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Editorial
Get PDFThe lion’s share of both social and commercial housing is produced without the ambition to be innovative. This is nothing new, but as more and more commissioning is done by market parties and nearly everyone is paying lip service to the ‘articulate consumer’, attempts to reflect what is deemed to be familiar and recognizable, be it a new ‘garrison town’, a ‘1930s’ neighbourhood’ or a ‘castle’, have risen exponentially in recent times.
Architects, too, seem to be more and more interested in an architecture of housing that references images from the past rather than the future. Some recent publications go as far as to speak of a new trend in architecture that rejects the insidious and dogmatic rise of modernism in the profession. It seems to be touching a nerve: reactions from either side are heated and dismissive, with the two camps engaged in what seems to be a black-and-white polemic that leaves little space for nuance. But what surprises most is the implication that this debate is new.
This return to the architectural past is not a new phenomenon. At many moments in the history of architecture, designers have harked back to old styles and building methods: in protest against prevailing views, as a means to innovation or out of sheer nostalgia for past times. This harking back has seldom gone unchallenged. Attempts to replicate old forms in contemporary materials, especially, have often provoked derision in the field, be it the early nineteenth-century Gothic Revival, the work of the Delft School in the twentieth century or today’s ‘new traditionalism’.
Through the essays and project documentation in this issue, DASH seeks to place today’s debate in a broader perspective. Again, this is part of a long tradition: from the theoretical underpinnings of the Arts and Crafts movement by Charles Robert Ashbee and William Lethaby, the writings of M.J. Granpré Molière, to the postmodern reorientation on the past during the 1970s and 1980s (see, for example, ‘De hang naar het verleden in de architectuur’ (The predilection for the past in architecture), Wonen TA/BK, no. 16 (1978); ‘La Presenza del Passato’ (The presence of the past) – the title of the first Venice Biennale in 1980 and the critical regionalism of Alexander Tzonis & Liane Lefaivre and Kenneth Frampton in the 1990s). In different times and under different circumstances, the relationship to the architectural past keeps coming up for debate.
In the opening article Dick van Gameren traces the parallels between several historical approaches from the previous century, which are also explored in the project documentation. This is followed by a number of essays that take a closer look at various periods from that architectural past. Wolfgang Voigt describes the work of the ‘traditional modernist’ Paul Schmitthenner in pre-Second World War Germany, while Cor Wagenaar argues that both the traditionalists of the Delft School and the early modernists saw themselves as an inevitable product of history. In a comparative study of Italian neorealism and the working methods of Alvaro Siza, Nelson Mota examines the relevance of critical re(gion)alism in this era. An interview with two generations of Bedaux architects and a critical analysis by Dirk Baalman of the nineteenth-century concept of ‘character’ in architecture mark the transition to the plan documentation, featuring work by Baillie Scott, Schmitthenner, Van Wamelen, Roggeveen, Ridolfi, Spoerry, Mecanoo, Krier, Bedaux and West 8/AWG.Het leeuwendeel van de woningbouwproductie in zowel sociale als commerciële ontwikkeling komt tot stand zonder de ambitie vernieuwend te zijn. Dit is van alle tijden, maar met het verschuiven van een steeds groter aandeel van het opdrachtgeverschap naar marktpartijen en de door vrijwel iedereen beleden zeggenschap van ‘de klant’, hebben pogingen om direct aan te sluiten bij wat bekend en herkenbaar wordt verondersteld, recentelijk een grote vlucht genomen: van nieuwe ‘vestingstad’ tot ‘jaren dertig wijk’ of ‘kasteel’.
Ook onder architecten lijkt in toenemende mate belangstelling voor een woningbouwarchitectuur, die eerder aan uit het verleden bekende beelden dan aan de toekomst appelleert. Enkele recente publicaties suggereren zelfs dat er sprake is van een nieuwe architectuurstroming, die zich af zou zetten tegen het dogmatisch en onafgebroken voortwoekerend modernisme van vakgenoten. Dit lijkt een gevoelige snaar te raken: reacties zijn over en weer fel en afwijzend, alsof twee kampen verwikkeld zijn in een zwart/wit polemiek met weinig ruimte voor nuance. Wat daarbij verbaast, is de suggestie dat deze discussie nieuw is.
