SYLLABUS SEMNINAR II
The Contemporary City
Dr. KATHRIN GOLDA-PONGRATZ
Dr. XAVIER COSTA
Objectives
This seminar aims to offer an introduction to the phenomenon of the contemporary city from an architectural and urbanistic viewpoint. The first series of sessions focus on to the case of Barcelona, starting from the present state and recent projects, gradually going back into history, giving a complete perspective of its urban development.
Term Exercise
The seminar offers a series of lectures to be complemented with a paper that should cover a given topic by developing the necessary research and documentation together with a personal interpretation of the topic.
The paper should be based on research conducted at the library through on-site documentation, and through other sources that should be properly acknowledged. Its extension should not exceed 15 pages and should include the necessary images to accompany the text. The paperwork includes a public presentation in class. At the end of the course, a printed version and a copy on CD has to be handed in.
Grading
Class attendance and participation is mandatory. It accounts for 30% of the final grade.
Paper development, tutorials and oral presentation account for 30% of the final grade.
The final paper accounts for 40% of the grade.
Session 1
Contemporary Barcelona: 2004 – 2008
The first session starts from the present, giving an insight into the contemporary Catalan capital, which is considered as an urban model.
At the beginning of the 21st century, it has to cope with the effects of mass tourism and the definition of its role as a city of “social inclusion” and “proximity” and as a potent European business and service metropolis. Large scale urban transformations mark Barcelona’s western and eastern edges.
Session 2
The Post-Franco years and the democratic renewal: 1979-2004
With the first democratic city government after the war, the city undertakes an ambitious urban transformation that brings together political, cultural, and design parameters into a unique experience that deserves to be observed in detail. Transformative events change the city profile decisively and accompany the shift into the post-industrial era.
Session 3 (outdoor)
A walk through the city
Walking and by metro and tram some emblematic areas and public spaces will be visited that have been presented in the first two sessions.
Session 4
From Cerdà to Le Corbusier
The industrialization of Barcelona is reflected in Ildefons Cerdà’s extension plan, developed in the mid-nineteenth century. The architecture of “modernisme” resulted from this urban transformation. The early twentieth century saw the arrival of Modern urbanism in the form of Le Corbusier’s Macià Plan.
Session 5 (Prof. Dr. Xavier Costa)
Barcelona’ s urban, architectural, and cultural roots
This session is directed at providing a general outline of the city’s history from a contemporary perspective. An introduction to the city’s Roman, Medieval, and Modern periods as they are experienced nowadays.
Session 6
The European city: From 19th to 20thC
I. An introduction to the European context during the period of the large transformations. The European capital cities become metropolis through the operations of Haussmann in Paris, Hobrecht in Berlin, Cerdà in Barcelona, the Vienna Ringstrasse, the and other cases of urban transformation. Art Nouveau as the first independent artistic intent to repond to the changing living conditions in the cities.
II. The European city in the first half of the 20th Century: From Patrick Geddes’ “Survey before plan” to Camillo Sitte’s principles of urban design and the garden city movement to the Corbuserian ville radieuse. The early CIAMs and the culture of the avantgarde. The German and Italian fascist cities.
III. The debate on the city after the Second World War: A renewed interest in public space, collective memory and a profound revision of avantgarde urbanism. Sert, Léger and Giedion on new monumentality, the reconstruction and the urban leitbilder of the 1950s, the emergence of TEAM X as led by the Smithsons. Participation and social criticism in urbanism.
Session 7
Contemporary Utopias
The International Situationist as a group that approximates urbanism, cultural criticism, political activism and artwork. Their proposals for the European city, from Debord’s writings to Constant’s New Babylon project, the Situationist ideas became a diversified basis for new ideas during the 1960s and 70s.
The 1960s is a decade of extraordinary optimism and full of proposals and ideas for the transformation of existing cities: Archigram, Yona Friedman, Haus-Rucker-Co and Coop Himmelblau are among the most radical proposals, contrasting with an emerging historicism in the work of the Italian tendenza, that also focused on the existing city as its main referent.
Session 8
Contemporary sculpture as generator of new public spaces in European metropolitan areas
The session intents to interpret public art according to twelve categories: Experimenting on limits: space – body; Experimenting on limits: space – body – architecture; Experimenting on limits: space – body – landscape; Experimenting on limits: widening the perception by means of reflection; Experimenting on limits: space – built mass; Working on the voids of history; Transforming memory into urban space with political symbolism; Modelling historic space; Rearticulating non-spaces and urban voids; Transforming emptiness into a surface of vibration; Articulating the imagined emptiness between earth and sky.
