duany on new orleans

New Urbanist architect and planner extraordinaire Andrés Duany offers his thoughts on New Orleans in the pages of the latest Metropolis. His conclusion is remarkably naive, coming from the man whose office is leading reconstruction efforts all along the Gulf coast. Exuding the nostalgia that is so prevalent in New Urbanist thinking, Duany claims a "Carribean" identity for New Orleans, evoking his own Cuban heritage and woefully lamenting the loss of the "leisure" and cultural "ease" that so characterized pre-Katrina New Orleans. It is obvious that the future of a great American city is at stake, and that its unique culture is part of what constitutes that greatness. But I think that the focus on recreating a culture of leisure is not quite the appropriate response to such devastation. If we're going to talk about how its unique climactic and environmental conditions contribute to its identity (be it Carribean, Creole, Cajun, whatever), why don't we talk about the much larger scale infrastructural and hydrological concerns that need to be addressed in order to ensure that such destruction won't happen again? And why not go further? In addition to preserving the culture of the Crescent City, why see this as a tremendous opportunity (which it is) to re-imagine what this "Carribean" city can be?

While Duany's critique of the massive federal funding efforts as ironically too constrictive on individual rebuilding efforts is an interesting premise, it ultimately misses the point. A "culture that arises from leisure" should not be a necessary precondition for the city's physical reconstruction. This is a backwards argument that mistakenly conflates American Dream individualism with some sort of strange idealization of a "Carribean" work ethic. Once again, nostalgia reigns supreme, and the future of New Orleans remains on hold.

link: "Restoring the Real New Orleans" by Andrés Duany, in Metropolis

"It is not going to make the front of Architectural Digest"

[image: New York Times]

That's for sure. The Times has an article on the recent shift away from those iconic FEMA trailers and towards "cozier, more permanent models of postdisaster housing." While I can appreciate (in concept) a rejection of the FEMA trailer in favor of a denser, safer, and more effective strategy of reconstruction, the renderings seem a good deal less promising than the rhetoric. Exuding the false nostalgia of New Urbanism (DPZ anyone?), these new FEMA alternatives fail to offer a truly progressive and regenerative solution to reconstruction. The smaller detached models (middle image) seem to be nothing more than FEMA trailers with a little "contextual" wedding-cake decoration on the outside - much in the vain of the "Katrina Cottage" that has gained so much currency this past year.

To me, the failure of this approach is twofold. First, by superficially manipulating exterior decoration to mimic so-called "traditional" architecture, these proposals impose a certain order and aesthetic regime that no longer has any social, political, or cultural relevance. I would go further (as I have done previously) by saying that, intentionally or not, the aesthetic agenda of New Urbanism is ideologically aligned to the right-wing agenda of no-bid contracts, redistricting through "reconstruction," and other such undesirable practices encouraged by the powers that be in Washington.

Secondly, the solutions offered thus far perpetuate the flawed status quo of prefrabicated architecture that has remained in place since the very inception of modular construction. Instead of replicating the FEMA trailers, re-cladding them with white trim and gabled roofs, and in some cases stacking them on top of each other, why not use this chance to rebuild the Gulf cities as an opportunity to re-imagine what a prefabricated architecture could actually be? The merits offered by the panelized construction system of the Katrina Cottage have hardly been exploited, in the sense that they propose a new architecture - and, consequently, a real new urbanism - for the Gulf region.

Baby steps, though, I suppose: one at a time. At least this one - moving on from the FEMA trailer - is in the right direction.

link: "U.S. Give Grants to 4 Gulf States to Upgrade Disaster Housing" by Eric Lipton in the New York Times

blog radar :: 14 august

Just catching up the highlights of my Google Reader feeds these past few weeks:

• BLDGBLOG. Geoff Manaugh has kept up a constant stream of noteworthy posts, including the Kazys Varnelis interview noted previously, speculation on "landscape theology" (whatever that is) in an interview with Erik Davis, and a feature on inflatable/biodegradable toilets for refugee camps by Studio Cycle.
  
