Living The Ephemeral City, Enjoying the Ephemeral Architecture

The playa man. Photographer Dan Adams. 2009

All images are copyright in their respective year, by both the photographer and Burning Man

“Zozobra” marionette burning event is the oldest civic celebration of its kind in North America. It has gone up in flames every year since Will Shuster created it in 1924. Shuster assigned all rights, title and interest in Zozobra on June 19th, 1964 to The Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe, which retains exclusive copyright and Trademark to the figure. His inspiration for Zozobra came from the Holy Week celebrations of the Yaqui Indians of Mexico where an effigy of Judas, filled with firecrackers, was led around the village on a donkey, and later burned. Zozobra is a hideous but harmless fifty-foot bogeyman marionette. He is a toothless, empty-headed facade. He does not have a leg to stand on. He is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Over the years the effigy has grown larger, reaching a height of 49 feet in 2001. It is stuffed with bushels of shredded paper, which traditionally includes obsolete police reports, paid off mortgage papers, and even personal divorce papers. Zozobra’s event is considered a Fiesta where anguish, glooms, problems, are wiped off by burning the marionette.

Burning Zozobra. http://www.zozobra.com/gallery3.html

A similar event in the burning of a man’s statue, the “Burning Man”, is far more interesting than Zozobra’s for the architects’ point of view. Not only for the creation of an “instant city” but for the exhibition of great ephemeral architecture and art. At the end of the summer, architects, artists, designers, come together to build the city and to burn “the man”.

What follow bellows is combined, adapted excerpts from Burning Man’s web page, that clearly explain the nature of the event.

The man and the neon monkey. Photographer Don Davis. 2009.

Burn Night. Photographer: Peter Pan. 2008

The celebration of Burning Man's annual fire ceremony began in 1986, created by Larry Harvey and Jerry James. There is, a founding myth: the story of how Larry Harvey and his friend Jerry James burned a wooden man upon the beach in San Francisco on June 21, 1986. Many stories now embroider this initial act: accounts of Larry's broken heart, his vanished love affair, his allegiance to his father—a self-made man, a carpenter. By deciding to burn a man, Larry and Jerry not only invented the man, they also engaged in the first recorded form of what we now call "radical self-expression." It is a remarkable fact that, during the early years of growth on Baker Beach, not one of organizers or workers who toiled to create the man ever asked what it meant, though they sweated to build it.

For the next four years, the annual fire party was held at Baker Beach in San Francisco. A 1990 Cacophony newsletter item invited interested people to meet in downtown San Francisco to help assemble a wooden sculpture to be burned at a San Francisco beach in an annual celebration. The building area for this event was in a parking lot in San Francisco near 11th & Folsom. The Park police interceded in 1990 to prevent the culminating conflagration of the statue. This was a transitional moment for Burning Man as the event evolved with a new location, a change of date, and the beginning of a new meaning for the celebration.

Curators say that trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind; to truly understand it, one must participate. There are no rules about how one must behave or express oneself (save the rules that serve to protect the health, safety, and experience of the community at large); rather, it is up to each participant to decide how they will contribute and what they will give to this community. The event takes place on an ancient lakebed, known as the playa. By the time the event is completed and the volunteers leave, sometimes nearly a month after the event has ended, there will be no trace of the city that was, for a short time, the most populous town in the entire county. Art is an unavoidable part of this experience, and in fact, is such a part of the experience that Larry Harvey gives as theme each year, to encourage a common bond to help tie each individual's contribution together in a meaningful way. Participants are encouraged to find a way to help make the theme come alive, whether it is through a large-scale art-architecture installation, a theme camp, gifts brought to be given to other individuals, costumes, or any other medium that one comes up with. The Burning Man project has grown from a small group of people gathering spontaneously to a community of over 48,000 people.

Basura Sagrada Last Sunrise. Photographer Ales Prikryl. Last Sunrise created spectacular silhouette of Temple. Created by Shrine, Tucker and the Basura Sagrada Collaboratory

Basura Sagrada’s Temple. 2008. From Comfort and Joy.

playajoy.org/.../06/1441112601_fb58119873_b.jpg

Mausoleum in Dust. Photographer Glen Mehn. 2001.

“There wasn't much art on the playa in 1995, but as more artists created bigger and more complex installations each year, it occurred to me that a new kind of art-making was evolving, completely outside of the mainstream art world. On the playa, artists weren't attached to sole ownership of their work, which was community-based and communally built. Groups of artists and friends worked together on projects, sharing resources and co-operating instead of competing. Most amazing to me was the sense that these artists were so far removed from notions of preciosity and market value that they were actually burning their work at the end of the event. They weren't trying to attract a dealer or a collector…..they were doing it for the experience and for the community. …Burning Man has in a sense given art back to the community. Participants don't have to go into a museum or gallery to look at the art in a detached manner; they can help build it, they can touch it, and they can play with it. In a sense we have a sort of informal art school happening in the desert, as artists share information with those who have never created art”. (Christine Kristen aka LadyBeeHow I Fell From the Art World and Landed at Burning Man)