Terugkeer naar het architectonisch verleden is geen nieuw verschijnsel. Op vele momenten in de geschiedenis van de architectuur is teruggegrepen naar oude vormen of bouwwijzen: als protest tegen dan dominante opvattingen, als middel om juist een vernieuwing tot stand te brengen of louter uit nostalgie naar vroeger tijden. Ook was dit teruggrijpen zelden onomstreden. Vooral pogingen om oude vormen in hedendaagse materialen te repliceren, hebben vaak de hoon van de vakwereld opgewekt. Of het nu gaat om de vroeg negentiende-eeuwse neogotiek, het werk van de Delftse School uit de twintigste eeuw of het hedendaagse ‘nieuwe traditionalisme’.
In de essays en projectdocumentatie van deze uitgave wil DASH het hedendaagse debat in een breder perspectief plaatsen. Ook dit sluit aan op een lange traditie: van de theoretische onderbouwingen van de Arts and Crafts-beweging door Charles Robert Ashbee en William Lethaby, de teksten van M.J. Granpré Molière, de postmoderne heroriëntatie op het verleden in de jaren 1970-1980 (zie o.a. ‘De hang naar het verleden in de architectuur’, Wonen TA/BK, nr. 16 (1978); ‘La Presenza del Passato’ (‘De aanwezigheid van het verleden’) – titel van de eerste biënnale van Venetië in 1980 en het kritisch regionalisme van Alexander Tzonis & Liane Lefaivre en Kenneth Frampton in de jaren 1990. Steeds opnieuw is vanuit verschillende tijden en omstandigheden de verhouding tot het architectonisch verleden aan de orde gesteld.
In het openingsartikel trekt Dick van Gameren een rode draad langs diverse op het gebouwde verleden gebaseerde benaderingen uit de afgelopen eeuw, die tevens aan bod komen in de projectdocumentatie. Aansluitend volgt een aantal essays, dat nader ingaat op diverse perioden uit dat verleden. Zo beschrijft Wolfgang Voigt het werk van de ‘traditionele modernist’ Paul Schmitthenner in het Duitsland van voor de Tweede Wereldoorlog en betoogt Cor Wagenaar dat zowel de traditionalisten van onder meer de Delftse School, als de vroege modernisten zichzelf beschouwden als een onontkoombare uitkomst van de geschiedenis. Nelson Mota onderzoekt in een vergelijk tussen het Italiaanse neorealisme en de werkwijze van Alvaro Siza de relevantie van het kritisch re(gion)alisme in deze tijd. Een interview met twee generaties architecten Bedaux en een kritische beschouwing van Dirk Baalman over het negentiende-eeuwse begrip ‘karakter’ in de architectuur markeren de overgang naar de plandocumentatie, met werk van Baillie Scott, Schmitthenner, Van Wamelen, Roggeveen, Ridolfi, Spoerry, Mecanoo, Krier, Bedaux en West 8/AWG
Multiscale spatial contexts and neighbourhood effects
Get PDFThis thesis has developed alternative methods of operationalising neighbourhoods at multiple spatial scales and used them to advance our understanding of spatial inequalities and neighbourhood effects. The underlying problem that motivated this thesis is that many empirical studies use predefined administrative units, and this does not often align with the underlying theory or geography. Despite the extensive literature on neighbourhood effects and, more generally, on sociospatial inequalities, spatial scale remains an under-analysed concept. As a response to this research gap, this thesis takes a multiscale approach to both theory and empirical analysis of neighbourhood effects, highlighting the multitude of spatial processes that may affect individual outcomes of people. To operationalise this, we created bespoke areas (centred around each location) at a range of one hundred scales representing people’s residential contexts, primarily in the Netherlands but also in multiple European capitals. Using microgeographic data and a large number of scales combined with small distance increments revealed subtle changes in sociodemographic characteristics across space. In doing so, we provided new insights into ethnic segregation, potential exposures to poverty, and neighbourhood effects on income, all in light of the fundamental issue of spatial scale: The analyses of sociospatial inequalities are substantially affected by the scale used to operationalise spatial context, and this varies within and between cities and urban regions. The aim of this thesis was therefore not to find a single, ‘true’ scale of neighbourhood, but to acknowledge, operationalise, and better understand the multiplicity of spatial scales
Portuguese Architecture in Transit(ion): the 1967 International Competition for Amsterdam Town Hall
Get PDFIn the final years of the Estado Novo regime (1933–1974), the Amsterdam Town Hall International Competition of 1967 presents the opportunity for seven teams of Portuguese architects to confront their own reality and rehearse distinct visions of building and city. From a national context, politically and geographically distant from the heart of the disciplinary debate of the 1960s, the proposals submitted set the terms on which Portugal competes in Amsterdam, revealing in the diversity of approaches and experiences forwarded by this new generation of architects the vitality of Portuguese architecture on its path to internationalisation.
