30 Mar. 2009
Philosophers and architects successfully debate the 21st Century City at the Universidad Europea de Madrid
The 1st International Meeting of Architecture and Philosophy was attended by architects of the stature of Iñaki Ábalos and Andrés Jaque, and such noted philosophers as the Mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari
How to analyze the city of the 21st century?
"As an object, as a stage, as a heterogeneous and complete unit. Events and the city cannot be conceived of separately, however different they may be, as the city is shaped by those events". That was the position of Argentine architect and architectural critic, Florencia Rodríguez at the inaugural conference of the 1st International Meeting of Architecture and Philosophy which took place on Monday and Tuesday at the Universidad Europea de Madrid, bringing together dozens of academics connected with these two disciplines.
Top billing at this initial event, though, without a shadow of a doubt, went to the thrilling presentation by the Mayor of Venice, philosopher Massimo Cacciari, who gave a highly learned explanation of the difference between the Greek polis and the Roman civitas, and how the latter ultimately evolved into the city of today. A city understood today as "a place where different peoples agree to accept and obey a law". A city which presents a two-fold aspect: a place for otium (leisure), "for active, intelligent human intercourse, a living space in essence", and on the other hand a place for negotia (business), more closely connected with the agora of the Greek polis, "a place to go about our business and affairs relatively free of restrictions".
Today, though, in our 21st-century cities "we are at a subsequent stage". The centre-periphery dialectic so clearly recognized in the metropolis has now given way to "the city-territory dialectic, now in the presence of an undefined, homogeneous space, indifferent to its locations, and the scene for events based on logics which no longer correspond to any unitary overall design," Professor Cacciari explained. A city in constant movement, in constant change. "Nowadays the speed with which transformations occur prevents the memories of the past from being preserved in the transition from one generation to another," concluded the Italian philosopher.
Before the presentation by the Mayor of Venice, the audience was addressed by architect Andrés Jaque, a finalist in the prestigious Mies van der Rohe Award for his Tupper Home design. One of the main theories referred to by Jaque was that "the interior of the home has become a space open to public action", an argument he exemplified through the role of television. "What happens when television reaches our home with all its alienating messages? The home becomes a disputed space, and therein lies the risk. It is a place for controversy and complicity, a laboratory of everyday innovation." Every household is a micro-organism where public actions take place: "For example, few things so unite us with our society and connect us to a public cause as recycling rubbish," argued Jaque.
For his part, Iñaki Ábalos, one of the most prestigious architects at the event, claimed on the Monday that one of the main changes in the concept of the city came when the first high-rise flats were built. For him, this "was the first great social change, as although people worked in tall buildings, residential properties never went beyond four or five storeys". But the reason behind the emergence of this vertical construction lay in the fact that the city was seeking to merge with nature, a historic moment for contemporary architecture which began with the construction of New York's monumental Central Park. Such inroads by nature into the urban landscape, with green spaces covering thousands of square meters, came in parallel with an increase in this vertical construction, which over recent years has gone as far as plans for cemeteries in slender towers, or even livestock farms to satisfy the demand of 50,000 residents in buildings more than 100 meters high. "The towers are there, side-by-side, not touching, with their anthropomorphic proportions, casting their gaze wherever they choose, while keeping an eye on one-another. High-level construction has this physical element of challenge to it." Ultimately, according to Ábalos, "the need has arisen to destroy the geometric order of Modernity".
Other thinkers and architects
The 1st International Meeting of Philosophy and Architecture was also graced by the presence of such noted figures as Félix Duque, who spoke of the public and public space. "A city park is a public space just as much as the terraces of the stadium are, or the stalls of a cinema. And so users, service-providing organizations and communal spaces together make up the public sphere." The Building B Auditorium at the Universidad Europea de Madrid likewise heard architect Fernando Espuelas define the dialectical relationship between discourse and object, between sensation and opinion, venturing that Architecture "is a gnoseological construct". The philosopher Teresa Oñate focused her presentation on an explanation of Heideggerian ontological difference "for the purpose of a critical understanding of his approach to the aesthetic ontology of space-time". Francesc Muñoz, a geographer from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, spoke of the way in which landscape "has ceased to represent historical or cultural permanencies, instead presenting liquid panoramas which will soon disappear to be replaced by something new and different". This means that "at times it even seems that fragments of some cities are literally cloned in others. It would be fair to talk about a process of 'urbanality'." Ultimately, "an output of common landscapes reproduced irrespective of their location because, in truth, they no longer have any obligation to represent or signify a sense of place".
Carlos Arnáiz, a graduate of Architecture and Philosophy, concluded that "it is impossible nowadays to think of the subjectivity of the separate reality of the city not only as a concept but as a place. Because the city is the locus which makes subjectivity possible". Lastly, architect Stephanie Brandt highlighted the fact that sound "is increasingly recognized and explored within spatial theory as a factor progressively affecting our spatial perception and our daily life". Through this theory, Brandt illustrated "how sound offers new ways to represent the bridge between architecture and phenomenology, space and experience".
Philosopher Luis Arenas and architect Uriel Fogué, meanwhile, the coordinators of this 1st International Meeting of Philosophy and Architecture, and members of the (Inter)sección research group, referred to the need for this type of gathering to be repeated in order "to further our dialogue", something which could be achieved within the context of the university, "a place where one can bring together the best and those who wish to become the best". They ended by registering their "joint satisfaction with the conclusions reached at this first meeting", thanking the Universidad Europea de Madrid for its support. Reason enough to look to a repeat of this event in the future.