El Barrio de la Confusión. Autor: Fernando Omar Vecchiarelli

Parque Chas en la ciudad autónoma de Buenos Aires

Ella vive en un barrio complicado, no por ser peligroso u obscuro o por estar cercano o alejado a otros barrios de características riesgosas o de bajo nivel económico de sus pobladores, ella vive en un barrio complicado por haber sido diseñado por un Arquitecto urbano cuya personalidad era confusa.

El barrio es circular y al afirmar esto me refiero a que toda su geografía responde a círculos concéntricos cuyo punto de partida aparenta ser una plaza arbolada y pequeña en el centro exacto del cruce de dos avenidas convergentes que cortan las calles en cuatro porciones perfectas o semi círculos, todas las arterias poseen el mismo nombre a lo largo de su recorrido, naciendo azarosamente en la intersección de una de las dos avenidas y muriendo en el mismo punto de partida, esa sola geografía confusa altera la ubicación de las viviendas que para colmo de males el Arquitecto las diseñó similares en tamaño y terminación, aconsejando posteriormente por ley, a no permitir que sus fachadas fueran alteradas o pintadas de otros colores que blanco níveo y verde inglés en aperturas y ventanas .

Cuentan por ahí, que solo la gente nacida en este barrio conoce insignificantes detalles que procuran ocultar al resto de la población sobre la manera de identificar sus propias casas y así poder llegar a ellas al finalizar sus tareas fuera del barrio, eso claro está, si no ocurre algún tipo de inconveniente como lo sucedido al pobre de Fermín González que luego de una noche de bebidas en el bar volvió pasado de copas y no acertó con su vivienda de la calle Berlín y la avenida Victorica, siendo la primera un semi círculo que corta a la avenida en dos lugares diferentes y exactamente iguales por los motivos explicados anteriormente. Al ingresar a lo que él supuso su vivienda, se encontró con una mujer que le resultó muy parecida a la suya pero menos quejosa y cocinaba mucho mejor, mantuvo silencio por tres largos años y ella también, por lo que vivieron felices juntos hasta la borrachera que enmendó el error regresándolo a su casa original . De todos modos su esposa se había perdido al tratar de buscarlo por el barrio y los vecinos sospechan que está viviendo con Ignacio Garmendia en la casa de enfrente.

El terrible barrio de la confusión es todo un problema para entablar relaciones duraderas, esto que les cuento ya es una experiencia personal, por la que he comenzado esta narración.

Al conocerla a Ella, hecho que ocurrió como entenderán fuera de este barrio, ya que nadie en su sano juicio entablaría relación alguna con una “Ella” o con un “El” que viva en este lugar de laberinto extremo, pues el solo hecho de nombrar una dirección del barrio hace espantar al más osado pretendiente, razón por la cual los habitantes muchas veces mienten sobre sus orígenes y nombran algún punto geográfico cercano para no evidenciarse. No fue este el caso, ya que Ella sabía de mi proverbial distracción y mi mala memoria para ubicar calles y avenidas, la muy astuta me citó para un encuentro amoroso con promesa de pasión lujuria y sexo en la esquina de Dublín y Avalos esa tarde de primavera.

Aquí estoy girando como una noria en busca de la esquina que corte esas calles, cosa que ocurre en ocho lugares iguales y diferentes. Hay momentos que me gustaría salir de este barrio, pero en realidad no sé cómo hacerlo sin ofender a sus habitantes que solícitos me saludan alternando los buenos días con las buenas tardes y sus noches. No logré hasta el momento el objetivo de encontrarme con ella y sus promesas de amor, pero recuerdo sus últimas palabras “Te amaré por siempre” que ahora cobran un significado diferente para mi...No sé, eterno, como este cálido Verano.

Y camino por enésima vez mareado y confundido por la calle Dublín y Hamburgo ¿Será esta la esquina? ¿Aquella mujer parece Ella? No, creo que no, ya los vecinos me parecen todos iguales.-

(Reproducido con permiso del autor)

Lea sobre el escritor Fernando Omar Vecchiarelli:

http://letraskiltras.ning.com/profile/FernandoOmarVecchiarelli

Sudestada

Conventillo. Intervención digital en foto tomada por Myriam B. Mahiques

Don Tommaso había pasado la vida entre barcos y cantinas, un trabajador más entre los jóvenes europeos; ahora, uno menos entre los viejos muertos o desplazados por innumerables inmigrantes limítrofes. Desde los últimos años, nada era igual en el conventillo de la Boca, sin sus compadres, sin los nietos propios y ajenos, renegados del barrio buscando las alturas del Centro.

