beneath the surface of architecture

Beneath the surface of Architecture

by

ALUN DOLTON

Dissertation Submitted to the Birmingham School of Architecture

University of Central England

In partial fulfilment of the

Master of Arts in Architecture Design and Theory

September 2003.

Abstract

Beneath the Surface of Architecture is a study about the relationship between

architecture and society, how it is currently, how it came to be that way and why.

Through examination of design theories that have led us to this point, and

investigation of design theories that can comprehend the current situation through

the application of knowledge gained from the field of anthropology, the study seeks

to re-establish the position of architecture within today's society.

Acknowledgements

This work could not have been produced without the continual help, support

encouragement of my wife Ursula, particularly in the final stages of the production of

this work, proof reading, assistance, bullying to ensure that this work reached

completion.

In the development of this project I am indebted to my course director, project

supervisor, and mentor, Professor Mohsen Aboutarabi, along with the team of

visiting tutors, Taina Rikala, David Bradford and Robin Sergeant, whose collective

enthusiasm, criticism and rigorous questioning have enabled me to shape this work.

Biography

This dissertation is the culmination of Ten years studying Architecture and in total

seventeen years active involvement in the Architectural Profession. From living and

growing up in Devon, I was born in Plymouth 1971, I started my career whilst at

school, joining a local Architect in Brixham for work experience during the summer

holidays. From leaving school I worked for a small Architectural practice in Paignton,

developing a sound base of practical experience, whilst training towards becoming

an Architectural Technician through the BTEC route at South Devon College of Arts

and Technology. I moved to Birmingham in 1993 to commence my real training in

Architecture, discovering to my surprise that Architecture is a process as well as a

profession, and not a product as I had previously believed.

Beneath the surface of Architecture

Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 - Site Study 11

Chapter 2 - Advancement of Human Species 37

Chapter 3 - Humanity Displaced 57

Chapter 4 - Regarding Humanity 75

Chapter 5 - Architecture and Anthropology 95

Chapter 6 - Architecture Revisited 105

Conclusion 121

References and Bibliography 127

Beneath the surface of architecture

1

Introduction

'Being a powerless group, architects are a convenient scapegoat for the more

forceful generators of society's ills.' - Rykwert 2000.

A poignant phrase by Rykwert signifying that the relationship between

architecture and people has turned sour, critics talk of the failure of modern

architecture, and urban devastation at the hands of 'short sighted' planners. Built

form conceived as autonomous objects that have no relationship with the people

they are supposedly designed for, or in some cases, not designed for any specific

group of people in the first instance.

Mike Davis talks of social apartheid in his studies of Los Angeles, due to

the secular nature of new developments, rich people having their own streets,

transport systems and air conditioned spaces, with safe neighbourhoods with

private police forces (Pope 1996). There are trends affecting our cities where

migrations of poor people toward the cities cause more congestion coupled with

migrations of rich people out into the suburbs causing social exclusion (Rogers

1997). Voids being left in the cities as self centred developments are designed to

exclude all but its intended users (Pope 1996), and particularly in London's

Docklands, where uneven development leads to left over spaces and ghettos.

(Rogers 1997).

These developments of which architecture has a role and in the past has

contributed to. Although political and economic forces dictate where development

takes place, there is a process of which architecture is part of although some

would have is believe that the architect’s skills are not needed.

'The architects and decorators actual designing is limited to advice on the

surface dressing (mirror glass or Gothic or Renaissance or Chinese or some

sheathing details derived from Art Deco patterning)' (Rykwert 2000).

The point is, is bad architecture and planning, responsible for this? and as

architects are we really relegated to 'Questions of style and ornament, which may


' Present day concerns for static objects will be replaced by concern for

relationships, shelters will no longer be static objects, but dynamic objects sheltering and

enhancing human events, accommodation will be responsive, ever changing and ever

adjusting. '

Richard Rogers (1996) taken from foreword to 'Supersheds' by Chris Wilkinson

2 3 4 5

6 7

2 3

Introduction

seem harmless when they stop at the surface and consequently mask problems of

social structure and context.' - (Rykwert 2000). If this is the state of architecture, is

it possible to prevent the profession of architecture from being mistrusted by the

public and the industry alike?

The scope of this work is to investigate the role of architecture in society,

which begins by revisiting my original point of departure, the Richard Rogers

quote… ' Present day concerns for static objects will be replaced by concern for

relationships, shelters will no longer be static objects, but dynamic objects

sheltering and enhancing human events, accommodation will be responsive, ever

changing and ever adjusting. '

Is it a claim that architects are missing the point in making buildings that

have no relationship with the people that are intended to use it? The second part of

the quote may shed some light on the context that he is referring. '…shelters will

no longer be static objects, but dynamic objects sheltering and enhancing human

events…'

From reading into Rogers' reaction to the events that led up to the

decision to launch the competition to build a cultural centre in the heart of Paris.

Opposed to the idea of entering, deeply mistrustful of the very word 'culture', and

the notion that it was to be accommodated in a national arts centre, a cultural

monument to one man (the French President). Especially when the government

had played a central role in the wars with students during the revolt of May 1968.

The result…From an early stage Piano and Rogers assembled a team to

investigate ways of giving the centre a wider mix of activities, a deliberate

subversion of the brief the idea of a cultural centre was replaced by 'Live centre for

information and entertainment'. The objective to attract a wide a public as possible,

cutting across traditional institutional limits, making a peoples' centre, a university

of the street, becoming an urban landmark, a replacement for the missing Agora.

(Appleyard 1986).


Modernity…the condition of living imposed upon individuals by the socio-

economic process of modernisation.' Heynen

6 7

4 5

Collision Sequence from Preliminary Site study 2001

Introduction

From this context it is apparent that he is referring to social and political

events, and that the claim that shelters will become dynamic to shelter such events

reveals, that the quote is an observation of a trend that his architecture is obviously

a part of. The same statement can also be read as a critique of the way that

present day architecture has little relationship with human events.

The investigation of the role of architecture begins with an examination of

a particular site in the built environment, of the theories that delivered the

architecture in question, and the social criticism of such an approach to the

problems of the city. From reaching an understanding of the current situation the

objective is to investigate ways that the field of anthropology can contribute to

understanding of the complex relationship between architecture and the social

condition in which it sits. The work is divided into six chapters which through a

process of continual examination builds up a picture of the social relevance of

architecture.

Chapter 1 - Site Study, explores the current situation in architecture,

through critique of an object, a test subject. The object is explored from viewpoint

of its dialogue with the city on a physical and psychological plane. The exploration

of certain key events that have occurred in history that have helped to shape the

object, along with technological breakthroughs that have enabled the site to be the

way that it is. The history relating to the building reveals a series of events that

occurred relative to itself. The findings of this building appraisal highlight the need

for a more in-depth investigation, one that engages with the thought processes that

enabled such an object to be enforced on the life of the city.

In the search for an answer to the question 'why', the study examines the

driving force behind the events that led to the reconstruction of New Street Station

into its present form in Chapter 2 - Advancement of the Human Species. The

history of modern architecture reveals a number of key players, Le Corbusier being

the most prominent, indeed the use of reinforced concrete in the construction of

New Street Station, is similar to many of Le Corbusier's buildings, although again

we are in danger of looking at the problem superficially. The use of reinforced


6 7

Introduction

concrete in construction as displayed at New Street Station, demonstrates the

application of techniques developed by Le Corbusier in his later work. The social

aims of the modern movement, reveal that the thinkers at the time were trying to

comprehend the social condition, and that the social condition is constantly

changing, meaning that new approaches to architecture are constantly being

sought. The study reveals that architecture is at a disadvantage to other arts

because it results in the built form that people have to live with, and whether

intentional or not, has a relationship with those people. In the case of most

architecture of the modern movement, it has proved to be a negative one.

In Chapter 3 - Humanity Displaced The analysis of the La Sarraz

declaration and the Athens Charter reveals that the notion of living became less

prominent in the discussion as economics and efficient building methods

dominated. In effect issues of humanity became displaced from the discourse of

architecture. The exploration of the direction of subsequent debates reveals that

the displacement resulted in what is now termed as the negative relationship,

between people and architecture. The study examines the human cost of this

relationship to reveal why it is a negative one, acknowledging the social

determinism of the 1950s and 60s, which saw people as meekly following an

architecturally bestowed order, was bound to fail if people's beliefs and wishes

were not taken into account.

Having determined that architecture should be about people, and not

about building, the study moves on to investigating what this actually means for the

field of architecture, and how, if possible this is to be achieved. In Chapter 4 -

Regarding Humanity establishing that understanding the social structure of society

in the primitive sense, reinforces the link between architecture and people; and

having determined that part of the failure of modern architecture is the down to the

exact opposite. By establishing that there are similarities between architecture and

anthropology, the study demonstrates that there could be a way of establishing

new rules, and new approaches in the theoretical sense, but not necessarily in the

practical sense. The study needs to look deeper into the relationship between the

two fields to arrive at a practical application of one to the other.


8 9

Introduction

From investigating the respective definitions of anthropology and

architecture, the aim of Chapter 5 - Architecture and Anthropology is to establish

that in the field of research there is a symbiotic relationship between the two. The

study progresses the research into this relationship to investigate ways in which

knowledge gained from anthropological research can be applied to the field of

architecture in contemporary society. Anthropologists can help us to understand

how the relationship between buildings and society worked before it became so

complicated, and by extension trace the stages of the complication. (Blundell

Jones 1996) The study of architectural anthropology in an academic sense is one

thing, but applying the principles to the very real problem of architecture in the

current social climate is quite another which is addressed in Chapter 6

'Architecture Revisited'.

The notion that anthropologists can tell us far more about the complex

relationships at work within the city forces an investigation of how things worked

when things were less complicated, as proposed by Peter Blundell Jones. In

investigating the validity of Blundell-Jones' claim, observation of events and

buildings in rural areas of Sri Lanka prompts a re-examination of the site study and

the social context in which it sits. Prompting a deeper understanding of the

reasons why it is having a negative relationship with the people that are intended

to use it, and by extension the areas in where a positive relationship can be

achieved.

In the Conclusion, Repositioning Architecture. The study has

demonstrated that there is at present an uneasy relationship between architecture

and humanity, as a result of the thinking of the twentieth century being proved

wrong. The direction of the study towards the field of anthropology has revealed

that there exists a problem of perception of the purpose of architecture, and

likewise the field of anthropology. The study reveals that this is a problem that wh

can be addressed through re-evaluation of both fields to arrive at a framework for

the application of architecture to the problems of society.


Chapter 1

10 11

Site Study

This chapter explores the current situation in architecture, through critique

of an object, a test subject. The object is explored from viewpoint of its dialogue

with the city on a physical and psychological plane. The exploration of certain key

events that have occurred in history that have helped to shape the object, along

with technological breakthroughs that have enabled the site to be the way that it is.

The site has been chosen as it demonstrates the failure of the totalitarian

approach that was borne out of the modern movement and the rigid approaches to

city planning. In that the planned cities of Le Corbusier and the megastructure

ideas of the Smithsons that have been eroded by human involvement. The

totalitarian megastructure city plan for Birmingham is currently being dismantled in

favour of what is being promoted as an approach that is claiming to put the people

first. Leaving the site as one of the few surviving components of that solution, the

modernist megastructure that was proposed and largely built for Birmingham.

This site in itself is a good example of the enforcement of a modernist

megastructure on the city centre. It is suffering from the backlash against modern

architecture, in that it is generally referred to as an eyesore, part of the concrete

jungle metaphor that the people of Birmingham want to disassociate themselves

from.

The site’s purpose, New Street station is proving to be totally inadequate

as the journey into Birmingham by train delivers the you into a confused,

congested mass underneath the city.

Birmingham is now a city in transition, it is a city is undergoing major

reorganisation, and transformation. The Inner Ring Road dubbed the concrete

collar by some has been gradually dismantled during the past ten to fifteen years,

and has enabled the regeneration of Broad Street, along with the construction of

Brindley Place and the development of a whole new quarter of Birmingham. The

scheme began with the construction of the National Indoor Arena and International

Convention Centre. Part of a bid to hold the 1996 Olympics, unsuccessful though

the bid was it managed to hold attention on Birmingham long enough for investors

to see the potential for regeneration of the city.


…Utilitarian, arrogant and repelling...Rogers and Power 2001

12 13

Site Study

Following the success of Brindley Place, the infamous Bull Ring of the

1960's has been removed, to be replaced by a bigger and 'better' New Bull Ring of

the 1990's, with shopping malls and a twenty-first century department store, in the

shape of Future Systems' Selfridges. 'Whether you regard the building as an exotic

toadstool, a sequined boob tube or an alien spacecraft is immaterial. This is

already the new Birmingham'. (Pearman 2003).

Development is now spreading to the Eastern side of the city centre, with

the demise of 'Masshouse Circus' and car park. Attention has shifted to 'Eastside'

the former industrial quarter of Digbeth, encompassing the former Curzon Street

Station, Millennium Point, Grimshaw's part science museum, part university, part

giant screen Imax cinema, (Pearman 2003) .

Plans are afoot to move the central Library to 'Eastside', The New library -

a keystone of Birmingham's urban renaissance…a dynamic public place…the

most important building since Pompidou (Rogers 2002). Which will probably see

the removal of Paradise Circus and the 'Brutalist' library complex; which leaves the

complex that is simultaneously known as the 'Pallasades' and 'New Street Station':

the site which is part of an extremely complex situation in Birmingham. It is the site

that in addition to New Street Station and the Pallasades shopping centre, also

comprises other less obvious activities Stephenson Tower a residential block

sitting above the station, and Ladywood House, and office block sitting above the

shopping centre. Not to mention the three separate car parks and the servicing

facilities that also sit above the shopping centre.

In the context of the study, the chosen site gives an ideal test subject in

that it is a problem site and demonstrates the current chasm between people and

architecture. It is more of a living entity than say the 'Bull Ring' regardless of how it

performs 'architecturally' (in the traditional sense) or functionally or even

psychologically with those that use it, it is an object that is inextricably linked to the

daily life of the city.

The study commences through examineing the site as a static object to

test Rogers' claim, 'Present day concerns for static objects will be replaced by

concern for relationships'. To investigate why a building that appears to have been

conceived as a static object, is failing in its position as part of the city centre, and is


‘Watching eyes of celluloid tell you how to live...

.

...Spiral city architect, I build you pay’ (Black Sabbath 1973)

The Bull Ring 1998

14 15

Site Study

having a poor relationship with the urban context in which it sits and the people

that inhabit it.

The relationship with the city, or lack of it is best demonstrated at the

edges, or interfaces.

The New Street interface. Is the one that is closest to the activities of the

city centre. Is the Pallasades. Any glimpses of the site from New Street are of the

blank concrete wall of shopping centre, which practically obscures any routes from

the station to any of the main spaces of the city centre. Ladywood House is an

office block that sits uncomfortably on top of the concrete plinth, which is similarly

divorced from the life of the city. The entrance to the offices is crammed between

two retail units at street level, where shop-fronts loom out of the shadows as the

deep concrete plinth flies out over the street to sit on a run of thick concrete

columns.