Giant wood sculpture designed by Arne Quinze at the Burning Man festival in Death Valley, USA in September last year. The sculpture is a larger version of the timber installations Quinze has built at design shows in London, Cologne and Miami and required 150km of wooden laths. It measured 60m x 30m x 15m high. http://www.dezeen.com/2007/05/01/arne-quinze-at-burning-man/

Arne Quinze’s installation burning. From http://www.dezeen.com/2007/05/01/arne-quinze-at-burning-man/

The Burning Man Regional Network grew to 150 Regional Contacts in 100 locations around the globe, In reaction to the overcrowding experienced in 2007, and anticipating that upwards of 50,000 people would be gathering in the Black Rock Desert for the 2008 event (it topped out at 49,599), the Burning Man Planning Department expanded the geographical layout of Black Rock City to accommodate this growth. They also have an Art Department, a Department of Mutant Vehicles. By 2008 over 785 theme camps and villages filed questionnaires requesting placement, and 746 met the criteria and were registered and placed, as part of Black Rock City's urban planning efforts (unregistered camps acquire space on their own, on a first-come first-served basis).

Burning Man Map organization. See that the urban fabric is represented with words. http://www.boingboing.net/images/map05_Psyche_LH.gif

Aerial View of Black Rock City. Photographer Scott London. 2009

Camp organization, in a closer scale. From architectmagazine.com

“Black Rock City (the name given to the settlement) thrives, in part, because of smart design decisions. The city is laid out in a series of concentric circles; the largest is nearly two miles in diameter. The concentric streets are given different names each year; in 2008, in keeping with the American Dream theme, they were cars: Allanté, Bonneville, and Corvair to Hummer, Impala, and Jeep. The order is alphabetical, so the name of the street you're on tells you how far you are from the center of the circle. The rings are intersected by radial roads identified by clock position—2:00, 3:30, 6:15—and any location can be instantly reduced to its coordinates: "I'm at 7:30 and Fairlane," or "Look for me at 4:15 and Dart." Together, the naming system and the circular design mean you always have a sense of where you are; what's more, you can get anywhere you want to go without directions. One-third of the circle is set aside for art installations, which complements the "residential neighborhoods" in the way that urban parks make cities livable. Indeed, the layout is reminiscent of nothing so much as Manhattan's, with its grid system enhancing navigability, its juxtaposition of dense development with open space, and its tallest building visible (reassuringly) from every vantage point.Before 1996, Burning Man was a design free-for-all. Participants pitched their tents, or parked their RVs, anywhere they wanted. The results included traffic jams, confusion, and, perhaps most disappointingly, feelings of isolation. Then Rod Garrett, Burning Man's self-taught city designer, developed the circular layout. The basic concept, he says, grew out of the idea of circling the wagons against the elements, as well as the desire to "express and abet a sense of communal belonging." There were also security concerns, suggesting the need for a clear perimeter, and an expansion of emergency services, which required clear sight lines and agreed-upon street names. Over the years, Garrett has refined the plan, even instituting zoning—yes, zoning—to separate potentially conflicting uses. (Loud dance clubs are located at 2:00 and 10:00.) The influence of Jeremy Bentham (with his panopticon), Frank Lloyd Wright (Usonia), and Frederick Law Olmsted, whose social activism informed his park designs, is everywhere”. (Excerpts of Learning From Black Rock, article by arch. Fred Bernstein, January 17th 2009).

Pre-Burn. Picture by DzM. 2008. The denizens of Black Rock City wait for The Man to burn. A group of fire-dancers from the Fire Conclave provides a short performance.

In 2008, 38 fire groups originally communicated their intention to participate, and 29 of those lasted through the summer to participate in the Fire Conclave. The membership totaled 1,294, making this the largest group of fire performers and support team in the world. In all, there were 810 fire performers, 335 fire safeties, 29 radio communicators and 120 musicians.

The challenge is great: to create a creative, choreographed and compelling fire show that furthers the art of fire dance. The tools that the performers use has pretty much stayed the same, while the intention and manner in which those tools are being used are continually evolving.

In an effort to spread the benefits of the Burning Man ethos, in late 2007, the Burning Man Project fostered the creation of Black Rock Solar, a non-profit company dedicated to installing low- or no-cost solar power for schools, hospitals, and other public buildings who would not otherwise be able to afford it, while training members of the local communities to install photovoltaic systems.

