ARCHITECTURE AND ITS URBAN CONTEXT

1. part: only THEORY BLOCK and EXPERIENCE BLOCK 2.1

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Zoltán Bencze, architect

ARCHITECTURE AND ITS URBAN CONTEXTtable of contents

1. THEORY BLOCK1.1 THE THEORY OF THE CITY

a) architecture’s most important context

• Art historical context• Architecture Historical Context• Economic Context• City Policy • Social context• Public spaces and publicity

b) Main practices in architectural context• Urban development• town planning • urban design• Heritage Preservation

Public utility planning

ARCHITECTURE AND ITS URBAN CONTEXTtable of contents

1.2

PARADIGMS OF URBAN SPACE TO DESCRIBE AND FORM IT IN THE 20TH CENTURY

a) Classical approach to modern city -Le Corbisier and the social utopianism: reshape mankind by creating a new form of city

b) Critique of modernism and the critique of postmodern paradigm Manuel Castelles and David Harvey: The market mechanism, the criticism of the modern city's crisis

C) The postmodern cityEdward Soja –the global transition of the city and it nedds a new urban planning

ARCHITECTURE AND ITS URBAN CONTEXTtable of contents

2. EXPERIENCE BLOCK

PRACTICE IN PUBLIC SPACEexamples of the architect's professional practice

2.1 Community involvement in public space development(an example: The Causey – transforming a place in Edinburgh)

2.2Strategic methods public space development program in Pécs: Downtown North-South

axis architectural design contest)

2.3 what else in the architectural practice – introducing the

Architecture and Context program serial - Pécs in 2010

ARCHITECTURE AND ITS URBAN CONTEXTtable of contents

3. JOINT EXERCISE BLOCK• answer the questions - fill in the tableI!

• What city is now? • What is the economic basis of the city?

• What is the structural model of the contemporary city?

• Which are the most prevalent places in the city?

• What is the most prevalent in public places?

ARCHITECTURE AND ITS URBAN CONTEXTessay questions

> What are the characteristics of the 20th Ford-industrial city?

> What changes are shaping the post-industrial city in the last 30 years?

ARCHITECTURE AND ITS URBAN CONTEXTrecommended texts

- Robert Fishman: Le corbusier -in Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le CorbusierMIT Press, 1982

- Robert Venturi, Steven Izenour, Denise Scott Brown: Learning from Las Vegas, MIT PRESS 2001

- Manuel Castelles: The Rise of the Network SocietyBlackvell, 2000

- Edward W. Soja: Taking Los Angeles Apart: Towards a Postmordern Geography, in: Postmodern geographies, Verso, London 1989

- Rem Koolhaas: Generic City, in Rem Koolhaas, Bruce Mau: S M L XL

Monacelli Press, New York, 1995.Look after on the net

1. PARADIGMS OF URBAN SPACE TO DESCRIBE AND FORM IT IN

THE 20TH CENTURY

> If you're looking for the answer, how it relates to the architecture of urban spaces, then first we have a historical overview of how the relationship between architecture and the city developed over the past 100 years

> We could observe a typical trend, as the faith of opportunities to plan the city's physical reality will be increasingly relegated during the 20th century After a period of optimistic modernism

1. THEORY BLOCK

"THE CITY PLANNER IS NO DIFFERENT FROM THE ARCHITECT ... HE CREATES THE TEMPORAL AND

SPATIAL RELATIONSHIPS. „

Le Corbusier wrote that at the beginning of the 20th century in "The city planner of the prince of architects."

1.2 a. modern city

classical approach to modern city

Le Corbisier and the social utopianism

1. THEORY BLOCK

1.2 a. modern city LE CORBUSIER

Marseille-i Unité d'habitation, 1942-1952

1. THEORY BLOCK

1.2 a. modern city

LE CORBUSIER Les 5 Points d'une architecture nouvelle (1926)

1."Pilotis" or columns elevating the building body off the ground,

2. The free plan, achieved through the separation of the load-bearing columns from the walls subdividing the space,

3. The free façade, the corollary of free plan in the vertical plane,

4. The long horizontal sliding window or fenêtre en longeur,

5. The roof garden, restoring, supposedly, the area of garden used up by the house.

1. THEORY BLOCK

LaDefense / LeCorbusier

Big scale architectur at the border of river Seine

LE CORBUSIER: THE PICASSO OF PLANNINGLe Corbusier was perhaps the greatest architect of the 20th century.

