Consuming Architecture: On the occupation, appropriation and interpretation of buildings

220 Pages·2016·11.89 MB·English

by  Daniel Maudlin

CONSUMING ARCHITECTURE
Projecting forward in time from the processes of design and construction that are so often the focus
of architectural discourse, Consuming Architecture examines the variety of ways in which buildings
are consumed after they have been produced, focusing in particular on processes of occupation,
appropriation and interpretation. Drawing on contributions by architects, historians,
anthropologists, literary critics, artists, film-makers and photographers, it shows how the
consumption of architecture is a dynamic and creative act that involves the creation and negotiation
of meanings and values by different stakeholders and that can be expressed in different voices. In so
doing, it challenges ideas of what constitutes architecture, architectural discourse and architectural
education, how we understand and think about it, and who can claim ownership of it.
Consuming Architecture is aimed at students in architectural education and will also be of interest
to students and researchers from disciplines that deal with architecture in terms of consumption
and material culture.
Daniel Maudlin is Professor of Modern History, Department of History and Art History, Plymouth
University, UK, where he teaches social and material culture approaches to architectural history. He
previously taught history and cultural theory to architecture students at Plymouth University’s
School of Architecture, Design and Environment. He has also taught at the Universities of Glasgow,
Pennsylvania and St Andrews.
Marcel Vellinga is Reader in Anthropology of Architecture and Director of the Place, Culture and
Identity research group in the School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University. An anthropologist
by training, his research is concerned with the anthropological study of architecture, vernacular
architecture and architectural regeneration.
CONSUMING ARCHITECTURE
On the occupation, appropriation and interpretation of
buildings
Edited by Daniel Maudlin and Marcel Vellinga
First edition published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 selection and editorial material, Daniel Maudlin and Marcel Vellinga; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of the editors to be identified as authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or
other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Consuming architecture : on the occupation, appropriation and interpretation of buildings / Daniel Maudlin and Marcel Vellinga
[editors]. — First edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Architecture and society. 2. Architecture—Human factors.
I. Maudlin, Daniel, editor of compilation, writer of introduction.
II. Vellinga, Marcel, editor of compilation, writer of introduction.
III. Bervoets, Wouter. (In)complete architecture of the suburban house.
NA2543.S6C654 2014
720.1’03—dc23
2013035356
ISBN: 978–0–415–82499–6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978–0–415–82500–9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978–1–315–81352–3 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton
CONTENTS
Figures
Contributors
Preface
Introduction
Daniel Maudlin and Marcel Vellinga
PART 1
Occupations
1 The (in)complete architecture of the suburban house
Wouter Bervoets and Hilde Heynen
2 House behaviour in the Australian suburb: consumption, migrants and their houses
Mirjana Lozanovksa
3 Performing their version of the house: views on an architectural response to autism
Stijn Baumers and Ann Heylighen
4 Transformation unwanted! Heritage-making and its effects in Le Corbusier’s Pessac estate
Anita Aigner
5 A progressive attachment: accommodating growth and change in Álvaro Siza’s Malagueira
neighbourhood
Nelson Mota
PART 2
Appropriations
6 Becoming visible: transforming the spaces of apartheid South Africa
Lisa Findley and Liz Ogbu
7 Simla or Shimla: the Indian political re-appropriation of Little England
Siddharth Pandey
8 Ideological regeneration: the Cafesjian Centre for the Arts and the new Yerevan
Malcolm Miles
9 ‘The winter of discount tents’: Occupy London and the improvised dwelling as protest
Benjamin Taylor
10 On the origins of hip hop: appropriation and territorial control of urban space
Adam Evans
PART 3
Interpretations
11 ‘Why does it never rain in the Architectural Review?’: photography and the everyday life of
buildings
David Cowlard
12 Scenarios ‘For poetry makes nothing happen’: art and architectonic urban experimentations
Ronny Hardliz
13 Doors don’t slam: time-based architectural representation
Eleanor Suess
14 SE11: [re]generations
James Swinson
15 Between the cloud and the chasm: architectural journals, waste regimes and economies of
attention
C. Greig Crysler
Index
FIGURES