Architectural installation. 2009.

http://www.architectureforthemasses.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/burning-man-2009.jpg

Thunder Dome. Designed by The Death Guild. 1999. http://www.lennyjones.net/BURN%20ARCHITECTURE%20%20PAGE/structure.html

REFERENCES

http://www.zozobra.com/history.html

http://nomada.blogs.com/jfreire/2007/05/arquitectura_ef.html

http://www.burningman.com/art_of_burningman/curator_statement.html

http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/

Bernstein, Fred. Learning From Black Rock. January 17th, 2009

http://www.architectmagazine.com/architecture/crit-learning-from-black-rock.aspx?rssLink=Learning+From+Black+Rock

Prácticas Barriales y Forma Urbana en La Boca

This post is my publication in Arqa.com, in its original Spanish, May 13th 2009. More pictures of La Boca can be seen in Arqa.com. All pictures by Myriam Mahiques, except for Pellegrini´s painting.

http://us.arqa.com/index.php/esc/colaboraciones/practicas-barriales-y-forma-urbana-en-la-boca.html

Carlos E. Pellegrini. Riachuelo. (Primitivo puente de Barracas). Acuarela sobre papel 18.30 cm x 30 cm. 1830.http://www.buenosaires.gov.ar/areas/cultura/arteargentino/02dossiers/la_boca/0_2_histo1.php

En arquitectura, la palabra forma se aplica en dos sentidos, uno genérico estricto y otro intencional de la voluntad de materializar algo que se percibe como informe. Bajo el segundo concepto, la primera evocación de forma de La Boca fueron las representaciones pictóricas románticas que han surgido como la intención de dar forma a los pantanos y playas originales, cuya laxa delineación se terminaba de componer con algún elemento vertical, como árboles autóctonos y/ o palos de barcos.

La materialización progresiva se fue dando con el asentamiento de las primeras casas liberadas del Código más estricto de Buenos Aires, ya que La Boca estaba separada físicamente del Centro por un gran espacio de tierra sin fraccionar (los terrenos de los Brittain). Además, no se generó como Barracas siguiendo una vía comercial, sino informalmente por las actividades del puerto, lo que generó tendencias hacia estructuras urbanas fractales.

Fotografía aérea de manzanas hacia el Este de La Boca.

La traza era más bien un diseño regulador, donde dominaron las formas de organización semi-rural de baja densidad, con la trama abierta, incluyendo vivienda y huerta hasta avanzado el SXVII. La vivienda se ubicaba indistintamente en el terreno, según el mejor lugar de ubicación de la huerta y el gallinero. Aclaremos que, si bien los mapas antiguos delimitan las calles, espacialmente la vivencia era muy distinta, ya que las calles eran de tierra y conformaban un continuum con los terrenos baldíos y los arroyos. Es decir, morfológicamente, la manzana, la cuadrícula que tanto intentamos reproducir por su carácter de modelo primigenio, no existía en la práctica, sólo en los planos.......

Las casetas dieron paso a conventillos, con corredores tortuosos y patios, que ocupaban –ocupan- corazones de manzana, con veredas en desnivel para cuidarse de las constantes inundaciones. Recién en los últimos años se ha intentado ¨rectificar¨ las formas en pro del saneamiento y las artes del ¨buen construir¨. En este sentido, diremos que La Boca, visto como sistema complejo, es autopoiético con las siguientes características:

.- Autónomo, autoregenerativo en su original independencia con respecto a la capital, autosuficiente en su propia red recursiva.

.- Operativamente cerrado, a través de la historia no requirió la intervención externa para que el sistema produzca sus componentes, aún cuando existan algunos puntos de apertura con sus entornos (ej. el puerto local de cabotaje que significó durante varios años el puerto provincial).

.- Estructuralmente determinado, porque está capacitado para aplicar invarianzas específicas a sus estados, específicamente a la forma compleja mantenida a través de los años. Sus habitantes no han adoptado estructuras ajenas a la identidad barrial (ej. Oposición a los proyectos de Casa Amarilla), ya que mediante sus propias operaciones –autoproducción- producen sus propios elementos, afianzados con las resoluciones de las juntas barriales. Sin embargo, este desempeño no significa que el sistema sea insensible al entorno, sino que permanentemente desarrollará operaciones selectivas que le ayudarán a reorganizar sus recursos y modificar sus estructuras, hasta ahora, y a pesar de las propuestas de los planificadores, dentro del mismo modelo morfológico.

Dos viviendas de chapa, sin medianera.

Fachada esculpida frente al Riachuelo

Los ejemplos de prácticas del habitar, citados a continuación, serán una buena ilustración del comportamiento del sistema autopoiético.

Un proceso significativo y que también nos desvía de las formas originales es la gentrificación de La Boca. El término alude a la recuperación de las áreas residenciales centrales y a su resurgimiento comercial, que generalmente acompaña procesos de aumento de valor de las propiedades, expulsándose así las familias pobres. Esto acarrea la transformación del espacio construído y la aparición de nuevos habitantes, como los turistas, y los nuevos temas de diseño como museos, bares, galerías de arte, negocios de regalos, que no guardan relación con las construcciones originales.

Los integrantes de las organizaciones barriales, los vecinos en general, se confrontan en consecuencia, en dos facciones básicas que disputan los nuevos usos y fisonomía de los viejos lugares: preservacionismo y progresismo. La primera postura, apela a respetar la historia rigurosamente y subordina la introducción de cualquier uso nuevo que atente contra la identidad. La segunda postura, más positiva y flexible a los criterios de intervención urbana, aspira al desarrollo comercial y turístico.

