Astana, a capital city designed from zero. By Kisho Kurokawa

The Bayterek tower, designed by president Nursultan Nazarbayev, stands at the centre of Astana's main avenue Photograph: Antoine Lambroschini/AFP/Getty Images

Excerpts from an article by Rowan Moore, For the Observer:

"Peas and beans! Peas and beans!" The famous Japanese architect was in his office, high in a Tokyo tower, its walls crowded with framed honours and diplomas. Assistants of exceptional beauty shimmered in with tea, but what he wanted to talk about was pulses. Rising prosperity in China would lead to rising meat consumption, and in turn a global protein crisis. It was the greatest problem, he said, facing mankind today. The solution lay in Kazakhstan, the vast former Soviet republic, for whose president the architect, Kisho Kurokawa, was masterplanning a new capital. This country, to the south of Russia, stretches from the eastern edge of Europe almost to Mongolia. For Kurokawa it offered ample opportunity for growing peas and beans, and – in a symbolic way – his plan would help. It was based on the interweaving of city and nature, with swaths of green between the buildings. It represented an idea of interdependence of which pulse-growing on an immense scale would be the practical outcome.

This meeting was in 2001, and Kurokawa died in 2007, but his city is now there, more or less following his plan. There are plenty of parks and trees. Called Astana, it is the world's latest example of a rare but persistent type, the capital from zero. It is in a line that includes St Petersburg, Washington DC, Canberra, Ankara and Brasilia and like them it provokes a question: can a city, in all its teeming complexity, really be planned? Or does the attempt lead only to a synthetic simulacrum, a kind-of city that is not quite the real thing?

Astana's newest monument, the Khan Shatyr. The giant tent-shaped shopping centre, was the brainchild of Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazabayex, and was designed by the British architects Foster + Partners. Photograph by Nigel Young

A sedated and clean city. Picture by Rowan Moore.

To look at, Astana is so strange that it has one grasping for images. It's a space station, marooned in an ungraspable expanse of level steppe, its name (to English speakers) having the invented sound of a science fiction writer's creation. It's a city of fable or dream, as recounted by Marco Polo to Kublai Khan. Except it's not quite so magical: it's also like a battery-operated plastic toy, all whirring noises and flashing colours, of a kind sold by the city's street vendors.

Astana's ornaments include a 62-metre-high silver pyramid, designed by British architects Foster + Partners, giant gold-green cones and a gold orb resting on a structure of erupting white steel. At night its buildings go purple, pink, green and yellow. Astana's latest, most technically ambitious addition is a 150-metre-high translucent tent, also by Lord Foster. Called Khan Shatyr, a single leaning mast props its roof, which offers shelter from a harsh climate to a shopping and entertainment complex underneath. It follows a familiar Foster strategy, to be seen in the Great Court of the British Museum, or his airports at Stansted, Hong Kong and Beijing, which is to create an impressively engineered roof – a thing to be looked at and admired but not inhabited – hovering over a lower, less ordered, zone where the activity of the buildings, in this case shops and theme-park rides, takes place. This strategy, derived from the geodesic domes which the visionary American designer Buckminster Fuller once proposed throwing over whole cities, makes for striking architecture but also for awkward clashes where the two zones meet. Top and bottom seem to be different worlds.

The Presidential palace in Astana is a version of The White House in Washington, enhanced by a blue dome, spire, and a dominating position on the city's main axis. Picture by Corbis.

The Pyramid of Peace - or the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation - is also known as the 'Foster Pyramid,' after the British architect Norman Foster who designed it. Picture by Corbis.

A low angle perspective of the tower in Astana which simbolises the Kazakh myth of the magic bird Samruk, who laid a golden egg on the tree of life. Photograph: Antoine Lambroschini/AFP/Getty Images

Such cities are often the work of a single strong man. There is a museum of the founder in Astana, as there are of Kemal Atatürk in Ankara and President Kubitschek in Brasilia, pharaonic insurance against the afterlife that contains such things as Nazarbayev's grandfather's seal of office as a local judge. There is the president's palace, which stands on a long axis linking the two Foster works, the tent and the pyramid, and the golden orb. The palace is a version of the White House, improved by the addition of a blue dome. Also by its dominating location: the American original is placed off-centre from Washington's Mall, signifying a separation of powers that is not quite the Kazakh style.

