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.

Debat THEN/NOW #4

Aankomende donderdag (25 mei) zal het de debat ‘THEN/NOW #4: HET PUBLIEKE DOMEIN ALS POLITIEK MEDIUM?’ plaatsvinden in het NAi. Na een inleidende lezing van Cor Wagenaar zal Wouter Vanstiphout in debat gaan met Bernard Colenbrander, Ton Schaap en Albert Jan Kruiter op de vraag: is de stedelijke ruimte in staat uitdrukking te geven aan een glasheldere politieke boodschap die raakt aan de persoonlijke ambities van de burgers?

Het publieke domein van de stad wordt gevormd door straten, pleinen, openbare en representatieve gebouwen. Ze zijn gemaakt voor gemeenschappelijk gebruik, maar het zijn ook de plekken waar de gemeenschap duidelijk maakt waar ze vandaan komt en waar ze heen wil: de hardware van de gebouwen, de software van demonstraties en ‘happenings‘. Wat de boodschap ook is, in het publieke domein bereikt ze iedereen; het is tegelijkertijd strijdtoneel en toonbeeld van de uitkomsten van die strijd. Het is gemeenschappelijk en dus politiek. Het plaatst de stedeling in zijn politieke context, letterlijk. Het is een kwestie van architectuur en stedenbouw. Willen machthebbers hun politieke utopia’s onder de mensen brengen dan is er geen betere plek dan het publieke domein; wil de oppositie ertegen protesteren, dan is ook daarvoor het publieke domein de aangewezen plek. Zo was de situatie eeuwenlang. Maar is dit nog steeds zo?

Tijdens de lezing van Cor Wagenaar wordt ingegaan op twee tamelijk radicale voorbeelden uit de geschiedenis die laten zien hoe twee tijdvakken door exact dezelfde ambities werden bepaald: de jaren tussen 1775 en 1850, en die tussen 1955 en 1975. Mensen gingen de straat op en wilden het publieke domein letterlijk hervormen. Is dat ook nu nog mogelijk? Kan het publieke domein andere boodschappen uitdragen dan alleen commerciële? Heeft de smartphone gemeenschappelijke belangen versplinterd? Is een niveau van welstand bereikt dat niets te wensen overlaat? Is het openbaar bestuur in staat recht te doen aan ieders ambities.

Het debat zal plaatsvinden op 24 mei en start om 20:00 uur in het NAi Auditorium. Toegang is € 7,50 (€ 3 voor studenten). Inschrijven kan hier.

Making Design and Politics: Opening statement

Yesterday, Wouter Vanstiphout joined the debate: ‘Making Design and Politics’ in the NAi. His opening statement on trust, democracy and how Making City is the one goal that should bind us all, is now published on our blog. Read it here!

Making Design & Politics

More Design As Politics at the 5^th IABR! This time: the debate Making Design & Politics (pfd!), on multidisciplinary approaches taking city design into a political dimension while defining urban politics through a design approach.

The debate continues where the in 2011 organized series Design and Politics: The Next Phase at the Aedes Network Campus Berlin stopped and will outline alternative approaches to making our urban environment. It takes a next step towards the realisation of this approach by considering whether and how adaptability can become its cornerstone.

Besides Wouter Vanstiphout also Thomas Sieverts, Floris Alkemade and Petra Wesseler will take the stage during this by Henk Ovink moderated debate. The front row will be taken by Respondents Robert Kaltenbrunner, Arnold Reijndorp, Joachim Declerck and Pauline Terreehorst.

The debate takes place at 25 April at 20:00 in the NAi. Admission is free but you need to register.

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

Uprising: Hip Hop & The LA Riots

Who has seen our lectures knows that Design as Politics is -just as Reyner Banham and Charles Jencks- fascinated by Los Angeles. The movies, the glamour, its rap culture and of course the Riots.