• Subtopia. Another blog with consistently high-quality posts, ranging from border station design ( "Welcome to America") to refugee urbanism in Israel and Lebanon ("War as Vacation" ) to a review of an exhibition on the city of Tijuana ("Strange New World" ). The recurring theme of border urbanism reminds me of an article in the most recent issue of Log (#7) by Marie Aquilino ("Free Zone: A Conversation with Amos Gitai"), which addresses Gitai's film "Free Zone" and the the strange phenomena of free-trade cities, particularly Zarqa City in Jordan, a hub with links to the borders with Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
  
• The fallacy of New Urbanism. From Planetizen, Leonardo Vazquez has written an article ("Urban Fables: The Role Of Storytelling And Imagery In Successful Planning Movements") on how the New Urbanist movement has ap propriated religious strategies of allegory and myth to further their cause. Vazquez compares the New Urbanists to the conservative property rights movement (in terms of their similar appeals to " people's hopes, fears and beliefs") -- while this is certainly right on the mark, I would go further and say that New Urbanism not only takes hints from property rights activists, but in fact operates in an almost identitcal manner as the broader political and religious right wing. Readers of this blog have heard me rant previously on the convergence of New Urbanist and conservative political ambitions in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. I must say that there is a certain satisfaction in seeing other writers not only comment on the ultimate fiction of New Urbanism -- its false nostalgia for a past that never existed in the first place, as I like to say -- but also relate it to the fictions (and, dare I say, untruths) that underlie the contemporary right-wing agenda in this country.
• Niemeyer still going strong. From Tropolism, some cool photos of Oscar Niemeyer's latest project, a theater in Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo. Looks like the old guy still has it...
  
• Keller Easterling talks. An Archinect feature: Mason White interviews architect, theorist, and Yale professor Keller Easterling about her writings and practice. From having seeing Easterling's lectures and having her on a couple reviews while at school, I've always been intrigued by her fascination with such strange things as third-world golf courses, cruise ships, and industrial tomato farms. I've been meaning for a while to check out her latest book Enduring Innocence -- check out the interview for a taste.
  
• Why Sylvia Sucks. From Michielangelo, a humorous yet enchantingly critical review of a lecture by Sylvia Lavin. I won't go into the details, but topics include iconography, dildos, and pet rocks. Worth checking out.
  

new urbanism for the military

Via Subtopia and Planetizen: An article in the Times about the Villages at Belvoir, a new collection of New Urbanist housing development on the grounds of Fort Belvoir in northern Virgina. Strange bedfellows? Not really. It makes sense that Rumsfeld's Department of Defense would want to hire the most prestigious of our nation's reactionary architects to design new housing for military bases. While the ambition to provide new and better housing stock for men and women in uniform is admirable, isn't it disturbing that the Army would enthusiastically embrace a stage-set architecture of false nostalgia?

link: "New Urbanism: It's in the Army Now" by William Hamilton, in the New York Times

who is killing new orleans?

A new article by Mike Davis in The Nation goes into the politics of post-Katrina New Orleans. A good read...

link: "Who is Killing New Orleans" by Mike Davis (The Nation, April 10 2006)

"increasingly undemocratic in both style and content"

MICHAEL SORKIN RETURNS to the pages of Architectural Record this month with a scathing critique of the New Urbanist coup of Gulf Coast reconstruction efforts. Sure, you can call Sorkin an ageing remnant of the 1960's lefty vanguard, but you must also admit that with regard to what's going on in Mississippi and Louisiana, he's absolutely right on the mark. In addition to pointing out the incredible shortcomings of the recent report issued by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) -- a document that he accurately describes as aesthetically prescriptive while environmentally / socially / economically ignorant -- Sorkin describes with joyous irony how the CNU's authoritarianism has come to mirror that of the Modernism so loathed by New Urbanists. The article is not posted online yet, so bear with me as I quote at length:

I am not the first to observe that the CNU -- as an ideological and orgnizational construct -- is remarkably (and deliberately) similar to the Modernism it so acerbically criticizes for cruel formalist monomania and self-important manifestoes.... The issue with such prescriptions is not the superiority of one uniformity over another, it's the uniformity itself.... The New Urbanists' ideal subject may be a happy consumer committed to traditional family values but the fallacy is the same: the idea that architecture is not to be designed for people in all their messy, sqaulling, and delightful difference but as a means of assuring that they converge into behavioral sameness.

Yet despite his valiant and undying critical outlook, Sorkin nonetheless fails to offer a viable alternative -- or even any example of a concrete counter-solution -- to those being offered by the New Urbanists. Isn't there some kind of progressive reaction -- a redirection, a re-harnessing of the forces already at work -- that can somehow offer a better future for the Gulf Coast?