Artificial trees made of steel rods and coloured lights frame the presidential palace. Picture by Rowan Moore.

The world's most famous Kazakh is the fictional Borat, but people in Astana are nothing like him. Except, perhaps for a taxi driver who growled like a tomcat whenever he saw a woman. In general Astanans are placid and dignified. They gather in the hour or so around dusk, when the hammering heat of the day gives way to deliciously balmy air, and promenade in the city's grand avenue. Children career over the pavements in electric cars like unfenced dodgems, while everyone gasps obediently at the pre-programmed fountain displays. The avenue is decorated with topiary giraffes and elephants, and vast swirling carpets of brightly coloured bedding plants. There are artificial trees, made of steel rods, blossoming with pink or orange lights and the plastic roof of Khan Shatyr now joins the display, lit from within with a spectrum of disco colours. Sam Cooke's Wonderful World plays from the shrubberies. The place offers childish delights, laid on by the unseen hand of a benevolent daddy.

There is not, yet, much more to Astana than this. It doesn't have bohemian quarters, or a rich nightlife, or hidden surprises. It feels sedated. The striking architecture is combined with a lack of excitement in the street life, as if the design of buildings were a cipher for risk and drama. These are very early days, of course, and over the decades Astana might mature into something different.

REFERENCE:

Astana, Kazakhstan: the space station in the steppes. The Observer. August 10, 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/08/astana-kazakhstan-space-station-steppes

First picture from the Observer; next pictures from http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Paralells between Chinese curved roofs and Chinese calligraphy

The Forbidden City. Image from en.paralympic.beijing2008.cn

Summer palace. Image from architecture.about.com

¨The dominant architectural feature of the great halls and palaces of the Forbidden City is the traditional Chinese curved roof. The curved line was made possible by the use of a roof support system more flexible than the rigid, triangulated truss employed in Europe. The Chinese used a beam frame system in which progressively shorter crossbeams, separated by struts, supported longitudinal beams known as purlins. The rafters of the roof rested on the purlins. By varying the relative lengths of the crossbeams and thus the position of the purlins, curved roofs could be produced from short, straight rafters.

The Chinese beam support system could just as easily have been used to build straight roofs, and the British architect Andrew Boyd, who asserts that ¨structure does not dictate architectural form,´ attributes the curved roof to aesthetic choice. That great popularizer of Chinese culture Lin Yutang points out that one of the basic tenets of Chinese calligraphy is the ¨interplay of rigid straight lines and curving forms,¨ and he suggests that in the Peking palaces the curving roofs form a harmonious whole with the straight lines of the base and pillars, producing a combination of grace and strength.¨

Chinese writing. Image from akuindeed.com

Reference:

The Forbidden City. By Roderick MacFarquhar and Editors of the Newsweek book division.  P. 93-94. New York. 1972.

Gardeners Root For City Patches

Community garden. From tlc.howstuffworks.com

Here I reproduce this article from the Wall Street Jounal. It reminded me the community gardens in Buenos Aires that are not regulated by the City. It’s just a matter of neighbors’ associations, there is no aesthetics involved, just food and the desire to learn how to produce vegetables domestically. In the lowest scale, some neighbors plant their own vegetables alongside the railroad  tracks. With a kind of territoriality feeling, the person in charge of his/her own patch –usually in front of his/her property- installs a short wire fence around, just to mean “ these are my vegetables”. It doesn’t happen in fancy neighoborhoods where the railroad track has trees and paths, like Vicente Lopez. Read about community gardens in New York:

Community garden. From gardening.savvy-cafe.com

“ Gardeners came to City Hall Wednesday bearing beets, rainbow Swiss chard, corn, carrots and cabbage. Among their signs: Save the Tomatoes.

"Urban gardens help us feed the concrete jungle," read another.

The gardeners are turning up the pressure in response to the city's proposed rules that will soon govern the roughly 300 community gardens on Housing Preservation and Development or Parks and Recreation land. Their goal is to make the gardens permanent.