A long ramp crosses the front of the megastructure providing service

access to the shopping centre by means of storage units being situated directly

above the retail units. The ramp also provides access to the car parks that exist

on different levels of the structure resembling a derelict industrial facility. The

plane in front of the car park ramp is taken up by the new footbridge, where

blackened glass and white steel turrets sit on the platforms, with white steel and

translucent polycarbonate panelled bridge spanning between them, again

blackened by the constant onslaught of diesel exhaust smoke.

The Navigation Street/Stephenson Place edge, comprises car park

entrance ramps, barriers and surveillance cameras, a spiral pedestrian ramp

connects the street level to an elevated walkway along the back of the shopping

centre above. Although much of the tangle is invisible from the nearest edges of

the station, as the whole scene is also hidden from view by a two metre high

concrete wall lining the back of the pavement to Navigation Street, and Hill Street.

The second interface is the one that buts up against Hill Street and

Station Street. Here much of the site is obscured from view behind the ever-

present two-metre high wall. This serves to make a one sided street, as the wall

turns along Station Street, an opening forms entrances to the car parks and the


16 17

Site study 2001 - Interfaces Station street

Site Study

base of the ramp that cuts across the front of the building. Bridges fly across the

rear access road named 'Queens Drive' after the street that used to run through

the full length of the Station. One linking the Pallasades with a stair tower that

permits access to the bus station that sits beneath the Bull Ring Centre. The

second bridge links the corner of the Pallasades to the surviving concrete block of

the 1960's Bull Ring Centre. The Queens Drive forms the taxi route to the main

entrence of the station and what sounds like a prestigious address for the

residents of Stephenson Tower, which sits on top of the parcel depot, forming what

passes for social housing. The people were and probably still are, placed in the

block by the Local Authority as opposed to wanting to live there (Coleman 1985).

At the third Interface, with the Bull Ring. A series of holes surrounded by

the ubiquitous two metre wall make up the landscape which is punctuated by

surface level car parking and Birmingham's infamous one way system of access

roads. The Pallasades flies out over the short stay car park and station entrance

with its deep concrete plinth sitting on columns making another dark entrance.

What is apparent in the case of New Street Station is, what is traditionally

perceived as the architecture, has transcended the threshold of what Rem

Koolhaas refers to as 'Bigness'. Meaning that the building has become too big and

complex to be comprehended by a single architectural gesture or even number of

gestures. Koolhaas argues that 'size of a building alone embodies an ideological

program independent of the will of its architects.' (Koolhaas 1997).

In reading the site complex, this argument appears to hold true. Especially

when explored further in the context of Koolhaas' Five theorem of Bigness as

developed in his book Delirious New York (1978). In reading the five theorems in

conjunction with the site it comes as no surprise that enablers such as

technological breakthroughs, have in time permitted this type of megastructure to

come into existence. 'The combined effects of these inventions were structures

taller and deeper - Bigger - than ever before conceived, with a parallel potential for

the reorganisation of the social world - a vastly richer programmation'. (Koolhaas

1995)


18 19

Site study 2001 - Interfaces The pedestrian ramp The housing scheme The vehicular ramp

Site Study

However staying with the object now, it is obvious that parts of building

become totally divorced from the life of the city, as different activities are self-

contained and focussed on the interior. The use of air conditioning systems, has

permitted the interior to eliminate the need for windows opening to the outside

world for ventilation, the use of lifts and escalators has permitted totally different

activities to co-exist, in isolation, but at the same time on top of one another. The

architecture of the building has in itself become the city.

Drawing on my previous research, 'The Beaubourg Experiment' where I

was looking at Centre Pompidou, which has been described as an ocean liner in

the centre of Paris, (Piano 1997). New Street Station is also too big to fit into the

urban grain at in the centre of Birmingham. The key difference being the way that

Centre Pompidou has a positive relationship with the people of Paris, and gives

the appearance of something that has been rigorously considered and worked out

(Beaudrillard 1984). Although it seems strange to be comparing New Street

Station with Centre Pompidou, one is a railway station with associated ancillary

facilities, and the other is a centre for arts and culture and also a project of

Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, who will feature in the story later.

Both buildings are extremely public structures. The study is not about

comparing railway stations. It is using the complex that contains the railway

station as an example of architecture. Both have a relationship with the public,

one positive and the other negative. We can examine the relative merits and

demerits of such a construction, but we are dealing with it from an abstract point

of view, as a building is an over-large and over complex object. I have

deliberately attempted to describe the built form to demonstrate that it is not

necessarily the arrangement of the buildings making up the site complex or its

physical appearance that is important here. Sure, we can criticise the dark

spaces, the poor weathering of certain built elements, the relative ugliness of raw

concrete. We can discuss its relationship with the built fabric of the city but this

only gives us a superficial view.


20 21

The site as dynamic object

Site Study

In shifting the emphasis of the study away from the built form to viewing

the site as a dynamic object. It is the convergence of the railway station and the

shopping centre forms a route that if one is arriving on foot into the city centre from

a train journey; this is the route that they will have to take. The study investigates

how this situation came to be through analysis of not the design of the building

itself, but the trend in architecture and urban design at the time. The result of which

will not necessarily give us an understanding of the situation, but will allow us to

understand why it is the way that it is.

As part of the city it becomes part of the experience of the daily lives of

thousands of people. Those walking through the site. Those driving through the

site. Those buying and selling in the site. Those delivering supplies retail units

within the object. Those catching buses around the perimeter of the object. Those

travelling through the city on the dozens of trains that pass beneath the object

every hour, those that board or alight from those trains to find their way out into

the city. The site is a dynamic object and it is the shift in thinking from a static

object to a living entity that begins to enable us to understand it.

It is the experience of making a journey through the site that makes it a

part of the city, and demonstrates its effectiveness as an architectural object. The

experience that is the most memorable is one of a journey that is made by

thousands of people every day, the commuter…on their daily migration from the

suburbs to the city centre.

In examining the Relationship with the people the study concentrates on

the experience of making this journey through the site a rush hour. The journey is

broken down into six parts, which become scenes for different events.


22 23

Scene 1 - 2

Site Study

The Rush.

Scene 1 - The Ramp

" WOULD ALL MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC, FOR THEIR OWN

SAFETY, KEEP TO THE LEFT SIDE, WHEN MOVING ALONG THIS RAMP!"

Says the electronic voice that issues from speakers that are suspended

above the seething mass of people that make up the living surface of the ramp.

The ramp provides the setting of numerous collisions as programs of shopping

and travelling co-exist in the same place, in that the shopper suddenly finds more

people to avoid as they walk up New Street. Conversely, the traveller is suddenly

confronted with a moving wall of people, as they reach the base of the ramp. On

the ramp itself, the flow of those travellers merges with the flow of shoppers,

moving up in to the Pallasades, causing friction as the 'rush' to catch trains

'collides' with the slow amble of the browsing shopper.

Scene 2 - McDonalds

A white line drawn down the centre of the ramp tries to order some of the

chaotic flow. In order to assist this, signs and electronic voices constantly remind

pedestrians to keep left. Half way up (or down, depending on your direction of

travel) Mc Donald's happens! What seems like hundreds of people spill out, laden

with flimsy 'Coke' cups, and 'Big Mac and Fries' in brown paper bags. Whilst others

stand in the doorway eating or talking on mobile phones, all interfering with the

hoards of people who seem to be constantly moving up the ramp. On exiting

McDonalds, it is bad luck if you actually want to go down the ramp!


Human Behaviour matters more than function - Alsop 2001

24 25

Scene 3 - 4

Site Study

Scene 3 - The Pallasades

After recovering from the McDonald's incident the stampede encounters

smaller incidents as activity at shop-fronts interrupt it.

At the top of the ramp two large overhead signs welcome you to the

Pallasades shopping centre, well, one actually as the soign to the left hand side is

obscured by the concrete canopy that projects out over the ramp Predominantly.

'Woolworths' dominates the left-hand side of the tunnel which is the entrance to the

Pallasades. with women standing outside with kids in Prams as their friends are

inside. On the opposite side it 'Newlook' with its extension over the high level

walkway, situated at the head of a stairway, linking the shopping centre with

Stephenson Place below. The head of the stair forms a flashpoint as people stand

and wait to get a clear space to be able to move down, at the same time as an

almost constant onslaught of people climbing up to avoid having to contend with

the ramp. More groups of young people stand guard on the entrance chatting to

their friends on mobile phones, blocking the path for those who want to go inside.

The Newt is a pub that has its entrance on the ramp although the pub is situated

on the lower level. The ramp entrance merely takes you down two flights of stairs

to get to the entrance lobby.

Scene 4 - In search of New Street station

At the end of the tunnel, the ceiling height rises to a double height space,

where on the ground the chaotic crossing of peoples’ paths breeds more collisions,

near misses, stopping, changing direction, annoyance and frustration! The

constantly moving mass of people in the shopping centre makes railway station is

difficult to find, although there is an overhead clock above the crossroads with

some small signs pointing to different parts of the centre. New Street Station is

identified as being straight on although from this point there is no indication of

anything resembling the station. Following the flow of people being deflected from

one corner to another they negotiate their way around the shop units that block

their path to the void.


26 27

Scene 5

Site Study

Scene 5 - The escalators.

The void in the heart of the scheme is occupied by a bank of escalators

and stairs, forming the link with the railway station below. The top of the escalator

finds people arriving from the railway station, laden with bags and suitcases,

stopping dead, trying to recognise anything that constitutes a sign of a way out.

Much to the aggravation of the ones who do know where they are going, who have

to almost climb over them. Ironically on the opposite side if the escalator void is an

open café which does permit long views to the void from the shopping centre.

Scene 6 The concourse.

The ride down the escalator causes a similar series of events, as people

race down the escalator suddenly to be confronted with seething a mass of people.

Some standing mesmerised by the destination boards as they try to find where to

catch their train. Some distribute promotional goods, some generally mill around.

Others moving from person to person telling the same elaborate story of how they

are homeless and how they need your spare change; all blocking the way for those

who want to get from the city to the train and vice versa. Around to the left and just

behind of the base of the escalator, is the entrance for those arriving by car or taxi,

with the constant stream of 'Black-Cabs' dropping off and picking up. To the left in

front are the ticket counters with the general air of anxiety as people try to get

through the interminable queue to buy their ticket and still be able to catch their

train in time.

'The Rush' is based upon my experience of trying to get from Corporation

Street to New Street Station, on an evening typical of any other; the majority of

people are leaving the city after the day's work. The shops are open in the

Pallasades, the kids have finished school for the day, and all three groups seem to

converge in the same place. The same journey on a Saturday is far more difficult,

as even more people are shopping.


28 29

New Street Station Circa 1890 from Collins

Site Study

Having explored the site from a built form point of view, and from an

experiential point of view, the inevitable line of questioning goes in the direction of:

how did it get to be like this? And perhaps more importantly, why did it get like

this?

The investigation of the question 'how' observes that the megastructure is

gigantic compared to the urban context in which it sits. The urban grain has been

destroyed, although it has been steadily eroded since 1845, when Birmingham

street commissioners and council were looking into slum clearance in the densely

packed medieval core. (Collins 1992). The station complex itself was designed in

isolation by an architect working for the then newly nationalised British Rail, and is

not dissimilar in its conception to others that were modernised during the era of

electrification of the West Coast Main Line. In the era of the white heat of

technology (Curtis 1998) where it was thought or maybe hoped that technology

would solve all of society's problems.

We can examine the site history to give us reasons why things are the

way that they are, but as we shall discover in more detail later, the history only

gives us a limited view. Events that have happened in the city are taken out of

their original context and placed in the linear form given to it by the historian, on

the authority of Peter Collins we learn of 'slum clearance at someone else's

expense'. At the same as time that the public were exerting pressure on the

railway companies, complaining that the existing station at Curzon Street was too

far out of the city centre. As a result, areas such as Peck Lane and the Froggery,

along with three churches and a synagogue disappeared from the city map, as

the site was lowered by 25ft in 1850. Lewis Mumford gives similar accounts of

urban devastation in the name of the 'public good' towards the end of the

nineteenth century. Obviously neither of these historians were there at the time,

Lewis' account of the effects of the industrial revolution on the city, were

fashioned out of Dickens' hard times (Pope 1996).


30 31

Enforcement

Site Study

In Collins' account, the station during construction was referred to as

"Grand Central station at Birmingham" as 'the Builder' reported on 25th January

1853; on the erection of vast 25 ton ribs, 45 of which make up the roof. This

appears to be typical of the reporting of the time…(input from Pevsner,) great

engineers of nineteenth century, achievements seen as an overwhelming

progression and advancement of the human species…advances in technology,

production and the sheer size of structures that could be erected, and the grandeur

of these new civic buildings (notion of the public good) such as the hotel that was

being erected on the site by the London and North Western Railway.

The hotel became the Queens Hotel when it opened on 1st June 1854,

along with the station becoming New Street Station, I suppose the name 'New

Street' sounds more glamourous than 'Peck Lane', although where the name

'Grand Central Station' went, Collins does not say.

There are other significant dates that are picked out by Collins. From the

enlargment of the station during the 1870's, to the events of World War II taking

their toll on the station as it sustained numerous direct hits, along with other key

areas of the city.

Herbert Manzoni, City Engineer and Surveyor, who features prominently

in the History of Birmingham during the mid part of the twentieth century , in his

plans to transform the city centre into a new modern city, instigated the

reconstruction of New Street Station, and the development of the Bull Ring.

The topping out ceremony of the offices in 1968, the opening of the

shopping centre took place in 1970. The scheme introduced the access to the

platforms via escalators reaching down from a new 'dispersal bridge'. The new

system of subways deals with luggage and mail, excavated beneath the railway.

The tortuous route identified in 'the rush', that runs from corporation

street to the Bull Ring, through the concrete structure, is an existing public right of

way across the site. It was diverted to pass through the shopping centre to

connect with the then 'new' Bull Ring Development. The promotional literature for

the Bull Ring centre, sheds some more light on the driving force behind the

arrangement at the station. The project offers a new concept of city centre

shopping designed to afford complete shopping comfort in an air-conditioned


32 33

The Bull Ring with direct links to new Street Station - Laing 1963

Site Study

atmosphere. 'The scheme comprises probably the most comprehensive multi

level trading centre in the world'…boasts John Laing Construction, and 'will

include the main retail markets for Birmingham - department stores, supermarkets

and 140 shop units, restaurants, coffee bars and many other

amenities…including one of the largest Woolworth's stores in the country.' The

shopping centre was conceived as the primary focus with its ‘convenient’, ‘new

modern interior environment’, boasting the’ longest escalators in Europe’, even

the 'Muzak' system of playing unobtrusive background music over a series of

loudspeakers, (Laing 1963).

The plan also included landscaped gardens between buildings, where

people could enjoy the 'freedom' of circulation through a network Subways where

no one needed to cross a road, and traffic flows would be continuous eliminating

congestion in the city. Facilities will be provided for entertainment and recreation

so that the scheme will become a centre of attraction at all times. The public are

drawn to the centre whether arriving on foot, by car, bus or by rail (Laing 1963).

Improvement works to the station in 1989 following the fire at Kings-Cross

Station in London. And the additional footbridge that forms the Navigation Street

entrance was built in 1991 in an attempt to ease the congestion.

The historical record gives us a sequence of events that have taken place

to arrive at the current situation, but that is all it does, the history in this case is

given from the point of view of the railway company.