Session 9
Mapping Cities
Mapping as a tool of urban and territorial analysis is examined and examples presented that go from world maps to maps of small scale urban environments. Particular examples of cartography, anamorphotic, sound mapping and mental mapping are presented, in order to show how the determination of space by social, political and economical processes can be visualized.
Session 10
European Urban Landscapes
Urban landscapes and territorial transformations: The present day situation offers a new complexity that results from less clear distinctions between what is urban and what is non-urban. Categories such as landscape and territorial expansion have become part of the urban discourse.
This session aims at examining the IBA Emscherpark and other examples of large reconversions of industrial areas, as well as other experiences and proposals that reflect this recent shift in approaching the urban phenomenon. Also it focuses on European city networks as large scale territorial proposals.
Session 11
Final presentations
Students work throughout the seminar on a given topic. In addition to some previous discussions and presentations, this session is dedicated to the full presentation of their work.
BIBLIOGRAPHY / COURSE READER
1 Barcelona
Oriol Bohigas, “Architecture in the Emerging Metropolis”. In Michael Raeburn, ed. Homage to Barcelona: The City and Its Art, 1888-1936. London: Thames & Hudson, 1985, pp. 101-109.
Oriol Bohigas, “The Facilities of the Eighties”. In Josep Lluís Mateo, ed. Contemporary Barcelona, 1856-1999. Barcelona: CCCB, 1996, p. 211.
Joan Busquets, “Barcelona, a European city. Another change of scale?”. In: Barcelona. The urban evolution of a compact city. Rovereto: Nicolodi, 2005, pp. 413-444.
Manuel Gausa, “A Lap in Scale: From Urban to Metropolitan Barcelona”. In Josep Lluís Mateo, ed. Contemporary Barcelona, 1856-1999. Barcelona: CCCB, 1996, pp. 225-237.
Kathrin Golda-Pongratz, “Retracing a relation: Barcelona’s role as urban model for Ibero-American metropolis.” In Renate Bornberg, Antje Wemhöner, eds. Imposing European Urban Structures. Trialog N° 93, Darmstadt: Trialog, 2007, pp. 4-11.
Francesc Roca, “From Montjuïc to the World”. In Michael Raeburn, ed. Homage to Barcelona: The City and Its Art, 1888-1936. London: Thames & Hudson, 1985, pp. 133-139.
Peter G. Rowe, “Collective possessions”. In Peter G. Rowe. Building Barcelona. A Second Renaixença: ACTAR, 2006, pp.48-69.
Dietmar Steiner, “Politics or Power”. In Josep Lluís Mateo, ed. Contemporary Barcelona, 1856-1999. Barcelona: CCCB, 1996, pp. 215-218.
2 The European City
Giorgio Agamben, “Baudelaire; or, the Absolute Commodity”. In Stanzas: Word and Phantasm in Western Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minesotta Press, 1993, pp. 41-46.
Tom Avermate, “Urban modernization and vanishing architectural dimensions”. In Another modern. The post-war architecture and urbanism of Candilis-Josic-Woods. Rotterdam: Nai Publishers, 2005, pp. 198-202.
Constant, “The Principle of Disorientation”. In Libero Andreotti & Xavier Costa, eds. Situationists: Art, Politics, Urbanism. Barcelona: MACBA-ACTAR, 1996, pp. 86-87.
Kenneth Frampton. “Le Corbusier and the Ville Radieuse, 1928-46”. In Modern Architecture: A Critical History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 178-185.
Thomas McDonough, “The Dérive and Situationist Paris”. In Libero Andreotti & Xavier Costa, eds. Situationists: Art, Politics, Urbanism. Barcelona: MACBA-ACTAR, 1996, pp. 54-66.
Jochen Schneider, “A Discussion of the Indivisual in the City as Landscape”. In Eduard Bru & Xavier Costa, eds. New Landscapes, New Territories. Barcelona: MACBA-ACTAR, 1997, pp. 170-187.
Josep Lluís Sert, Fernand Léger and Sigfried Giedion, “Nine Points on Monumentality”. In Xavier Costa, ed. Sert: Architect in New York. Barcelona: MACBA-ACTAR, 1997, pp. 14-16.
Alison & Peter Smithson, “Contributions to a fragmentary Utopia”. In Chuihua Judy Chung ed., The charged Void: Urbanism. Alison and Peter Smithson. New York: Monacelli Press, 2005, p. 100.
Peter Zlonicky, “Strategies for Extreme Conditions: The Emscher Park International Building Exhibition”. In Deborah Gans and Claire Weisz, eds. Extreme Sites: The Greening of Brownfield. AD Vol 74 N° 2 March/ April 2004: London: Wiley, 2004, pp. 54-60.