He thought he could reshape mankind by creating a new form of city, yet he seldom practised what he preached…

- writes Jonathan Meades

1.2 a. modern city

LE CORBUSIER

1. THEORY BLOCK

1.2 b. Critique of modernism and the critique of postmodern paradigm

the market mechanism

• What was the postmodern paradigma of the city

1. THEORY BLOCK

1.2 b. modern city Critique of modernism and the critique of postmodern paradigm

the market mechanism

• Postmodernity in architecture • borrows elements and references from the past and

reintroduces color and symbolism to architecture

• in response to the formalism of the International Style of modernism.

• The functional and formalized shapes and spaces of the modernist movement are replaced by unapologetically diverse aesthetics: styles collide, form is adopted for its own sake, and new ways of viewing familiar styles and space abound.

1. THEORY BLOCK

1.2 b. Critique of modernism and the critique of postmodern paradigm

the market mechanism

• A prime example of inspiration for Postmodern architecture lies along the Las Vegas Trip, which was studied by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in their 1972 book Learning from Las Vegas celebrating the strip's ordinary and common architecture

1. THEORY BLOCK

1.2 b. Critique of modernism and the critique of postmodern paradigm

the market mechanism

examples of Postmodern architecture: Michael Graves – Portland Building in

Portland, Oregon

•Philip Johnson – Sony Buildingand (originally AT&T Building) in New York City

1. THEORY BLOCK

1.2 c. The postmodern city?

the global transition

CASA DA MÚSICA in the city of Porto, PortugalRem Cooolhaas – OMA

1. THEORY BLOCK

1.2 c. The postmodern city?

the global transition

The curves on the building were designed to appear random.

Gehry's method: radically sculpted, organic contours

Titanium as a fish scales

Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao - opened to the public in 1997Frank Gehry

1. THEORY BLOCK

1.2 c. The postmodern city?

the global transition

Gehry's method: radically sculpted, organic contours

• Titanium as a fish scales

• Building is uniquely a product of the period's technology

• Computer Aided Three Dimensional Interactive Application

• and visualizations were used in the structure's design.

Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao - opened to the public in 1997Frank Gehry

1. THEORY BLOCK

2.1 Community involvement in public space developmentan example: The Causey in Edinburgh

The Causey & Causey2

2 . EXPERIENCE BLOCK

Awarded 2 prize in THE ARCHITECTS

JOURNAL SMALL PROJECTS 2007.• Client: Six Cities Design Festival 2007,

The Lighthouse, Glasgow.• Date of Project: May 2007 & ongoing • Budget:£5000 from 6 Cities & £5000

from raised funds.• Project description: Art in Architecture

submitted proposals to change a site in the Leith Docks area but were not successful.

• The chosen site was “The Causey”, Westcross Causeway

2.1 Community involvement in public space develpment

an example: The Causey in Edinburgh

• As traffic methods changed over centuries the site became merely a busy car traffic turning space. It was decided that the site should be temporarily closed to give the space back to public and pedestrian use in order to ascertain how people reacted to the changed space.

• Working with Southside Community Group, a design workshop was organised where participants were given historic background information and asked to consider the range of people living and working close to the site today.

2 . EXPERIENCE BLOCK

2.1 Community involvement in public space develpment

an example: The Causey in Edinburgh

• Three themes were also allocated to the groups attending the design workshop, Guse Dub, Exotic Island and Garden. The outcomes and models resulting from the workshop helped the professional team of Arcade Architects (www.arcadearchitects.com) & AiA to define what The Causey project was to be over the three days of the Six Cities Design Festival in May 2007.

• Over a three day period the road was closed off, the main and central traffic island were grassed over. Street signage was taken down and disguised as palm trees or with large green leaves adding an exotic touch.