Failed Architecture: How The Urban Eclipsed The City: An Interview With Ross Exo Adams

Urbanisation is not and has never been entirely about cities. Beginning with the earlier colonial practices of spatial planning and its projections onto the supposedly “open” spaces of newly settled land, and continuing as a project to establish one continuous global system of social, political and economic control, “the urban” has now decisively eclipsed the city, encompassing the entirety of our planet—such that we can even talk about the urbanisation of the oceans. [...]

I describe the urban as a fundamentally new way to organise and control space, and what happens in it—a political technology that emerged sometime in the nineteenth century in Europe. By this term, I mean to describe two parallel processes we see happening in this period: on the one hand, the broad reorganisation of space across a range of major cities in Europe and, on the other, the deployment of new administrative, legal and political means by which to manage the people who had come to occupy these spaces. [...]

What I suppose I would like people to know about Cerdá is that, in my view, he provided the first and perhaps clearest account of the urban as it arose around him in Europe. This reading requires a bit of interpretive generosity since Cerdá’s project was of course not an “account” per se, but rather a proposal for a space yet to come—a space which he believed he had invented outright. Although he did invent the term urbanización, I see his work as more of a diagram that reveals how space, movement and the control of bodies could be planned for the first time.

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Failed Architecture: Jakarta’s Superblocks Continue a Legacy of Urban Segregation

From the fortified and securitised environments of early Dutch colonialism to the construction of privatised gated-estates in the city’s urban fringe in the 1980s and 1990s, walling and the enclosure of people and wealth are recurring features of Jakarta’s built form. However, unlike the mercantilist storehousing, colonial military infrastructure or residential estates of the previous three hundred years, since 2006 a very new form of urban separation has emerged in the city: the integrated-superblock.

Enormous and exclusive, the superblock sits at the intersection of the office, the shopping mall and the home. They tower over the largely single or double-storey neighbourhoods around them and are stark and imposing expressions of the city’s significant, and still growing, inequalities. But superblocks did not appear from thin air. They are a product of a series of late-20th and early-21st century changes in Indonesia’s political economy. [...]

Crucially however, the property market in the immediate aftermath of the democratic transition was heavily liberalised, subject to extreme property speculation and ensnared by the continuation of New Order-connected oligarchic control. Appropriation and rent-seeking was aided by the creation of a state managed, but IMF directed, financial crisis response organisation: the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA). IBRA was a significant financial vehicle in Indonesia through the early-2000s and existed with the sole mandate of stabilising the business environment and returning money to government coffers as quickly as possible. To do so, the bank bailed out over 70% of underperforming loans given to property developers by the New Order, offered debt restructuring packages to well-connected developers and auctioned off state-held property in the inner city for next to nothing. This amounted to a recapitalisation of privileged developer groups and a government-sanctioned transfer of land from collective to private ownership for effectively no public gain. [...]

The logic of the superblock recalls both the old form of enclosing social relations found in the moneyed separations of the new towns of the 1980s, but it is also the construction of something entirely new. The nation, for those that can afford it, is increasingly entangled with the recessed conditions of the gated-estate gone global – privatised and keenly aware of its surroundings, but dislodged from the specifics of its geography and blurred into a worldwide network of prestige, inter-reference and money.

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Failed Architecture: The Far Right’s Obsession With Modern Architecture

Today, this traditionalist tendency is gaining renewed momentum in various corners of the European Right. In the Netherlands, far-right nationalist politician Thierry Baudet frequently derides the “ugly architecture” that is, in his mind, corrupting Dutch society. And in Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party has spawned a movement of revivalist architecture by individual practitioners obsessed with Saxon mythology and pitted ideologically against the metropolitan built environment. Amid the rising tide of populism in Europe, Western chauvinists and white supremacists are attempting to re-valorise traditional Western architecture in order to advance their reactionary and exclusive politics. [...]

The motley crew of right-wing architecture critics owes much to the work of Roger Scruton. Scruton positions himself as part of an older conservative philosophical tradition and a stalwart supporter of all things traditional. His gentlemanly demeanour is frequently played up by the British media, including the BBC, who allowed him to host the documentary Why Beauty Matters in 2009. In the documentary, Scruton repeatedly refers to the “crime of modern architecture”, and in one scene argues sardonically that the architects of a dilapidated office block were as much vandals as those who later graffiti-tagged the place. The argument of the documentary more polemically restates the general thesis of his 1979 book The Classical Vernacular: Architectural Principles in the Age of Nihilism — where “nihilism” may as well be an indeterminate synonym for “left-wing”. Here, Scruton argues that architecture lost its way somewhere in the early 20th century by attempting to forge a new aesthetic style less dependent on classical and gothic features.[...]