This design approach was not born overnight, it is an approach that was

borne out of debates ranging from the 1920's, in the modern movement and it

would be unfair to criticise the building without investigating the social, political

and artistic framework that the design approach originated from.

Through examining the thought process in the context of the social

condition that resulted in the construction of the megastructure many years later,

the tracing of the design process back to its theoretical roots, will reveal why some

things are the way that they are. The intention being, through developing an


34 35

Context

Site Study

understanding of the theories that combined to drive such a process, it becomes

possible to assess the object from the viewpoint of its intentions.

Having analysed the site as an object that fits uncomfortably with the

city, and finding it as an object that has a negative relationship with the life of the

city; and to a degree how it came to be. The critique of the object reveals that it is

architecture in the traditional sense that is unable to comprehend the complexity

of the current city, and by extension that the traditional approach to architectural

research is limited to the question of 'how ' as opposed to 'why'. The history

relating to the building reveals a series of events that occurred relative to that

building. The findings of this building appraisal highlight the need for a more in-

depth investigation, one that engages with the thought processes that enabled

such an object to be enforced on the life of the city.


Chapter 2

36 37

Advancement of the Human Species

In the search for an answer to the question 'why', the study examines the

driving force behind the events that led to the reconstruction of New Street

Station into its present form. The history of modern architecture reveals a number

of key players, Le Corbusier being the most prominent. Indeed the use of

reinforced concrete in the construction of New Street Station, is similar to many of

Le Corbusier's buildings. Although again we are in danger of looking at the

problem superficially. The use of reinforced concrete in construction as displayed

at New Street Station, demonstrates the application of techniques developed by

Le Corbusier in his later work.

Admittedly it is Le Corbusier's buildings that were built after World War II

in the reconstruction of Europe, that have been copied by the British Planning

authorities to cope with the demand for new affordable housing. Here the site

displays more characteristics than were developed in Le Corbusier's housing

schemes. It is a megastructure borne out of thought processes that took place

during the early 20th Century. It is clear that these buildings were borne out of the

spirit of the age rather than the ideas of one man. Through focussing on the

developments in technology and construction, and the effects that they have on

the people of the time, we can build up a picture of the social condition that

architecture was trying to respond.

Historical research reveals that there is no single thought process that

resulted in the design of the site object, but elements of many that are seemingly

unrelated, in terms of both thinking and time frame. Therefore, the study

progresses in this chapter through exploring the ideas of the thinkers at specific

periods through history. Those that history has revealed, were prominent figures

in the 'modern movement', or more accurately, those that are instrumental in

changing the direction of thought in architecture in terms with its relationship with

the human condition.


No such thing as a mistake in architecture. Alsop 2001

38 39


For Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers the modern movement began with

erection of steel structures such as Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace in 1851 and

Deutert's Gallerie de Machines, Paris in 1889 (Appleyard 1986). Following this

logic, it appears that the original structure of New Street Station should have been

considered as belonging to the modern movement. Technology had permitted

structures to become taller and deeper than they had previously. However, the

notion that they were decorated in the style that was popular at the time, Gothic

cast iron structures for example, makes them attached to one of the many

revivals of the Victorian era. This art historians' approach classifies the building

by the style in which it was decorated as opposed to its position in modernity as

part of 'the constant search for progress and development of new forms.' (Leach

1997)

Therefore in the study modernism is not treated as a style or an art

movement, as exemplified by Charles Jencks (Modern Movements in

Architecture). The purpose of this work is to examine modernism in its role as a

response to a social condition. Before examining the work of the 'modern

movement', it is worth taking a moment to examine what it is we really mean, by

'modern'. The concept of modern is one that has been with us since the Roman

Empire and has been used to define the current epoch (Heynen 1999). Which

negates the notion that modernism should be considered as a historical

movement. Not surprisingly, the idea of modernism is one that is difficult to

define, for some it is the aesthetic practice of modernity. For some the practice of

modernity began with Descartes during the age of the 'enlightenment' (Leach

1997), where science became the centre of thinking. For others it began with

Baudelaire and Flaubert in 19th Century France, and for others it is architecture

responding to social condition that is modernity, that social condition being the

early part of the 20th century, where social change was exposed to the sudden

onslaught of modernisation (Leach 1997).

In the context of the study, It is modernism in its role of responding to

modernity as a social condition that is the main area of interest.


Modernity is that transient, the fleeting, the contingent: it is one half of art, the

other being eternal and immovable. (Baudillaire 1972)

40 41


Hilde Heynens work 'Architecture and Modernity' discusses two views of

modernity: the pastoral view and the counter-pastoral view.

In the pastoral view of modernity: Politics, economics and culture are

united under the banner of progress. Progress is seen as harmonious and

continuous, as though is developed to the advantage of everyone without any

significant interruptions. This approach is exemplified by Le Corbusier and

Antonio St Elia.

In the counter pastoral view of modernity, the discussion of modernity is

inseparably bound up with the problem of the relationship between capitalist

civilisation and modernist culture, as exemplified by Adolf Loos and Walter

Benjamin.

Fundamentally, the two views can be reduced to the pastoral view being

about technological advancement, and the counter-pastoral being about artistic

and sociological factors imposed on society as a result of technological

advancement. At this juncture, the study concentrates on the pastoral view to

examine the bold aims of the young thinkers that were proposing that the

application of modern technology to the problem of architecture would be the

solution to society's problems.

Historical research reveals that the design theories and manifestos of the

modern movement are linked to historical events, however, they do not happen in

isolation or in a linear sequence. In what is sometimes referred to as the heroic

period of modernism (Frampton 1980) there are many significant movements in

art and architectural discourse that occurred during the time frame 1900 - 1930,

these were operating in different social conditions. Industrialisation throughout

Europe and the US, forming the primary driver for technological advancement

resulting in the Futurist Movement in Italy from 1909 and its position against the

backdrop of the formation of a fascist state (Frampton 1980).


Modernity…the condition of living imposed upon individuals by the socio-

economic process of modernisation.' Heynen

42 43


The Constructivist movement in Russia, occurred against the backdrop

of the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the subsequent formation of the Union of

Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (Frampton 1980).

Following the First World War and the massive application of technology

to the war effort, came the ambitious modern city planning schemes of Le

Corbusier in Paris and the rationalisation of construction methods of the Frankfurt

school against the formation of the nationalist state in Germany. Architectural

history reveals that each school of thought had an influence in the overall

movement with ideas cross fertilising between the Futurists and the Modernists

and between the Modernists and the Constructivists, and vice versa (Banham

1960), (Frampton 1980).

During the early twentieth century there were thinkers writing about the

modernisation of cities, embracing the spirit of industrialisation. Georg Simmel in

his essay 'Metropolis and Mental Life' 1903, is saying that the pace of life in the

modern city is fundamentally changing the nature of interpersonal relationships,

resulting the intensification of emotional life as people try to exert their

individuality on life in the city. What he terms as the swift and continuous shift of

external and internal stimuli reduces man to a commodity, subject to economic

division of labour. 'single cog against the vast overwhelming organisation of

things and forces' what he later describes as the 'concrete institutions of the

state.' What he is saying is that the city is taking man's individuality and reducing

him to part of a system.

A mood echoed by Walter Benjamin in his review of Engel's work on life

in London, 'Londoners have had to sacrifice what is best in human nature to

create all the wonders of civilisation that their city teems.' A further discussion that

Benjamin has with the text is regarding the movement of people through the

cramped spaces of London. In that the 'greater number of people that are packed

into a tiny space, the more repulsive and offensive becomes the brutal

indifference, the unfeeling concentration of each person in his private affairs.'


Class mass and mob for fifty years and more

Had to travel in the jangling roar

Of railways, the nomadic caravan

That stifled individual mind in man,

Till automobilism arose at last.

Marinetti

44 45

Rooftop test track at the FIAT Factory - from Towards a New Architecture


These texts do not advocate the idea of modernisation of the city directly,

but to a degree are stating some of the problems of the city, and identifying the

condition in which Le Corbusier, St Elia and Loos are responding to. Walter

Benjamin goes further in his essay on Paris to criticise the master builders of the

nineteenth century for not perceiving the functional nature of iron, in that in his

view did not address the constructive principle of architecture. 'The builders

model their pillars on Pompeian columns, their factories on houses, as later the

first railway stations resemble chalets.'

A common theme in these works and the works of the Futurist

movement in Italy and the early modern movement in France and Germany is the

Reaction to Bourgois culture, with its perceived elitism of the middle classes.

Ornament in architecture was seen as a manifestation of this elitism, and from an

artistic point of view the overall trend seems to be one that is looking for an art

that is for the ordinary man. By extension industrialisation is resulting in bigger

buildings that no longer have the same meaning as the styles that they were

being adorned with.

There are poems from the Futurist movement in Italy, that capture the

excitement of a new freedom found by industrialisation. The advent of the motor

car changed the shape of cities forever. The story of Marinetti overturning his car

into a factory ditch during an impromptu motor race, on the surface could not be

further from the story of architecture and its place in society. However the story

captures the excitement of the age (1909) and is said that the experience

prompted him to write his first manifesto that inspired Futurism. (Banham 1960)

In his manifesto Marinetti was advocating that we take this new found

freedom and make it the basis for the modern city, looking for new reasons for

existence solely out of special conditions of modern living and its aesthetic value

in our sensibilities. Metaphors of the shipyard a re a recurring theme…'active,

mobile and everywhere dynamic…shipyards blazing with electric moons',


46 47

La Citta Nova - Antonia St Elia 1914 - From Theory and Design in the First Machine Age - Reyner Banham


Also from the futurist group, Antonio St Elia was writing manifestos

regarding the position of architecture within the context of the city.

'We no longer feel ourselves to be the men of the cathedrals and ancient

moot halls, but men of the Grand Hotels, railway stations, giant roads, colossal

harbours, covered markets, glittering arcades, reconstruction areas and salutory

slum clearances.' - From St Elia's 'Messaggio.'

This is a mood that is later echoed by Le Corbusier in 1923 (Towards a new

Architecture) where he is criticising the architecture of the nineteenth century, and

at the same time is looking at technological advancement in the form of ocean

liners, aeroplanes, automobiles etc. These observations enabled him to make

judgements about the spirit of the age and the need to define a new realm for

architecture. In criticising architecture in the traditional sense, he is saying that

'architecture is stifled by custom', and 'the styles are a lie', he is trying to steer

architecture away from its concerns with ornamentation, to make it address the

real issues (Banham 1960).

In Marinetti's work, there is a strong representation of the idea that

technology will replace all earlier design principles, in particular against the

ornamental applications of the classical traditions, columns, mouldings, marble,

etc. The Futurist ideals of liberating architecture from the shackles of tradition

demonstrate that there was a new spirit in architecture, aimed a repositioning

architecture to a role that was more central to the needs of society. In the

manifestos of the futurists there are more revealing statements about their view of

the position that architecture should be occupying in society. Comprising key

ideas such as the departure from Mythology and Mystic Idealism, to the

destruction of the academic institutions (this was against the backdrop of

Fascism) Further ideas expressed are the '…homage to the triumph of

industrialisation…' and being 'fundamentally opposed to culture.' (Banham 1960)

Again this is a notion that is championed by Le Corbuiser, although he is

not going so far as to advocate the destruction of academic institutions for


'A great epoch has begun.

There exists a new spirit

There exists a mass of work conceived in the new spirit, it is to be met particularly

in industrial production.' Le Corbusier 1923

48 49


example, 'The business of architecture is to establish emotional relationships by

means of raw materials.' (Le Corbuiser 1923)

Marinetti enthused that 'Lifts no longer hide away like solitary worms in

the stairwells…lifts must swarm up the facades of buildings like serpents of glass

and iron.' Le Corbusier in his proposals for towers in the park, in his words, would

provide an architecture worthy of our time. 'No more courtyards, but flats opening

on every side to air and light, and looking not onto puny trees of our boulevards of

today, but upon green sward, sports grounds and abundant plantations of trees.

The jutting prows of these great blocks would break up the long avenues at

regular intervals' (Le Corbusier 1923). In Le Corbusier's view of relationship

between man and house, he saw the house as tool, subject to successive

improvement, claiming that men are living in out of date houses, and by extension

that man is becoming demoralised.

In Le Corbusier's view of the epoch we have gained a new perspective

and a new social life, but have not adapted the house thereto. Claiming that 'the

problem of the house is a problem of the epoch. The equilibrium of society

depends upon it.' In identifying that the problem of the house is bound up in the

greater problems of society, the proposal is that modes of industrial production

can help to redefine the house to make it socially relevant. 'If we eliminate from

our hearts and minds all dead concepts in regard to the house, and look at the

question from a critical and objective point of view, we shall arrive at the "house

machine", a mass production house, healthy (and morally so too) and beautiful in

the same way that the working tools and instruments which accompany our

existence are beautiful' (Le Corbusier 1923).

In St Elia's manifesto, modern building was conceived as being like a giant

machine. What is interesting to the study relating to New street Station is that St

Elia's drawings for grand central station in Milan, also referred to as 'Milano 2000'

exhibit some of those same elements, demonstrating the approach that is

manifest at New Street in the all encompassing megastructure.


La Sarraz Declaration - From Frampton

1. The idea of modern architecture includes the link between the

phenomenon of architecture and that of the general economic system.

2. The idea of ‘economic efficiency’ does not imply production furnishing the

maximum commercial profit, but production demanding a minimum working

effort.

3. The need for maximum economic efficiency is the inevitable result of the

impoverished state of the general economy.

4. The most efficient method of production is that which arises from

rationalisation and standardisation. Rationalisation and standardisation act

directly on working methods both on modern architecture (conception) and in

the building industry (realisation).

5. Rationalisation and standardisation react in a threefold manner.

(a) They demand of architecture conceptions leading to simplification of

working methods on site and in the factory.

(b) They mean for building firms a reduction in the skilled labour force, they

lead to the employment of less specialised labour working under the

direction of highly skilled technicians;

(c) They expect from the consumer (that is to say the customer who orders

the house in which he will live) a revision of his demands in the direction of a

readjustment to the new conditions of social life. Such a revision will be

manifested in the reduction of certain individual needs henceforth devoid of

any real justification: the benefits of this reduction will foster the maximum

satisfaction of the needs of the greatest number, which are at present

restricted.

50 51


Aside from the futurists, in Europe the Congres Internationaux d'

Architecture Moderne (CIAM) was set up as a research group. The debates within

CIAM range from the 1920's to 1950's give a time line for the changes in thinking

that resulted in the design theories.

At CIAM I in La Sarraz Switzerland, 1928, twenty-four architects from

seven countries, signed the 'La Sarraz Declaration' A manifesto for the

advancement of modern architecture, based primarily on the work of the Frankfurt

School led by Max Ernst. The aims being that culture would change, forming a new

culture to match the character of the new epoch. That architecture and planning

would lead to emancipation of the people, in that it would deliver the enhancement

of everyday life. At first, from Frampton's reading it appears the La Sarraz

declaration placed emphasis on building rather than architecture. Although the

emphasis is on building as the elementary activity of man intimately linked with

evolution and the development of human life. A feeling that is echoed by Patrick

Nuttgens in his book 'The Story of Architecture', where he traces developments in

architecture through building techniques.