A current agreement, reached in 2002 between then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, expires Sept. 17. The new rules, made public last month, have been criticized by gardeners for not going far enough to protect and create gardens.

More than 100 rallied on Wednesday, including Yonnette Fleming from the Hattie Carthan Garden in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. "Community gardens are not a luxury. Community gardens are not an aesthetic item for the city" she said, "Community gardens are the lungs of New York City."

Officials ranging from City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe have said that the city has no intention of developing any of the gardens, but the city reserves the right to that land in case it ever needs it for another purpose.

"It's difficult to call anything permanent, including community gardens. Even parks are not permanent," Mr. Benepe said.

"The administration seems to be listening to what we are trying to do, it is opening a door so that now we can move forward and come up with some permanent legislation or resolution that will make community gardens permanent," said Karen Washington, president of the New York City Community Garden Coalition.

Ms. Washington is confident that permanency is possible, through mechanisms like zoning, a long lease agreement or a new legal designation for gardens. Those negotiations are happening parallel to the rules process.

Gardeners are planning to turn out in force for a public hearing on Aug. 10.”

Published at the Wall Street Journal, August 5^th, 2010.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704741904575409693243070272.html

Archaeologists discover Britain´s oldest house

Archaeologists working at the stone age site at Star Carr have dated a house at 10,500 years old. Picture from BBC News

Reproduction of the article by Sean Coughlan, for BBC News education

The circular structure, found at a site near Scarborough, North Yorkshire, has been dated as being made in 8,500BC.

Described as a "sensational discovery" by archaeologists, this is 500 years older than the previous oldest house.

The teams from the universities of Manchester and York are also examining a nearby wooden platform, which is being claimed as the oldest example of carpentry in Europe.

Nicky Milner, an archaeologist from the University York, says such sites are "incredibly rare" - and that finding such early evidence of settled living gives a new insight into hunter gatherers.

"What's really important is how it changes our view of hunter gatherers," says Dr Milner.

"There was a view of them as being very nomadic, highly-mobile people - but now we're seeing them as much more settled and sophisticated... People were living in the same places for generations."

"This is a sensational discovery and tells us so much about the people who lived at this time," says Dr Milner.

First settlers

Evidence of what would have been a 3.5 metre house has been found at the Star Carr archaeological site, which was occupied by hunter gatherers 11,000 years ago, when Britain was attached to continental Europe.

The remains were dated by radio carbon and the type of tools used - which have identified the house as being from 8,500BC, older than the previous oldest known house, in Howick, Northumberland.

The people living here would have been among the first settlers returning after the glaciers of the ice age had retreated.

It was a round house - a smaller version of iron age round houses - with a circle of timber posts around a sunken circular floor area, which could have been covered by reeds.

It is not known how the walls and roof were covered, but it could have been thatched or used animal hides.

Archaeologists believe that the house had been rebuilt over time and that there were likely to have been other houses at the site.

It suggests that people of this era were more attached to settlements than had been previously thought - staying in one place rather than drifting across the landscape.

The Star Carr site, inhabited after the last ice age, is believed to have been in use for between 200 and 500 years.

It has been the subject of extensive research and excavation since its discovery in the 1940s - and has yielded items such as the paddle of a boat, arrow tips and masks made from red deer skulls.

There are also antler head-dresses, which could have been used in rituals.

This 11,000-year-old tree was discovered at the Yorkshire site. Picture from BBC News

Hunters

The people living at Star Carr were hunters rather than farmers, catching animals such as deer, boar and elk, helped by domesticated dogs.

Archaeologists are also examining a wooden platform made from split timbers, near to the lakeside house, which is being claimed as the oldest example of carpentry so far discovered in Europe.

An 11,000-year-old tree trunk has also been found at the mesolithic-era site, with the bark still intact.

Chantal Conneller from the University of Manchester said: "This changes our ideas of the lives of the first settlers to move back into Britain after the end of the last ice age.

"We used to think they moved around a lot and left little evidence. Now we know they built large structures and were very attached to particular places in the landscape."

The teams were congratulated by Universities Minister David Willetts: "This exciting discovery marries world-class research with the lives of our ancestors.