Ese día, salió al patio, estiró sus articulaciones gastadas y miró al hermoso cielo soleado. Subió la escalera penosamente,  llamó a su vecino de antaño, y le dijo que le dolía todo el cuerpo. El vecino, lo miró comprensivo, y respondió: ¨-Succede a me-¨.

No les llevó mucho tiempo subir los trastos de don Tommaso, sólo había que hacer un poco de lugar en el cuarto de arriba,  tener cuidado con el tocadiscos y el colchón; las sillas, la mesita, aguantarían unos golpes más.

Compartir el mate durante la tarde de lluvia, también tenía su encanto, con la vista perdida en el horizonte del Riachuelo, y cada tanto atentos al agua que salía irremediablemente por la rejilla del patio, hasta ascender incontenida por las paredes de chapa.

¨- Yo credo que estos del servizio meteorológico sempre mienten.-¨

¨- E cosí, tómese otro cimarrón que tenemos para rato hasta que acabe la Sudestada....-¨

Samara: the lost treasure of wooden Art Nouveau

Samara 2010. Picture by Rowan Moore

¨The centre of Samara is a varied but harmonious ensemble made up of thousands of decorated wooden houses, of a unique and graceful variant of art nouveau and of brave and hopeful buildings from the early revolutionary years. The setting is magnificent, above a broad sweep in the Volga, one of the great rivers of the world. Much of it has gone already, burnt, bulldozed, blighted or left to rot. Pustular new towers erupt from the waterfront and skyline. Almost everything that's left could go too, thanks to local government that could most charitably be described as supine. With its wooden streets and waterside setting Samara could – still, just – be a Russian San Francisco. But it is heading rapidly towards being an assembly of developers' junk, like very many cities in very many parts of the world.

Samara. From ratestogo.com

Bank house. From http://cecartslinkrussia.blogspot.com/

Bank house. From http://cecartslinkrussia.blogspot.com/

You probably haven't heard of Samara, even if it is the sixth largest city in Russia, and architecturally unique. This spot, more than 500 miles east and south from Moscow, doesn't impinge much on western European minds. Great battles were not fought there, although in 1941 the Russian government evacuated to Samara, which was called Kuybyshev in Soviet times. After the war it became a centre of the rocket-building industry, and a closed city. Such foreign visitors as were permitted were transported in vehicles with curtained windows. A cluster of masts still stands on the outskirts, erected to jam transmissions from the BBC World Service and Voice of America. Samara hasn't fully recovered the habit of reaching out to the world.

Samara's greatest period, about a century ago, was cut short by war and revolution, giving little time for its identity to be shaped by art and literature. For a few decades people compared its growth rate to Chicago's, and its newly wealthy merchants built lavish houses designed with bravura and skill. These include the Kurlina House, which cost three or four times the going rate for luxury houses, and the Dacha with Elephants, a landmark famous for its sculptures of the beasts, built for the artist and entrepreneur Konstantin Golovkin. He, like others of his kind, only got to enjoy his property for a few years before the communist government forced it into collective ownership¨

Samara old house. Picture from Guardian.co.uk

Another destroyed house. From guardian.co.uk

Detail of a neglected wooden house. From Guardian.co.uk

Excerpt from the article by Rowan Moore, published at Guardian.co.uk

Read the full article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/oct/24/samara-wooden-city-architecture-review

Agatha Christie´s summer house is opened to the public after restoration

Greenway. From bbc.co.uk

¨On summer evenings family and guests would gather in the drawing room to hear the queen of crime read from her latest thriller and try to guess "whodunnit".

When the guests were out of earshot Agatha Christie, who was shy of her musical talent, would entertain herself by playing the grand piano in the same room beside the Dart estuary.

For the first time this week Christie enthusiasts will be able to visit - and even stay in - the writer's beloved Devon holiday home, Greenway, which she described as the "loveliest place in the world".

The £5.4m restoration by the National Trust aims to return Greenway to its 1950s heyday - as it would have been enjoyed by the crime writer and her family.

Along with the drawing room, visitors will be able to peek into the author's bedroom with its cream coloured walls and view of the water. And from April the dining room, the scene of large family gatherings, will be open to the public. A favourite meal for Christie when she was there was lobster followed by blackberry ice cream.

For the first few weeks, visitors will see staff in the last stages of recreating Greenway. The trust has decided to let the public see the process rather than making them wait until later in the year to gain access.

Picture from guardian.co.uk

The house, which Christie bought in 1938 and made her holiday home until 1959, was given to the National Trust in 2000 by her family. But until now only the 12-hectare (30-acre) garden, boathouse and footpaths through the 112-hectare estate had been open to the public, as the house remained the private home of Christie's daughter, Rosalind, and her husband, Anthony Hicks, until their deaths in 2004 and 2005.