The declaration proposes that architecture will dictate the way that people

will live, which is in keeping with the view of modern architecture of the time.

From Heynen's reading, it is Ernst's view they were developing a culture that

anticipated a future society, rationally organised and conflict free, possessing

equal rights and common interests. Along with the proposed rationalisation of the

construction industry, the congresses discussed the problems of minimum living

standards, based on socialist principles. (Frampton) The aim was to achieve this

by the application of industrialisation and construction to the use of space. By

extension the view was that progress was the result of increasing rationality of all

levels of society (Heynen 1999).

The La Sarraz declaration appears to be the springboard for architecture

to shift from dealing with social issues to one of technological advancement. The

socialist principles were aimed at addressing the housing needs of the poor and

under-privileged. The technological aims were to develop a 'Pure and sober


‘Contemporary architecture must crystallise the new socialist way of life’ – OSA

Manifesto

52 53


architecture of the utmost simplicity was the correct foundation for a

contemporary culture and everyday life.' The key aim from this was the

rationalisation of construction to make housing available to as many people as

possible (Heynen 1999).

Our own epoch is determining day by day, its own style”. – Le Corbusier

(1923) Towards a new Architecture.

At CIAM IV The Functional City, Athens and Marseilles 1937. The

discussion focussed on the issues of optimum block height and spacing, based on

the most efficient use of land and materials. The debated dominated by the

personality of Le Corbusier shifted the emphasis from building to town planning –

the functional city. The work of Le Corbusier centres around his work La Ville

Radiuese, which was conceived as a reply to Moscow in 1931, regarding the

development of Planned cities, in accordance with the Constructivist movement.

In USSR the Institute of Contemporary Architects, (OSA) was set up as

research group in a similar way to CIAM – its stated aim was to give USSR, the

first socialist country, a built environment that would reflect its socio-political

system. ‘Contemporary architecture must crystallise the new socialist way of life’ –

OSA Manifesto.

For the Constructivists the profession of architecture changed from one of

decoration to one of social engineering. OSA advocated that there was change of

the role of architecture in society. The architect should be first a sociologist,

second a politician and third a technician. What is significant here is that the

planned cities of the Soviet Union were designed with the notion of a socialist state

in mind, which differs greatly from the populations of Western Europe.

Taking the notion expressed by Charles Jencks in 1995 (Architecture of

the Jumping Universe), that 'Form Follows world view.' The idea that modern cities

can be developed for capitalist society based upon planned cities that were

developed for communist society, highlights the fact that the connection between


Somebody, I believe he was English said that modernism was perhaps Europe's

Post-modernism. Once that formula was launched, it became ver painful to us.

(Koolhaas 1991)

54 55


architecture and the human condition had been weakened in favour of following

the building forms. In effect in one state form did follow world view, in the other

form followed form.

CIAM openly asserted that architecture was unavoidably contingent of the

broader issues of politics and economics... and would depend on the universal

adoption of rationalised production methods, for its general level of quality.

(Frampton) What is significant here is that the emphasis in the debates seems to

be focussed on efficiency from a materialistic standpoint, although there are

mentions of humanity, in ‘minimum living standards’, the actual process of living

seems to be absent from the discussion. It is possible that the debate was steered

away from dealing directly with the issues of humanity.

The social aims of the modern movement, reveal that the thinkers at the

time were trying to comprehend the social condition, and that the social condition

is constantly changing, meaning that new approaches to architecture are

constantly being sought. The study reveals that architecture is at a disadvantage to

other arts because it results in the built form that people have to live with, and

whether intentional or not, has a relationship with those people. In the case of most

architecture of the modern movement, it has proved to be a negative one.


Chapter 3

56 57

Humanity Displaced

The analysis of the La Sarraz declaration and the Athens Charter reveals

that the notion of living became less prominent in the discussion as economics and

efficient building methods dominated. In effect issues of humanity became

displaced from the discourse of architecture. The exploration of the direction of

subsequent debates reveals that the displacement resulted in what is now termed

as the negative relationship, between people and architecture, the study examines

the human cost of this relationship to reveal why it is a negative one.

The architectural history shows that in the period following the Second

World War, thinking continued to evolve as more experience demonstrated that

some of the heroic ideals of the modern movement were proving to have social

consequences.

Post War Europe created need for massive reconstruction schemes of the

scale that were proposed by the likes of Le Corbusier for La Voisin Paris, in the

1920's and the Futurists for Milano in the 1910's .

Following the war, the congress continued to meet from 1947 onwards,

reconvening with CIAM VI at Bridgewater, England where the emphasis shifted

from the ideals of the functional city and minimum living standards, in what

Frampton describes as 'the triumph of liberal idealism over materialism'. The shift

apparent in the attempt to transcend the abstract sterility of the functional city, by

affirming that ‘the aim of CIAM is to work for the creation of a physical environment

that will satisfy man’s material and emotional needs’ (Frampton 1980). CIAM VIII

also held in England in 1951 this time at Hoddesdon. Where the British Modern

architecture Research Group (MARS) affirmed that ‘People want buildings that

represent their social and community life to give more functional fulfilment. They

want their aspiration for monumentality, joy, pride and excitement to be satisfied’

(Taken from the MARS Manifesto 1943).

CIAM IX at Aix en Provence in 1953 saw the bowing out of Le Corbusier,

admitting that the younger generation were more in touch with social issues, that

the old guard. The mood at CIAM IX became the decisive split within the congress


The establishment of rules has been the death of architecture – Alsop 2001

58 59

Humanity Displaced

when the new generation led by the Smithsions and Aldo van Eyck, challenged the

functionalist principles, in favour of the search for the structural principles of urban

growth, structural principles based on the family unit and looking for the next larger

unit. Acknowledging the basic emotional need of belonging, a sense of identity,

recognising this as a prime contributor to the reality that the short narrow street of

the slum succeeds where the spacious redevelopment frequently fails.' The

critique of the functionalist principles being based upon the notion that the

functional city precluded a sense of community, based on experience of observing

Street life in London in the 1950's.

The final CIAM X held at Dubrovnic, Yugoslavia, in 1956 which saw the

break up of CIAM which was superceded by Team X or Team 10 depending on

who you read, comprised a new approach with younger members who had

previously worked for local authorities. The Smithsons working for Greater London

Council, for example and began questioning the Functional city of the 1930's which

was beginning to manifest itself in many London boroughs as the city planners

were taking the ideas developed in the Athens Charter and imposing them where

they saw fit. The Smithsons were opposed the high rise blocks spaced out over a

plain that had been formed by razing entire areas of city, in favour of a

megastructure approach which involved the imposition of dense blocks on existing

urban areas.

As Frampton states, 'it is one of the paradoxes of Team X that Bakema

proposed the megabuilding as the psychological fix for the megapolitan landscape

just when the Smithsons hed begun to entertain doubts as to the viability of such

structures.' Ironically the complex at New Street Station exhibits some of the

qualities of Team X early work, that they subsequently moved away from, the

project for Berlin Haupstadt for example, with its causeways above the old street,

with escalator access to shopping levels and the roof.


60 61

Humanity Displaced

Theirs was notion of the permanently ruined city - ruined in the sense that

accelerated movement and change in the 20th Century were incapable of relating

to the pattern of any pre-existing fabric. This is a notion that is clearly

demonstrated at our site, the New Street complex. The site has no real relationship

with the existing fabric. There is actually no connection of the housing to the street,

its access is via, the service road that runs around the back of the station. The

housing block sits above a parcel depot, on some sixteen seemingly undersized

concrete columns. The concrete wall enclosing the parcel depot isolates the site

from activities along Hill street and Station Street. Although following the logic of

the design, this approach is justified. After all, when all the shops are located

inside a large modern air conditioned container, who needs to go out in to the wind

and rain on the street to go shopping?

By 1960, the Smithsons' thinking on the problem of city centre

development had shifted, moved on, rather than continuing to advocate the

megastructure, they opted for localised traffic free enclaves. Could this be what

Manzoni was alluding to with The Bull Ring Centre, and indeed the city centre with

its sunken precincts where people are free to walk about through a network of

subways with traffic whirling around above them?

The thinking within Team X was again shifted by Aldo Van Eyck whose

anthropological research of the 1940's, personally preoccupied with primitive

cultures and timeless aspects of built form that such cultures invariably reveal. His

experience enabled him to develop a unique position where he attacked what he

saw as the alienating abstraction at the roots of modern architecture. Five years of

intense development had convinced van Eyck that the architectural profession, if

not western man as a whole, had so far proved incapable of developing either an

aesthetic or a strategy for dealing with the urban realities of mass society.

Van Eyck asserted that Modern architects have been continually harping

on what is different in our time to such an extent that they have lost touch with

what is not different (Frampton 1980). In Frampton's history, fellow Team X

member Giancarlo de Carlo: remarked that proposals from the La Sarraz


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Declaration in forty years have proved to be an 'abuse perpetrated first on the poor

and then even on the not so poor. The students revolt of 1968 was not only a

necessary culmination of the crisis in architectural education, but also a reflection

of the deeper and more significant dysfunctions of architectural practice.

Although the idea of social programme was central to the modern

movement itself, the result of its construction meant that cultural practices,

regional identities that were formerly determined by topographical conditions,

were effectively erased by clearing areas of city and destroying communities.

' After all, life was right and the architect wrong' (Le Corbusier 1965)

From reading Le Corbusier's early work his texts were written in the style

as to be predicting the future, and suggesting how the people in the future would

live following a new order designed by the architects. In Le Corbusier's lifetime he

witnessed how his predictions did not come true, and in the case of towards a new

Architecture, the pace of life rapidly overtook the predictions made.

The current situation is the consequence of those events and the

designers' and thinkers' reactions to those events. The architecture has since been

contaminated by subsequent events. The point being that design debates of the

modern movement were responding to social conditions at the time. Le Corbusier

acknowledged this in predicting that 'people will need to learn how to live with

modern houses.' (Le Corbusier 1925)

The site object is one that was conceived not out of a single design

process but comprises characteristics of various design processes from the

twentieth century. Ranging from the notion of building over the railway as

displayed in St Elia's proposal for Milan in 1909. The residential block borne out of

the minimum living standards of Max Ernst and the functional city of Le Corbusier

to the megastructure idea exhibited by the Smithsons, where pedestrians are

separated, segregated from vehicular traffic in a series of buried or raised

walkways. In that the shopping centre is also the prime example of turning the


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Humanity Displaced

back on the life of the city to offer an artificial 'safe' environment, away from

vehicular traffic and the inclement British weather.

From a social view point, the housing scheme is made up of families who

were forced together, following the relocation from their former communities. In

anthropological terms, this means being uprooted from their lives, with all of the

family heritage and memories that have accumulated over generations, being

swept away in the name of progress. The changing direction of the CIAM debates

highlights the discontent with this type of housing scheme is typical of the trend of

slum-clearance programs of the 1950’s coupled with post war reconstruction. What

the community did not lose through the blitz, they lost through the planners. The

general consensus of the planners of such schemes was that the people were

going to blindly accept the new on the basis that it would be better than the old.

(Melhuish 1997)

The analysis of the experience of travelling through the site it reveals that

the current situation is part of what has become uncomfortable relationship

between such buildings and people. This is however, part of a greater problem.

The situation being that the relationships within the city have become so complex

that they can no longer be'…comprehended by single or even number of

architectural gestures…' (Koolhaas 1995). The enlarged time line for the creation

of the site situation demonstrates that there is an ever-changing context that is the

city, from a human viewpoint, the needs, wants and desires of the population are

changing, evolving, adjusting, which makes the social aims of architecture more

difficult to define.

Renzo Piano makes reference to architecture as being a profession in

crisis, where architecture is a socially dangerous art. Using the metaphor of you

don’t have to read a bad book, you don’t have to listen to a bad piece of music, by

the ugly apartment block in front of your house leaves you with no alternative: you

have to look at it. In piano's view some architects relish their social uselessness,

whether real or presumed. Giving them excuses for taking refuge in pure form or

pure technology.


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Humanity Displaced

This demonstrates that in some cases architects are allowing the

profession to become marginalised and relegated to the practice of applying

surface treatments to buildings.

For Rem Koolhaas architects are left in the position of Frankenstein's

creators: 'instigators of a partly successful experiment whose results are running

amok and are therefore discredited' (Koolhaas 1994). In this context Koolhaas is

claiming that the question 'What is the maximum architecture can do?' is

architectures debilitating weakness, instead proposing that a 'theory of bigness' be

developed. A theory where architecture disassociates itself from the

artistic/ideological movements of modernism and formalism, and in doing so regain

its instrumentality as a vehicle of modernisation. Through the recognition that

architecture is in trouble, the proposal is not to overcompensate with even more

'regurgitations of even more architecture', but to regain a strategic position of

'retreat and concentration' where strategies are developed to organise

independence and interdependence of events within in a single container. Or put

more simply, to comprehend and understanding the relationship between the

human activities that the building is trying to address.

Koolhaas' proposal could be addressing the point that Rogers is making

when he is refers to changing concerns, if architecture cannot comprehend the

complexity of human relationships in the traditional sense, then maybe it should be

redefining itself in such a way as it can.

Social engineering are becoming buzzwords. Having re-emerged from its

placement with the Constructivist movement. What is clear is that the traditional

view of the architect as hero has been exhausted what has traditionally been the

architect's role has been undermined by other professions.

Depending on view of the individual, the architect is seen as the one who

merely make buildings look pretty, or spend the clients money of unnecessary

personal gestures. This is merely a reflection of the current climate, the


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Humanity Displaced

construction process is controlled by many factors which the architect has little or

no control over.

The current political climate is willing people to move back into the city,

the Kyoto summit and the climate change lobby are calling for what Richard

Rogers refers to as sustainable cities (Rogers 1997). In Roger's notion of the

sustainable city, activity is returned to the urban core as opposed to being

dispersed along arterial routes and sprawling out into the countryside as has been

the trend in recent years. We have learned that this is partly due to the failure of

city centre schemes developed during the 1950’s and 1960’s, Birmingham being a

prime example of this.

There has been a Change in world-view since the 1950's and 60's where

we are in an age of Globalisation. Where critics, the sociologists especially, are

accurate and perceptive accountants of the loss in immediacy, in a sense of

community, in security, which recent changes in the city have involved, but the do

not seem to be able to help those of us that suffer the loss’ (Rykwert 2000).

However, as the community goes through incremental change it can

evolve and retain its coherence as work goes on. At present much of Birmingham

once again resembles a bomb-site, but this time at the hands on the developers,

building bigger and better versions of the developments that have been pulled

down. Where did all those people go? All of the shop keepers, their customers, the

people who ritually parked their car in the same spot every week, the community

has once again been displaced.

For some time, sensitive architects and designers have been fully aware

that all is not well in the relationship between architecture and society (Blundell-

Jones 1996). With the so-called failure of the modern architecture in the

reconstruction of cites, which has been blamed for various social problems, which

ironically are the problems that modern architecture was intended to solve.


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Fig All is not well in the field of architecture

Humanity Displaced

however at this stage the study examines the notion that architecture in the

traditional sense is incapable of comprehending the complexity of the human

condition as exemplified by Le Corbusier.