"It brings out the similarities and differences between modern life and the ancient past in a fascinating way, and will change our perceptions for ever."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-10929343

Postales antiguas de Buenos Aires

Ayer recibí un email de una amiga con estas postales, salvo por las que tienen logo, desconozco el autor de las fotografías y el autor del email que las recopilaba. Pienso que tal vez hayan sido bajadas de google images. De todos modos, vale la pena compartirlas. Es la imagen del Buenos Aires de nuestros abuelos, la mayoría de ellos inmigrantes italianos y españoles.

Terrazas del Portezuelo, San Luis, Argentina

Foto de Clarin.com

En un post anterior, yo ya dí mi opinión sobre la faraónica obra del gobernador puntano ¨Terrazas del Portezuelo¨, siga el link

http://myriammahiques.blogspot.com/2010/03/articulo-el-bicentenario-faraonico-de.html

Hoy me limito a mostrar la obra terminada, según el artículo de Daniel Moya para Clarin.com

"San Luis es otro país”, es un slogan que repiten los puntanos, tal vez, en referencia a las obras de autopistas, viviendas y a la reciente ley de inclusión digital que reconoce el acceso gratuito a Internet para todos en esa provincia. Quizá de esta afirmación también cuenta la nuevacasa de gobierno, inaugurada en las afueras de la capital. Un conjunto que por su escala monumental , materialidad y morfología vanguardistas, se distancia a pasos agigantados de la arquitectura tradicional de la ciudad; y parece acercarse a las estrategias urbanas y arquitectónicas empleadas en Brasilia para representar al poder.

Emplazado sobre un cerro de 20 hectáreas y en un entorno agreste, el nuevo conjunto se organiza en una sucesión de terrazas escalonadas . En el perímetro de la base del cerro se disponen cuatro bloques que albergarán a los distintos ministerios provinciales. Por rampas que atraviesan las terrazas, se sube hasta la parte más alta, en la que un zócalo gigantesco alberga un nivel gastronómico y cultural. Sobre su cubierta, se desarrolla la última terraza, una gran plaza seca convistas a la ciudad. Aquí, el conjunto se corona con tres edificios triangulares que, en conjunto, componen una especie de pirámide fragmentada en tres tajadas de vidrio y acero oxidado. Estos bloques, que ya albergan a la residencia del gobernador y a las oficinas de la gobernación, iluminados causan impacto por su contraste material con el entorno. Aunque, conceptualmente, el conjunto pareciera inspirarse en su estructuración jerárquica , en los históricos zigurat: una tipología que data de la antigua Mesopotamia, típica en las culturas sumeria, asiria y babilónica. Los zigurat también remataban una sucesión de terrazas escalonadas, en lo más alto, con un fastuoso templo piramidal, reservado sólo para los nobles; y su propósito era acercar el templo al cielo, al cual se accedía desde un nivel “más terrenal”.

Proyectada por el arquitecto Esteban Bondone, la nueva casa de gobierno puntana fue bautizada Terrazas del Portezuelo, por su locación: el posible punto fundacional orginal de San Luis; una “puerta” de entrada a la ciudad, conformada entre las serranías. El megacomplejo, que costó 350 millones de pesos y alcanza los 90.000 m2 de superficie construida, es presentado también como un Conjunto de Descentralización Administrativa de San Luis. Pero, en realiad, de lo que se trata es de la mudanza desde el centro a la periferia de la casa de gobierno, con todas sus competencias y autoridades.La nueva casa es la apuesta del gobierno puntano para festejar el Bicentenario y viene a reemplazar a la antigua, inaugrada en el primer Centenario.

Otras inauguraciones

El 25 de mayo se inauguró en La Punta, una localidad a 20 km de la ciudad de San Luis, una réplica del Cabildo de Buenos Aires, como éste lucía en 1810, sin sus posteriores cercenamientos. Se alza junto a otra copia, la de La Plaza de Mayo con su Pirámide. Su costo: $ 13,8 millones. 