This article retraces the Portuguese participation in the Amsterdam Town Hall Competition to refute the generalised idea of cultural mismatch with the European scene of the time and assesses the impact of this particular event on the transition of Portuguese architecture to international recognition, an impact that Portuguese architecture historiography has to this day completely ignored
Pools, Carparks and Ball-pits: Or why the Notre Dame restoration competition is a meme
Get PDFThe first restoration proposals to emerge after fire destroyed Notre Dame Cathedral’s roof and spire were jokes. The more serious schemes that followed Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s announcement of a competition – many markedly similar, recreating what was lost in glass– were collected on mainstream design media websites like Dezeen where they attracted an unusually high volume of angry comments, accusing the architects of insensitivity. Soon after, Ulf Mejergren Architects’ proposal to replace Notre Dame’s roof with a meditative pool was edited into a carpark. It sparked a series of increasingly outlandish edits – first a multi-story carpark, then a ball pit – before the French Senate declared that there would be no competition after all. This at times absurd online interest might be new for architectural competitions, but it is easily explained through meme theory, as conceived of by scholars like Limor Shifman and Ryan Milner: systems of interconnected units of cultural exchange operating on both wider cultural and specific sub-cultural levels. In this essay I contend that meme theory can be used, in reverse, to analyse reactions to, and similarities between, even the most serious Notre Dame proposals. In applying this framework, we can begin to understand how competitions operate more broadly as part of a complex network online and how they relate to traditional competition conditions.  
Manipulating matter with a snap of your fingers: A touch of Thanos in colloid science
Get PDFBeing able to manipulate matter has been a long-standing goal in material science. Would it not be amazing if we could control matter on the grand scale that Thanos does when in possession of the Infinity Stones in Avengers: Infinity War? In this paper, we evaluate how far mankind has come in the pursuit of Thanos-like matter manipulation powers. As the properties of everyday objects are directly linked to the spatial organization of the elementary building blocks on the micro- or even nano-scale, control on these length scales is crucial. In this respect, the use of colloids is a promising strategy. Colloids are characterized by dimensions in between those of atoms and macroscopic objects such as a chemistry textbook and your smartphone. Although colloidal particles are small enough to display behaviour reminiscent of that of atoms and molecules, they are big enough for scientists to manipulate them on the single-particle level. By playing with the shape and chemistry of these colloids, materials that are sensitive to external triggers, such as light or temperature, can be created. By controlling the trigger, the colloidal matter can be manipulated, formed, or destroyed. Clearly, at the microscale, we can compete with Thanos, even without the Infinity Stones
Foray in a Modern Reserve: An Impounding Portrait of Land Use
Get PDFDuring research for the Arts Council funded project East Sussex Modern (2016), Photolanguage (Nigel Green & Robin Wilson), visited sites relating to the legacy of the modernist Borough and Water Engineer Sidney Little (1885-1961) in the county of East Sussex, U.K.. These included the impounding reservoirs of Powdermill (1932) and Darwell (1949). The landscapes surrounding the reservoirs have evolved into mature woodland nature reserves and represent complex terrains of land-use and property ownership. ‘Foray in a Modern Reserve’ (Part I), an image and text ‘portrait’ and re-imagining of these terrains, is a composite text, an assemblage of diverse texts of occupiers and users of these terrains over time, from Photolanguage’s own observations made on site visits, to the archival records of Sidney Little’s description of the reservoir infrastructure, to the accounts of UCL archaeologists, Angling and Ramblers clubs and local landowners. It is a vehicle through which to explore an experimental method of spatial writing at the intersection of archival research, visual and textual documentary practice, and visual and textual fiction-practice. Imagery interplays with the text’s narrative structure to generate its own narrative and descriptive trajectories. Through the combination of different modes of the landscape’s description, through its successive spatialization across different agendas of movement and occupation, ‘Foray in a Modern Reserve’ constructs a utopic portrait of the modern reservoir reserve. As a composite text, it traces the intersection and dispersal of desire and agency across the terrain as an ‘inspection’ that must discover and construct its own object, and propose its own figural ‘solution’ to the landscape’s latent equations. 