In examining Le Corbusier’s remark that after all life was right and the

architect wrong. Blundell Jones asks, ‘how and why wrong?’ In the search for an

answer to this problem, proposes that anthropologists can help us to understand

how the relationship between buildings and society worked before it became so

complicated, and by extension trace the stages of the complication. In the

traditional sense anthropology and architecture could not be further from one

another, however from breaking down both fields to reveal the 'frameworks' in

which they operate, reveals that they have far more in common than the traditional

approach would have us believe.

The examination of the human cost of architecture reveals that it is not

necessarily the buildings that are at fault, but the way that the subject of

architecture has been approached in context with the people that are expected to

use it. Many thinkers are highlighting the need for a new approach to architecture

that concentrates on people rather than building, but not necessarily how this is to

be achieved.

Perhaps the notion that anthropology can contribute positively to

architectural discourse could hold the key. It was in the 1970's as a reaction to the

'crisis of architecture and urbanism' that architectural anthropology became an

accepted approach to the problems of the city. As highlighted in the debates of

CIAM IX, X and when Team X superseded CIAM the stated aim was to build upon

regional identities. (Frampton 1980) Predominantly the approach was that of the

utopian ideal of sweeping away and replacing existing communities, rather than

building upon them (Melhuish 1996), that could be blamed for the crisis.

Henceforth, the social determinism of the 1950s and 60s, which saw people as

meekly following an architecturally bestowed order, was bound to fail if people's

beliefs and wishes were not taken into account. (Blundell-Jones 1996)


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Chapter 4


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Regarding Humanity

Having determined that architecture should be about people, and not

about building, the study moves on to investigating what this actually means for the

field of architecture, and how, if possible this is to be achieved.

The examination of the human cost of architecture has shown that there is

a deep mistrust of the social agendas of architecture following the heroics of the

modern movement and the subsequent developments since the 1960's. The

research has discovered the need to re-examine what architecture is trying to

achieve, in order to make it socially relevant.

In investigating the social relevance of architecture, it is apparent that

knowledge gained from the field of anthropology can be applied to the field of

architecture, but prompts a redefinition of what is architecture, and what is

anthropology.

From examining the traditional definitions of architecture and

anthropology, it appears that we are looking at two mutually exclusive fields that

should have no relationship with each other; it is the interrogation of both

definitions that reveals that there are similarities between the fields in which they

operate. It is the way that both fields are treated in the traditional sense that has

prevented this middle ground being reached.

Firstly, in looking at the simplistic definition architecture as given in the

Collins Gem English dictionary, architecture is 'style in which a building is designed

and built; designing and construction of buildings.' Note there is no mention of

human events, relationships or any of the notions that we have been examining in

looking at the modern movement.

For Amos Rapoport, (House form and Culture) Architectural theory and

history have traditionally been concerned with the study of monuments. In his view,

the physical environment of man, especially in the built environment, has not been

and is still not controlled by the designer. Suggesting that there may lie the great

lesson of vernacular buildings, for our own day the value of constraints to establish


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Regarding Humanity

generalised ‘loose’ frameworks where the interplay of the constant and changeable

aspects of man can find expression (Rapoport 1969).

For Christopher Alexander (A Pattern Language), Buildings will not be

able to come alive unless they are made by all the people in society, and unless

the people share a common pattern language (Alexander 1977). Here he is talking

about the daily routines, rituals, collective memory, themes, objects that enable

people to relate to each other and to buildings, these elements make up a pattern

of the daily lives of the people, it is those that make up the language that he is

referring to.

In Mark Gelernter's work, Sources of Architectural Form, he outlines five

theories that are present in architecture that result in the building form.

Theory 1: Architectural Form is shaped by its intended function.

Physical, social, symbolic.

Theory 2: Architectural form is generated within creative

imagination.

Theory 3: Architectural form is shaped by the prevailing spirit of the

age.

Theory 4: Architectural form is determined by social and ecomonic

conditions.

Theory 5: Architectural form derives from timeless principles of form

that transcends particular designers, cultures and

climates (Gelernter 1995).

From these five theories we can see that there is far more to architecture

than the style in which a building is built. What is important here is the recognition

that there is a problem of perception that exists in relation to the field of

architecture. By extension the traditional approach to architectural theory, the five

orders of classical architecture, the golden section, have been rules concerned

with the proportion of built forms, and are categorised by their artistic composition.


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Regarding Humanity

Peter Blundell-Jones expresses concerns in the field of architectural

history, it is a field that he sees as having its origins in ‘connoisseurship and hero

worship’ (Blundell-Jones 1996). This is a concern shared by ethnologist and

architectural anthropologist Nold Egenter, whose research series starts with the

publication 'Architectural Anthropology,' subtitled 'the present relevance of the

primitive in architecture.' Egenter’s research reveals that buildings are traditionally

classified by styles, and dated by art movements which is subject to limitations,

such as prejudiced research. Egenter's claim is that the traditional approach to

architectural theory is given as that of the art historian, who bases his science on

aesthetic principles distinguishing ‘high architecture from mere buildings. This

sounds rather like a zoologist who would only care for beautiful animals’ (Egenter

1991).

With reference to history, an interesting observation was made by Le

Corbusier in 'The Decorative Art of Today' in the notion that the museum is bad

because it takes artefacts out of context; and displays them in an new order that

is specified by the curator. Le Corbusier's claim was that the perfect museum was

the ruins of Pompeii because everything is preserved in its original context (Le

Corbusier 1925). Here architectural history has revealed that it is easy to place

events in a context that is bears little relation to the order that they happened.

The dating of design theories by art movements, divorces the theory from the

social and political climate in which it was formulated, instead placing in the

context of the style a building is decorated. Therefore instead of objects being

placed in a new context specified by the curator, architecture is placed in a

chronology specified by the art historian.

In questioning the reliability of historical sources, Egenter examines what

he refers to as ‘The monumental work of Kruft’, (Architectural Theory from

Vitruvius to Present). The work starts with the study of Vitruvius, but

acknowledges that Vitruvius drew in earlier theoretical works that have not

survived. For Kruft, in principle, a theory of architecture has no need to be

recorded in writing, it is the historian who is dependent on such records, therefore,

architectural theory has become ‘synonymous with its writings’ for practical


Those who arrive at Thekla can see little of the city, beyond the plank fences, the sackcloth screens , the scaffolding, the metal armatures, the wooden catwalks hanging from ropes or supported by saw horses, the ladders and the trestles. If you ask "Why is Thekla's construction taking such a long time?' the inhabitants continue hoisting sacks, lowering leaded strings, moving long brushes up and down, as they answer, 'So that its destruction cannot begin.' And if asked whether they fear that, once the scaffolding is removed, the city will crumble and fall to pieces, they add hastily, in a whisper, 'Not only the city.'

If dissatisfied with the answer, someone puts his eye to a crack in the fence, he sees cranes pulling up other cranes, scaffolding that embraces other scaffolding, beams that prop up other beams. 'What meaning does your construction have?' he asks. 'What is the aim of a city under construction unless it is a city? Where is the plan you are following, the blueprint?'

'We will show you as soon as the working the day is over; we cannot interrupt our work now,' they answer.

Work stops at sunset. Darkness falls over the building site. The sky is filled with stars. There is the blueprint ,' they say.

Italo Calvino

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Regarding Humanity

reasons (Kruft 1986). Egenter claims that it is this approach that has hindered the

scientific formulation of architectural theory, despite architecture being a discipline

concerned with human existence (Egenter 1991).

In moving away from the art historian's approach Italo Calvino's book

Invisible Cities which fits into the field of literature, has proved to be an important

work of in the context of architectural theory. The story features Marco Polo

describing cities of the empire to Kublai Khan, each city is different, yet each one,

as is revealed later in the dialogue is the same, Venice (Calvino 1979). The prose

demonstrates that there are many ways of reading the city. Not all of them are

concerned with buildings, nor are they concerned with spaces between the

buildings. They are more concerned with the way that the city is used, decorated

and identified with. It is the lives of the people that inhabit the city that makes the

place. Rem Koolhaas' book Delirious New York makes similar connections,

where the very human events, futuristic visions, and design processes, that have

taken place throughout the life of the city. These are charted to make what

Koolhaas refers to as a 'Retrospective Manifesto, for Manhattan'. In other words,

that if all of those events had not happened, then Manhattan would not be the

same place. From 'Phantom sale of Manhattan in 1626' where it was purchased

from the "Indians" for twenty-four dollars by the Dutch colonists. From the

stampede of visitors descending on Coney Island In the 1860's to the formation of

the United Nations in 1946 (Koolhaas 1979). Manhattan's history is told through

the theory of the designs of its buildings, the desires of their creators, in the

context of events that have happened.

These works do not necessarily constitute an anthropological approach to

architecture, one is fiction, one is a story based on history, but what they both do

is steer the discussion about architecture away from the buildings themselves to

explore how they relate to the people who use them. If these works of literature

can challenge perception of the meaning of architecture, how can architecture be

made in such a way as it can relate to the people?


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Regarding Humanity

For Caroline Humphrey who in her essay 'No place like home in

anthropology and architecture' claims that architectural works focused on the more

material aspects of dwellings typically say much about the environmental

conditions, resources, techniques of construction and types of building. They say

much about spatial organisation, symbolism and aesthetic values of buildings, but

they often say very little about the social organisation of the people who live inside

(Humphrey 1996).

Perhaps a reason for this is that the perception or lack of understanding of

theory in both fields. Perhaps Nold Egenter's claim about the definition of

architecture is worth further investigation. 'Architecture = object culture running

parallel to human evolution.' (Egenter 1991)

American Anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss, Places architecture in

relation to its interpretation within society, brings us to explore the relationship

between intellectual knowledge and architecture. Enrico Guidoni cites architecture

as playing a fundamental role as political and social instrument. Guidoni

acknowledges the important contributions that numerous anthropologists have

made to the field of architecture, directly or indirectly influencing studies since the

1960’s, as more and more findings of their field research has been published. It is

the widespread use of archeological evidence and techniques that is ‘casting

increasing light on historical connections and chronology.’ Through studying man

by placing itself at what, in each epoch, has been considered the boundaries of

humanity’ the parameters have been extensively broadened (Guidoni 1979).

Having established that anthropological research could be applied to the

field of architectural theory, the inevitable line of questioning moves along the line

of why hasn't it. To claim that it has not is not strictly true, as mentioned

previously, anthropology has been discussed in relation to architecture for some

time, Aldo van Eyck for example, in the later stages of CIAM, and later in Team

X, but has always remained a fringe activity, as demonstrated in Frampton’s

history of the CIAM debates. It appears that the main stream has followed its own

path, regarding academics as out of touch (Frampton 1980).


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Regarding Humanity

In order to challenge this stance it is necessary to investigate the definition

of anthropology, in the way we have revisited the meaning of architecture.

The simplistic definition of anthropology as given in the Collins Gem English

dictionary, is ‘the study of human origins, institutions and beliefs.’ Hunter &

Whitten's Encyclopaedia of Anthropology, gives a more in depth definition of

Anthropology being derived from the Greek Anthropos meaning man and logia,

meaning study. It is the systematic study of human beings, or more importantly,

the study of human behaviour. John Lewis elaborates further in his book

'Anthropology made Simple’ to give a definition of anthropology as the general

term for the science of man, the cultural, social physical development of man

throughout history.

More recently archaeological sources have given us a wealth of

anthropological information that predates the earliest accounts of architecture as

given in the historical sense (Guidoni 1979). From reading around the subject it is

apparent that there is a problem of perception with the meaning of anthropology,

much in the same way that the research has revealed a problem of perception of

the meaning of architecture. Also the connection of anthropology and architecture

is usually associated with the study of primitive architecture.

The initial problem with anthropology as a research method is that, in itself

it is a vast territory, which is open to interpretation. In the traditional sense it

appears that it is a terrain proving to be more and more difficult one to explore

(Levi-Strauss 1987). Real sources of information in many cases are becoming

scarce, like the dwindling aboriginal population of Australia, for example (Guidoni

1979). Levi-Strauss also comments on other populations like those of Central

America or Africa where although some of these populations are on the increase,

there is growing hostility towards anthropological and ethnographic research.


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Regarding Humanity

Part of the problem is the way that anthropological research has been

traditionally undertaken, part of this is down to hostility that stems from former

colonised societies that resent the interference of western researchers, the ethno-

centric classifications of primitive societies as though they are subjects in a zoo

(Egenter 1991). This hostility has proved unfortunate because it is the real diversity

of human species has served as a kind of stairway in the progress of

anthropological thought. To overcome this hostility it is for anthropology to fix on its

objective with sufficient determination so as to maintain its onward course, should

it eventually find this support missing, it is for us to learn from the information that

is available, the architecture! ‘Once the ideology is understood, it becomes

possible to view the constructed product from within the society, and in that way, to

go beyond ethnocentric classification’ (Egenter 1991). As more evidence becomes

available through anthropology, there is an increasing need to extend or even

redefine both the term primitive, and the field implied in the term architecture. It is

no longer enough to study buildings in isolation. Since the 1960’s, the study of

settlement patterns and the habitations have proven to be inseparable (Guidoni

1979).

What is emerging here is a symbiotic relationship between the fields of

architecture and anthropology, the study of human behaviour helps us to

comprehend the social significance of architecture, and the study of architecture in

the context of the society that helps us to understand the significance of human

behaviour.

For many, the notion of understanding the complex relationships between

architecture and society should start with the understanding of the significance of

the humble dwelling…the house. As Caroline Humphrey observes, architecture

has been curiously neglected by academic anthropology’ (Humphrey 1996). The

significance of a focus on the house is that it brings together aspects of social life,

which have been ignored or treated separately. Crucially we could consider

architectural features of houses as an aspect of their importance as social units in

both life and thought.


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Totem Poles in Alaska taken From Primitive Architecture Enrico Guidoni.

Regarding Humanity

Following the investigation of the notion of the house and its place in life,

takes the study to the work of Levi Strauss. An extreme example of this approach

is demonstrated in the research of the native American populations of Alaska and

California. For the Yurok People of north America, for example. The totem pole is

the most outstanding feature of the house, mediating between the origin myth and

everyday life, painstakingly carved and adorned with sculpture; signifying that a

particular tribal group or family is exerting its power on the land. The rendering of

totemic figures increase prestige and social rank of the wealthy house owners. The

same totemic symbols are also marked on canoes and personal objects, as a sign

of private wealth, used to humiliate rival families. The carvings on the totem pole

illustrate a vertical succession of subjects, culminating with the heraldic head of an

animal or bird, proclaiming divine descent of a family or clan, as a result the totem

pole is considered more significant than the complete house. Noting the similarity

between these institutions and the European Noble house Levi-Strauss stresses

that the house as a grouping endures through time. Continuity being assured not

simply through succession and replacement of its human resources but also

through the transmission of the names, titles and prerogatives which are integral to

its existence and identity (Levi-Strauss 1987).

Levi Strauss' definition of the house is a long way from the house machine

of Le Corbusier, or the minimum living standards of Ernst, where the concern was

about the space available for functional activities. For Heynen, the dilemmas of

architecture is faced is connected with the fundamental issue of its attitude to

modernity and to dwelling. If architecture opts for harmony of organic commitment

to a place, then it runs the risk of creating a manner of ‘dwelling’ that is purely

illusory. Modernity has made such deep inroads into the lives of individuals and

communities that it is questionable whether authentic ‘dwelling’ exists any longer

(Heynen 1999).