Los preservacionistas incorporan cuestiones sociales en su discurso y reconocen a las familias de bajos recursos como gran parte de La Boca y entienden que los más carenciados no pueden ir a los restaurantes destinados a turistas.

Por el contrario, los progresistas pretenden mejoras en la calidad de vida y restauraciones largamente soñadas, independientemente de a quién están destinadas. Por ejemplo, las obras de defensa costera, mitigan las inundaciones y eso es lo que les importa, no el resultado final del paisaje.

Más allá de estas facciones, llegada la catástrofe se aúnan esfuerzos para ayudar a aquéllos que quedan aislados social y económicamente luego de la temida inundación o bien el fuego, súbitamente ocasionado por el combustible utilizado para cocinar y calefaccionar dentro de viviendas precarias. Este entrenamiento ante las catástrofes ha logrado interesantes procesos de percepción ambiental, en el reconocimiento perceptivo del viento del Sudeste. El aspecto más constructivista de este conocimiento es que la gente elabora un cálculo, más bien una estrategia preventiva, en base al avance del agua, para saber cuándo deben comenzar a proteger sus bienes, ya sea ubicándolos en lugares elevados en sus propias viviendas o bien trasladándolos a casa de sus vecinos o parientes aledaños que responden solidariamente. Henos aquí ante una transformación urbana que, si bien sutil e imperceptible, afecta a todo el sistema.

Esquina colorida en La Boca.

Típico paisaje del Riachuelo.

La heterogeneidad material de La Boca se equipara a su heterogeneidad étnica, social y cultural, origen de las distintas corrientes migratorias. La extensa trama de organizaciones sociales, gremiales y culturales que ya cuentan entre 50 y 130 años desde su fundación, forman parte de la historia barrial. Por sus características, La Boca tiene una identidad tan fuerte con sus diferentes alturas, materiales, colores, desniveles, que es como una ciudad dentro de otra ciudad. Todo emprendimiento de erradicación absoluta que no tenga en cuenta las cuestiones de hábitos sociales y las formas originales, irá en contra de dicha identidad .

Una iniciativa relativamente reciente cuyo precursor fue el Sr. Rodolfo Estekar, y ha contado con el apoyo de la Universidad de Morón, y los vecinos de La Boca, se opone a la propuesta oficial de crear un complejo habitacional de 12 pisos y 1200 viviendas en Casa Amarilla.

La iniciativa – que llevó dos años de proceso- prevé que el gobierno porteño construya casas o pequeños complejos en los predios y edificios abandonados de La Boca, de esa forma se cumpliría con tres metas: una mayor oferta de viviendas, producción de trabajo y recomposición del lastimado tejido urbano del barrio.

¨Como opción al intento gubernamental, los vecinos –muchos de ellos representantes de asociaciones barriales– plantearon que, con igual inversión que la prevista para el proyecto oficial, se levante la misma cantidad de techos pero diversificados a lo largo y ancho de toda “La Boca del Riachuelo”, como les gusta llamar al barrio. Están convencidos de que así se evitaría dañar con un edificio gigante la fisonomía de la zona y además se facilitaría la socialización de los nuevos vecinos que ocuparían las casas con los habitantes actuales¨. (Martínez Ruhl, en Página 12, Enero 2007)

La ayuda técnica que diera sustento al proyecto la brindó la Universidad de Morón, una de cuyas cátedras se ofreció para realizar un estudio ambiental y de sustentabilidad que apoya y completa el plan de construcción pensado por los vecinos.

A principios del 2007, la Legislatura convirtió el proyecto en ley. La flamante ley declara en emergencia urbanística y ambiental “en lo que hace a la vivienda, servicios, equipamiento, espacios verdes y de actividades productivas al sector delimitado por las avenidas Regimiento de Patricios, Martín García, Paseo Colón, Brasil y Pedro de Mendoza”, es decir, todo el barrio de La Boca. (Martínez Ruhl, en Página 12, Enero 2007)

Este hecho comentado por Martínez Ruhl es sumamente importante, y demuestra que la morfología urbana de La Boca, incomprendida por el gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, ha sido interpretada inconscientemente por sus vecinos, como producto de su cultura y vivencias. Como barrio –ciudad-, la Boca se desarrolló como un sistema vivo que mantuvo continuos cambios estructurales internos generados por sus interacciones con el medio en el que actúa como totalidad, consecuentemente nada ajeno al sistema puede determinar las evoluciones estructurales de la forma.

A pesar del ámbito multicultural, vemos aquí una transversalidad que es una constante en nuestra existencia histórica y sobrepasa los límites del barrio. Estas consideraciones implican un cambio de los paradigmas tradicionales de la planificación urbana, produciendo una evolución en los modelos de análisis de morfología urbana: toda propuesta de mejora del asentamiento podría ser posible, en tanto no se vulnere el conjunto de indicadores urbano-ambientales, ni la identidad del barrio-pueblo-ciudad en cuestión.