The Contemporary City
Dr. KATHRIN GOLDA-PONGRATZ
Dr. XAVIER COSTA
Objectives
This seminar aims to offer an introduction to the phenomenon of the contemporary city from an architectural and urbanistic viewpoint. The first series of sessions focus on to the case of Barcelona, starting from the present state and recent projects, gradually going back into history, giving a complete perspective of its urban development.
Term Exercise
The seminar offers a series of lectures to be complemented with a paper that should cover a given topic by developing the necessary research and documentation together with a personal interpretation of the topic.
The paper should be based on research conducted at the library through on-site documentation, and through other sources that should be properly acknowledged. Its extension should not exceed 15 pages and should include the necessary images to accompany the text. The paperwork includes a public presentation in class. At the end of the course, a printed version and a copy on CD has to be handed in.
Grading
Class attendance and participation is mandatory. It accounts for 30% of the final grade.
Paper development, tutorials and oral presentation account for 30% of the final grade.
The final paper accounts for 40% of the grade.
Session 1
Contemporary Barcelona: 2004 – 2008
The first session starts from the present, giving an insight into the contemporary Catalan capital, which is considered as an urban model.
At the beginning of the 21st century, it has to cope with the effects of mass tourism and the definition of its role as a city of “social inclusion” and “proximity” and as a potent European business and service metropolis. Large scale urban transformations mark Barcelona’s western and eastern edges.
Session 2
The Post-Franco years and the democratic renewal: 1979-2004
With the first democratic city government after the war, the city undertakes an ambitious urban transformation that brings together political, cultural, and design parameters into a unique experience that deserves to be observed in detail. Transformative events change the city profile decisively and accompany the shift into the post-industrial era.
Session 3 (outdoor)
A walk through the city
Walking and by metro and tram some emblematic areas and public spaces will be visited that have been presented in the first two sessions.
Session 4
From Cerdà to Le Corbusier
The industrialization of Barcelona is reflected in Ildefons Cerdà’s extension plan, developed in the mid-nineteenth century. The architecture of “modernisme” resulted from this urban transformation. The early twentieth century saw the arrival of Modern urbanism in the form of Le Corbusier’s Macià Plan.
Session 5 (Prof. Dr. Xavier Costa)
Barcelona’ s urban, architectural, and cultural roots
This session is directed at providing a general outline of the city’s history from a contemporary perspective. An introduction to the city’s Roman, Medieval, and Modern periods as they are experienced nowadays.
Session 6
The European city: From 19th to 20thC
I. An introduction to the European context during the period of the large transformations. The European capital cities become metropolis through the operations of Haussmann in Paris, Hobrecht in Berlin, Cerdà in Barcelona, the Vienna Ringstrasse, the and other cases of urban transformation. Art Nouveau as the first independent artistic intent to repond to the changing living conditions in the cities.
II. The European city in the first half of the 20th Century: From Patrick Geddes’ “Survey before plan” to Camillo Sitte’s principles of urban design and the garden city movement to the Corbuserian ville radieuse. The early CIAMs and the culture of the avantgarde. The German and Italian fascist cities.
III. The debate on the city after the Second World War: A renewed interest in public space, collective memory and a profound revision of avantgarde urbanism. Sert, Léger and Giedion on new monumentality, the reconstruction and the urban leitbilder of the 1950s, the emergence of TEAM X as led by the Smithsons. Participation and social criticism in urbanism.
Session 7
Contemporary Utopias
The International Situationist as a group that approximates urbanism, cultural criticism, political activism and artwork. Their proposals for the European city, from Debord’s writings to Constant’s New Babylon project, the Situationist ideas became a diversified basis for new ideas during the 1960s and 70s.
The 1960s is a decade of extraordinary optimism and full of proposals and ideas for the transformation of existing cities: Archigram, Yona Friedman, Haus-Rucker-Co and Coop Himmelblau are among the most radical proposals, contrasting with an emerging historicism in the work of the Italian tendenza, that also focused on the existing city as its main referent.
Session 8
Contemporary sculpture as generator of new public spaces in European metropolitan areas
The session intents to interpret public art according to twelve categories: Experimenting on limits: space – body; Experimenting on limits: space – body – architecture; Experimenting on limits: space – body – landscape; Experimenting on limits: widening the perception by means of reflection; Experimenting on limits: space – built mass; Working on the voids of history; Transforming memory into urban space with political symbolism; Modelling historic space; Rearticulating non-spaces and urban voids; Transforming emptiness into a surface of vibration; Articulating the imagined emptiness between earth and sky.