Mathew Prichard, Christie's grandson, said: "What I wish most is that the people who visit it feel some of the magic and sense of place that I felt when my family and I spent so much time there in the 1950s and 1960s."

Robyn Brown, National Trust property manager for Greenway, said: "It has been an enormous and expensive task to restore the house and garden. But I hope that visitors will come and enjoy them in the way that many of the previous owners have done - as a family holiday home in which parties have congregated and celebrated a combined interest in gardens, a love for travel, literature and music as well as the beauty and inspiration of Devon."

In addition to the rooms open to visitors, part of the house is available as a holiday apartment accommodating up to 10 people.¨

Article by Steven Morris for the Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/feb/24/agatha-christie-home

El empapelado artístico en las paredes de las casas del Virreinato del Río de la Plata

Cuando imaginamos las casas de Buenos Aires en la época colonial, reconocemos su grado de primitivismo, según las han descripto tantos viajeros. José Antonio Wilde, en su libro ¨Buenos Aires desde setenta años atrás¨, ed. 1908, en el capítulo IV da la siguiente descripción:

¨Las casas, aunque en general sólidamente construidas, estaban muy lejos de ser confortables. Por muchos años se edificó en barro, siendo relativamente moderno el uso de la mezcla de cal; muchos revoques se hacían también con barro. En las paredes sólo se empleaba el blanqueo, tanto al exterior como interiormente; la pintura al óleo y el empapelado casi no se conocían, y menos el cielo-raso; los pisos eran generalmente de ladrillo, denominados de piso.¨

Lejos quedan los lujos europeos, sin embargo, hay excepciones.

Tengo el agrado de haber recibido el permiso para reproducir el texto que sigue, publicado en ¨El Virreinato del Río de la Plata. 1776-1810¨, Pág. 47 a 50, edición de la Sociedad Rural Argentina, 1976.

El autor del texto, es el Dr. en Historia  Juan Carlos Arias Divito, cuya principal área de investigación desde el año 1976, es la Renta de Tabacos y Naipes de la época del Virreinato del Río de La Plata. El Dr. Arias Divito, halló que algunos de los libros contables del organismo –actualmente en el Archivo General de la Nación- están forrados con antiguos papeles pintados, lo que despertó su inquietud sobre el tema y lo investigó más profundamente.

Las fotos reproducidas aquí son de su autoría y se requiere su permiso para reproducirlas. Algunas de ellas fueron presentadas en el Museo de la Ciudad con el título ¨El color invadió techos y paredes de las casas porteñas¨, en agosto de 1997.

Ésta foto del Dr. Arias Divito me intriga personalmente en el doble uso de la escala. Por las guirnaldas, la mujer se vería en un desnudo absoluto, pero el tema se simplifica al transformarlo en soporte vertical de la canasta de flores, un objeto con el cual se perdería la ¨morbosidad¨. También es curioso la reproducción del símbolo de Esculapio hacia los lados. Las alas del ave del símbolo se ven como hojas, en un claro disimulo, y la cabeza del ave se reemplaza por un canasto de frutos o flores. 

Tan habituado estaba a leer y escuchar que la casas del Virreinato estaban encaladas, que tarde mucho en admitir que los papeles pintados encontrados en legajos del siglo XVIII, en el Archivo General de la Nación, correspondieran al utilizado para decorar las casas en esa época. Sin embargo, a medida que los hallazgos se generalizaban y la colocación de los mismos confirmaba más y más que tenían que ser productos del siglo, me pusieron en la necesidad de buscar otro tipo de información para conjugar con los hallazgos. .

Una fuente rápida de aclaración de dudas fue el avezado historiador don Alberto M. Salas. Él me confirmó, sin dudar, que era corriente el uso de los papeles pintados en las casas porteñas. (...)

Es cierto que César Hipólito Bacle en su serie sobre Trages y Costumbres de la Provincia de Buenos Aires documenta gráficamente la utilización, hacia 1834, de papeles pintados en los aposentos de la ciudad. Tambien  es que, después de 1810, los registros de navíos certifican a cada paso la entrada del género, como procedente, en la mayoría de los casos, de Francia, Inglaterra o Estados Unidos.

También es verdad que como consecuencia de su utilización en el momento, encontramos en periódicos de la época avisos como éstos:

Se alquila un cuarto empapelado, bastante capaz, al saguan de una casa de familia, es propio para habitación de un hombre solo, o bien para bufete de algún letrado. Ocurrase a la calle de Cuyo N°483. Quien necesite un hombre para empapelar alguna casa, ocurra a La calle Belgrano del café de la Aduana al acabar la cuadra para el río.