Diferencia de niveles en las veredas.

REFERENCIAS.

Aslan, L. , Joselevich I., G. Novoa, D. Saiegh, A. Santaló, Buenos Aires La Boca 1885-1970, Inventario de Patrimonio Urbano, SICYT, UBA, Buenos Aires,1990

Boletín Informativo Techint. La Boca. Identificación de proyectos para su puesta en valor. Buenos Aires. No 249, septiembre-octubre 1987.

Bucich, Antonio. Cuadernos de Buenos Aires VII, “El Barrio de La Boca. La Boca del Riachuelo desde Pedro de Mendoza hasta las postrimerías del siglo XIX”. Municipalidad de Buenos Aires, 1970

Clementi, Hebe. Protagonistas de La Boca...un pueblo. Instituto Histórico de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. 2000

Herzer, Hilda. Di Virgilio, Mercedes. Lanceta, Máximo. Martínez, Lucas. Redondo, Andrea. Rodríguez, Carla. El Proceso de Renovación Urbana en La Boca: Organizaciones Barriales entre Nuevos Usos y Viejos Lugares. En HAOL (Historia Actual on Line), Núm. 16, 41-62. 15 de Junio de 2008.

http://www.historia-actual.com/HAO/Volumes/Volume1/Issue16/esp/v1i16c5.pdf

La Nación. Información General. ¨Vientos de cambio soplan sobre el dañado paisaje de La Boca¨. Publicado en edición impresa y on line. 6 de octubre 1997.

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=78203

López Salón, Mariángeles. ¨Los conventillos de La Boca ya no serán de chapa¨. En La Nación on line. 16 de Agosto de 1998

https://www1.lanacion.com/nota.asp?nota_id=107107

Martínez Ruhl, Eugenio. ¨La Boca, diseñada por sus vecinos¨. En Página 12. 13 de Enero de 2007.

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/sociedad/3-79024-2007-01-13.html

Páez, Jorge. El Conventillo. Colección Grandes Exitos. Centro Editor de América Latina. Buenos Aires, 1976

Planos de Buenos Aires Siglos XVIII, XIX y XX. Museo Histórico de la Ciudad y Biblioteca de la Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo.

Silvestri, Graciela. El color del río. Colección Las ciudades y las ideas. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Buenos Aires, 2003

Suárez, Francisco M. Con el corazón en la boca. Las metáforas de una inundación. En Desbordes, Inundaciones y Diluvios. Desastres y Sociedad. No3. Año 2. Universidad de Buenos Aires.

http://www.crid.or.cr/digitalizacion/pdf/spa/doc6573/doc6573.pdf

Slums Clearances by Fire

Dharavi slum fire http://alchemistpoonam.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/dharavi_slum_fire.jpg

Every year, mostly in summer, thousands of nice comfortable houses, complete neighborhoods, are burnt to the ground in California. Supposedly, all homeowners would have an insurance, relatives and friends somewhere in USA ready to help. The sadness and anguish is deep, but the victims are not abandoned. These are not the worst cases.

Overcrowding plus poverty is the best combination for fires. This is a longstanding problem that has not been resolved yet. Shack fires put young children and old and disabled people at particular risk, they result in the loss of identity documents, HIV medication and getting additional supplies is sometimes almost impossible. They also create acute stress for children, many of whom are tortured by recurring nightmares about the fires. (Imraan Buccus).

In 1912, Dr. Architect Werner Hegemann’s, who was a city Planner and a former houses inspector in Philadelphia, started a popular campaign for a more decentralizing system of housing and transportation and more playgrounds and forest reserves in greater Berlin, zoned for tenements. He covered the city with posters claiming that “600,000 inhabitants of Greater Berlin live in tenements at the rate of from 5 to 13 people per room”. As a result of his action, he was prosecuted by the Prussian police, for “inciting of class hatred”, an attitude punishable by law. In the following years, Hegemann was planning advisor for many cities in Western Europe, Middle East, also Sudamerica (including Buenos Aires and Rosario where he was invited in 1931). He declared that we only had to replace the word “slums” for “slaves” to have a condition –at least by that time- almost identical to that of the Civil War period when Lincoln suggested to indemnify the slaves holders; a similar proposition could be chosen to idemnify slums’ owners. But, “if compensation is impracticable, that impracticability ought not to be an obstacle to a clearly essentially reform”. (Alexander Hamilton, cited by Ruth Nanda Anshen).

Hegemann’s book “City Planning, Housing” denouncing the consequences of the incipient urban sprawl and poverty, was published in 1935. His analysis indicated that New York Region could hold twice the population of the globe if built up to the legal full extents of the New York Region Zoning Code; his comparison between Paris and London is clear about city’s congestion: Napoleon III-Haussmann’s urban operations, instead of taking London’s garden suburbs as an example, did not decentralize Paris, instead, they succeeded in concealing the overcrowding and misery by building new beatiful high facades along the avenues. For Napoleon III, slum clearance was a way to fight Socialism.