1.1A typical post-war residential neighbourhood in Aartselaar, Flanders
1.2A former child bedroom re-appropriated as guest room and ironing room
1.3A former child bedroom re-appropriated as guest room and surrogate conservatory
1.4A former child bedroom re-appropriated as home office and fitness room
1.5A former child bedroom re-appropriated as storage room
1.6A former doctor’s surgery and home office joined to create a large dining room
1.7The bed/living room of an ageing empty nester
2.1a, b and cStudy of adaptations to existing housing typologies
2.2a, b and cThe Northcote Enclave
2.3The morphology of rear terraces taken from House Lanarca
2.4The distant views afforded from the rear terraces
2.5New nature of the front garden produced an ‘ethnic aesthetic’
2.6The migrant summer kitchen of House Bitola
2.7Building materials stored in long, narrow space between houses
3.1House 3. The building, and view of the surrounding garden
3.2House 3, ground floor: spacious rooms
3.3House 3, first floor: buffer rooms
3.4House 3, ground floor: seclusion room and time-out room
4.1Le Corbusier, cover page of The Quartiers Modernes Frugès, (1998)
4.2Individual transformation in the Pessac estate
4.3Le Corbusier, Lège estate 1927
4.4Transformation into the rustic, Lège 1967
4.5Architect in her exemplary renovated Corbu-home
4.6Pensioner in his ‘forbidden’ conservatory extension
5.1Views of the Malagueira neighbourhood in 1990
5.2Views of the Malagueira neighbourhood in 2011
5.3Plan for Évora’s West Extension – Zoning
5.4Aerial View of the Malagueira neighbourhood in 1990
5.5Álvaro Siza, preliminary sketch for the Malagueira neighbourhood masterplan
5.6aA street in the Alentejo village of Oriola, Portel
5.6bView of the Malagueira neighbourhood in 2011
5.7View of the Malagueira neighbourhood in 2011
6.1Aerial view of two towns, exhibiting the spatial strategies of apartheid
6.2Post-apartheid government housing in the Cato Manor township near Durban
6.3Informal settlement sprawl at Cato Manor, Durban
6.4Bara Taxi Rank. Plan and aerial view of Baragwanath Taxi and Bus Facility
6.5Constitutional Hill
6.6Sisulu Square provides a vast new public space to Kliptown in Soweto
6.7The Hector Pieterson Memorial and adjacent museum
7.1Example of the haphazard, unplanned development taking place across Simla
7.2View of the Ridge and the Mall road, from the General Post Office, in 1895
7.3The State Library and Christ Church today
7.4People ‘malling’ on the Mall road, as seen from the Ridge
7.5The Viceregal Lodge, now the Indian Institute of Advanced Study
7.6The picturesque ‘Cedar’ guesthouse
7.7The haphazard Lower Bazaar cascading down the Ridge in the late nineteenth century
8.1Promotion of the new Gdansk: a billboard in Krakow, 2008
8.2The National Gallery, Vilnius
8.3The Cafesjian Centre under construction, 2008
8.4Sculptural decoration, the Cascades
8.5Tamanian’s plan reproduced on a hoarding in the Northern Avenue
8.6The Northern Avenue, Yerevan, 2008
9.1St Paul’s Cathedral forecourt before Occupy
9.2A row of tent-assemblages at Occupy the London Stock Exchange
9.3A tent-assemblage under construction in Finsbury Square
9.4The ‘house’ in Finsbury Square
10.1Hip hop is still alive and well in New York City
10.2Example of a bombed (graffiti-saturated) wall in NYC, 2011
10.3Author’s simulation of an original photograph
10.4Alive5 (RIP), Kilo & Teck, whole car at Tuff City Styles, Bronx NYC, 2011
10.5Doves TC5 FC COD personifies the true essence of graffiti writing
11.1Boots head office (the D90 West building), Beeston, Nottinghamshire, 1968
11.2Ronchamp chapel. Mass on the first Sunday after Easter, 1955
11.3Big Donut Drive-in, Los Angeles, c.1970
11.42nd St East and South Main Street, Kalispell, Montana, August 22, 1974
12.1Shift Work Zagreb, public installation at PSi#15 in Zagreb, 2009
12.2Untitled (Borromini’s Sant’Ivo and the Pantheon, Rome), digital collage, 2010
12.3A Portrait of the Artist writing a PhD, video, 2011
12.4Untitled (Borromini’s baluster at San Carlino, Rome), digital collage, 2010
12.5Poetry makes nothing happen, scaffolding installation at Stadtgalerie Bern, 2006
12.6Poetry makes nothing happen, scaffolding installation at Stadtgalerie Bern, 2006
12.7Poetry makes nothing happen, scaffolding installation at Stadtgalerie Bern, 2006
12.8Untitled (Borromini’s Sant’Ivo and the Pantheon, Rome), digital collage, 2010
12.9Untitled (Borromini’s lantern at San Carlino and its ground plan, Rome), digital collage, 2010
12.10Untitled (Bramante’s San Pietro in Montorio and section of pavilion at Swiss Institute, Rome), digital collage, 2010
12.11Amor Vincit Omnia, scaffolding installation at Swiss Institute, Rome, 2004
12.12rad-nic, digital collage (for scaffolding installation in Prague), 2007
12.13rad-nic, digital collage (for scaffolding installation in Prague), 2007
12.14rad-nic, digital collage (for scaffolding installation in Prague), 2007
