ZATO – Secret Soviet Cities

The Harriman Institute in New York was recently exhibiting the exhibition: ZATO – Secret Soviet Cities during the Cold War on the dynamics between politics, urbanism, and cartographic manipulation. Unfortunately we couldn’t go there, but secret cities based on the communist ideology of ‘the Party’, for sure drew our attention.

These closed cities or so called ZATO sites (Closed Administrative-Territorial Formation / Zakrytoe administrativno-territorial’noe obrazovanie) were areas for secret military or scientific research and production in the Soviet Empire. Weapons were produced there and medical experiments took place on nearly 250,000 animals to understand how radiation damages tissues and causes diseases.

Built in the remote areas of the Soviet Empire, they followed a unique architectural program – inspired by ideal cities, based on perfect geometric plans, articulated by progressive modernist architectural language, reflecting the ideology of the Party. However, these “realized utopias” were camouflaged and blurred into the environment. The cities were not to be found on official maps and those who worked there had special passes to live and leave, and were themselves hidden from public view. Most of the scientists and engineers who worked in the ZATOs were not allowed to reveal their place or purpose of employment.

Today there are still 43 ZATO on the territory of the Russian Federation. Their future is uncertain: some may survive; others may disappear as urban formations within the context of Russian suburbs.

Guerrilla gardeners attack Irish ghost estates

Only a few years ago, the Irish were constructing huge amounts of beautiful houses attracting potential residents with various bathrooms, granite-topped built-in kitchens and a few acres of land to towns nobody had even thought of commuting from before – The inhabitants never came.

When the Real estate bubble burst in 2008, and the Celtic Tiger run away, Ireland was one of the most affected countries. The result: around 2,800 ‘ghost estates’, housing developments that were never occupied or in some cases even completed. Great to make cool pictures or organize a dance event, but horrible -and even dangerous- to live around them.

While the government is still struggling to find a solution to the problem, the inhabitants are tired having these empty buildings on their back doors and created the group called “NAMA to Nature“.

Armed with spades, gloves and tree saplings they planted over 1,000 willow, alder, birch and ash trees to tidy up Ireland’s landscape and help nature take back these ghost estates. Although no one gave them any type of permission to do this, the group is growing and announced to continue these crimes of beauty.

Design as Politics Batches

An exhibition opening is not complete without a proper goodie. So we made one! Come to our opening, this Thursday, 19:30 in the Mini Mall, Rotterdam and get your own limited edition Design as Politics batch. There is one way to get a complete set. Come early!

World Leaders and City Models

We always knew it: there’s some kind of weird chemistry between (world) leaders and city models.

This time not just kim jong-il looking at things, Atlantic Cities staff writer Nate Berg gathered the evidence: 25 world leaders and heads of state showing how looking at small-scale models of big city projects can create the impression that they have some kind of control. Quite funny, but -as most lack any kind of  human activity in them- it makes you think if they actually see the difference between these utopian models and reality

Book launch Design and Politics #6

The moment is almost there! The launch of our first book: #6 in the Design and Politics series titled Are We The World? Randstad, Holland versus São Paulo, Istanbul & Detroit.

For decades, Dutch design has been exported across the globe. After a successful period in which the polycentric Randstad model was held in high esteem, followed by the fresh, modern approach of the SuperDutch architects, the resources and expertise of organisations such as NAi, IABR, and DutchDFA are now being employed for projects in Asia and South America. But, are Dutch ingenuity, pragmatism and process management the ideals that the explosively expanding or shrinking cities of the 21^st century are most in need of? Isn’t the city more of a political question – of accessibility, equality and democracy? What does the Dutch model offer global cities and what can the Netherlands itself learn? ‘

The book compares the Randstad with São Paulo, Istanbul and Detroit, and speculates about alternative visions for city planning and idealistic architectural intervention for the cities involved. ‘Are We the World?’ is not only a plea for a central role for city planning, and an active exchange of ideas, but primarily for new political involvement.

The Design and Politics series is an initiative of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment and examines the relationship between planning, design and politics. The book launch is unfortunately postponed. More information will follow a.s.a.p.

