proposes to focus more on the convergent approaches to the solutions of the problems rather than on the similarities of the problems themselves, stressing the roles that citizen participation and urban governance have had in successful urban experiences in both the so-called First and Third Worlds. The chapter also deepens reflections on the architecture and urbanism of convergence, as perceived in new global cities. It identifies the architecture and urbanism of globalization, independent of North/South divisions, as presenting spatial concentration of nodes of international businesses, gentrification of central city areas, and ghettoization of excluded populations, among other major, generally-shared characteristics. Finally, some thoughts on the potential for the architecture and urbanism of divergence are given, as expressions of changing social and political contestations, and as central to the formation of new identities and claims of citizenship in the urban realm. The chapter does not ground these discussions in the contexts of Curitiba and Portland. Instead, it makes use of examples of places in other commonly known global cities as representatives. The potential linkages to Curitiba and Portland are left for the reader to ponder at this point, and are incrementally developed in the rest of the book. As such, the chapter provides a preamble for much of the material that follows, but also offers some provocative ideas that the reader may contemplate as applicable to other urban areas.
"Do Pruitt-Igoe ao World Trade Center: planejando a ex/implosão do (pos)modernismo." In Revista Brasileira de Estudos Urbanos e Regionais. Publicação da Associação Nacional de pos-graduação e Pesquisa em Planejamento Urbano e Regional. v.5, n.2, 2003, pp. 9-26, ISSN 1517-4115. From Pruitt-Igoe to World Trade Center: Planning and the ex/implosion of (post)modernity The production of the built environment has been impacted by the end of the illusions of modernity. Modern ideas, based on history conceived as a linear path of human development and continuous progress, and reason—expressed through plans and projects—as an unequivocal response to human problems, have not lived to the expectations of solving most human problems, and in cases have even exasperated them. Hardly in any other cases does the demise of hegemonic modern illusions become more evident than in the physical collapse of the public housing complex Pruitt-Igoe (PI, Saint Louis, 1972) and, most recently, of the World Trade Center (WTC, New York, 2001). These events become dramatic metaphors of the explosions and implosions of urban and architectural theories and practices that mark our era, with still some unforeseen local and global consequences. Based on these two renowned building collapses, this article reflects on the meaning and transcendence of the deployment of (post)modernity in the production, destruction, and reproduction of the built environment. First, the article reviews the failure of the PI model, its revision at home, and its current deployment onto others. Second, the article argues the inherent failure of the WTC model, its revision both at home and abroad, and questions its current reenactment in the world—i.e. the fierceful assertion and deployment of McWorld. Many may argue that the collapse of PI cannot be compared to the collapse of the WTC. For once, the collapse of PI was something “planned,” born out of a society’s consensus; whereas the collapse of the WTC was not planned (i.e., of course it was planned, but not) by the society that used the buildings. It may then be argued that the rationale for the collapse of PI was to correct something that had been done badly—i.e., to do some good—whereas the collapse of the WTC was to destruct something that had been done well—i.e., to do some harm. There are valuable partial truths in those assertions. But for all that it can hurt, this article proposes that this would be a too naïve, chauvinistic view of the events. Hence, placing the 9/11/01 events as the background on which to problematize the planning field, this article further aims to revise the status quo for the field of urban planning and unveil some new perspectives for it in this convulsed opening of the 21st century. Contrary to popular and official perceptions and portrayals that claim that the world changed on 9/11, this article emphasizes the notion that on 9/11 the world had already changed. What the fatidic events of 9/11 brought to front was the
painstaking realization that the world had indeed changed. Due to the impact of the historical transformations on the planning field, there is a need for a reconstructed intellectual archeology of planning, the removal of old theoretical and practical debris, and a rebuilding from ground zero—philosophically speaking. The development of a new theory aiming at understanding a new history is an ongoing endeavor that demands time and requires collective effort. Meanwhile, the task can be strategically supported by unsettling the actual planning institutions. Too much self-righteousness and complacency within the field of planning and among planners have been important parts of the poor performance of planning’s responses to current socio-spatial challenges. While broader structural conditions are hard to transform and can only be changed in the long run, planning institutional attitudes may be subjected to immediate and effective transformations. The article ends with suggestions to accomplish such changes in planning education and practice, and conceptual recommendations to address the rebuilding of Manhattan. From Pruitt-Igoe to World Trade Center: Planning and the ex/implosion of (post)modernity Hardly in any other cases does the demise of hegemonic modern illusions become more evident than in the physical collapse of the public housing complex Pruitt-Igoe (PI, Saint Louis, 1972) and, most recently, of the World Trade Center (WTC, New York, 2001). These events become dramatic metaphors of the explosions and implosions of urban and architectural theories and practices that mark our era, with still some unforeseen local and global consequences. Based on these two renowned building collapses, this article reflects on the meaning and transcendence of the deployment of (post)modernity in the production, destruction, and reproduction of the built environment. Placing the 9/11/01 events as the background on which to problematize the planning field, this article further aims to revise the status quo for the field of urban planning and unveil some new perspectives for it in this convulsed opening of the 21st century. The article ends with suggestions to accomplish such changes in planning education and practice, and conceptual recommendations to address the rebuilding of Manhattan.