12.15Il Tempietto, cut-out at Swiss Institute, Rome, 2005
12.16Il Tempietto, cut-out at Swiss Institute, Rome, 2005
12.17Il Tempietto, cut-out at Swiss Institute, Rome, 2005
13.1Wavelength: Four Human Events
13.2Wavelength: Beginning to End
13.3Wavelength: Section and Plan
13.4Arlene (1994), Transparency 7 (1994)
13.5Map 2b (1996), Standard 3.35 (1999–2000)
13.660+62 [SunFrostWindRainSnow] (2010)
East Croydon Ramp, San Cataldo Cemetery, Roof Smoke Mountains, The Passage, Newham: Slack and Fallow 1, The
13.7
Holly Bush
14.1SE11: Lollard Street looking towards Westminster and the Victoria Tower
14.2SE11: Lambeth Walk: before the renovation
14.3SE11: Lambeth Walk: after the renovation
14.4SE11: Demolition of Sugden House
14.5SE11: Lambeth Walk pedestrian bridges prior to demolition with Sugden House
14.6SE11: Newport Street: National Theatre Workshop
14.7SE11: Damien Hirst’s Science Ltd in Newport Street
CONTRIBUTORS
Editors
Daniel Maudlin is Professor of Modern History, Department of History and Art History, Plymouth
University, UK, where he teaches social and material culture approaches to architectural history. He
previously taught history and cultural theory to architecture students at Plymouth University’s
School of Architecture, Design and Environment. He has also taught at the Universities of Glasgow,
Pennsylvania and St Andrews. He has published widely on the history of buildings, the everyday and
material culture including papers in Journal of Architectural Education, Design History,
Architectural History, Architectural Heritage, Vernacular Architecture and Traditional Dwellings and
Settlements Review. Research awards include a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship
(2013–16), AHRC Research Fellowship (2010–11), Leverhulme Trust Postdoctoral Fellowship (2002–
5) and the 2008 Jeffrey Cooke Prize for outstanding research awarded by the International
Association for the Study of Traditional Environments.
Marcel Vellinga is Reader in Anthropology of Architecture and Director of the Place, Culture and
Identity research group in the School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University. He holds a PhD in
Cultural Anthropology from Leiden University (the Netherlands). His teaching and research are
concerned with the anthropological study of architecture, vernacular architecture and architectural
regeneration. His publications include Atlas of Vernacular Architecture of the World, with Paul
Oliver and Alexander Bridge (Routledge 2007); Vernacular Architecture in the 21st Century: Theory,
Education, and Practice, with Lindsay Asquith (eds) (Taylor and Francis 2006) and Constituting
Unity and Difference: Vernacular Architecture in a Minangkabau Village (KITLV Press 2004) and
various journal articles. Marcel is a Director of the Paul Oliver Vernacular Architecture Library.
Contributors
Anita Aigner is Professor of Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Vienna
University of Technology, Austria. She is an authority on European Modernism and the afterlife of
Modernist housing. Her research interests include the vernacular-isation of Modernist high-style
design, the history of the architectural profession and professional identity, the sociology of
architecture and critical heritage studies.
Stijn Baumers is a researcher at the Department of Architecture, KU Leuven, Belgium. He
received a PhD for his research on architecture and autism, in which he investigated the spatial
interpretation of people with autism spectrum conditions, valuing the expertise of these persons as
an opportunity to enrich the way in which architects deal with (designing) the built environment.
Wouter Bervoets is a researcher in architecture and has worked on diverse projects from social
mix in social housing to spatial structure planning in Flanders, Belgium. He obtained his Masters in
Architecture from Saint-Lucas School of Architecture, Belgium, and his Masters in Urban Planning
from Erasmus University College Brussels. He is currently engaged with research on suburban
housing at the Department of Architecture, KU Leuven, Belgium.
David Cowlard is a photographer, researcher and lecturer at Whitecliffe College of Art & Design in
Auckland, New Zealand. His photographic practice is informed by a long-standing interest in
architectural reportage and the urban landscape. He is widely published internationally and has
extensive experience of working editorially for magazines such as Blueprint as well as directly for
architectural clients and construction companies.
C. Greig Crysler is an Associate Professor of Architecture in the Department of Architecture and
Arcus Chair of Gender, Sexuality and the Built Environment in the College of Environmental Design
at UC Berkeley. He teaches courses on architectural theory and spatial politics in the global present.