Junto a la nueva casa de gobierno se está construyendo el Obelisco Puntano: una torre de 130 m de altura que alojará un mirador y 200 estaciones con imágenes de la historia, en homenaje al Bicentenario. Este nuevo hito está valuado en 37 millones de pesos.

http://www.clarin.com/sociedad/San-Luis-faraonica-monumental-gobierno_0_297570335.html

Instant cities and attractors: the example of San Cayetano

Attractor. Generated by Myriam Mahiques

Attractor. Generated by Myriam Mahiques

¨An attractor is a set towards which a dynamical system evolves over time. That is, points that get close enough to the attractor remain close even if slightly disturbed¨. This is a simple definition from Wikipedia. The geometric result of the attractor image is a fractal.

Conceptually, some cities or neighborhoods have ¨attractors¨, in which inhabitants are a complex system and no matter what, they keep close to a certain attractor. We can imagine a monument, a place of reunion that has a special meaning for the system, like our Plaza de Mayo. But the strongest I¨ve seen, at least in my country, is Luján Cathedral where thousands of parishioners gather for some special dates, and the one that most impresses me is San Cayetano church, in the neighborhood of Liniers, Buenos Aires.

Picture from La Nación

San Cayetano´s day is today. He is the saint of bread and work. To access the church today, parishioners coming from afar, build an instant city in a couple of days, with tents. The streets full of them. They share their experiences and food with other ¨neighbors¨ and keep on waiting till the church is open. After the event is finalized, everybody picks up their stuff and get back home.

A clear example of an instant non regulated ¨city¨ getting closer and closer to an attractor, San Cayetano.

Descubren la entrada a un túnel olvidado debajo de Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan, foto de http://www.destination360.com/

TEOTIHUACAN.- Investigadores del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) de México descubrieron en esta "ciudad de los dioses", ubicada 45 km al nordeste de la ciudad de México, un túnel a 12 metros de profundidad que conduce a galerías debajo del Templo de la Serpiente Emplumada.

Sergio Gómez Chávez, director del proyecto Tlalocan, explicó que tras ocho meses de investigación se determinó que el conducto fue cerrado hace más de 1800 años por los teotihuacanos [que precedieron a los mayas y los aztecas], por lo que los arqueólogos serían los primeros en ingresar en él dentro de unas semanas, cuando reinicien la exploración.

Acceso al túnel. Foto de la nación.com

Detalle del templo de la Serpiente Emplumada, de Wikipedia

Un georradar detectó a la mitad y al final del túnel tres cámaras de gran tamaño; las hipótesis establecen que pueden tener dimensiones de 100 metros cuadrados. El pasaje tiene una longitud de entre 100 y 120 metros.

En 2003, los investigadores encontraron la oquedad de 83 centímetros de diámetro de manera accidental, luego de una inundación que se presentó en la Ciudadela, y en junio del año pasado se inició la exploración.

Gómez Chávez indicó que el pasaje subterráneo pasa por debajo del Templo de la Serpiente Emplumada, y su entrada fue ubicada cerca de ese edificio. "Todo el proceso podría llevarnos dos meses de trabajo, pues debemos continuar la exploración con la misma sistematización para evitar perder información importante sobre las actividades realizaban ahí los teotihuacanos y que nos permita entender por qué lo cerraron."

No se sabe con precisión cuándo fue construido el túnel, pero existe la idea de que fue cerrado entre el año 200 y el 250 de nuestra era. "Probablemente luego de depositar algo en su interior. Una de las hipótesis es que dentro de las cámaras podríamos ubicar los restos de personajes importantes de la ciudad", dijo el investigador.

Los arqueólogos estimaron que los teotihuacanos arrojaron hasta 200 toneladas de piedra y tierra en el túnel para cerrarlo. Hasta ahora, se han encontrado allí más de 60.000 objetos de jade traído de Guatemala, obsidiana y concha.

Los arqueólogos creen que el túnel debió estar vinculado con conceptos relacionados con el inframundo, "de ahí que no se descarta que en este lugar se hubieran realizado rituales de iniciación e investidura divina de gobernantes", y que puede haber sido el elemento más importante y sagrado en torno del cual se hicieron las primeras edificaciones en este lugar hacia el año 100 antes de Cristo y donde luego se construyó la Ciudadela.

Artículo de Emilio Fernández Román, para El Universal. Reproducido en La Nación, suplemento de Ciencia y Salud.

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1291456&origen=NLCien