Le Corbusier: Plan Voisin in Paris. “Since 1922 (for the past 42 years) I have continued to work, in general and in detail, on the problem of Paris. Everything has been made public. The City Council has never contacted me. It calls me 'Barbarian'!" (Le Corbusier’s writings, p. 207)

http://www.nyu.edu/classes/reichert/sem/city/images/207a.jpg

Le Corbusier, re-elaborated this thought in his proposal of clearing completely the heart of Paris, 800 acres on the right bank of the Seine river. Each new tower would dwell 30,000 to 40,000 people, population that would be approximately 8 times more than the existing in the urban fabric of narrow streets and dark patios in the Post War period.

Clearance of slums has its even more Utopian point of view in Herbert G. Wells’ novel, “In The Days of the Comet” (1906). A comet smashes into the Earth and a green vapor is released putting everyone to sleep, until three hours later when the change in the atmosphere has dissipated. Then, the world awakens in an altered state. Humankind has a new socialist view on life and strives now to create a utopian order by righting the wrongs of the past. The war between Germany and Britain is immediately ceased. Soldiers can't even remember why they are lying on the ground with rifles next to them. Slums are being torn down to make way for safe and humane housing for the poor under-class. (From David Fletcher’s book review at AllReaders.com ).

“In the days of the comet”. Artistic interpretation by Alan Perry.

“It was inevitable that the old idea of purification should revive with the name, it was felt to be a burning of other than material encumbrances, innumerable quasi-spiritual things, deeds, documents, debts, vindictive records, went up in those great flares. People passed praying between the fires….Endless were the things we had to destroy in those great purgings. First, there were nearly all the houses and buildings of the old time. In the end we did not save in England one building in five thousand that was standing when the comet came. Year by year, as we made our homes afresh in accordance with the saner needs of our new social families, we swept away more and more of those horrible structures, the ancient residential houses, hastily built, without imagination, without beauty, without common honesty, without even comfort or convenience, in which the early twentieth century had sheltered until scarcely one remained; we saved nothing but what was beautiful or interesting out of all their gaunt and melancholy abundance. The actual houses, of course, we could not drag to our fires, but we brought all their ill-fitting deal doors, their dreadful window sashes, their servant-tormenting staircases, their dank, dark cupboards, the verminous papers from their scaly walls, their dust and dirt-sodden carpets, their ill-designed and yet pretentious tables and chairs, sideboards and chests of drawers, the old dirt-saturated books, their ornaments--their dirty, decayed, and altogether painful ornaments--amidst which I remember there were sometimes even STUFFED DEAD BIRDS!--we burnt them all. The paint-plastered woodwork, with coat above coat of nasty paint, that in particular blazed finely………. We burnt and destroyed most of our private buildings and all the woodwork, all our furniture, except a few score thousand pieces of distinct and intentional beauty, from which our present forms have developed, nearly all our hangings and carpets, and also we destroyed almost every scrap of old-world clothing. Only a few carefully disinfected types and vestiges of that remain now in our museums.” (Excerpt from “In the Days of the Comet”. Book III, Chapter III).

Though in 1906 it must have seen as a fantasy novel, the years of the World Wars showed that the big scale devastation of slums and public historical buildings was a reality. After the wars, the construction of 2,500,000 modern apartments were not enough and most people were compelled to remain in the old obsolete tenements that were not destroyed, or they had to live in shanty towns.

Roma fire, AD 64. http://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2009/08/29/3864177465f9815099de_1.jpg

By 1935, some cities began to awaken to the public conscience of the cruelty in some methods of slums clearance. The Chairman of the New York Housing authority, Langdon W. Post, declared on the radio that 81 men, women and children were burnt to death in tenement houses/slums fires. They were living in fire traps.

If New York’s slums fires had been systematically started, the conflagration would have been much greater than the one in emperor Nero’s Rome, considering more than a million and a half people lived in houses unfit for human habitation in New York Region. (W. Hegemann, 1935).

Nowadays, slums fires are still an omnipresent trap. In Mike Davis’ words, the mixture of inflammable dwellings, extraordinary density, and dependance upon open fires for heat and cooking is a superlative recipe for spontaneous combustion. A simple accident with cooking gas or kerosene can quickly become a mega fire that destroys thousands of dwellings.

Fire in Manila Slum. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3235/2693484027_6fa1783286.jpg

Slums fires are not always caused by accident. Davis explains that rather than afford the expenses of courts procedures or endure a long wait for an official demolition order, landlords and developers frequently prefer to start a fire on purpose. Manila has a notorious reputation for suspicious slum fires; there were eight major burnings between February and April 1993 (Jeremy Seabrook, cited by Davis). Erhard Berner recalls the method of “hot demolition”, as the Filipino landlords’ favourite one: a kerosene drenched burning live rat or cat –not dogs, they die too fast- is pushed into the annoying settlement; a fire started this way is very hard to fight as the unlucky animal can set plenty of shanties aflame before it dies.

