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Peter Rowe | interview part II

bert — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 07:07:30 +0000

Central Academy of Fine Arts (Hangzhou) | Image courtesy of Amateur Architecture Studio

Following up on part one of the interview with Professor Peter G. Rowe, the second half is directed towards understanding the mechanisms of the urban development that stem out of the Asian expanding metropolitan environment. Thereby questioning the notion of east-west and import-export relations in the field of architecture and urbanism, Peter Rowe reflects upon the urban development of Shanghai, emerging new forms of engagement amongst Chinese architects with the city, and the importance of “the temporal dimension” and how this would affect our practices.

Shenzhen, January 2008

Stirring away the debate from a blind fascination with hypermodernism and/or hyperhistory when confronted with the development of the Chinese City, Peter Rowe sees a future in continuing and adapting some of the urban and architectural evolutions set in motion throughout the long development of China and it cities. Or as he states:

I don’t see anything wrong in going back to certain parts of Beijing or Shanghai and doing modern interpretations. In my view there are three alternatives: one is that you totally preserve, brick by brick, the structure and change its use, the other is that you apply a conservation strategy keeping an evolving culture more or less in place, or thirdly it is replaced by something which is a reinterpretation of many spatial principles, but not necessarily with the exact appearance.

The full interview by Dan Handel is now online:
“The Chinese City in the East Asian Context” | An interview with Professor Peter Rowe

http://movingcities.org/

Peter Rowe | interview part II

Peter Rowe | interview part I

bert — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:30:43 +0000

Shanghai, November 2006

In his second dispatch, architect Dan Handel interviews Professor Peter G. Rowe.
By providing insight into his study of the contemporary city in the Asian context Professor Rowe reflects on today’s development of research, understanding, communication and analysis of the metropolitan environment. The interview took place in Professor Rowe’s office at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, on the 29th of October.

Professor Peter Rowe | FUIUF Conference | Shanghai, November 2006

In the first part of the interview (below) Dan Handel asks Peter Rowe about his attitude towards the use and relevance of statistics in urban research and how this potentially distorts our perception of metropolitan reality. Rowe then explains the position of the “Chinese City” within the larger East Asian urban development, illustrates some of its characteristics while breaking away from some popular notions on it.

Part two (in upcoming post) is directed towards understanding the mechanisms, and their value, of urban development that stem out of the Asian expanding metropolitan environment, thereby questioning the notion of east-west and import-export relations in the field of architecture and urbanism. He reflects upon the urban development of Shanghai, an emerging new form of engagement amongst Chinese architects with the city, the importance of “the temporal dimension” and how this would affect our practice. Or as Professor Rowe states:

Given that architecture lasts for a long time and takes quite a while to develop, and that we are talking about urban dynamics which are by definition temporal, we would definitely have to explore some techniques to describe that. I think there’s a very rich future for that kind of engagement.

Jakarta, October 2008

- – -
Dan Handel: During the past years, the 50/50 urban rural divide became a dogma tic part of the global and local agenda’s of urban policy makers, researches and exhibition designers. This has lead to a situation where the contemporary city is made comprehensible through a suffocating strategy of visualizing data and organizing quotes, mixed with ‘the stereotypical image of the megacity’, one fusing the formal with the informal, the destruction with the construction. The growth of the city and analysis of the contemporary city has been an important aspect of your work and started in times before this explosion. What is your opinion on the use of data as means to represent cities, and even generate planning? Do you think it’s useful? Is it being overused in urban research?

Peter Rowe: I believe that when you are presenting data about cities, it has to be organized and communicated into the framework of a coherent story. I mean, we talk about lies, damn lies or statistics right? You can find an overload of statistics and references, from multiple points on the subject you are dealing with. To me the question is how to organize statistical information in a manner that sheds light on some broader urban concepts and/or stories. In that regard, I think it can be quite powerful. It is true that in the architectural realm of thinking this method has lately been used more frequently. Talking about this as an explosion is probably true, as we see a rising amount of these type of references used in work, but we must acknowledge that the empirical and numerical studies of cities have been around for a very long time. If we look at other disciplinary areas in planning it is very well developed. In my own work, I try to not to indulge in it, but to use it in the benefit of making points or describing differences in magnitude. To me it is important to connect these with a broader conceptual understanding of the ways by which cities are moving forward and not as simply a crutch to lean on.

DH: So in a way it should be used to support a narrative?

PR: Yes. Sometimes when I’m doing work I come across series of numbers and data and say “wait a minute, I am wrong” (laughs). Empirical information can be a sobering device in a research project. Often you go along with some preconceived notion about the way things work and then come upon some data that seem to point in the opposite direction. There is an interesting process of rethinking involved in that. One of my favorite examples of this, is the huge claim that Chinese cities are enormous on scales of magnitude larger than anywhere else in the world and its growing tremendously rapidly. But when you actually go through the data we have and analyze it, neither of these two claims hold any particularly truth. Indeed the growth rates have been high, but they are not unprecedented, if you consider the migrations in Italy or the reshuffling in the US, during the post WW2 period on a normalized basis. What is unusual about China is that the period of growth is longer. The numbers don’t suggest it is unprecedented in any way except in sheer magnitude. Which makes sense in a nation of 1.3 billion people.

