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Antimonies of Colonization: Studies of Pittsburgh and Washington |
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Jacek Dominiczak
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an.tin.o.my
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n.pl. -mies. 1. Opposition; contradiction. 2. Contradiction between inferences or principles that seem equally necessary and reasonable. [Latin antinomia, from Greek: ANTI- +nomos, law] |
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Introduction This text appears in an architectural journal - an emphatic event in the culture. This event could be perceived in at least two ways: as a thoughtful compilation of authors' monologues that refer to (interesting) subjects, or as preparation for a promising dialogue. These two interpretations may create a sequence, but a precise comparison of monologue and dialogue does not allow for their simultaneity. Each form requires significantly different text constructions. A monologic interpretation asks for a particularly clear presentation; with a thesis and discussion following. The dialogic interpretation asks for a particular openness describing a thinking process and its possible conclusions. The idea of dialogue is part of the following text. Therefore, an intention of the text itself is as an exercise in dialogic composition. It is a meditative probe rather than a proof, presented in three parts: Part 1: Architectural Colonization attempts to recognize the structure of colonization and its possible application to architectural thinking; Part 2: Case Studies: Pittsburgh and Washington, presents a case of colonization in urban design; and in conclusion, Part 3: The Architectural Event: Learning From Colonization, proposes a strategy for architectural thinking. The word colonization has at least two immediate connotations: a fear of political, economic, or cultural violence, and the promise of a new beginning in which everything evil will disappear, and everything that is good will remain. But fear and promise of colonization also have different dimensions: they do not necessarily relate to political violence against nations, or social promises to new societies. The common life of others' ideas, others' cultures and beliefs, challenges an individuals' intellectual freedom and independence. Identification of the antinomic meaning of the same word "colonization", and a recognition of its many human dimensions, suggests that when the Colonist arrives somewhere, whomever he or she is, nothing will remain the same, everything will be questioned. A process of change will begin, directed by an antinomy of promise and fear. The Colonist's Questions Arriving in a new place, questions immediately arise. The Colonist asks:
Through these questions the Colonist becomes the Discoverer (Am I the first to see this place?) and the Alien (Who inhabits this place?), the Intruder (How different are they from me?) and the Invader (Are they stronger than me?). As the Discoverer and as the Alien, the Colonist is a polite foreigner who asks questions as an unexpected visitor arriving in others' lives. As the Intruder and as the Invader, the Colonist is an arrogant warrior for whom every place is his or hers, and who asks questions about others as though they arrived in his or her life, and not the other way around. But responses to all of these questions are outside the Colonist's realm: only those who never came here, or those who already inhabited the place seem to possess all of the answers. The Colonized's Questions When the Colonists arrive in a place, questions also arise in the minds of the Colonized:
Asking these questions the Colonized becomes the Guide (Do you know where you are?) and the Host (Do you need a place to stay?), the Owner (What do you want from me?) and the Citizen (What are you doing in my place?). As the Guide and as the Host, the Colonized asks questions as if he/she is met by needy foreigners. As the Owner and as the Citizen, the Colonized asks questions as if he/she is met by dangerous strangers. But for all of these questions, the responses are how outside the Colonized's realm: those who come here seem to possess all of the answers. Ethic(s) Questioned There is a distinct difference between the Colonist and the Colonized. Between settling down (changing not only your, but also somebody else's, life), and welcoming the Other (changing not only his or her, but also your own life); between passing by (living somebody else's life unchanged), and closing a door (maintaining your own routines). For both, the distinction touches the most sensitive relations between freedom and dependence; between freedom as the dialogic ability to respond to the Other, and dependence as inability to withdraw from oneself. Colonization indispensably includes I and the Other, and opens for both the Colonist and the Colonized, a promise and carefulness of connecting dialogue, or a destituteness and oppression of isolating separated monologues. Each must choose the right questions, even if their questions are different. Therefore, for both the Colonist and the Colonized, colonization appears to be a question about the Other. Ultimately, the Colonist/Colonized relationship becomes a question about