In August 2009, a fact-finding team that was formed to investigate accidental slum fires in Chennai (India), said these slum fires, which claimed five lives and destroyed over 400 huts, could be politically motivated. The 12-member fact-finding group, comprising journalists, human rights activists, lawyers and doctors, added there’s more than meets the eye with these accidental fires, which occurred in Shenoy Nagar, Nandambakkam, Vyasarpadi, Perambur and JJ Nagar in the last months. What is surprising is that in all these slums where the fire accidents happened, the slum dwellers were being forced by the government to vacate the place. This eviction proposal was for various developmental projects. The team demands a No Displacement Ordinance to raise financial relief to people, and also a Rehabilitation Bill to resettle slum dwellers in a new location (From Express News Service. Fire in slums politically motivated?. Published August 8th 2009). The healing news, Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Services and the Tamil Nadu Corporation for Development of Women Limited, have jointly introduced a scheme to train the women under the various Women Self Help Groups, in the area of Fire Prevention and Propagation of the messages of safe-fire-practices. They constitute a ready target group of women who can easily understand the messages on Fire Safety and Safe Fire Practices.

Life in slums has been very well documented in the movie “Slumdog Millionaire”; but Destiny wanted even more awareness of these terrible procedures and accidents. The movie’s child stars Azharuddin Ismail and Rubina Ali narrowly escaped a massive fire that destroyed a section of their Mumbai slum. More than 200 slum homes were gutted and 15 people injured in the blaze. According to the residents, gas canisters used for home cooking exploded every few minutes in the intense heat, helping the fire spread and hampering rescue efforts. (From Slumdog Millionaire kids escape slum fire. At Indian Express.com June 19th, 2009)

The news about this event spread around the world. Maybe it helps in the understanding that before planning the destruction of massive urban agglomerations, authorities and developers should undertake serious larger scale house planning operations that liberate people from these fire traps.

Slum fire .From Washingtonpost.com

REFERENCES

Hegemann, Werner. City Planning, Housing. USA, 1937

Davis, Mike. Planet of Slums. USA. 2006

Slum fire in Kenya

http://talialexander.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-slums-fires-can-quickly-get-out-of.html

Fire in slum India

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/slumdog-millionaire-kids-escape-slum-fire/478759/

Express Buzz

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Fire+in+slums+politically+motivated?&artid=5c6Vic21J7M=

Tamilnadu Corporation for Development of Women Limited. (TNCDW, Chennai).

http://www.tnfrs.tn.nic.in/other-org.htm

Buccus, Inraan. Slums built on the ashes of the Apartheid.

http://www.suburbanstudio.org/node/7

Landscape digital paintings

Folliage

Leaf

Violeta de los Alpes

Landscape

Orchid

All digital paintings by Myriam B. Mahiques.

Urban Simulation From Newton Fractals

Rural settlement of Nahalal in Palestine founded in 1921, shows a restricted growth. Published in National Geographic, february 2008, page 33. On the right side, its corresponding Fourier Transform.

First of all, a warning. We must not be tempted for the beauty of fractals, the intention in my exercise is to find the hidden pattern of a fractal urban simulation, originated in the Jewish rural settlement of Nahalal. Alan Mairson, author of the text accompanying the picture in National Geographic, says the settlement´s shape is rigid, with limited growth. The concept of this center with rays is a reflex of egalitarianism: the circle allows everybody to have equal access to neighbors and facilities.The center contains public buildings surrounded by a residential ring, the farms are beyond and around. When the cooperativist spirit was dissipated in the 90´s, the urban shape was not so strict any more. "The village layout in Nahalal, devised by architect Richard Kauffman, became the pattern for many of the moshavim established before 1948; it is based on concentric circles, with the public buildings (school, administrative and cultural offices, cooperative shops and warehouses) in the center, the homesteads in the innermost circle, the farm buildings in the next, and beyond those, ever-widening circles of gardens and fields. initially to 80 equal parts, 75 parts to the members and 5 parts for the agricultural school (the first two parts and the last three parts contain the agricultural school). This equal parcelling of the land became the trademark geometric shape of Nahalal." (Excerpt from Wikipedia.org)Newton fractals are helpful for simulations of growth for urban morphologies with this particular pattern. To find an analogical Newton fractal is not enough, we still need to find hidden patterns consistent with urban simulations.

Here we have two analogical fractals originated in generalized Newton´s fractals. On the right side, the hidden structure is shown in the FFT image (Fourier Transform).

We have found the rays and the center; The first fractal is a representation of a growing center, the avenues are still empty, they can be associated to freeways. The second fractal is showing the loss of egalitarianism, the urban fabric is extended between the rays, in a chaotic pattern.

The next step is to analyze the Fourier Transform image, to take a decision about the best simulation of urban growth.

On the left, the binary image of the first FFT is shown. On the right, I show a binary image of the second FFT with the chaotic pattern. Definitely, the second image is more accurate for Alan Mairson's explanation. The pattern of rays is lost, as it will be in the future, if farms were mixed with residential use. But the main center, origin of the primary idea is still kept.