It is apparent that it is the 'not understanding' the concept of dwelling, that

has resulted in modern architecture being socially inadequate. Le Corbusier's later

work demonstrates the notion of modern architecture not understanding the culture

of the people it was intended to address, at Chandigarh, India for example, full


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Regarding Humanity

height glazing being blocked out internally because the inhabitants felt that the full

height glazing was an invasion of their privacy. (Brown 1976)

In Heynen's research of the design theories and concerns of Adolf Loos,

dwelling has to do with one’s personal history, with memories and to do with loved

ones. Furnishing a house is the expression of this and should also offer its

occupants of putting their personal stamp on it, changing it whenever they choose.

Living in a house is a personal matter and has to do with the development of

individuals within the context of family life. It cannot be dictated by some interior

designer. (Heynen 1999)

Le Corbusier’s observations of life and the rich classes in Towards a New

Architecture. Here the investigation of Le Corbusier is intended to highlight some

of the social issues that were concerning him at the time, which formed the basis

for his views with regard to architecture, and how it could be used as tool to

reshape human life. Firstly the well quoted and often misappropriated phrase, ‘a

house is a machine for living in’ is borne out of the situation that the problem of

the house has not been stated: the observations made on the design of ocean

liners. For example, Le Corbusier argues that design of comfortable spaces such

as promenade decks and saloons are borne out of a process that is worked from

a well defined set of problems. The problems being that there is a requirement to

house all the functions and operations that involve the comfortable of travel of

people across the ocean. Great effort is expended in designing the ocean liner to

be the most luxurious palace that is capable of floating. Le Corbusier’s argument

is that the design of houses has not progressed at the same rate as ocean liners

or aeroplanes, because we do not understand the problem of the house (Le

Corbusier 1923). The objects and innovations of modern life have begun to

transform our lives, hence causing confusion as to where to apply the design.

Having established that understanding the social structure of society in the

primitive sense, reinforces the link between architecture and people; and making

the realisation that part of the failure of modern architecture is due to architecture

not understanding of the link between architecture and people. The research has


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Regarding Humanity

demonstrated that there are similarities between architecture and anthropology,

and that there could be a way of establishing new rules, and new approaches in

the theoretical sense, but not necessarily in the practical sense. The study needs

to look deeper into the relationship between the two fields to arrive at a practical

application of one to the other.


Chapter 5

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Architecture and Anthropology

From investigating the respective definitions of anthropology and

architecture to establish that in the field of research there is a symbiotic

relationship between the two. The study progresses the research into this

relationship to investigate ways in which knowledge gained from anthropological

research can be applied to the field of architecture in contemporary society.

Architecture has yet to feel the full impact of 20th century developments

in social anthropology. Perceived as the study of remote tribes living in the last

backwaters untouched by western culture, it seems of no relevance to how we

might build today. But the effect of anthropological research is both more indirect

and more essential, provoking fundamental questions about issues such as the

organisation of social life, the function and significance of art, the origins of

architecture, the relation of people to buildings, and the role of the architect

(Blundell-Jones 1996).

Egenter examines the research of Muhlmann who, in his 'History of

Anthropology’ work of outlines the changes that have occurred within the field of

anthropology, that have allowed it gain in reliability as a basis for a theory of

architecture. Egenter's claim is that both fields much change to be able to achieve

this, using structuralist frameworks (Egenter 1991). With the respective definitions

of the fields of architecture and anthropology being traditionally perceived as polar

opposites, the challenge becomes the reduction of both definitions to base

principles to expose the similarities that can form the basis of a reliable theory.

'Architectural anthropology should be considered as a structural

framework for a pragmatic theory of architecture, which could gain new insights

into the profound importance of architecture for man. Design theory could now

develop new, globally valid and humane concepts, which might gain in reliability

because of no longer being based on aesthetics alone, but on anthropology'

(Egenter 1991).

Before exploring the notion of 'Architectural Anthropology', and its role in

the development of a 'structural framework' for a 'pragmatic theory of

architecture'. It is important to understand what Egenter means by the


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terminology ‘structural framework’, and ‘pragmatic theory.’ But before that it is

worth exploring what is meant by the term ‘anthropology’

Egenter discusses the notion of a 'structural framework' in his study of

the work of Werner Leinfellner. Who examines the structural problem of macro

and micro-theoretical relationships, discussing Leinfellner's argument that

theories can be compared in regard to their relative size and so designating them

in a way as to interpret them as being a relationship between container and

content. Egenter argues that a theory, which relates to a limited base, can be

related to a larger theoretical structural framework.

In the context of Egenter's work the theory of architecture is taken as

being a macro-theory, in which architecture is seen as the integration of many

micro-theories within wider framework of constructive evolution. Egenter's

conclusion is based upon the discussion of two main fields of research, those of

Anthropology and Architectural Theory. The paper is based on a two way

research process, looking anthropologically at architecture, and at anthropology

from the point of view of architecture. The problem of theory is discussed with an

aim to reflect architecture within theoretical frameworks. The discussion

demonstrates that the domains of architecture and anthropology are not closed

systems. Presentation of architectural anthropology as a new approach based on

outline from theoretical and methodical viewpoints.

Egenter claims that there has been no previous attempt to define design

theory in anthropological dimensions. There is however a body of work on the

fringes of mainstream architecture that has been operating in the realm of

exploring the notion that architecture should be connected with human evolution,

although not using the term anthropology directly.

The so called generation of '68 (Frampton 1980) comprised Architectural

think-tank, Archigram, who were demonstrating an interest in the basic elements

of urban experience in their Living City exhibition of 1963, demonstrating what


98 99


Barry Curtis refers to as synthesis of the primitive and technologically

sophisticated. Interestingly referred to by Wolf Vostell in his book 'Fantastic

Architecture' as non-architecture and primitive artisanship (Curtis 1998).

Bernard Tschumi commenting on the events of 1968, student revolt and

riots in Paris, refers to architecture in its role of changing society. In his Essay

'The Environmental Trigger' of 1972, he asks if space could be made to be the

instrument of peaceful transformation, by means of changing the relationship

between the individual and society by generating a new lifestyle (Tschumi 1991).

Citing the social condensers of revolutionary Russia as an example of

architecture determining new relationships between people, and shaping society.

Rem Koolhaas, recounts the transition of his practice, Office of

Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) from a national practice to a global practice in

1987. The difference being that in opposition to Koolhaas' critique of globalisation

where 'projects are produced by architects not remotely connected to the context

for which their works are intended' in the form of multiple offices turning out a

single product. OMA was one that was involved more and more deeply on other

cultures. Becoming 'experts on difference: different possibilities, contexts,

sensitivities, powers' (Koolhaas 1993).

For Will Alsop, human behaviour matters more than function, whilst

working in Cedric Price’s office, Alsop had been immersed in a radical, even

subversive ambience of the Archigram group. In Price's view , the architect was an

agent of social change, making life better for everyone. The social agenda behind

the building was what mattered, not the look of the building.’ (Powell 2001)

Renzo Piano employs what he refers to as a humanistic approach to

architecture. The most instrumental project that shaped the direction of Piano and

Rogers was Centre Pompidou, Paris 1977. In contrast to most modernist

buildings that were highly planned and deterministic, Piano and Rogers created a

building that embraced the 1960's the ethic was of indeterminacy. In their view,

modern architecture with its pursuit of pure forms, the architects were forgetting a


100 101

Archigram: Monte Carlo Entertainments Centre 1969. From Architectural Competitions 1950-today, de Jong, C (1994) Benedikt Taschen, Koln Germany


key attribute of the city, its messy changeability. As buildings became more pure,

the street life became less so. At Beaubourg, from an early stage Piano and

Rogers assembled a team to investigate ways of giving the centre a wider mix of

activities to attract a wide a public as possible (Appleyard 1986). In the design

brief submitted by Piano and Rogers talked of the need for buildings to possess

the ability to change, especially as institutions often change more quickly than the

buildings built to accommodate them. The ability for a building to change was

considered to be a vital design issue, being able to change in its plan, section and

elevation (Sudjic 1994). Here great effort was expended to produce an

architecture that connected with the people.

From outlining the aims of these architects, and groups, the challenge

comes from trying to understand hoe to achieve the connection with the human

condition. In looking towards the thinkers that have been operating on the fringes

of architecture, i.e. predominantly in the academic sense rather than building. The

study reveals that there has for some time been a humanistic approach to

architecture, and it is the study of anthropology that has enabled us to arrive at an

understanding of those approaches to architecture. For Egenter ‘It is evident that

the extension of the basic field of phenomena considered by architectural theory

and the structural changes in relation to the conventional interpretation of

architecture will sooner or later demand a definition of what is building, and what is

architecture'. (Egenter 1991)

Anthropologists have recently learned more about the nature of myth, in

which narrative forms can influence our thinking, behaviour and even our desires.

In contemporary culture, our communality is represented more accurately by the

way in which it is set out in novels and poems, which have gained popular ascent

over generations than is in the raw statement elicited by sociological

questionnaires (Rykwert 1996).

It is the work of anthropologists that has shifted the emphasis of

architecture from building to the sheltering of human events, where in Guidoni’s


102 103

Centre Pompidou, Paris. Taken from http://www.cnac.gp.fr/english September 1998


work, architecture is defined as a social instrument, and with Rogers, present day

concerns for static objects being replaced by concerns for relationships.

Anthropology can also help to steer the profession away from its

traditional approach, and make it question its obsession with surface style in favour

of a deeper understanding of politics and society (Blundell-Jones 1996). When

viewing the role of the anthropologist from a position in the field of architecture, it is

noted that 'anthropologists after all are supposed to discuss thing like the origins of

our species’. However, what is more fundamental to the field of architecture, is that

anthropologists discuss the subdivisions within our species and perhaps more

importantly, the nature of the social bond (Rykwert 1996).

In Egenter's work, the research series, Architectural anthropology

describes architecture as a constructive continuum - 'object culture running parallel

to human evolution.' (Egenter 1991) The evidence of human evolution is manifest

in the fabric of our cities, which can be viewed as the result of slow underlying

change combined with bursts of development associated with external forces,

either natural or man-made. 'This is an evolutionary pattern similar to that found in

natural systems. The industrial revolution, the Blitz and information technology all

forced major changes to the city and its fabric' (McCarthy 1996).

Anthropologists can help us to understand how the relationship between

buildings and society worked before it became so complicated, and by extension

trace the stages of the complication (Blundell-Jones 1996).


Chapter 6

104 105

Architecture revisted

The study of architectural anthropology in an academic sense is one

thing, but applying the principles to the very real problem of architecture in the

current social climate is quite another. The notion that anthropologists can tell us

far more about the complex relationships at work within the city forces an

investigation of how things worked when things were less complicated, as

proposed by Peter Blundell Jones.

The extreme position is the study of primitive architecture, which reveals

the links between architecture and human events on the micro scale (Egenter

1991). In order to conduct a study of primitive architecture, firstly we need to define

the notion of primitive in the context of society. The word ‘ Primitive’ originates from

the Latin Primitivus, meaning old or oldest. For Guidoni, in the context of

architecture, primitive refers to cultures and cultural products that are essentially

different from our own, demonstrating what Egenter refers to as an Ethnocentric

approach. In this definition these are technologically less advanced than those of

western countries and the great civilizations of the orient.' There is no reference to

chronology, the essential difference between primitive culture and civilized culture

appears to be defined by the mode of production (Guidoni 1979).

As outlined by Blundell-Jones, the field of anthropology has been

traditionally perceived as the study of apes, or the study of 'savages' living in mud

huts, but as the research has revealed, the field of anthropology could provide us

with the tools to comprehend architecture in complex situations (Blundell-Jones

1996).

During a visit to Sri Lanka, I found myself in the position of possessing

what Egenter refers to as an ethnocentric outlook. The first two days were a

complete culture shock! out of everything that I thought I knew about Sri Lanka and

its people, (my wife is Sri Lankan), I was not prepared for the extremes of wealth

and poverty that exist there. Therefore my first reaction was one of amazement,

and the natural reaction was to compare what I was experiencing with what I know

from living here in the UK. I had always been told that Sri Lanka was essentially a


106 107

Globalisation


third world country, but was still not prepared for it, after the first two days I found

that I was constantly people watching. Observing what Christopher Alexander

refers to as patterns, watching elements of the daily lives of people that we passed

through towns and villages when travelling about the country.

In the observations that I have made I am deliberately avoiding the use of

the words primitive or contemporary in my descriptions because the both co-exist

in the same place. The capital, Colombo, is as westernised as any other city, with

its shopping malls, World Trade centre and luxurious hotels and apartments. At the

same time I noticed that in rural areas people are using mud huts and erecting

shelters that may be considered by some as primitive and other as indigenous.

The journey from Colombo to Kandy, passes through many through rural

villages. A journey through just one of these provides an interesting parallel to a

journey through part of the city in Birmingham, and forces a re-examination of the

findings from the original site study. The aim here is not to conduct a comparative

study of the two journeys, but to apply the knowledge gained from one, to the

study of another.

On the surface, the observations of the Journey along the New Street

ramp and the Kandy Road have nothing in common. But as Aldo van Eyck was

asserting in the 1970's architects have been harping on what is different for so

long that they have missed what is the same (Frampton 1980). Bearing this point

in mind the study reveals that they show a commonality between disjointed events.

The series of events experienced and recorded appear to be totally different on the

surface, geographically they are totally different. They take place in different

countries, on different continents, under different climatic, social and cultural

conditions. The commonality is that the events have the same basic premise of

production/buying/selling/trading.

The architecture that shelters these on the other hand is extremely

different. In one the relationship between the building and the events that they

shelter is easy to read, in the other it is far more complicated, and the key


108 109

Shelters


observation is that there is at the same time common elements and differing

elements between two experiences. The observation itself will not enable us to

develop a theory that allows us to produce buildings that have successful

relationships with human events, but further examination of the experiences will

give elements that allow us to test architecture against a new set of criteria.

The roadside in Sri Lanka is an important place, it plays host to probably

every mode of enterprise known to man. From village to village the enterprises

vary according to the proximity of local raw materials. Much of the industry is small

scale. To give an example: at one place the road has stacks of terracotta pots this

is the traditional cooking implement for Sinhalese cooking, the reason that I was

told is that Sinhalese curries do not taste the same when cooked in steel or

aluminium pans. Therefore the terracotta pot is in great demand, and in this one

place the terracotta pots are stacked on both sides of the road. Behind the stacks

are shelters that provide shade to the people that are making, decorating and

selling the pots. The customers being anyone who is passing along the road. They

can be one of the many Leyland trucks that chug around the island fully laden with

as much produce that can be crammed onto them including their loading and

unloading crew who sit in the shade at the back of the truck. They can be the man

riding the bicycle with practically anything strapped to the back of it sometimes with

wife and one child riding on the cross bar and another child riding on the

handlebar. It could be one woman walking along the road with the pot balanced on

her head. There is a whole multitude of vehicles moving along at their own pace I

have even seen men riding an elephant along the road, (they make good cranes

for forestry).