ethics. Culture(s) Questioned The ethical primacy of the Other's question creates an asymmetry in the dialogue between I and the Other. This asymmetry may be dramatically reduced by irresponsibility to the Other's question, non-ability-to-respond to its call, and consequently, remains in the routine of symmetrical monologues of two solitary I. Ethical solutions for the Colonist-Colonized relationship are warped by different cultural formulas that form different concepts of human civilization and civilized acts. At this very moment, what is interpersonal becomes intercultural, and simultaneously defines a broader sense of colonization. Therefore, the problem of colonization requires another layer of responsible (able-to-respond) dialogues, this time between different cultural essences. These essences are primarily concepts and antinomies of time, space, and communication. Considering past and present civilizations, cultural formulas creating a fear of abusive colonization are mostly based on reducing the idea of responsible dialogues to an exchange of irresponsible monologues. In this process, the concept of time is often reduced to the concept of history with its primacy of memory and continuation; the concept of space is often reduced to the problem of preservation and improvement; and the concept of communication is often reduced to the promotion of certain beliefs and values. in this reduced situation the one who is more important is a person-(culture)-with-attributes: those who have been the first in the place (memory and continuation), or those who now live in the place (preservation and improvement), or those who represent the better future for the place (beliefs and values). With this reduction of the concepts of time, space, and communication, reduction caused by non-ability-to-respond, the problem of colonization remains unsolved and may only be maintained in its totality. In discussion with Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas stated that: "The thought of the end of philosophy remains within the neutralization of the infinite and the maintenance of the totality.1" To go beyond a totality of an abusive colonization, is to choose the infinity of a dialogue between the unreduced concepts of time and space, and unreduced communication. Therefore, the desirable ethical solution(s) for the problem of colonization becomes accessible only through dialogic approach to the cultural diversity. Case Studies: Pittsburgh and Washington Analyzing the form of a city plan, one questions the possibility of using a concept of architectural dialogue as a method of understanding the space of the American city. The plan of the American city of Pittsburgh appears to be a very promising example in this search: complicated, compositionally ambiguous, highly related to the natural formations of hills, valleys, slopes and rivers. Centre Avenue vs. Fifth and Forbes Avenues One of the relatively unimportant streets in the contemporary image of Pittsburgh has a very prominent name: Centre Avenue. The criterion of a center is not related to functional importance of the street in the city: Centre Avenue is partly perceived as a internal street of The Hill neighborhood (the western part of the street), partly as a parallel street to a significant traffic corridor (the eastern part of the street). The main functional spine of the city is primarily defined by Fifth and Forbes Avenues on the South side of The Hill, next to the Monongahela River, and secondarily by Penn and Liberty Avenues on the north side of The Hill, along the Allegheny River. Why, therefore, is Centre Avenue named Centre? Centre Avenue: Geometrical Position in the Plan of the City Are the characteristics of a center related to the spatial organization of Pittsburgh's plan? The analysis of the geometrical position of Centre Avenue in the plan of the city uncovers a central axis through the triangle defined by the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. The avenue's position is also strongly related to the main public buildings of the city: the City-County Building and the Courthouse and Jail. Two interpretations of the placement of Centre Avenue in the area of The Hill District are particularly significant. Analyzing the structure of the local grid of The Hill District, Centre Avenue shifts from one grid line to another, creating, like Manhattan's Broadway, one major street that does not belong to the geometrical order of the grid. The spatial organization of The Hill section of Centre Avenue in relation to its overall layout, appears as a sinusoidal balancing of the street on both sides of the geometrical axis. In this interpretation, Centre Avenue does not belong to The Hill District grid - rather, it is imposed upon it. The Hidden Compositional Code Generated by Centre Avenue Centre Avenue could be interpreted as a generator of the compositional code of a major part of the city. This code includes important elements of the city such as:
Thinking about Washington, D.C. Designed in 1791, L'Enfant's Plan for Washington, D.C. was conceived as a principle geometrical structure that define positions of almost every element of the city. "In size, the new town dwarfed all others that had heretofore been projected in America. Its highly unusual plan introduced to America new concepts of city design and influenced the layouts of many later cities.2" The Hidden Compositional Code Generated by Centre Avenue The primary construction of the Washington axis, located between the Potomac River and the Anacostia River, precisely defines positions of:
The Architecture Colonized, The Architecture Colonist? Studying the spatial organization of the city of Pittsburgh and searching for the Compositional Code of the city's formation, it is possible to recognize some intriguing similarities with the plan of Washington, D.C. 1. Location Both cities are located in a similar formation of the natural landscape: the node of converging rivers. 2. City Limits Parts of both cities' limit lines are purely geometrical: the three sides of the Washington plan, and the east line in Pittsburgh, located between the two rivers. 3. Main Composition Both cities' main compositions are geometrical, based on the idea of an urban axis located in close proximity to the fork of the rivers. The length of both axes are divided into two parts. In Pittsburgh, there are curved parts located on a hill, and straight parts on the flat eastern area. In Washington they are the areas of the Mall on the western side of the Capitol, and the street on the eastern side of the Capitol (see the previous enlargements, which are marked on the drawings by large rectangles). 4. Hidden Compositional Code: the urban structure The main lines of the compositional code of the plans' tight geometries of both axes to the city limits lines and to the geometrical interpretation of the formation of the rivers. 5. Hidden Compositional Code: the urban interior. There are a number of similarities between the two plans:
How can we interpret and use the information about the Pittsburgh/Washington similarities in architectural/urban design? What value can these have for architects and urban designers? How can we include this information in an architectural database? Are we correct in perceiving it as a necessary part of professional knowledge? An Historical Questioning The recognition of structural similarities between architectural events always generates the most common question: what is the historical truth of a recognized phenomenon? To answer this question requires historical methods of investigation which, in general, are focused on finding a proof that someone intentionally designed these similarities or, at least, that they are not coincidental. If this process of historical investigation leads us to a statement that the studied similarities are historical facts, or at least proven by methodologically historical studies, there will be a set of associated architectural actions. We would probably agree that the city form should somehow remember them - the historical question requires memory. It is then possible to discuss whether or not we should continue the discovered idea of similarity or relationship. Here, the historical question has no requirements and allows us to do both: pursue ideas that are somehow contemporary, and discontinue ideas marked by an old zeitgeist. Both arguments: the contemporary and zeitgeist are parts of an historically oriented questioning and understanding of the world. If historical studies convince us that the similarities are coincidental or at least that there are no historically documented events that could generate similarities, then we should abandon any design implementations based on the recognized similarities - at least as a gesture of historical opposition to falsification of historical facts and disagreement with an idea of historical illusion. A Philosophical Question In Truth and Method,3 Hans-Georg Gadamer writes: "Every work of art, not only literature, must be understood like any other text that requires understanding, and this kind of understanding has to be acquired.4" Fundamental for this hermeneutic approach is an experience of the close relation between understanding and questioning.5 The act of questioning is built upon two layers: historical and philosophical. If a desire for historical understanding tends to reconstruct the question to which the text is intended to be an answer, philosophical understanding tends to define the question for which the text is actually an answer. Gadamer writes, "Just as the events of history do not in general manifest any agreement with the subjective ideas of the person who stands and acts within history, so the sense of a text in general reaches far beyond what its author originally intended. The task of understanding is concerned above all with the meaning of the text itself... We must remember that the question we are concerned to reconstruct has to do not with the mental experiences of the author but simply with the meaning of the text itself. Thus if we have understood the meaning of the sentence - i.e., have reconstructed the question to which it really is the answer - it must be possible to inquire also about the questioner and his intended question, to which the text is perhaps only an imagined answer. Understanding a text does not generally involve such a distinction if we are concerned with the subject matter of which the text speaks. Reconstructing the author's ideas is quite a different task.6" Therefore the recognition of structural similarities