The aim of the architectural aspect of such a war is to herald a ‘return’ to aesthetic order. This can mean two things. On the more moderate edge, the ‘return’ signifies the aesthetic move to a bygone era that divorces a building from its social context. This is visible in how Scruton’s commission suggests that the housing crisis is a problem solely of aesthetics, and that we can house more people if we build in an architectural vernacular more accustomed to a specifically-conceived ‘public’. This is a ridiculous claim, which ignores the bigger, structural problems of land, wealth, inequality and systemic oppression and exploitation that right-wing governments of the day at best wish not to address and at worst actively encourage. [...]

The proposal of Baudet and other right-wing thinkers to return to vernacular building traditions is as historically ill-informed as it is deplorable. This comes across in the form of basic errors. Watson, for instance, makes no distinction between the opposing styles of modernism and postmodernism. It also manifests in their lack of understanding of why the traditionalist style they favour took hold in the first place. During the nineteenth century, neoclassical, gothic and renaissance styles frequently masked the squalid living conditions and poor construction quality of newly-erected tenement houses in Europe’s industrial cities. Meanwhile, in places like Paris, the introduction of grand, classically-influenced architecture to the city’s centres was predicated on the displacement of millions of working-class people, and the destruction of centuries-old medieval buildings, much to the chagrin of contemporary conservationists.

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Failed Architecture: The Deceptive Platform Utopianism of Google’s Sidewalk Labs

Sidewalk’s plans for Toronto are emblematic of the ways Big Tech companies are taking over responsibilities traditionally provided by governments, and further encroaching into physical urban space. This approach applies the logic of platform capitalism — a model wherein a handful of companies have consolidated economic power by owning and controlling the majority of digital infrastructures — to urban planning, reflected in both the design and funding of Sidewalk’s plans for the Toronto waterfront in general, and its “proving ground” of Quayside in particular. Indeed, Sidewalk Labs have continually stated that they look at urban landscapes as they would a consumer digital product such as a phone. Rit Aggarwala, Head of Urban Systems at Sidewalk has said if “you think of the city as a platform, and design in the ability for people to change it as quickly as you and I can customize our iPhones, you make it authentic because it doesn’t just reflect a central plan.” [...]

This approach to urban design is underpinned by digital and physical infrastructures which are, of course, proprietary to Sidewalk Labs. In their proposal, an entirely separate subterranean city is created where automated robots “transport mail and garbage via underground tunnels,” while surface-level infrastructure to support driverless cars is merged with embedded sensors to continually monitor not just transportation patterns, but public activity as well. Data collected through these processes is intended to be used in a digital replica of Quayside — a real time representation of the area used by planners to quickly simulate urban changes “without bothering residents.” Sidewalk’s digital infrastructure is further claimed to provide “ubiquitous connectivity for all,” encouraging “creation and collaboration” to vaguely “address local challenges.” To do this, Sidewalk’s data can be trawled by other companies to “make their own products and services for Quayside” including social and community amenities intending to “improve” city services. Through this API-like model, platform capitalism is further morphing into an increasingly spatial form, referencing the language of programming with mundane (and inaccurate) analogies of ‘software’ and ‘hardware’. The standardization of both the infrastructure and modular construction for Quayside is seen by Sidewalk Toronto as a process that, once built, can be scaled up and applied to cities across the globe — not unlike a universal operating system. [...]

And while community participation is now routinely used by developers at the start of projects to whitewash top-down urban development processes, through Sidewalk’s clever approach to public relations, capitalist urban development appears to explicitly absorb the spatial critique of itself, incorporating user-input, flexibility, temporality and participation. This becomes particularly clear in the development of ‘307’, Sidewalk Labs “experimental” space in Toronto which opens its doors to the public once a week so that they can “contribute to the co-creation of Sidewalk Toronto.” Here, a “Plan Your Neighborhood” prototype has been developed via generative design methods — simulation algorithms developed to quickly test design options based on a series of parameters — with which the public can make design choices and see how they perform.

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Failed Architecture: Resisting Phnom Penh’s Beautification Plan (31 May 2018)

Among the poorest countries in the world, Cambodia is now experiencing its longest period of peace and development since it became a nation state. Yet the wounds of the 1975-79 genocide are still too fresh for the country to truly reckon with. As landmarks of past horrors still stand in the capital, they also remain in the living memory of a large section of the city’s current population. For many, including the current government, the only way to deal with this all too recent trauma is to look to the future, open up the country’s economy and modernise. In that spirit, Phnom Penh has become a city of cranes. But with many of the new buildings only affordable to a small elite, resistance to this top-down modernisation is growing. [...]