Now 20 years after the violent uprising that was triggered by the savage beating of Rodney King, filmmaker and former CNN staffer Mark Ford (known from his doc about N.W.A.) released the movie Uprising: Hip Hop & the LA Riots. The film –narrated by the one and only Snoop Dogg- revisits the riots in gripping detail and documents how hip hop forecasted –some say ignited– the worst civil unrest of the 20th century. It contains interviews with rappers, musicians, police officers and victims who lived through the 1992 riots and shows never-before-heard stories from Rodney King, John Singleton, Too Short, Big Boy, Sir Jinx, and even the L.A. Four. Check the trailer, but careful, it’s shocking.

Ill Manors

“I genuinely want to change things. This is just the first step. Let me make my point first and raise the issue, if anybody wants to talk to me about how I think we can change these things I’m ready.”

With this statement the British rapper Plan B released his latest track ill manors, persuading the audience that this is not about commerce. This is the real thing! For the guardian reason to honor it with the title ‘greatest British protest song in years’. For lovers of political music -like us- almost to good to be true.

The track, basted on Peter Fox’s Alles Neu, reflects the raging unease around the London riots of last summer, life on a council estate, the closure of community centers and the adverse impact of the 2012 Olympics on London’s poor. It has much in common with Public Enemy or the Clash. Music that addresses a riot and sound like a riot. How Plan B said: The song needs to get under people’s skin. Just like those horrible pictures we see on cigarette packets that are designed to shock us into being aware of our actions.”

The song is part of a bigger project. An album and film, both called Ill Manors, are set to follow, along with plans for social activism. Oi!

Exhibition by Malkit Shoshan

Who thinks about the Israeli Palestinian conflict does not directly pictures a zoo and two white donkeys dyed with stripes to look like zebras. Our PHD candidate Malkit Shoshan did, resulting in the exhibition ZOO, or the letter Z, just after Zionism which is currently exposed in the NAiM / Bureau Europa. Her award-winning book ‘The Atlas of Conflict’ about the processes and mechanisms behind the shaping of Israel-Palestine during the past 100 years forms the base of this new project.

The exhibition starts with page 437 of the book and unfolds in a fascinating exploration of ideas, snapshots and associations that can be devised after seeing a white donkey, tied with a rope and covered with beige tape. A white donkey transformed into a zebra, to meet the desire for normality in Gaza. In this case, the possession of a zoo as space for urban recreation.

‘ZOO, or the letter Z, just after Zionism’, is part of a research project to the relation between war and architecture that contains an archive, two books and an installation which is a mix between a house, a cage a UN-shelter and a zoo.

The exhibition runs until May 20^th in NAiM / Bureau Europa in Maastricht. To get the whole experience we recommend you to go in the weekend. There will be real donkeys.

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.

Now that this Christmas thing is finally over, it’s time for serious business again: censorship. Meet Larissa Sansour, a Jerusalem-born artist with a passion, who found herself on the shortlist for the 2011 Elysee Museum Prize – which is sponsored by the crocophiles at Lacoste. Sansour was commissioned  to produce an artwork and she came up with a series of photographs depicting Nation Estate: a fictional high rise estate in Jerusalem which would house the whole Palestinian nation/state/people. Great. Right?

Not really apparently – according to the reptilo-people at least. Lacoste considered her artwork to be ‘too pro-Palestinian’ and told the museum to remove her from the shortlist, much to the outrage of the artist. Thankfully – and this is the brilliant part – the Musée de l’Elysée also values freedom of expression and sided (pdf) with Sansour on the matter, cancelling (here for French) the whole prize thing altogether. Art 1, Crocofascists 0. In a cover-up move, Lacoste now denies everything, which doesn’t leave anybody wondering at all: obviously a panic-induced attempt at censorship backfired. Big time. And now nobody in the art world will ever wear Lacoste polos again, even though they come in a gazillion fancy colours and are currently on sale. Wouter Vanstiphout has already burned his in front of the Lacostian embassy already, allegedly.

All this weirdly resembles this story, by the way. Or this one. And also, it’s not like Sansour didn’t attempt to claim the moon as a new Palestina in another artwork before settling for the Nation Estate building: she definitely went soft this time.