Continuando con una visión retrospectiva del tema encontramos en la tasación de los bienes de Diego Ramirez que se estima: "para el papel de las paredes de la sala, bastante usado, 2 ps., 4 rs" .

Una embarcacion procedente de Cádiz y que arriba a Buenos Aires  el 17 de febrero de 1806, traía papeles pintados en algunos cajones.

En el partido de Pilar, el inventario de los bienes de Lucía la Madrid consigna: "4 piezas de papel pintado a doce rs. 6 p.", en 1806.

Un recibo suscripto en Buenos Aires el 13 de junio de 1806 dice: "He recibido de Don Antonio del Yerro la cantidad de seiscientos veinte y siete pesos importe de cuatrocientos cincuenta y seis piezas de papel pintado que me ha comprado". Lo firma Juan de la Iguera.

También en el testamento de Maria Josefa Maestre, fechado en Buenos Aires el .16 de febrero de 1799, entre los bienes que declara, se anota: ¨...una pieza de papel pintada... .¨

En un recibo de dote otorgado por don Juan Angel Goycolea a favor de Da. Benita de Segurola, en Buenos Aires, el 17 de agosto de :

1792 se consigna: "...por empapelar su dormitorio 69 pesos ¼.¨

EI Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición llegó a inquietarse en algún momento por los dibujos de algunos papeles, como se deduce de la siguiente cita:

Entre los rollos de papel pintado que por ese entonces [fines del XVIII] llegaba ya en abundancia a Buenos Aires, solían venir algunos con figuras paganas, ya un Hércules, ya una Venus, que había que quitar. 'He tenido que hacerlos menudos pedazos, decía Ortiz, pues a juicio de más de un sujeto docto, no podían tolerarse, ya por sus alusiones y ya par su desnudez; particularmente una, al parecer Venus, estaba intolerable'. 'En otros papeles pintados que han venido de Barcelona, añadía, he visto y recogido horror de figurillas y alusiones que me parece pueden causar ruina espiritual. Tal es uno donde, al parecer, se representa el globo terráqueo rodeado de flores y una figura, al parecer Cupido, que vuela sobre é con un mechón encendido, que, según parece, va a abrasarlo en su impuro fuego.

Las alusiones que hace Ortiz en su carta, la referida a la procedencia catalana de los papeles y sobre todo aquello del atrevimiento de las figuras, podemos ilustrarlo con dos fotos de originales hallados en legajos del Archivo General de la Nación, aunque con el demérito de no poderse traducir con el hermoso colorido que tienen.

Para terminar este trabajo en el que he querido documentar sumariamente el uso de los papeles pintados en la vivienda del Buenos Aires virreinal, conviene recordar que dice Gillespie en sus observaciones reunidas durante su residencia aquí, de los años 1806 y 1807: 'Tres mañanas después que la plaza fue reconquistada, se congregó

una gran turba frente a mi casa, cuando felizmente había salido, y destruyó todo lo que no pudo llevarse. Hasta el papel de las paredes "

Lea el libro de José Antonio Wilde:

http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/91371064210248273022202/p0000001.htm

The Ruhr District Metamorphosis

Light art at the Bochum obervatory / Design: Yves Netzhammer. From http://www.essen-fuer-das-ruhrgebiet.ruhr2010.de/

The Ruhr, also, and more accurately, called  Ruhr district or Ruhr region (German Ruhrgebiet, colloquial Ruhrpott, Kohlenpott, Pott or Revier), is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With 4435 km² and a population of some 7.3 million (2008), it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany. It consists of several large, formerly industrial cities bordered by the rivers Ruhr to the south, Rhine to the west, andLippe to the north. In the Southwest it borders on the Bergisches Land. It is considered part of the larger Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region of more than 12 million people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhr

Today, the Ruhr district is an excellent example for a city´s metamorphosis. Neal Peirce, blog writer for the Washington Post comments:

¨Once the Ruhr was a crucible of massive coal and steel production — Germany’s weapons forge for the tanks and cannons, planes and rifles of Hitler’s demonic Third Reich. From the mid-1800s onward the Ruhr ravaged its natural landscape for ever-greater levels of production. Firms like Krupp made fortunes. But the mining and metal making left a bitter harvest of massive smoke from blast furnaces, deep dust, slag heaps and filthy waters.

Yet today this same Ruhr area is breathing fresh with high culture and popular art. Amazingly, it won coveted recognition by the European Parliament and Council of Ministers as a “European Capital of Culture” for 2010.
Indeed, where blast furnaces did their polluting work and molten iron once flowed, a stunning array of artists of all genres have been performing this year. Many of their stages have been the massive settings of the very mining and steel plants of yesteryear, a juxtaposition of today’s human talent with yesterday’s towering gaunt forms of raw industrial power.