On sustainable delta development: Sustainable coastal adaptation is possible - Water as catalyst for sustainable development
No full textThe main ingredient of Delta Urbanism is the dialogue. The integration of concepts, ideas, language and measures can only be done through conscious exchange in continuous dialogue. This is not taken lightly, just exchange is not good enough, a solid dialogue is conscious and supported by methods that orchestrate steps, information and design.
Therefore a section in which dialogue between two professionals is presented is essential to this journal. The exchange is directed through writing and editing, taking time to think responses through and position clearly in the dialogue.
This issue represents the dialogue between Bas Jonkman and Henk Ovink who continue the dialogue that they started as keynote speakers at the conference of Delta Urbanism in times of climate crisis in March 2020
Architectural Record 1942-1967: Chapters from the history of an architectural magazine
Get PDFThis PhD thesis examines the editorial policies and publishing history of the American periodical Architectural Record in the quarter century from 1942 to 1967. Operating since 1891, the Architectural Record is the longest-living and most circulated professional magazine of architecture, with a strong and lasting impact on the development of the discipline and the profession in the US and abroad. As an archive of architectural knowledge, its history during the mid-20th century is revealing the paradigm shift that occurred in-between the emergence of Modernism in pre-war Europe and its transition to Post-Modernism in the second half of the 20th c., as a largely American issue. The success and influence of the magazine was due to the resources of its parent corporations, F.W. Dodge and McGraw-Hill, its support and acknowledgement by professional and academic organizations and the connections, commitment and inventiveness of its editors. The editorial campaigns of the magazine trace the struggle for the adaptation of the modern movement in the American context and through that to its subsequent global eminence as “contemporary architecture,” a term popularised by the Record.
In the midst of the media revolution, the architectural magazines saw the transformation of the profession to an information-based business, beyond an art and an engineering science. At a time when “architectural composition” was redefined into “architectural design.” Amongst the greater media revolution emerging aggressively in the US, the Architectural Record undertook the task of catering for the needs of the practising architect in the post-industrial, managerial and information age. And while initially the magazines were following the architectural developments, reporting on literal images of architecture, by 1967 its editors were educating, managing, consulting and navigating the profession trough its new markets. This trajectory pinackled in the Record\u27s editorial campaign for “the image of the architect” that exemplified the phenomenon of how magazines were lobbying for the profession. A phenomenon that is still largely inexplored and that defines 21st architectural practice and design.
But more than any theoretical sub-narrative, this thesis is dedicated to the history of the people and events that took place behind the pages of this era-defining magazine through the archives and living records of their time
Redactioneel
No full textA growing awareness of the necessity to use resources and social capital more sustainably has put the transformation of existing housing high on the agenda of developers and architects. In the Netherlands, attention is mostly focussed on postwar residential buildings, which for technical reasons alone are due to be refurbished.
But the assignment is not just a technical one: changing dwelling habits mean that the space and configuration of the existing housing stock no longer meet current requirements, while from a sustainable, practical or cultural point of view, the buildings are worth keeping. When current target groups require truly different dwelling arrangements, the challenge becomes even more interesting. In the ‘clash’ between old and new housing programmes, social changes suddenly become apparent as coagulated images of time.
At the level of the city, or something as elusive as ‘the memory of the city’, transformation as an alternative for demolition and new construction can also have a positive effect.Een groeiend bewustzijn om duurzamer met grondstoffen en sociaal kapitaal om te gaan, zet de transformatie van de bestaande woningvoorraad als belangrijke opgave in de agenda van ontwikkelaars en architecten. In Nederland is de aandacht daarbij vooral gericht op de naoorlogse woningbouw, die alleen al om technische redenen aan een onderhoudsbeurt toe is.
Maar de opgave is niet alleen technisch van aard: veranderde woonwensen maken bestaande woningen qua grootte en indeling ongeschikt, terwijl de gebouwen vanuit duurzaamheid, praktische of culturele redenen het behouden waard zijn. Interessanter wordt het, wanneer bovendien een werkelijk ander woonprogramma wordt gevraagd, voor andere doelgroepen. In de ‘botsing’ tussen oude en nieuwe programma’s komen maatschappelijke veranderingen ineens als gestolde tijdsbeelden naar voren.
Ook op het niveau van de stad, of zoiets ongrijpbaars als ‘het geheugen van de stad’ kan transformatie als alternatief voor sloop/ nieuwbouw een positief effect teweegbrengen
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