Nahalal between 1939 and 1945. Picture by Frank Hurley. http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an23565289

All simulation images by Myriam B. Mahiques

Fractals From Newton Method

Generalized Newton, by Myriam Mahiques

Newton's method, also called the Newton-Raphson or Newton iteration method, is a root finding algorithm of a real function. It can be used to find the minimum and maximum of a function.

Isaac Newton discovered what we now call Newton's method around 1670. Although Newton's method is an old application of calculus, it was discovered relatively recently that extending it to the complex plane the result is a boundary set, a very interesting fractal pattern.

My interest in this type of fractal is its analogy with urban morphogenesis with a center and radial avenues. It can be applied to urban morphology simulation exercises.

All images generated by Myriam Mahiques.

REFERENCES
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/newton/

http://facstaff.unca.edu/mcmcclur/mathematicaGraphics/Newton/index.html

Cálculo de la Dimensión Fractal

Membrane 2, by Myriam B. Mahiques

Teóricamente, las formas que tienen la misma rugosidad, debieran tener un comportamiento similar. Y si podemos visualizar la forma, podemos comprender el sistema.

La geometría fractal cuantifica la rugosidad de los objetos mediante un índice llamado “dimensión fractal”. Normalmente consideramos que los puntos tienen dimensión 0, las líneas 1, las superficies 2 y los volúmenes 3. Es lo que llamamos “dimensión topológica”.

Sin embargo, una curva rugosa, que recorre una superficie puede ser tan rugosa que casi llene la superficie en la que se encuentra. El follaje de un árbol o el interior de un pulmón pueden ser entonces tridimensionales. Podemos así pensar que la rugosidad es un incremento de la dimensión: una curva rugosa tiene una dimensión entre 1 y 2 y una superficie rugosa entre 2 y 3.

Líneas y planos son autosimilares y pueden cortarse –por ejemplo- en 4 segmentos de intervalos autosimilares, cada uno de la misma longitud, y cada uno de los cuales puede ser magnificado por un valor 4 del segmento original. Pero también podemos cortarlos en N partes autosimilares, cada uno con un factor de magnificación N.

Tomemos un cuadrado. Lo descomponemos en 4 sub cuadrados autosimilares y el factor de magnificación es 2. Si lo cortamos en 9 piezas, el factor de magnificación será 3, y si se corta en 25, el factor de magnificación será 5.

Estos esquemas han sido bajados de Internet.

Esta es una forma alternativa de especificar la dimensión de un objeto autosimilar. La dimensión es el exponente del número de piezas autosimilares con un factor de magnificación N, en el que la figura puede ser partida. O sea,

D= log (número de piezas autosimilares)/ Log (factor de magnificación)
D= log N2 /Log N
D= 2 Log N/Log N=2
La fórmula matemática más común es la que corresponde a Hausdorff-Besicovitch:

donde N es el número de partes idénticas en que se ha dividido el objeto auto-semejante y r es la relación de las partes con el todo.

Similarmente, la dimensión de un cubo es:

D= log N3 /Log N

D= 3 Log N/Log N=3

Hay varios métodos manuales para el cálculo de la dimensión fractal; si el fractal es muy complejo, se utilizan computadoras.

Un dibujo, un esquema, un plano, una fotografía pueden ser útiles. Y ayudarán a desarrollar nuestra intuición en búsqueda de pruebas.

Comparativamente, si un fractal se mide en un número de iteraciones, para una estructura empírica tomaremos progresivas variaciones de medida (con la aplicación de un factor de escala). Un fractal determinista, en cualquier escala de observación, dará el mismo valor de Dimensión Fractal, o sea, es perfectamente autosimilar. Pero, una morfología urbana no es un fractal determinista; con lo que la comprobación de autosimilitud no registrará valores de D idénticos, pero podemos inferir, al encontrar valores similares, que “la forma muestra propiedades análogas a la autosimilitud fractal”.

Beginning the fractal analysis of simulation of Urban Fabric Regeneration

These graphics are analysis of fractal dimension, surface plots and plots of the images I simulated for Nagasaki. My objective -today- is to find out if I can get closer to the original fractal dimension of Nagasaki, before the Atomic bomb's impact. Then, I'll see if a similar fractal Dimension is representative of the original characteristics of the urban pattern.

This is Nagasaki before the bomb. Fractal Dimension D is in the rank of 1.80

After the bomb, the fractal dimension D is approximately 1.55. From now on, we'll see how we approach to the original fractal dimension. Surface plots will be showing the rugosity of the urban fabric. The land will be filled slowly following the main ruins concentration.

The problem I find here, is that I can get very close to the first fractal dimension  value, but the urban fabric, as shown on the left side plot, still does not have the complexity shown on the first image before the bomb. This one appears softer. It means, probably lacunarities are Ok, but the urban morphological pattern is still not representing the inhabitants' main urban structures. Fractal Dimension, is not enough for this exercise, and more adjustments of the urban fabric will be needed.

To be continued.....