“A Planned City Coming of Age: Rethinking Ciudad Guayana Today.” Journal of Latin American Geography. Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004: 22-51. In the 1960s, planners from MIT and Harvard, supported by an interdisciplinary group, were invited by the Venezuelan government to interact with national professionals to create a ‘growth pole’ in the southern part of the country. A city named Ciudad Guayana was founded in 1961. The planning process that followed was extensively documented by this group of American scholars and
their counterparts in Venezuela. Probably the strongest critique to this process has been presented by the American anthropologist Lisa Peattie who, in Planning: Rethinking Ciudad Guayana (1987), unveils the unbridgeable gap between the ‘platonic city’ designed by the planners based on the development paradigm, and the ‘aristotelian city’ that unfolded in reality. Building upon the contradictions already exposed by Peattie and other authors, and examining Ciudad Guayana’s current urban and regional reality, this study investigates national and local politics in the planning, decision-making, and building practices of the city, and their definite imprint on its urban form and quality of life. Emphasis is placed on the last 15 years, and particularly the period since 1999, when Hugo Chávez Frías assumed the presidency of Venezuela.
New Urbanism as a New Modernist Movement: A Comparative Look at Modernism and New Urbanism MICHAEL VANDERBEEK AND CLARA IRAZÁBAL
This article situates New Urbanism, and neotraditionalism more generally, on the ideological continuum of Modernism — as a neo-Modernist movement. By comparing the social and environmental goals of Modernism and New Urbanism as laid out in their respective charters and questioning the ability of New Urbanism to achieve its goals where Modernism failed, it offers a contextual analysis of the motivations behind the movements and their implications in practice. It then presents the cities of Brasilia, in Brazil, and Celebration, in the United States, as examples of the difficulty of putting the altruistic rhetoric of Modernism and New Urbanism, respectively, into practice. Finally, it offers the lessons of history as a way to reflect on the challenges facing New Urbanism and its prospects for success.
Latino Communities in the United States: Place-Making in the Pre-World War II, Postwar, and Contemporary City Clara Irazábal Ramzi Farhat Scholarship on Latino communities in the United States has yet to catch up with the rapid growth of this ethnic population in the country. Understanding the Latino urban experience and developing plans to better respond to both the needs of Latino communities and their integration within society is not only relevant, but also urgently necessary. Using the city of Los Angeles as a main lens, in addition to a general look at the urban Southwest, we contribute to the scholarship on the
subject with a review of literature on Latino communities. We structure the review as an assessment of the various challenges and opportunities for urban Latinos in the pre-war, postwar, and contemporary city. Focusing on space, culture, economy, and governance, we chart the various roles both the private and public sectors play in meeting these challenges. Our reading of the literature shows that particular government actions in the economic and governance domains in the past had positive impacts on Latino integration, and we call for a similar effort today in addressing contemporary challenges. We conclude by suggesting that future planning scholarship on Latino communities engage the wider urban studies literature, focus on emerging forms of urbanization, and call on planners to sustain increased academic and practical interest in the topic.
