emergent

I (heart) Corb

I come through the south of France, Marseille as a very naïve archi-tourist. My excuse? I really did not have time too pack and organise my travels properly, yet alone research where we are to be going (I am fortunate to have a very organised girlfriend who has taken care of this for me). I am pleasantly surprised to find a stop on our bus timetable for ‘LeCorbusier.’ Curious, we get off and walk along and find Unité d’Habitation, completed 1952 and like many aging stars, undergoing a facelift. Like Elizabeth Taylor, she is battling the irreversible signs of aging. Concrete Cancer is like wrinkles for buildings and the builders do their best to try and patch her up. Pull in the skin. Brighten up the colours. Nip and Tuck. Still I am amazed at detail of patterning on the façade, the details of formwork. This is my second live Corb building and I am always interested to see the level detail that he carried through into the texture, pattern and materials of his buildings.

The facelift also illustrates the change in occupation. Once a means for dealing with the influx of immigration into Marseille and France (ibid), now houses a higher income bracket, looking to live in a design icon. I cannot get in as I have not booked a tour (ibid) but its hard to confirm its success today as a model for vertical living. The grounds, designed as a place to rest– are deserted of activity. There are cars and bikes. Though I do not venture inside, the building, there are not a lot of people around. Blog information tells me only that the hotel is a favourite for designers (now they tell me) but I’m not sure who else (ibid). As a means for creating a community with roof top and ground space for activities, there is not much going on.

Is Shanghai somewhere close to Corb’s vision for modern city? Im not sure. It both scares and inspires me. I have come here to work having visited three years ago. Has the city changed that much or does my memory fail me? Where Australian and European cities struggle to implement change on a major scale, Asian cities and Shanghai seems to have no problems in doing this. Nanjing Road & the Bund, its major touristic areas have major developments that have razed and excavated whole blocks. I am told there are at present over 4000 official construction sites in Shanghai.

Pudong, once rice fields, is now a modern metropolis. The Jin Mao tower at 88 storeys is now overlooked by the World Financial Centre and soon another that looks to become the highest building in the world. Around these are shopping complexes and ‘expat housing’ typical for creating a gated community’s feeding skyscrapers with worker bees. As Shanghai’s financial prosperity brings in foreign workers, these gated communities grow. This at the same time as the city grows with China having some of the highest recent increases of urbanization in the world.  Generally, they have replaced the ‘old lane housing’ , the Shikumen with its high density and run down facilities. The problem of housing those displaced into adequate and affordable housing is the problem for modern china.

The gated communities of Pudong, could be argued to the modern Unite. Up to 5000 people are accommodated in groups of large vertical buildings of around 30 storeys. There is no free ground plane, but the buildings are spaced well enough for creation of common gardens, pools, tennis courts, restaurants and community centres. At ground level the density feels comparable.
That is where the similarities end. Cost is the major and obvious difference. Creating integrated communities is another. The Shikumen are a “hybrid of the British row house with the Chinese traditional courtyard house.” (ibid). They do what the gated communities fail to do in providing for community. Interaction occurs on a daily level with communal kitchen and washing facilities, whilst the gated communities reinforce an internal and insular living arrangement. Unfortunately, due to the rapid urbanization of Shanghai in the 20th century, most of the Shikumen have occupancy of 5 times their original and fallen into disrepair. How wonderful Shanghai would be if it could provide reconciliation between the two? I look around the city, over the demolition sites of the Shikumen and the new gated communities that are built in their place. Where do all the displaced people now live? What will happen to the community structure of Shanghai (and other cities like it) when people are living in more isolated modes of living? I wonder if there is a place for a new Unitie d’Habitation?

© 2008 we have NO VISION.