Even so, Phnom Penh remains an undeveloped city whose lively streets struggle to support all of its activity, from impromptu barbecues and roadside weddings to dusty construction work. Waste collection is sporadic, and fume-filled traffic jams are common. Increasing migration to the capital is putting growing pressure on the city’s already struggling infrastructure and pushing up land prices. With over 70% of people living on less than $3 a day, limited access to housing has resulted in growing slum communities. Despite the fact that Phnom Penh didn’t have traffic lights before 2000, Hun Sen’s new Cambodia is becoming increasingly dominated by luxury real estate within gated communities, and leisure centres equipped with shopping malls, casinos and nightclubs. [...]

The plan for the 100-hectare site at Diamond Island contains ‘cultural and tourism areas’: shopping malls, banquet halls, 5-star hotels, luxury real estate, and several schools. Ultimately, the aim is to create a city within a city; an exclusive, privately-owned and managed island. Several gated communities have already been realised, including the romantically-named La Seine, and Elite Town, which features streets named after prestigious American universities. The market for these luxury villas and condominiums essentially caters towards foreign buyers, with demand from the local elite limited by their small numbers. Indeed, while the official Cambodian minimum wage is just $170 per month, villas within these areas are valued between $600,000 and $1 million. [...]

Phnom Penh is a city of contradictions. On the one hand it appears to be burgeoning, repairing and modernizing; yet on the other, behind the facade of Beautification, there is an ongoing struggle on the part of the poor to claim their dues: recognition, resources and their right to the city. The force of the state is relentlessly felt, yet those fighting against it seem undeterred; they deeply value small and large victories, with the unwavering optimism of post Khmer Rouge Cambodia.

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Failed Architecture: Mecca to the Max: The Holy City Transformed

In this episode, we discuss with various experts how this rising number of pilgrims is fueling a radical makeover of the city. While Mecca has always been changing and under construction, the current developments are of an unprecedented scale. What does Mecca’s radical makeover look like? Who is profiting from these developments and what does it mean for the city’s spiritual character? What does the current building craze mean for older buildings, and what will happen to the hundreds of thousands of people who live in the city’s informal settlements?

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Failed Architecture: Photo Essay: The Fading Glory of Brazil’s Disappearing Love Motels

Brazilians are often stereotypically described as passionate, sensual and flirtatious. Paradoxically however, the country is still relatively conservative when it comes to sexuality. Infidelity, homosexuality, prostitution and other ‘debaucheries’ are being kept under the radar. Moreover, large families, mostly in cities, often live in small houses with kids not leaving home until marriage. It’s not the kind of place you bring your lover to. [...]

Their main fascination is with the design of the motel interiors, many of which have recently been stripped. The look and feel of the rooms ranges from austere and shabby, to 1983-neon-chique, with mirrored ceilings, chrome details and shiny leather, to outright bizarre. Many of them come with a host of erotic amenities such as sex chairs, Jacuzzis, champagne service and dancing poles.[...]

Privacy is perhaps the most important feature of the accommodations, so naturally their staff and guests aren’t always happy with nosey outsiders. “The cab driver helped us communicating with the motel owners,” says Vera. “He came up with all kinds of stories to have them let us take photos in the motel’s common spaces as well. Sometimes he introduced us as two Dutch tourism professionals doing research on the love motels, because it’s a phenomenon foreign to the Netherlands.” Once, they wanted to photograph a motel named Luxemburgo. “It’s façade was decorated with a large depiction of a skier descending a mountain. When the owner spotted us and asked what on earth we were doing, the driver told her we were tourists from Luxembourg looking to take a snapshot of the exterior because we though it was funny. To which she responded with the question of whether we even had any mountains in Luxemburg..”

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Failed Architecture: Craigslust: “We’ll Have Sex and You Don’t Need to Pay Much for the Flat”

Upon opening the room share section users are immediately confronted with titles such as: “Free accommodation for gorgeous female” or “Live rent-free in luxury – avail 4 cute female”. Such adverts make “sex for rent” schemes between a male seller and a female buyer seem not only obvious, but presumably socially accepted. In this instance, the assumption that it is acceptable to request “sex for rent” originates in patriarchy, a societal structure in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded. More specifically, it originates in the patriarchal claim of a man’s rights over female bodies in both the domestic and the public space.