Shenyang, July 2006

DH: How do you position the development of “the Chinese City” within the larger context of an urbanizing East Asian context? Should we see it as an exception, latecomer or follower?

PR: It seems to me that the East Asian cities have conformed themselves to a certain level of generality regarding some of the notions we have about urban development processes. First of all, people leave the countryside, go into factories and cities, where industrial production is gradually being replaced by service industry, and the formation of cities occur as a part of that. The ways in which this is being done – in terms of the various tactics being used in order to boost economic development and the resulting urbanization – seem to conform to a general discourse about development in emerging countries. All cities in East Asia conform fairly well to this model. That said, one distinguishing feature that these cities share – not necessarily in contrast with other places in the world, but definitely unlike the US – is that the majority of this development occurred in nations where fairly authoritarian regimes are in power. It is usually a strong, top down, model which exists in East Asia that leads to a double scenario. On the one hand, during times of rapid growth, and in order to sustain that growth, you have to put plans and strategies rapidly in place, resulting in a wide adoption of internationally available concepts for shaping the city, which have the tendency to make urban environments somewhat more homogeneous. On the other hand, in most of these East Asian circumstances, there is also a strong cultural and historical underlay in the cities that gets mixed in.

Lately, as some of the developments in these areas calmed down a bit, people are beginning to look around and are taking care of some of the problems resulting from this first round of urban development. Examples can be found in the amelioration of space based on issues of identity and historical awareness. Suddenly they are concerned about the environment and their amenities, so then it becomes referential back to the place itself. Of course, in a detailed examination every city is different…

Shanghai, November 2006

DH: But would you say Chinese cities are not different in that context?

PR: In that regard, I think you might also ask what about the differences between northern and southern China? I know China well enough to know that city formation, history and so forth vary across its territory. While some cities, like Beijing, developed very much along the lines of canonical forms of the classical imperial city, other cities, like Shanghai, never were of that status. One answer to your question stems from the level you are looking at it: East vs. west, Japan vs. China, and in what flavor: is it about pure morphology, building type and so forth. The Chinese city can be analyzed from different perspectives, from something quite similar to what we know in the West up to something that is absolutely unique. My own point of view is that when you look at the middle level, there are probably enough distinguishing features suggesting outcomes that are East Asian in their complexion but not necessarily Chinese. But of course there are numerous exceptions to that.

- – — – -

Prof. Peter G. Rowe interviewed by Dan Handel (to be continued)

Pictures by MovingCities

Dan Handel. Architect, research coordinator at City/State Unit, Bezalel Academy of Art and Architecture, Jerusalem. He is currently studying at the Architecture department, Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Peter G. Rowe

Peter G. Rowe is the Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and University Distinguished Service Professor at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, where he has taught since 1985. Between 1992 and 2004 he served as Dean of the Faculty of Design, following appointments as Chairman of the Department of Urban Planning and Design (1988-1992) and Director of the Urban Design Programs (1985-1990). Author and editor of book publications such as “Shanghai: Architecture and Urbanism for Modern China” (Prestel Publishing, 2004), “Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China” (with Seng Kuan, MIT Press, 2002) and “East Asia Modern: Shaping the Contemporary City” (Reaktion Books, 2005); Peter Rowe’s courses include “Urbanization in the East Asian Region” and “Modern Architecture and Urbanism in China.“

http://movingcities.org/

Peter Rowe | interview part I

London | blue doughnuts

Lev — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:00:29 +0000

London, a city of 33 boroughs and 1 Boris. With a change in mayor, it seems a change of course for the city is at hand. Or not? Are we just heating up the “blue doughnut”?
Lev sharpens the discussion about the “best city in the world”, in his first dispatch.

Two recent events have helped clarify the new London mayoral administration’s urban and spatial policies. The first was an exhibition at the Building Centre in Store Street, a construction industry funded showroom/gallery. The canapés are the main reason to attend events here, and this time they were ingeniously selected to stand for different conceptualisations of London – pizza slices and doughnuts. The exhibition blurb and speakers suggested that the election of Boris Johnson as mayor had begun a change in the geography of investment and urban development. The new mayor would look after the interests of the “blue doughnut” of outer London boroughs who had voted him in.

The Blue Doughnut | London 2008 Elections

However the exhibition was full of the familiar mixed use town centre intensification projects from the previous mayor Ken Livingstone’s era. Even London Overground, which would link outer town centres to each other and make them more attractive office locations was said to be part of this refocusing, although it was also initiated by Ken.