The “convincing motif” that won the Europe-wide recognition was “change through culture, and culture through change,”

http://citiwire.net/post/2318/

C.A.R. 2009, SANAA-Building, Projection: André Werner / Photo: Matthias Duschner/Stiftung Zollverein. From http://www.essen-fuer-das-ruhrgebiet.ruhr2010.de/

So curious about this cultural transformation, I found a great web page with all the activities scheduled since the beginning of October till next year:

http://www.essen-fuer-das-ruhrgebiet.ruhr2010.de/en/home.html

Preliminary Pipeline Explosion Report and Safety Measures Announced

Explosion in San Bruno. Picture from Wikipedia.org

So sorry to keep on with sad subjects. But this one is also important. It is about the pipe line explosion in San Bruno, close to San Francisco Bay. This is the preliminary report posted by J T Long at California Construction.com:

Explosion in San Bruno. Picture from Wikipedia.org

The National Transportation Safety Board earlier this month released its preliminary report on the accident of the Sept. 9 gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people and damaged 55 homes.

The report came a day after Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announced its new natural gas pipeline safety measures, known as Pipeline 2020.

The explosion of a 30-in. diameter natural gas pipeline released 47.6 million standard cubic ft of natural gas, creating a crater 72 ft long by 26 ft wide and throwing a 28-ft segment of the pipe 100 ft away.

Investigators are looking at the sequence of events that led up to the explosion and PG&E’s response. Before the accident, PG&E crews were working on an uninterruptible power supply system about 40 mi away when the power supply system malfunctioned, resulting in the regulating valve moving from partially open to full open and increasing the pressure to 386 lbs per sq in. gauge (psig). The pipeline’s maximum allowable operating pressure was 400 psig and the specified maximum operating pressure was 375 psig.

Within minutes of the fluctuation, the pipeline exploded. Thirty-four minutes later, PG&E dispatched a crew to close the mainline valves.

NTSB shipped the ruptured segment to Washington and radiographed the girth welds and seams, microbiologically tested the pipe surface, performed ultrasonic wall thickness measurements, magnetic particle inspection of welds and seams and 3-D laser scans of the pipe pieces. The 50-year-old pipe was 0.375-in. thick, coated with hot applied asphalt and cathodically protected. Technicians still plan to perform hardness and microhardness testing, optical fractographic analysis and electron microscopy of the fracture surfaces. The final report could take a year.

In the meantime, PG&E plans to install hundreds of automatic over-pressure protection control valves and upgrade pipeline infrastructure, particularly in heavily populated areas.

The utility also plans to invest $10 million in launching an independent, nonprofit entity to perform research and development of new inspection technologies. Completing the enhancements could take ten years, according to PG&E spokesperson Katie Romans.

“This could help upgrade best practices for the entire state and the country,” Romans says.

The ruins of a house in San Bruno. Picture from LATimes.com

http://california.construction.com/california_construction_news/2010/1022_PrePipelineExplosionReport.asp

Deadly cholera outbreak reaches Haiti Capital

Picture from msnbc.com

As you can imagine, the sanitary conditions of the slums and campaments make the cholera spread so easily.

This issue is part of urbanism, yesterday I was reading if a planner- urban designer designs with the possibilities of plagues in mind, probably the cities would be different.

Here, some excerpts from msnbc.com:

An outbreak of cholera has spread from a rural valley in central Haiti to the nation's capital, intensifying worries the disease would spread in squalid tarp camps that house hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors.

The death toll from the epidemic topped 200 Saturday and fears of it propagating in the crowded, earthquake-ravaged Port-au-Prince increased after five cases were detected in the city.

(....)prevention measures and surveillance were being increased in Port-au-Prince, with its squalid sprawling slums and about 1.3 million survivors of the Jan. 12 earthquake packed into tent and tarpaulin camps. All are highly vulnerable to a virulent diarrhea disease like cholera.

Health officials are fearful about the outbreak spreading into the capital, where thousands and thousands of people are living in unsanitary conditions in refugee camps.

"It will be very, very dangerous," said Claude Surena, president of the Haitian Medical Association. "Port-au-Prince already has more than 2.4 million people, and the way they are living is dangerous enough already."

With more than 2,600 cholera cases reported and experts predicting the numbers will rise, Haitian and international medical teams are working desperately to isolate and contain the epidemic in the Artibonite and Central Plateau regions, north of the rubble-strewn capital.

It is the worst medical emergency to strike the poor, disaster-prone Caribbean nation since the earthquake killed up to 300,000 people and is also the first cholera epidemic in Haiti in a century.

The aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. Picture from affordablehousinginstitute.org

Keep on reading:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39817954/ns/health-infectious_diseases

Transculturación

Gran Muralla china. Foto bajada de destinomundial.com

En el Norte de la Ciudad Prohibida, el viejito mira con desconcierto la obra arrasadora de las empresas constructoras, y le dice a su esposa que los nuevos edificios de concreto con sus techos curvados, son como esas imitaciones que se fabrican en ese famoso Estudio de películas de Estados Unidos, a su edad, no recuerda ya el nombre.....

Bien al Sur de los Universal Studios, el señor lee la noticia perplejo y se cuestiona si ese muro fronterizo que planean construír, terminará siendo una réplica de la Gran Muralla china....

Meditation on an Asian courtship

Tangram sidewalk SMIBE from Nino Heirbaut on Vimeo.


The video is related to Tangram: puzzles with Euclidean figures
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2010/10/13/130535691/tricky-tangrams

La renovación de la zona histórica de Qianmen

Modernos tranvías en la zona de Qianmen. Foto de Revista Eñe

Artículo de Andrew Jacobs para The New York Times y Clarín:

Mao durmió aquí.

También lo hicieron los eunucos imperiales que quedaron desocupados luego de la expulsión del último emperador de China.

Durante buena parte de los setecientos años siguientes, sin embargo, los habitantes más prominentes del barrio Gulou, ubicado al norte de la Ciudad Prohibida, fueron un par de enormes torres de ladrillos cuyos tambores y campanas ayudaban a los ciudadanos de Beijing a saber qué hora era.

Hace poco, la población del barrio cuenta los días para que las cuadrillas de construcción empiecen a convertir sus trece deterioradas hectáreas en una cuidada atracción turística llamada Beijing Time Cultural City. La reorganización de 73 millones de dólares que dominan las antiguas Torres de Tambores y Campanas comprenderá casas con jardín para los ricos, un museo "de la hora" y un centro comercial subterráneo. Desde que se anunció el proyecto en enero, historiadores y expatriados que aman la antigua autenticidad de Beijing se muestran alarmados.

"No se trata de preservar un monumento histórico, sino de salvar una comunidad viva que tiene centenares de años de evolución", dijo Yao Yuan, un profesor de la Universidad de Beijing que se especializa en planeamiento urbano.

Sin embargo, es más difícil encontrar indignación entre las miles de familias pobres que viven en el conjunto de míseras casas de ladrillo gris coronadas por tejas vacilantes. "Hay que demoler el lugar", señala Zhou Meihua, de setenta y dos años, que comparte dos cuartos de 18,6 metros cuadrados con tres generaciones de su familia. "Si nos dan una indemnización suficiente, nos alegrará irnos de aquí." Los funcionarios del gobierno tienden a alentar esos sentimientos no mejorando las condiciones de vida en los barrios antiguos para preservar su arquitectura histórica. En lugar de ello, toman propiedades de la ciudad que consideran antihigiénicas e inseguras, las reclasifican como propiedades comerciales y las venden con grandes ganancias. La concesión a la historia suele consistir en alguna construcción nueva con aleros dados vuelta y madera pintada de forma llamativa colocada en fachadas de hormigón.

Los constructores ignoran la ley o usan palabras como "histórico" y "restauración" para describir construcciones que son a todas luces nuevas. Los críticos señalan que el mejor ejemplo de esa tendencia puede verse al sur de Plaza Tiananmen, donde el distrito de compras más famoso de la ciudad, Qianmen, se vio reemplazado por una copia sin alma, pero cara, de lo que era.

"La renovación de Qianmen no se relaciona con la preservación de la historia, sino con su transformación en una versión falsa de Hollywood", dijo Yao, el profesor de planeamiento urbano.

Vista desde la torre del tambor. Foto de Nuria Cimini

Torre de la Campana. Foto de Nuria Cimini

Torre del Tambor. Foto de volver.Asia

Luo Zhewen, un experto en arquitectura que asesora al gobierno en la zona de Gulou, señala que la protesta respecto del patrimonio perdido es exagerada.

Luo, que tiene ochenta y siete años e integra desde hace mucho tiempo la Dirección Estatal de Patrimonio Cultural, dice que muchas de las casas de la zona no eran más que chozas glorificadas. Cuando se le preguntó por los habitantes, Luo contestó con seguridad: "Las ciudades siempre cambian y se desarrollan." Vaciar Gulou puede resultar más difícil. A la hora de las indemnizaciones, muchas personas tienen grandes expectativas y dicen que no se irán a menos que el dinero les permita comprar departamentos grandes.

Algunos, como Zhou Changlin, un obrero desocupado de cincuenta y tres años, dicen que sólo se irán si se los reubica en una vivienda muy parecida a aquella en la que nacieron y se criaron.