Column by Wouter Vanstiphout on BD online

Check it out! Wouter Vanstiphout’s new column for Building Design ‘Just give them a glimpse of something’. He questions at what point architects stop responding to context by addressing the avant-garde underground identity of Diller Scofidio & Renfro. The office – famous for their high line park- presented their project Open House for Levittown (NYC) at a symposium on neighbourhood economy organised by Droog Design in Rotterdam. You’ll need a username to read it, just register, it’s for free!

NAI Symposium: Wijkonomie Tarwewijk

Tomorrow (Feb. 22^nd) the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) organizes the symposium: Wijkonomie Tarwewijk on how local entrepreneurship can strengthen both economic and social vitality of a neighbourhood and how design interventions and strategies can be more valuable in the long term?

Wouter Vanstiphout -on behalf of Crimson Architectural Historians- together with Maxwan A+U have developed one of the contributions: a top down strategy to allow for a bottom up transformation of Tarwewijk, Rotterdam South, and, potentially, many lower income communities.

Based on the statement that the major strategic error of Dutch and other urban renewal policies is that they focus only on certain communities, serving to create mono-cultural, dependent, poor neighbourhoods resulting in a 20% vacancy rate in Tarwewijk, they propose to turn this vacancy into an advantage by transforming completely vacated thirties blocks into a ‘Special Economic Block’, a safe zone from the municipal policy on the environment, branding, building and housing, urban renewal, the creative economy and standard commercial regulations.

The blocks are cut into large lots that are then free for development for entrepreneurs who issue both a strong business plan and a rebuilding plan as an investment commitment to the area. Here they are inspired by the highly successful Rotterdam Klushuis initiative, but apply the principle not to new house buyers, but to small and medium sized aspiring businesses. The strategy aims that the combination of the strong urban structure of the blocks, the proven entrepreneurial spirit of the participants, the liberation of administrative barriers to entrepreneurship and the taboo-free guidance of the architectural transformation, will lead to a bottom-up commercial building, and an inner city Special Economic Zone, or a Special Economic Block

This event is organized by Droog in collaboration with Kosmopolis Rotterdam, Jan Konings and the Netherlands Architecture Institute and is supported by DOEN Foundation. It starts at 19:30h. and  costs € 5,- (only € 3 for students). You can Register here

Next Post

It appears that 1974 was an excellent year for abandoning things: not only the world’s most popular resort town (see post below), but also its most densely populated area became completely deserted that year. About 5,000 people lived on Hashima (also know as Gunkanshima), a small island near the Japanese city of Nagasaki, once – but not anymore.

Owned by Mitshubishi, Hashima used to be one large coal mine – its inevitable demise came when Japan’s industry switched to petroleum and virtually all coal mines in the country were disbanded. Abandoned virtually overnight in 1974, the island was shut off almost completely for the next 35 years. Nowadays you can visit it in typical Japanese fashion: as part of a guided tour group. Just keep following the yellow umbrella. Or choose the more adventurous option – and do this.

Currently, a non-profit organization is trying to get Hashima listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Welcome to Varosha, once the glitziest beach district of Famagusta, Cyprus (and indeed the world – Elizabeth Taylor and Brigitte Bardot were among the regular sunbathers); now a ghost town sealed off by the Turkish military. Since 1974. The story of Varosha is the story of the implications of escalating political conflict: sometimes it even ruins holiday plans.

This great website has got a lot of pictures of the abandoned and slowly disintegrating neighbourhood, and a detailed personal account of what happened in 1974 can be found here. And if you want to know more about the (rather complicated, really) Cyprus dispute Wikipedia’s 12,000-word article on the matter seems to be a good place to start.

(picture by Daniel Zolli)

He (three-part-documentary) not only renamed a country and most of its cities; he even forced its residents to change their identity. He not just embezzled an estimated 5 billion dollars while in power; he actually managed to become one of the world’s richest people while completely destroying a nation’s economy. He simultaneously was a CIA-backed anti-communist and a close friend of Nicolae Ceausescu. He not only had an ideology named after him; he also came up with linguistic gems like zaïrianisation for the main elements of this doctrine.

Mobutu Sese Seko not only built a hydro-electric dam, a Concorde-proof airport and a nuclear shelter at Gbadolite, his hometown (Google Maps); he also had three enormous palaces erected there. It’s amazing to see what controlling the world’s largest diamond deposits gets people – and how fast all of that can fall apart.