As Carole Pateman describes it, through the marriage contract, the woman at home is expected to perform both sex and domestic work for economic support and protection. The public aspect of patriarchal right, through what Pateman names a “prostitution contract”, manifests through the demand for female bodies to be sold as commodities in the capitalist market. Sex for rent appears to be a compelling hybrid of the two contracts, which is helping to fuel a resurgence of oppressive relations in ostensibly socially liberal societies. And while these oppressive relations manifest differently based on the subject’s ethnicity, economic status, sexual orientation and physical ability, it’s worth exploring how the basic patriarchal dynamic plays out in some of the world’s most overheated housing markets. [...]

In all these adverts, a familiar yet increasingly contested pattern of discrimination is unrestrained and painfully evident. The majority of property owners and renters are middle-aged, Caucasian men describing themselves as “successful”, “professional”, and “fit”, whilst the target audience for these advertisements are predominantly young, financially unstable women or members of the queer community. Without data on people responding, it is impossible to assess the level of exploitation underlying a particular advert. But given the fact that one is more likely to experience housing precarity as, for instance, a working class woman of colour, it is safe to say this dynamic has even more troubling implications for women affected by other sources of oppression. [...]

What should be surprising, however, is the normalisation of a deal in which one needs to abandon one human right — not to be held in servitude — in order to satisfy another — the right to adequate housing. If the exploitation of housing by real-estate were not so rife, and the home was universally accepted as a place of security, then perhaps “sex for rent” would cease to exist. The breakthrough for female emancipation is historically associated with the removal of housing from the market and the growth of the welfare state. Yet, as long as we apply to housing what Mark Fisher described as a ‘business ontology’ in which it is “simply obvious that everything in society should be ran as a business”, the underprivileged will continue to experience widespread erosion of their historic strides toward equality.

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Failed Architecture: Speer in Qatar or: How Architects Stopped Caring and Learned to Love the Client

Albert Speer is one of the most infamous architects in history. During his time working for the Nazi Party he was responsible for designing the Reich Chancellery and the Zeppelinfeld Stadium in which the Nuremberg rallies took place, as well as being in charge of Germany’s war production during the Second World War and having responsibility for the plan to reconstruct Berlin as Germania. Yet by emphasising his detachment from the general conditions in which he was working, he was able to avoid the death sentence after the war.

While his is an extreme example, it offers a compelling jumping off point to explore the wider issue of an architect’s responsibility for the wider system that they work in. Moving from mid-20th Century Germany to the present day, this episode explores the specific role certain architects have played in developing the stadiums and infrastructure for the 2022 Qatar World Cup. 

Here, gross violations of human rights and international labour law throw up serious questions about the moral ramifications of designing projects in such a country. How can architects balance the benefit of bringing a smooth, shiny new project against the human cost required to produce it?

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Failed Architecture: Le Corbusier’s Vision for Fascist Addis Ababa (9 October 2014)

This little known sketch for the town in the Italian colonial empire in Africa, made in 1936, therefore not only presents radically new ideas on colonial urbanism, but also serves as a testing ground for the critical relationship between ‘theory and practice’. The sketch can also be used to think about several questions: how were ideas about urbanism and political, social and economic agenda’s translated into the final building plan? How were radical utopian ideas on the city of the future were translated into concrete form? How did architects mediate between a ‘virgin territory’ and an irrevocable reality?  

The idea of Ethiopia as a tabula rasa—a blank slate—was omnipresent in the writings of architects and urban planners occupied with the designs of the colonial capital between 1936 and 1939, who considered the country devoid of any structures of architectural significance. Contrary to the fascination of Libyan whitewashed courtyard house – their simplicity, colours and volumes perfectly in tune with modern taste – the round houses of the Ethiopians were regarded by Italian architects as irrational and unhygienic.  [...]

Although Italian Addis Ababa gradually changed from a futuristic utopia into a tedious town in the hands of the Italians, this story on Le Corbusier’s involvement urges us to rethink the idea of (Italian) colonial planning as an isolated phenomenon. Clearly, the debate on the plans for Addis Ababa was closely intertwined with the general European debate on architecture in the 1930’s. As Le Corbusier’s ideas on functional zoning, rigid lines, and three-dimensional urbanism were often too radical and futuristic to be realized on the European mainland, the colony was the ultimate laboratory to realize these concepts. Le Corbusier’s sketch challenges us to rethink received interpretations of modernist planning practices: it demonstrates how progressive design could serve to build a destructive colonial empire. 

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