"Tengo que sentir la tierra bajo los pies", afirmó. "Oí decir que los ancianos que se mudan a edificios altos suelen morirse en el transcurso de los tres años siguientes."

http://edant.revistaenie.clarin.com/notas/2010/08/05/_-02206874.htm

Lea el artículo de Nuria Cimini:

http://www.china-files.com/es/link/7064/el-barrio-de-la-torre-del-tambor-amenazado-con-convertirse-en-un-nuevo-qianmen

California´s new Green Building Code: An interview with Dave Walls

From Green Technology Magazine:

California’s groundbreaking green building code, CALGreen, becomes mandatory on January 1, 2011. Its effects will be far-reaching. By codifying many aspects of green building, CALGreen ensures that energy efficient and sustainable design will become routine in California. In his second interview with Green Technology Magazine, Dave Walls, executive director of the California Building Standards Commission, discusses the genesis of the codes and why this is the right time in history for them to be coming online.

In the evolution of CALGreen what kind of stakeholder groups were engaged? How comprehensive was the development process?

We really reached out to anybody that we thought had any interest in codes. These included CBIA [California Building Industry Association], architects, designers, BOMA [Building Owners and Managers Association] and CBPA [California Business Properties Association]. I really knew that we needed all of this. That was a big part of it. We also reached out to model code-writing bodies because they have a lot of experience in codes and in background and publishing, so they participated. We reached out to our other state agencies that are very much involved in environmental issues, such as the Air Resources Board, the Integrated Waste Management Board [now CalRecycle], the California Energy Commission, the Department of Water Resources, as well as the Department of General Services that has been doing state buildings with the LEED process, making them green.

Of course, we also included the point green building certification groups USGBC [US Green Building Council] and Build It Green and environmental groups like the Sierra Club, NRDC [Natural Resources Defense Council] and EDF [Environmental Defense Fund]. We really tried to bring an entire spectrum of people and groups with different perspectives and expertise to build a consensus. That was our attempt and our effort – if we were going to put something in the code we wanted to make sure it was right. So you bring the experts in and then you can have that discussion, and all the meetings were open and public. They were also announced beforehand so that anybody who wanted to attend and had any feelings about it, one way or the other, could make their opinions known, either in writing or in person.

How long did this process run?

Our first focus group was in July of 2007, though we actually started engaging in the process about three to four months earlier than that. We had a number of meetings - group meetings as well as with individuals - to talk about specific issues all the way through probably October or November of 2009.

We’re talking about more than a three-year process of developing our first code, our 2008 code, and then moving this forward with the same groups of people to get to the 2010 code. Some were more engaged at times than others, and some were more focused on certain parts of the code than others, but it really was a very open and transparent process. As we developed our approach we’d put content on our website or we’d send material out to the focus groups so it could be read before our meetings, and could then be used to make informed decisions or comments or recommendations.

Why did CALGreen development take place in California now, at this time in history?

The Governor came to us and asked us what we could do to green the codes. That was the impetus. I think his policies as well as those of others in leadership in California had us headed in such a direction. I also think USGBC, with LEED and other programs, had been leading the way and really changed a lot of the public perception of what green is, and that changed the whole movement.

We’re in an economic downturn – there could be any number of reasons why, with the potential of adding costs and requirements both on the enforcement side and the building side, this could have been pushed off. Why wasn’t it?

I think, again, the timing was right. We had support from the industry, which clearly understands the issues relating to cost. We focused on that – it was a big part of the process to keep the provisions in the code attainable, reasonable, and not something that would hurt or have a negative impact on the construction industry and its recovery.

You’ve got to move forward and the industry will move with it. You’ve just got to make sure that you work hand-in-hand with them. There’s always a reason not to do it - you’ve just got to move forward and make sure that what you’re doing is significant yet realistic, keeping the cost impact or financial impact as minimal as possible while still getting a solid environmental impact.

So often you see a contest being played out between preserving the environment and the associated costs. Do you think that the building industry saw the inevitability of greener buildings with better energy conservation, water conservation, and resource utilization?

I believe they did, yes. I believe they saw it coming, as we all really did. It was either get engaged and help ensure the process is a good one and the results are good and positive, or stand back and fight it and not know what you’re going to get.

They engaged and ultimately supported what is currently the 2010 California Green Building Standards Code. They want to continue to be engaged in that process, so, as the industry recovers, I’m sure there’ll be more and more things that get into the code that make sense. Costs, as things become more mainstream, usually start coming down and just start kind of fitting into the process.