He is co-author, with Stephen Cairns and Hilde Heynen, of the Sage Handbook of Architectural
Theory (2012). His first book, Writing Spaces: Discourses of Architecture, Urbanism and the Built
Environment (1960–2000) was published in Routledge’s Architext series in 2003. He is currently at
work on a co-authored book with the cultural geographer Shiloh Krupar, entitled Museum of Waste:
Capital, Ecology, Sovereignty.
Adam Evans is a rapper and graffiti writer. As a member of the Leverhulme-funded International
Research Network ‘Relating Identities: Locality, Region, Nation’, his work explores the tensions,
actions and practices of (sub)culture and (sub)cultural identities with reference to their broader
social and design contexts in Britain and North America. He is a Lecturer at the School of
Architecture, Design and Environment, Plymouth University, UK, where he teaches Critical +
Cultural Contexts and leads a Design Studio. He also runs the independent subculture studio
Project: CEE cultural exploration + engagement.
Lisa Findley is Professor of Architecture at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She
is a registered architect and an active architectural journalist writing for primarily public venues.
She is also the author of the book Building Change: Architecture, Politics, and Cultural Agency
(Routledge 2005) and of numerous essays that explore spatial power and architecture’s position as a
visual and cultural practice in a rapidly changing world, including an essay titled ‘Red and Gold: A
Tale of Two Apartheid Museums’ and, with co-author Liz Ogbu, ‘South Africa: From Township to
Town’.
Ronny Hardliz is an artist trained as an architect at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
Since a residency at the Swiss Institute in Rome his art practice has evolved as both artwork and
architectonic or urban experimentations exploring architecture’s aggregate state beyond fixed form.
He is a PhD candidate at Middlesex University in London and his art research practice has been
exhibited and published internationally. Currently, he is preparing for the first World Ornamental
Forum in Davos, to be held in 2013.
Ann Heylighen is Research Professor at the Faculty of Engineering Science, Department of
Architecture, Research[x]Design, KU Leuven, Belgium. She has also been a visiting research fellow
at the University of California Berkeley and Harvard University. She has held numerous grants and
awards including an ERC Starting and Proof-of-Concept Grant. She is founder and head of AIDA, a
transdisciplinary team of researchers in architecture, design, sociology, anthropology and people
living with disabilities.
Hilde Heynen is Head of the Department of Architecture, Urban Design and Planning, KU Leuven,
Belgium. A renowned authority on twentieth-century architecture, her research interests include
architectural theory, architecture and modernity from a cultural perspective, critical architecture,
domesticity and gender, and urban design in a postcolonial condition.
Mirjana Lozanovska is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture and Building, Deakin
University, Victoria, Australia. Dr Lozanovska investigates the ways that architecture mediates
human dignity and identity through multidisciplinary theories of space. Her current research
focuses upon migration and approaches to architecture that consider national identity and cultural
heritage, including analysis of the village (of emigration) and the city (of immigration).
Malcolm Miles is Professor of Cultural Theory, School of Architecture, Design and Environment,
University of Plymouth, UK. His main research interest is in the development of critical theories of
culture and society since the mid-twentieth century, in relation to contemporary art and urban
change. Within this are questions around the extent to which the utopian content of Modernism can
be salvaged and the need to develop critical theory in a period of global cultures.
Nelson Mota is an architect, lecturer and architectural researcher with the Department of
Architecture, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands. He is a graduate of the University of
Coimbra, Portugal, and holds a MSc degree in Architecture, Territory and Memory from the
University of Coimbra. His research explores the interlocking relation between modernity and the
vernacular in post-war housing design. He is a member of the editorial board and production editor
of the academic journal Footprint.
Liz Ogbu is an American designer, social innovator and expert specialising in sustainable design
and spatial innovation in challenged urban environments. She was a member of the inaugural class
of ‘Innovators in Residence’ at IDEO.org, a nonprofit organisation fostering global poverty reduction
through design. She previously served as Design Director at Public Architecture, a nonprofit
organisation leveraging design to create social change. She is currently a Senior Fellow of the
Design Futures Council and teaches courses on the intersection of social practice and urbanism at
California College of the Arts.
Siddharth Pandey is a researcher in Children’s and English Literature at the Universities of
Cambridge and Delhi, and is a native of the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. His research
has focused on studying the inter-relationships of space, architecture, literature, and visual
aesthetics. He is the recipient of the 2012 Cambridge Commonwealth Scholarship and the 2012
Charles Wallace India Trust grant.