between architectural events also generates, parallel to a historical question, a philosophical question that asks for a philosophical truth: the architectural sense of similarities themselves, independent of the proofs of intentions, design, or pure coincidence. The nature of a philosophical question and our previous mediations about architectural discourse as a mirror of the Colonist/the Colonized discourse allows us to formulate a promising architectural interpretation. In this interpretation, the plan of Washington becomes the Architectural Colonist in the space of Pittsburgh, a foreigner who arrived in the place at the very moment of our discovery of the similarities. The same nature of a philosophical question and the necessity of an ethical solution for the Colonist-Colonized relationship indicates the fundamental rule of architectural ethics: architectural ethics does not allow us to discard reaction. That the only reaction to a discovery is in responsibility, ability-to-respond, to the discovery, to begin the process of an architectural dialogue. Therefore, the plan of Pittsburgh becomes the Architectural Colonized, which can now express an architectural response. This imposes on architects the set of the Colonized questions. Thinking about the plan of Washington hidden inside Pittsburgh, what question should architects ask? It could be the Owner's question: What do you want from me? Shall we negotiate a price? It could be the Citizen's question: What are you doing in our place? Why should we allow you to stay? It could be the Guide's question: Do you know where you are? Shall I tell you where? It could be the Host's question: Do you need a place? Shall I share my space with you? We must decide which ethical position we prefer: the one of the Guide and the Host, who perceive themselves as those who are being met to respond, or the one of the Owner and the Citizen, who perceive others as (potentially) dangerous newcomers and refuse to respond. Architectural Monologues vs. Architectural Dialogue There is unquestionable value in asking historical questions that, in a particular methodological way, attempt to recognize possible foundations for the present. But without a parallel philosophical question, the concept of architectural culture becomes paralyzed by the maintenance of monologues expressing different statements based on different concepts of time, space, and communication. The combined questions of history and philosophy allow for more open and complete relations between the three major concepts, than the questions reduced only to history. In the face of history and philosophy, time addresses the relation between the present and the future, which is more than between memory and continuation (why do we remember the past and not the future?). Speaking about space, we are not only asking for preservation and improvement, but also for a relationship between the place and the world: between buildings and streets, streets and neighborhoods, neighborhoods and cities, regions, continents, and about the environment. Considering communication instead of the relationship between beliefs and values, we recognize the necessity for a more common understanding, and a more precise formulation of different systems. In the most holistic generalization, an historical question alone allows attributed monologues, but when superimposed with philosophical ones, creates a dialogue. "To reach an understanding in a dialogue is not merely a matter of putting oneself forward and successfully asserting one's own point of view, but being transformed into a communion in which we do not remain what we were.7" Architectural Dialogue and the Process of Colonization From an historical point of view, colonization is the sequence of interaction between the Colonist and the Colonized. From a philosophical point of view, it is the process of building human relationships between I and the Other that, through dialogue, open an infinity of human culture. Ultimately, if we want to perceive architecture as an (important) part of a culture, we should apply to architectural thinking the same intellectual criteria that underlie the essential concepts of culture. Therefore, the idea of a peaceful and thoughtful dialogue driven by ethical solutions, unquestionably valuable for the life of individuals and societies created by them, will also be reflected by architectural thinking. The dialogic mediation of the inseparable relation between responsibility (ability-to-respond) and the problem of colonization illustrates the possible architectural analog in considering architectural colonization and its equal inseparability with an architectural, dialogic ability-to-respond. While it is a challenge to architectural thinking, it is also a promise to return to architecture its fundamental right to be a cultural event still driven by a belief in the beauty of human thought. Culture, society and architecture all share the same condition that is expressed in our mediation on antinomies of colonization: the fundamental antinomy of life: the good and the evil, and the necessity to choose between them. There is only one confident expectation necessary for the presented text: an optimistic belief that ethics is not infected by schizophrenia. Or, at least, not yet. |