Admittedly central London had been over hyped by Ken. Repetition of the phrase “world city” was calculated to lead people to believe that “London is the best city in the world”, rather than highlighting the problems and divisions inherent in the term. London was orientated towards the needs of visitors, global business, and tourists, and ignored the places that most people experience day to day.

While a focus on outer London ought to give importance to this everyday landscape, Boris’ blue doughnut looked very different from the typical suburbs we may have expected in the exhibition. This is a shame because there are issues in the suburbs which are all too often overlooked. Architects discuss suburbs with condescending arrogant disdain. They are only interested when creating ‘new towns’, because this gives them an opportunity to exercise their megalomaniac egos.

Suburban change is slow and creeping, too small a scale to register on metropolitan policy, yet fundamental to its fabric. Individual houses being converted into flats, extensions or attics to create a third flat, corner plots or garages being sold to create new blocks, large back gardens divided and built on, front gardens being paved over for off street driveways and parking. And what of social aspiration, national consciousness, the forces of freedom and conformity, communities of passive isolationism combined with letter-writing cake-sale activism?

Croydon - a very urban example of Boris' blue doughnut

The same stuff?

Processes of urban change take longer than election terms and are heavily dependent on private sector commitment. It would be foolish to expect new projects to be magiced up by new mayors for an exhibition. However a talk by Simon Milton, deputy mayor for planning, at the London School of Economics (LSE) confirmed how little change there was in terms of policy too. He spoke with the manner of a politician, which jarred slightly with an audience of urbanists (particularly since the talk was misleadingly titled). He rephrased the previous administration’s ideas on “skills”, “climate change”, and “transport” with a slightly different tone on things like “crime”. Trees, parks, and public realm were in a priority called “liveability”, while housing was not. So in common with the previous mayor, housing is a separate numeric exercise, not somewhere people live.

London in a Global Context | Simon Milton Lecture | October 21, 2008

When asked about the similarities of the different administrations, he claimed “running a city is not an ideological issue”. Perhaps the Tories do not need to be ideological because Ken had not been as radical as he was portrayed. He had focused on the efficiency of the city for the interests of global capital, and done very little the Tories would disagree with. Or perhaps a moderate and non-ideological Conservative administration is a tactical attempt to remain acceptable to the London electorate in the long term and soften people for a Conservative government. Either way, the lack of any real change demonstrates an irrelevance to democracy.

Simon Milton’s talk was very general, and there was a glaring lack of spatial ideas. He stated that the revised London Plan will be “more strategic and less detailed”. Perhaps the London Plan was irrelevant too. Lacking any spatial ideas, the discussion kept regressing onto the non-issue of ‘tall buildings’. As the Tories don’t appear to have a clear position on tall buildings, one can conclude this story is driven by newspapers to capture public imagination. It was frustrating that so many bright people in the room would fall for this dummy manoeuvre. The only thing that sounded like it might have some significance was the idea of a “polycentric city”. However it was not clear how a more polycentric model would be achieved, other than merely stating it was in line with decentralising power and devolution to the boroughs.

Polycentric devolution

Since the first days of this administration, it was made clear they would support and “work with the boroughs”. Previously the purpose of the Greater London Authority (GLA) had been to demand boroughs act in line with metropolitan priorities and to prevent them adversely affect their neighbours, even if this did not play well to local voters. The devolution of power to the local authorities raises questions. How would the new conservative administration support boroughs if two neighbouring intentions were in conflict?

We must understand “devolution” as code for appeasing the voters of the blue doughnut. If there was a serious intention to help boroughs, one would expect Boris to ask a new Conservative government to abolish the GLA and thereby remove the burden which drains boroughs of resources and their best employees. Instead Simon Milton stated that they would ask for the GLA act to be reviewed in order to get a direct financial settlement for London, which the mayor would control, rather than it being allocated by national government departments. Clearly all politicians seek to expand their power rather than give it up.

Simon Milton quizzed by Tony Travers, Deyan Sudjic and Rickey Burdett at his LSE talk

The devolution referred to by Boris’ administration would give boroughs the right to raise a greater proportion of their revenue from taxes collected within their boundaries. The wealthier outer boroughs would find it easier to raise money than poorer inner boroughs. This is clearly a vote winner in rich areas where taxation is understood as a kind of government ‘service charge’, and people expect investment in their public services and physical environment in relation to the amount of tax they pay. Poorer areas would struggle to collect the level of tax needed to meet their greater needs. Devolution reduces the level to which taxation can act as a redistributive tool.

The “polycentric city” is spatial policy derived from soundbites to attract core Tory voters. Devolution will allow the blue doughnut to keep a greater proportion of it’s wealth for itself, while poorer areas decline. Clearly, both political expediency and ideology remain a part of shaping the city. However appealing or sensible a polycentric city may sound, the reasons behind its promotion should not be overlooked.

Lev is an architect working on strategic urban projects in London

LONDON links

The BoJo building barometer & further reading

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London | blue doughnuts