Session 9
Mapping Cities
Mapping as a tool of urban and territorial analysis is examined and examples presented that go from world maps to maps of small scale urban environments. Particular examples of cartography, anamorphotic, sound mapping and mental mapping are presented, in order to show how the determination of space by social, political and economical processes can be visualized.
Session 10
European Urban Landscapes
Urban landscapes and territorial transformations: The present day situation offers a new complexity that results from less clear distinctions between what is urban and what is non-urban. Categories such as landscape and territorial expansion have become part of the urban discourse.
This session aims at examining the IBA Emscherpark and other examples of large reconversions of industrial areas, as well as other experiences and proposals that reflect this recent shift in approaching the urban phenomenon. Also it focuses on European city networks as large scale territorial proposals.
Session 11
Final presentations
Students work throughout the seminar on a given topic. In addition to some previous discussions and presentations, this session is dedicated to the full presentation of their work.
BIBLIOGRAPHY / COURSE READER
1 Barcelona
Oriol Bohigas, “Architecture in the Emerging Metropolis”. In Michael Raeburn, ed. Homage to Barcelona: The City and Its Art, 1888-1936. London: Thames & Hudson, 1985, pp. 101-109.
Oriol Bohigas, “The Facilities of the Eighties”. In Josep Lluís Mateo, ed. Contemporary Barcelona, 1856-1999. Barcelona: CCCB, 1996, p. 211.
Joan Busquets, “Barcelona, a European city. Another change of scale?”. In: Barcelona. The urban evolution of a compact city. Rovereto: Nicolodi, 2005, pp. 413-444.
Manuel Gausa, “A Lap in Scale: From Urban to Metropolitan Barcelona”. In Josep Lluís Mateo, ed. Contemporary Barcelona, 1856-1999. Barcelona: CCCB, 1996, pp. 225-237.
Kathrin Golda-Pongratz, “Retracing a relation: Barcelona’s role as urban model for Ibero-American metropolis.” In Renate Bornberg, Antje Wemhöner, eds. Imposing European Urban Structures. Trialog N° 93, Darmstadt: Trialog, 2007, pp. 4-11.
Francesc Roca, “From Montjuïc to the World”. In Michael Raeburn, ed. Homage to Barcelona: The City and Its Art, 1888-1936. London: Thames & Hudson, 1985, pp. 133-139.
Peter G. Rowe, “Collective possessions”. In Peter G. Rowe. Building Barcelona. A Second Renaixença: ACTAR, 2006, pp.48-69.
Dietmar Steiner, “Politics or Power”. In Josep Lluís Mateo, ed. Contemporary Barcelona, 1856-1999. Barcelona: CCCB, 1996, pp. 215-218.
2 The European City
Giorgio Agamben, “Baudelaire; or, the Absolute Commodity”. In Stanzas: Word and Phantasm in Western Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minesotta Press, 1993, pp. 41-46.
Tom Avermate, “Urban modernization and vanishing architectural dimensions”. In Another modern. The post-war architecture and urbanism of Candilis-Josic-Woods. Rotterdam: Nai Publishers, 2005, pp. 198-202.
Constant, “The Principle of Disorientation”. In Libero Andreotti & Xavier Costa, eds. Situationists: Art, Politics, Urbanism. Barcelona: MACBA-ACTAR, 1996, pp. 86-87.
Kenneth Frampton. “Le Corbusier and the Ville Radieuse, 1928-46”. In Modern Architecture: A Critical History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 178-185.
Thomas McDonough, “The Dérive and Situationist Paris”. In Libero Andreotti & Xavier Costa, eds. Situationists: Art, Politics, Urbanism. Barcelona: MACBA-ACTAR, 1996, pp. 54-66.
Jochen Schneider, “A Discussion of the Indivisual in the City as Landscape”. In Eduard Bru & Xavier Costa, eds. New Landscapes, New Territories. Barcelona: MACBA-ACTAR, 1997, pp. 170-187.
Josep Lluís Sert, Fernand Léger and Sigfried Giedion, “Nine Points on Monumentality”. In Xavier Costa, ed. Sert: Architect in New York. Barcelona: MACBA-ACTAR, 1997, pp. 14-16.
Alison & Peter Smithson, “Contributions to a fragmentary Utopia”. In Chuihua Judy Chung ed., The charged Void: Urbanism. Alison and Peter Smithson. New York: Monacelli Press, 2005, p. 100.
Peter Zlonicky, “Strategies for Extreme Conditions: The Emscher Park International Building Exhibition”. In Deborah Gans and Claire Weisz, eds. Extreme Sites: The Greening of Brownfield. AD Vol 74 N° 2 March/ April 2004: London: Wiley, 2004, pp. 54-60.