The shelters out of which the people sell these pots, are usually very

similar, concrete block walls sometimes painted, sometimes rendered, corrugated

asbestos sheet roof on rough sawn timbers, totally open at the front and behind

there is usually a room where the family lives. Beyond the cluster of potters'

houses/shops a column of wood-smoke issues from a clearing in the trees. The

trees, usually coconut, papaya or mango, provide a livelihood for some other

family living slightly further along the road, who will climb up the trees cut the fruit


110 111

Brick Kiln, Hanwela - Lewcock, Sansoni, Senanayake


and sell them to passers by. Similarly nearby is a sawmill where some of the

coconut trees are felled and their trunks split to make house-building timbers, or

temporary support struts for use in the construction of reinforced concrete

structures that become hotels and offices. The column of wood-smoke that is

visible from the road, issues from a kiln where the pots are being fired. Adjacent is

a shelter with timber posts and pitched cadjan roof construction, a thatched roof

made from coconut leaves bound together, to throw off the monsoon rains to keep

the firewood dry (Lewcock, Sansoni, Senanayake 1998).

The pottery will usually be a family business with grandparents, parents,

aunts, uncles and children all involved in the making, decorating, and selling of the

pots; the quarrying of the clay, collecting the firewood, erecting the shelters…Skills

from one generation get passed down to the next. The family occupation will have

a bearing on their place within the class structure, which affects their rights and

privileges within the community.

From my observations of life along the side of the road from Colombo to

Kandy and I have developed a feel for the rich variety of life that is sustained in the

numerous villages that the road passes through. Admittedly some of the

observations have been basic and at this stage form no real examination of the

organisation of social life. In a few minutes of passing through the village and

some careful analysis of observations, a snapshot of the culture can be built up

simply through observing and researching some of the daily routines or rituals that

people undertake to go about their lives. Ronald Lewcock, Barbara Sansoni and

Laki Senanayake, in their book 'The Architecture of an Island, the Living Heritage

of Sri Lanka', have developed an in depth view of the connection between Sri

Lankan architecture and the various cultures. Giving a detailed examination of

construction methods and craftsmanship, but also an insight into how the people

live in these houses, based on twenty years of visiting various houses and villages

and recording the smallest detail, whether an object or an activity.

In reading about ancient and primitive architecture, from the

anthropological viewpoint it is the examination of rituals that give meaning to the


112 113

Perahara at Kandy Lewcock, Sansoni, Senanayake


architecture. In modern society it is those daily routines that could be defined in the

same way as rituals. These rituals can also be termed as 'programs', in that rituals

can be defined as formalised proceedings, 'repeated action or behaviour' (Collins

gem English Dictionary 2000).

Having experienced life in Sri Lanka, and making observations about the

connection between life and buildings, the study revisits the subject of the original

site study. The six scenes that were described as part of the site analysis, formed

part of a journey that I have made through the site. It is not the only journey that

could be taken but it is the one that exposed that most contradictions between

intended use as proposed by the designers and the way that the building is used.

A line of enquiry to that is prevalent in Bernard Tschumi's work where

different activities that take place are described in terms of program. The definition

of program is based upon the Oxford English dictionary definition which is given

as: 'Program: a descriptive notice, issued beforehand, of any formal set of

proceedings, as a festive celebration, course of study etc.'

In Tschumi's work 'Architecture and Disjunction', the definition of program

is used to describe the cause and effect relationship between architecture and

event (Tschumi 1991). Spaces are arranged according to a program, in the sense

that they are akin to proceedings that take place in space created by architecture.

The site complex, is simultaneously labelled as 'The Pallasades', 'New Street

Station', 'Car Park', 'Ladywood House', and 'Stephenson Tower'. All these names

specify different programs that exist on the same site.

Taking the notion of program as a set of activities that are enforced on the

people by the built form. The analysis of the journey through the site; recording

human activity in different settings, is representative of the main public interface

with the building. This element of the program is investigated here as it represents

the first layer that was imposed on the city, and could be considered to have been

the primary program, being that of rail travel. The current scheme was the

redevelopment of New Street Station. My original criticism was grounded in the


114 115

'The World's Local Bank'


notion that the shopping centre car parks etc, were support activities designed to

raise the return on the capital investment required to build what at the time was a

state of the art railway station. (Collins) The irony is that in order to use the building

for what I am claiming is its primary purpose, we have to fight through all the other

programs to get to it.

In revisiting the journey along the New Street ramp read in the same way

as the journey through the Sri Lankan Village demonstrates a much more complex

system, than was originally recorded. At the base of the ramp on the left hand side

is the HSBC, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, referred to as

'the world's local bank' in the current television advertising campaign (2003) What

is a Chinese bank doing in Birmingham claiming to be a local bank? HSBC is a

multinational corporation that has bought the Midland bank, a bank that has its

roots in Birmingham. HSBC on the other hand is one of the many MNC's (Multi-

national Corporations) that Koolhaas refers to in his essay Globalisation (Koolhaas

1995).

The public interface with HSBC and the ramp is one that is dominated by

a rather heavy looking canopy projecting out over the ramp, but does not protect

people from the British climate. Wind blows rain in directly underneath and restricts

airflow to prevent any meaningful protection from heat in the summer. Below the

canopy the retail units are very similar with aluminium framed glass front, and

warm air curtain above the door opening, a blower that directs warm air down the

opening to prevent the heat from within the lobby from escaping into the cold

winter air.

Further up the ramp the scene of the McDonalds incident. The unit

occupied by McDonalds, there is a story that McDonalds originated with one man

selling hamburgers from a temporary stall on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

McDonald's is now an international standard in fast food and it is unlikely that it

had outlets in the UK at the time that its setting was built. Opposite the entrance to

McDonald's in the winter there is someone selling roasted chestnuts from a stall


116 117


set up on the pavement much in the way that McDonalds started out according to

the story.

The Big Issue seller mentioned in the opening text, there is usually

someone, in most cases the same person, who stands at the base of the ramp

selling copies of the magazine 'The Big Issue'. A publication which originated in

homeless peoples' charities setting up an organisation to produce this magazine to

raise awareness of homeless issues and providing a way for homeless people an

opportunity to work their way out of homelessness.

The events that occur on the ramp vary from different times of day and

times of the week. On Sundays, the banks are closed, and where during the week

there is the entrance to the HSBC lobby, on Sundays it is the backdrop to a

makeshift stall for a poster seller. The poster seller is an interesting one because

like the various vendors along the side of the Kandy Road, there is someone

standing by the side of the thoroughfare selling directly to passers by. The supply

chain for the posters is less easy to define than that for the clay pots.

In the situation along the Kandy Road, The daily lives of the people that

are involved in the production of the object are visible right up to the point where

you can buy the object from that one person who is selling it. During the process of

the production of that object are events that need to be sheltered, and it is

relatively easy to observe the events that are being sheltered.

In the case of the poster seller for example: there are a number of

anonymous buildings that bear little or no relation to the events that they are

sheltering. There are buildings that shelter the production of the paper and

plastics, the factories. Those that shelter the design of the imagery that appears on

the posters, studios. Those that shelter the living of those people involved in those

processes, could be identical houses on an anonymous estate in a suburban

spawl, that says nothing about the people who live there. Yet the building that

shelters the selling of the posters is one that is intended for a different purpose, not

that that makes it right or wrong (Pawley 1998).


118

119


There are social infrastructures, daily migration that allow people to work

in one place and live in another. There are consequences of those that have

implications on the city, congestion, and those that have implications for the

environment pollution, acid rain, deforestation, global warming (Rogers 1997).

Many of the structures that shelter the events are essentially beyond the

realm of architecture, and in the case of the Kandy road many are built without the

intervention of architects. Many distribution sheds or developer houses are outside

the realm of architecture in the traditional sense although architects may be

involved in the production of them. Many of the buildings however, are subject to

social, political and cultural conditions that are beyond the control of architects.

Economics, procurement routes, client confidence and aspirations, etc. This

makes the realm of architecture in the traditional sense difficult to define, and very

difficult of comprehend the architectural gestures being made.

The re-examination of the site study and the social context in which it sits

prompts a deeper understanding of the reasons why it is having a negative

relationship with the people that are intended to use it, and by extension the areas

in where a positive relationship can be achieved.


Conclusion

120 121

Conclusion: Repositioning architecture

The study has demonstrated that there is at present an uneasy

relationship between architecture and humanity that exists as a result of the

thinking of the twentieth century being proved wrong. The direction of the study

towards the field of anthropology has revealed that there exists a problem of

perception of the purpose of architecture, and likewise the field of anthropology.

Examination of the elements of both fields has revealed that there is a middle

ground where an overlapping of both disciplines can be exploited. The

establishment of a loose framework where relationships between buildings and

people forms a new realm in which architecture can operate.

The research has revealed that in order for the delivery of socially

relevant buildings, buildings that form a positive relationship with people. This is

the realm in which architecture must operate. It is the examination of the events

that architecture is to shelter that gives us the conditions to that architecture has to

respond. In this context, Tchsumi's claim that absolutely anything can form a

programme for architecture, as given in the introduction to his book, Event Cities 2

(2001) appears to hold true. The relationships between events and the buildings

that are built to shelter them have become too complex to interpret in post

industrial cities, therefore it is for architecture to respond to programmes that are

specified, based on chains of events whether they are existing or intended.

The skill comes from understanding that chain of events and the

relationships between them. The successful architecture is that which produces

buildings that people can relate to. The ideas expressed by the architecture can be

comprehended, in some cases questioned by the general public, and as a result

architecture has contributed to the culture of that society. Centre Pompidou in

Paris, The Bilbao Guggehiem Museum, to give two examples, and more recently

the Selfridges Store in the Bull Ring by Future Systems, is as Hugh Pearman puts

it, 'is the new Birmingham.'

The approach to produce such an architecture as the research shows, is

to specify the programmes that are being addressed by the architecture,

admittedly this appears as though you can justify any architecture by specifying its


'Architecture is not about the conditions of design but the

design of conditions that will dislocate the most traditional and regressive

aspects of our society and simultaneously reorganise these elements in the

most liberating way, so that our experiencebecomes the experience of

events organised and strategised through architecture.

Strategy is a key work in architecture today. No more

masterplans, no more locating in a fixed place, but a new heterotopia. This is

what our cities must strive toward and what we architects must help them to

achieve by intensifying the collisions of events and spaces. Tokyo and New

York only appear chaotic. Instead, they mark the appearance of a new urban

structure, a new urbanity. Their confrontations and combinations may

proivide us with the event, the shock, that I hope will make the architecture

of our cities a turning point in culture and society.

Bernard Tschumi - Conclusion of 'Six concepts' the final

chapter of Architecture and Disjunction 1991

122 123


program. But the reality is certain types of buildings will have to address different

programmes. Some may be purely functional and dehumanised this may be

responding to a political programme and by extension addressing a social need.

But there is a human interface that is governed by cultural programmes that may

be moral and ethical codes, which form the basis of sometimes contradictory and

conflicting programmes.

For us to develop architecture that is based on anthropology, if we are to

form structuralist frameworks as Egenter suggests. We have to concentrate on the

human architecture interactions that allow us to develop a frame of reference that

is based on human needs and desires. A framework that allows us weigh up all of

these factors to make informed decisions about which programmes drive what is

made as architecture. Admittedly this is not an easy process as Kenneth Powell

states in his monograph of the work of Will Alsop. ‘For Alsop, human behaviour is

not such an exact science. Designing buildings to reflect supposedly fixed patterns

if living is a dangerous game, shouldn’t a building be able to respond to the

unpredictability life and emotions?’ – Powell 2001

It appears that it is the successful resolution of these conflicts makes for

successful architecture, giving credence to the Tschumi's claim in the conclusion

of 'Architecture and Disjunction' in that collision is not that bad. As Deyan Sudjic

observes in the conclusion to his book 'The 100 Mile City', To accept this image of

the city (changeable and full of contradictions) is to accept uncomfortable things

about ourselves, and our illusions about the way we want to live. The city is as

much about community and civic life. And yet to accept that the city has a dark

side, the menace and greed, does not diminish its vitality and strength. In the last

analysis it reflects man and all his potential. As Will Alsop advises: 'Your starting

point should be the whole community of interested persons' and as this stud has

demonstrated, this is where we as architects should be looking.


Event not Object – Alsop 2001

‘The richness of experience gives meaning to the city.’

Alsop 2001

Cities need Citizens - ’ Rogers and Power

‘Cities offer a way out of deep social cleavages that have opened

up as a result of economic development.’ Rogers and Power

‘Cities can bring people, ideas and experience together in a

new dynamic that can solve some of the problems of over

development.’ Rogers and Power

‘It is the influence of society that builds them, the patterns of living

that its citizens adopt, and most critically, the struggle for economic

advantage by one city over another that have been the driving forces behind

change.’ Deyan Sudjic - The 100 MIle City

124 125


Epilogue

Will Alsop has recently won the commission to rebuild New Street station,

in my view, based on this research, that is the correct choice. Alsop’s work

demonstrates a level of human understanding that far surpasses that of the site in

its current state. It will be interesting to see how Alsop addresses the situation...

AD July 2003


‘If one concentrates on the process of architecture and not the end

product the end result takes on a more spiritual significance.’ Alsop 2001

‘The experience of a place and quality of behaviour it allows gives

meaning and dignity to the world.’ Alsop 2001

126 127

References

Introduction

RYKWERT, J. (2000) The Seduction of Place - The City in the Twenty-first Century. Weidenfield

& Nicholson, London pp228-230

DAVIS, M. (1993) cited in POPE, A. 1996. Ladders. New York, Princeton Architectural

Press pp121

ROGERS, R. (1997) Cities for a small planet. Faber and Faber, London pp111

ROGERS, R. (1996) cited in KRONENBURG, R. (1996) Portable Architecture, Architectural

Press/Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford p5

APPLEYARD, B. (1986) Richard Rogers, a biography. Faber and Faber, London 1986. Faber

and Faber, London 1986.

Chapter 1 – Site Study

ROGERS, R. & POWER, A (2000) Cities for a Small Country. Faber and Faber, London.

PEARMAN, H. (2003) Unique Selling Point. The Sunday Times Culture p9, The Sunday

Times 27th April 2003.

ROGERS, R (2002) Birmingham Library Promotional Literature

Black Sabbath (1973) Spiral Architect track 8, ESM CD 305 Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, 1973

Castle Copyrights Ltd, 1996 Castle Communications Plc.

KOOLHAAS, R, (1995) S,M,L,XL. New York Monacelli Press.

KOOLHAAS, R, (1978) Delirious New York New York Monacelli Press.

PIANO, R. (1997) The Renzo Piano Logbook. Thames and Hudson, London.

BEAUDRILLARD, J. (1994) Simulcra and Simulation. The University of Michigan Press,

Michigan

COLLINS, P. (1992) Britains Rail Supercentres – Birmingham. Ian Allan, Shepperton, Surrey

pp8-9

CURTIS, B. (1998) cited in CROMPTON, D (ed) Concerning Archigram, Archigram

Archives, London

POPE, A. (1996). Ladders. New York, Princeton Architectural Press.

LAING, (1963) John Laing Construction Ltd, The Bull Ring promotional Literature.