You worked closely with many environmental organizations that had input concerning sustainable construction and the components of the green code. How did you elicit their support? I know there were concerns that CALGreen wasn’t as strict in some of these requirements as it might be.

I think it always starts out that way when you’re dealing with a new code or new effort. You have sides that feel it’s not stringent enough, and sides that think it’s too stringent. We had to find that balance, as we did with the industry. One of our efforts was to work closely with the environmental groups to ensure that they understood what we were doing and trying to achieve. When you really look at individual buildings or what’s going on in a certain area of the state, it may look like we’re lessening the requirements - but again, we’re trying to set the minimum standards.

Others – local cities and counties or builders – that choose to go above our code can certainly do that. But when you look at the overall scene, and this is what the environmental groups that support us did, and get a picture of the impact that the code is going to have in California, you realize that it’s still moving forward. We’re really not taking a step backwards, as some people think we are. When you can capture 100 percent, or almost 100 percent, of the buildings in the state, as compared to making a considerably more stringent standard that is too difficult to comply with, the balance is there. The overall impact on the carbon footprint is still great.

Do you have a sense of how many green buildings were constructed in California, under say LEED or Build It Green, as compared to the number expected under CalGreen?

I don’t know in terms of numbers of actual buildings, but as we went through the process we looked at what local jurisdictions were doing. When we finalized the code earlier this year, there were roughly 10 percent of jurisdictions in the state doing some level of green building, with a required or voluntary program in place.

Some of them, of course, were the bigger cities. But as you look deeper, bigger cities aren’t always doing the most in terms of new construction. In terms of jurisdictions and size, though, we’ve now captured the 90 percent of the jurisdictions within the state that were doing nothing.

There’s a mandatory commissioning requirement as part of CALGreen for nonresidential buildings. How is this coming into play, since commissioning has never been part of a building code? What assistance can you give to both the building community and building officials?

That is the one piece of the code that is probably the most different for builders and jurisdictions. In areas where they’ve been building under LEED with a LEED commissioning requirement, some people are aware of it. But now under CALGreen we’re talking about all buildings over 10,000 square feet, which is going to greatly increase the use of commissioning.

We understand that commissioning is a new factor to contend with. We have a task force working on guidelines and we’re reaching out to stakeholders statewide. We’re trying to make sure there are enough people out there who are educated and trained to be able to comply. As I said earlier, the one thing we don’t want to do is have a negative impact on the construction industry – but this is also the largest piece in terms of environmental impact in terms of energy efficiency and what we can do. The study we relied on was from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories. It showed the cost benefits and the short period of time for payback on commissioning, The environmental impact, the impact on energy usage on a building derived from commissioning are just well worth the effort.

As the January effective date nears for the new mandatory measures, what would you want to convey to building officials, architects, planners, contractors and other industry stakeholders concerning CALGreen?

Embrace the code and learn it. Get your staff educated and trained so you can implement it because it’s going to be here and it’s going to be here quick. It’s all about understanding – understanding the intent of the code and what you’re going to gain from it.

The Commission is already working on the next code review cycle. What do you see in the future for CALGreen?

For the code cycle that will begin at the end of this year, we’re looking at the tweaks and fixes that need to be addressed. With any code and any new provision, once you start trying to implement it, you realize where it worked or didn’t work. As we move forward we plan on improving it, bringing in new technologies, new efforts, or methods that can make the code better and reduce the impact that buildings have on the environment. That’s the goal.

CALGreen appears to have had an influence on the International Code Council and its development of an International Green Construction Code (IGCC). Do you see this continuing?

Well, we’ve been the first state to develop and publish a green code and they did look at our code as one of their resource documents. I participated on the International Green Construction Code committee that did the initial development, and I was able to share some of the things we learned in California with the IGCC committee. That’s been our main impact. I believe there are 29 committee members all together, so there’s considerable influence from around the country as well.

Building codes have really been focused on public safety issues – fire, electrical, seismic, that type of thing. How is it that sustainability moved into codes?

To protect buildings from fire, we have put fire standards in the code. Similarly, we have structural safety design standards for earthquakes or wind. We’ve had our energy code in California since the early 1980’s, we’ve had water conservation features in the code for a long time – many years. People tend to forget this.

I think we’ve just expanded on that. Environmental concerns have really raised the public consciousness. We’ve looked at this and we’ve said, let’s start looking at ways of reducing the environmental impact of buildings.

What better way to do that than with the codes? Our long-term goals are to integrate the provisions into our other codes. Then people don’t suddenly think “oh it’s a green issue and I don’t like green so I don’t want it,” or the other side of it with “it’s not green enough.”

We want it to be “it’s just the way you build” – and it’s going to be sustainable.

http://www.green-technology.org/green_technology_magazine/davewalls2.htm