References

Chapter 2 – Advancement of the Human Species.

ALSOP, W. cited in POWELL, K. (2001) Will Alsop Book 1. Lawrence King, London p120

APPLEYARD, B. (1986) Richard Rogers, a biography. Faber and Faber, London 1986.

Faber and Faber, London 1986.

LEACH, N. (ed.) (1997). Rethinking Architecture, a reader in cultural theory.. Routledge,

New York and London p3-4

HEYNEN, H. (1999). Architecture and Modernity. MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts,

London p8

LEACH, N. (op. Cit)

LEACH, N. (op. Cit)

BEAUDILLAIRE, C. (1972) cited in HEYNEN, H. (1999). Architecture and Modernity. MIT

Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, London p12

HEYNEN, H. (op. Cit)

FRAMPTON, K. (1985) Modern Architecture, A Critical History. Second Edition. Thames and

Hudson, London pp84-88

FRAMPTON, K. (op. Cit) pp84-88

FRAMPTON, K. (op. Cit) pp179

RAYNER-BANHAM,P (1960) Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. Architectural

Press, Oxford. (1962 Edition) pp106-121

FRAMPTON, K. (op. Cit) pp84-88

SIMMEL, G. (1903) The Metropolis and Mental Life. cited in LEACH, N. (ed.) (1997).

Rethinking Architecture, a reader in cultural theory. Routledge, New York and London

pp66-79.

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CIAM cited in FRAMPTON, K. (1985) Modern Architecture, A Critical History. Second

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& Nicholson, London p8.

References

Chapter 2 – Humanity Displaced.

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Edition. Thames and Hudson, London pp269-279.

MARS (1943) cited in FRAMPTON, K. (1985) Modern Architecture, A Critical History.

Second Edition. Thames and Hudson, London pp269-279.

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Second Edition. Thames and Hudson, London pp269-279.

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LE CORBUSIER, (1925). The City of Tomorrow. The Architectural Press London.

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KOOLHAAS, R, (op. Cit)

ROGERS, R. (1997) Cities for a small planet. Faber and Faber, London pp27-63

BLUNDELL-JONES (1996) An Anthropological view of Architecture. ‘Architecture and

Anthropology.’ Architectural Design Profile No. 124 New York 1996.

ALEXANDER, C (1977) A Pattern Language. Oxford University Press, New York

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London & New York

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Michigan

References

BROWN, B, (1976) The Failure of Modern Architecture. Casell & Collier. London.

CAMPBELL J. (1949) The hero with a Thousand Faces Fontana Press, London

COLEMAN, A. (1985) Utopia on Trial, Vision and reality in planned housing. Hilary Shipman,

London,

COOK, P. (1996) Primer Academy Editions, London

CROMPTON, D. (1998) Concerning Archigram. Archigram Archives, London.

DAVIS, M. The Forbidden City, from City of Quartz

DEUTSCHE, R. Uneven Development - Public art in NYC. From Out of Site. A Social

Criticism of Architecture. - Ghirado (ed)

DUNSTER, (1982) Alison and Peter Smithson Architectural Monographs & Academy

Editions, London

EGENTER, N. (1992) Architectural anthropology. Switzerland, Structura Mundi.

ESHER, L. (1981) A Broken Wave. Penguin Books, London.

FOX, R. G. (1977) Urban anthropology. London, Prentice-Hall.


Hudson, London

GELERNTER, M. (1995) Sources of Architectural Form. Manchester, Manchester University

Press.

GIEDION, S. (1941) Space Time and Architecture Harvard College, London (Fifth edition

1967)

GUIDONI, E. (1979) Primitive Architecture - (History of World Architecture). Faber and

Faber/Electa London

GLUSBERG, J (1991) Deconstruction, A Student Guide. Academy Editions, London

HANCOCK G, & FAIIA, S (1998) Heaven's Mirror - Quest for the Lost Civilization. Penguin

Books, Harmondswoth, Middlesex, England.


London.

HUNTER, E & WHITTEN, P. (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Anthropology.

Harper and Row, Publishing. New York, Hagersown, San-Francisco, London. 1976.

INWOOD, M. ed (1993) Hegel - Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics. Penguin Books,

London.

JENCKS, C. (1995) The Architecture of the Jumping Universe. Academy Editions

London.1995.

JOHNSON, P. (1994) The Theory of Architecture. London, International Thomson

Publishing.


References


KOPF, A (1985) Constructivist Architecture in the USSR. Academy Editions. London / St

Martins Press, New York.

KRUFT. H. W. (1985) Architectural Theory from Vitruvius to Present. Princeton Architectural

Press, New York. (1994 Edition)

LEACH, N. (ed.) (1997). Rethinking Architecture, a reader in cultural theory.. Routledge,

New York and London.

LE CORBUSIER, (1923). Towards a New Architecture. The Architectural Press, London.

(1987 Edition)

LETHABY, W. (1891). Architecture, Mysticism and Myth. Architectual Press, London (1974

Edition)

LEVI-STRAUSS, C. (1993) Structural Anthropology 1. London, Penguin Books.

LEVI-STRAUSS, C. Anthropology and Myth, Lectures 1951-1982 Basil Blackwell,

Oxford 1987 LEWIS, J. (1969) Anthropology Made Easy, London, W. H. Allen & Company.

MUMFORD, L. 1961. The City in History, London, Secker and Warburg.

NORBERG-SCHULZ, C. (1984) Towards a phenomenology of architecture. New York,

Rizzoli International Publications Inc.

NORBERG-SCHULZ, C. (1971) Existence, space and architecture. London, Studio Vista.

NORBERG-SCHULZ, C. (1963) Intentions in architecture. Rome, Aristide Staderini.


PAWLEY, M. (1998) Terminal Architecture. Reaktion Books, London

PAWLEY, M. (1990) Theory and Design in the Second Machine Age. Blackwell, Oxford.

PELCZYNSKI, Z. A. (1971) Hegel's political philosophy. Cambridge, Cambride University

Press.

PEVSNER, N. (1968). The Sources of Modern Architecture and Design. Thames and

Hudson, London 1995 Edition.


POPE, A. 1996. Ladders. New York, Princeton Architectural Press.

POWELL, K. (2001) Will Alsop Book 1. Lawrence King, London.

RAPOPORT, A. (1969) House form and culture. London, Prentice-Hall.

RAYNER-BANHAM,P (1966) The New Brutalism The Architectural Press, London.

RAYNER-BANHAM,P (1975) The Age of the Masters (A Personal view of Modern

Architecture). Architectural Press, Tonbridge.

RAYNER-BANHAM,P (1960) Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. Architectural

Press, Oxford. (1962 Edition)

References

READ, H. The Meaning of Art (1931). Faber and Faber, London 1968 Edition.

ROGERS, R. (1997) Cities for a small planet. Faber and Faber, London.


RYKWERT, J. (2000) The Seduction of Place - The City in the Twenty-first Century.

Weidenfield & Nicholson, London

SMITH, P. (1979) Architecture and the Human Dimension. George Godwin, London.

SUDJIC, D (1992) The 100 Mile City, Andre Deutsche, London

SUDJIC, D (1994) The Architecture of Richard Rogers Blueprint Monograph,

TRONIS, A. & LEFAIVRE, L. (1990) Classical architecture: the poetics of order, London, The

MIT Press.

TSCHUMI, B. (1996) Architecture and Disjunction MIT Press, Cambridge

Massachusetts/London

TCSHUMI, B. (1994) Event Cities MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts/London. Fourth

Estate & Wordsearch, London

TCSHUMI, B. (2001) Event Cities 2 MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts/London.

Fourth Estate & Wordsearch, London

WITTKOWER, R. (1988) Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism. Academy

Editions, London.

Selected Bibliography

ALEXANDER, C (1977) A Pattern Language. Oxford University Press, New York

ALEXANDER, C (1977) The Timeless Way of Building. Oxford University Press, New York.

APPLEYARD, B. (1986) Richard Rogers, a biography. Faber and Faber, London 1986.

AUGE, M (1995) Non-places, introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. Verso, London

& New York

BEAUDRILLARD, J. (1994) Simulcra and Simulation. The University of Michigan Press, Michigan

BROWN, B, (1976) The Failure of Modern Architecture. Casell & Collier. London.

CAMPBELL J. (1949) The hero with a Thousand Faces Fontana Press, London

COLEMAN, A. (1985) Utopia on Trial, Vision and reality in planned housing. Hilary Shipman,

London,

COOK, P. (1996) Primer Academy Editions, London

CROMPTON, D. (1998) Concerning Archigram. Archigram Archives, London.

DAVIS, M. The Forbidden City, from City of Quartz

DEUTSCHE, R. Uneven Development - Public art in NYC. From Out of Site. A Social Criticism of

Architecture. - Ghirado (ed)

DUNSTER, (1982) Alison and Peter Smithson Architectural Monographs & Academy Editions,

London

EGENTER, N. (1992) Architectural anthropology. Switzerland, Structura Mundi.

ESHER, L. (1981) A Broken Wave. Penguin Books, London.

FOX, R. G. (1977) Urban anthropology. London, Prentice-Hall.


Hudson, London

GELERNTER, M. (1995) Sources of Architectural Form. Manchester, Manchester University

Press.

GIEDION, S. (1941) Space Time and Architecture Harvard College, London (Fifth edition 1967)

GUIDONI, E. (1979) Primitive Architecture - (History of World Architecture). Faber and

Faber/Electa London

GLUSBERG, J (1991) Deconstruction, A Student Guide. Academy Editions, London

HANCOCK G, & FAIIA, S (1998) Heaven's Mirror - Quest for the Lost Civilization. Penguin

Books, Harmondswoth, Middlesex, England.

HEYNEN, H. (1999). Architecture and Modernity. MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, London.

HUNTER, E & WHITTEN, P. (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Anthropology.

Harper and Row, Publishing. New York, Hagersown, San-Francisco, London. 1976.

INWOOD, M. ed (1993) Hegel - Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics. Penguin Books, London.

JENCKS, C. (1995) The Architecture of the Jumping Universe. Academy Editions London.1995.

JOHNSON, P. (1994) The Theory of Architecture. London, International Thomson Publishing.




KOPF, A (1985) Constructivist Architecture in the USSR. Academy Editions. London / St Martins

Press, New York.

KRUFT. H. W. (1985) Architectural Theory from Vitruvius to Present. Princeton Architectural

Press, New York. (1994 Edition)

LEACH, N. (ed.) (1997). Rethinking Architecture, a reader in cultural theory.. Routledge, New

York and London.

LE CORBUSIER, (1923). Towards a New Architecture. The Architectural Press, London. (1987

Edition)

LETHABY, W. (1891). Architecture, Mysticism and Myth. Architectual Press, London (1974

Edition)

LEVI-STRAUSS, C. (1993) Structural Anthropology 1. London, Penguin Books.

LEVI-STRAUSS, C. Anthropology and Myth, Lectures 1951-1982 Basil Blackwell,

Oxford 1987 LEWIS, J. (1969) Anthropology Made Easy, London, W. H. Allen & Company.

MUMFORD, L. 1961. The City in History, London, Secker and Warburg.

NORBERG-SCHULZ, C. (1984) Towards a phenomenology of architecture. New York, Rizzoli

International Publications Inc.

NORBERG-SCHULZ, C. (1971) Existence, space and architecture. London, Studio Vista.

NORBERG-SCHULZ, C. (1963) Intentions in architecture. Rome, Aristide Staderini.


PAWLEY, M. (1998) Terminal Architecture. Reaktion Books, London

PAWLEY, M. (1990) Theory and Design in the Second Machine Age. Blackwell, Oxford.

PELCZYNSKI, Z. A. (1971) Hegel's political philosophy. Cambridge, Cambride University Press.

PEVSNER, N. (1968). The Sources of Modern Architecture and Design. Thames and Hudson,

London 1995 Edition.


POPE, A. 1996. Ladders. New York, Princeton Architectural Press.

POWELL, K. (2001) Will Alsop Book 1. Lawrence King, London.

RAPOPORT, A. (1969) House form and culture. London, Prentice-Hall.

RAYNER-BANHAM,P (1966) The New Brutalism The Architectural Press, London.

RAYNER-BANHAM,P (1975) The Age of the Masters (A Personal view of Modern Architecture).

Architectural Press, Tonbridge.

RAYNER-BANHAM,P (1960) Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. Architectural Press,

Oxford. (1962 Edition)


READ, H. The Meaning of Art (1931). Faber and Faber, London 1968 Edition.

ROGERS, R. (1997) Cities for a small planet. Faber and Faber, London.



& Nicholson, London

SMITH, P. (1979) Architecture and the Human Dimension. George Godwin, London.

SUDJIC, D (1992) The 100 Mile City, Andre Deutsche, London

SUDJIC, D (1994) The Architecture of Richard Rogers Blueprint Monograph,

TRONIS, A. & LEFAIVRE, L. (1990) Classical architecture: the poetics of order, London, The MIT

Press.

TSCHUMI, B. (1996) Architecture and Disjunction MIT Press, Cambridge

Massachusetts/London

TCSHUMI, B. (1994) Event Cities MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts/London. Fourth


TCSHUMI, B. (2001) Event Cities 2 MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts/London. Fourth


WITTKOWER, R. (1988) Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism. Academy Editions,

London.

Journal articles.

ANON Post Modern Urbanity. The Architectural review, Vol. 1236, February 2000

ANON The Station not the Airport. The Architectural Review, June 2000

BLUNDELL-JONES, P (1996) – An Anthropological view of Architecture. Architectural Design

Profile No. 124 ‘Architecture and Anthropology’. New York 1996.

BORDEN, I. The City State, Building Design, November 3 2000

CARSTEN, J & HUGH-JONES, S. (1996) About the House, Levi-Strauss and Beyond.

Architectural Design Profile No. 124 ‘Architecture and Anthropology’. New York 1996.

HUMPHREY, C. (1996) No place like home in Anthropology. Architectural Design Profile No. 124

‘Architecture and Anthropology’. New York 1996.

MELHIUSH, C. (1996) Editorial, Architectural Design Profile No. 124 ‘Architecture and

Anthropology’. New York 1996.

McCARTHY, B. (1996) Multi-source synthesis, embodied energy. Architectural Design Profile No.

124 ‘Architecture and Anthropology’. New York 1996.


RYKWERT, J. (1996) Introduction, Architectural Design Profile No. 124 ‘Architecture and

Anthropology’. New York 1996.

PEARMAN, H. (2003) Unique Selling Point. The Sunday Times Culture p9. the Seunday Times

27th April 2003.

Internet Sites.

Egenter, N. Architectural Anthropology – Outlines of a Constructive Past.

http://homeworld.com.ch/~negenter/450AA tx E.html

Egenter, N. Towards an Architectural Anthroplogy

http://homeworld.com.ch/~negenter/450AA tx E.html

Davis M. house of Cards, Las Vegas: Too many people in the wrong place, celebrating waste as

a way of life.

http://www.rut.com/mdavis/housecards.html

The Library of Birmingham, Knowledge, Understanding, Innovation.

http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/lib

Sound Recording.

Black Sabbath (1973) Spiral architect track 8, ESM CD 305 Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, 1973

Castle Copyrights Ltd. 1996 Castle Communications Plc.