I could go on and on... but instead (since it isn't yet online), I recommend reading the article in the actual magazine itself. That way you could understand Sorkin's critique within the wider context of our profession, as represented by the editorial staff at Architectural Record, who somehow deemed it appropriate to sandwich within Sorkin's piece an advertisement for a cavity wall system that (and I quote) "[helps] prevent mold-induced asthma." Maybe I'm reading too much into the arbitrary nature of magazine advertising practices, but doesn't it seem more than a bit callous to insert a plug for mold-reducing products into the middle of an article about an entire region still suffering the effects of devastating floods? I think it's clear that we as architects need to do a lot more than circle "34" on our Architectural Record Reader Service Card in order to prevent the spread of mold, not to mention the other myriad miasmas that plague our Gulf Coast cities.

"FEMA trailers with dignity"

JUST CAME ACROSS the Katrina Cottage I - the first of what promises to be many misguided New Urbanist prescriptions for Gulf Coast reconstruction.

No time right now for a tirade, but I'd be interested to hear comments from my readers...

link: New Urban Guild's Katrina Cottage I

reconstruction rant

AS CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE RETREATS to its postcritical refuge and, as a discipline, increasingly refuses to engage any progressive purpose whatsoever, it is ironic that the opportunities for such engagement are growing in number. From terrorist attacks to tsunamis to hurricanes to earthquakes, there are countless causes and debates to which architects could potentially contribute. Yet, as is most often the case, our profession (along with the rest of society) follows up an initial altruistic fervor with long-term ignorance.

Right now, the reconstruction efforts in the Gulf states happen to be on my mind, probably because as I read more and more about the situation (for example, this piece by Mike Davis), I keep getting the feeling (some would call it paranoia) that bad things are afoot down south. As mentioned in the previous post, the doctrine of New Urbanism has somehow become the default in any discussion of rebuilding. Some would ascribe this apparent coup by Andres Duany & Co. as a result of their seemingly innocuous taste for walkable cities, mixed-use development, white picket fences, and colored pencil renderings. I, however, see this movement more as a threat than a remedy: a highly coordinated campaign to refashion the coast of Mississippi and Louisiana into a suburban, Disneyfied, and (most importantly) Republican-voting region. (For precedents, see Seaside and Celebration.)

Much has already been said about the New Urbanist agenda, and I must say that many of its basic ideas certainly are sound, particularly seen in their context as a reaction against the devastating modernist escapades of postwar urban planning. It's hard to find somebody who will argue against the merits of being able to walk to work, have access to mass transportation, etc., etc. Nevertheless, an architect or planner (or anyone, for that matter) must be aware of the consequences of his or her ideology, however unpredicted or unintended. The early avant-garde iconoclasm of Mr. Duany and his friends does not excuse their having since morphed into developer-friendly producers of insta-suburbs. The entire movement is founded on a lie: they are in the business of promoting a culture of false nostalgia for a past that never existed in the first place. For me, the fact that the ideology of New Urbanism was chosen directly by Mississippi's governor Haley Barbour (a Republican fat cat and former head of the Republican National Committee, among other things) is no coincidence. The ideological symmetry of New Urbanism and contemporary conservative politics is undeniable. For now, it seems that Biloxi, Gulfport, and the rest of the Mississippi coastline has fallen under the New Urbanist spell, but the larger issue is the one that nobody is talking about: as the New Urbanists set their sights futher west to Louisiana, what are the implications for New Orleans? The city is the bluest oasis in a deep red state— but perhaps not for long, if some people have their way. After all, why redistrict when you can just "reconstruct"?

I realize I should contextualize my ire: This is all part of a larger dissatisfaction with the profession's current fixation with pragmatism and aversion to any broader progressive mission. Maybe the post-critics can take their own advice and pragmatically recognize that here and now, in what will be perhaps the largest reconstruction efforts in the history of this country, there are myriad opportunities for architects to do what they do best without playing into the hands of a reactionary regime.

Obviously I could go on and on. And indeed I will. But in the meantime, here are some of the latest responses/criticisms/thoughts on the topic of Katrina's New Urbanism:

• Why not start with a fan of New Urbanism, like this blogger, who claims (in a grammatical tour-de-force worthy of our prez-dint) that "What we need is suburbs, farms and living, thriving cities, not one or the other."

• Blogger Nancy Levinson has some interesting (and refreshingly optimistic) comments on the "disaster after the disaster." Includes her initial misgivings about New Urbanism as well as a follow-up piece on the need to broaden the reconstruction discussion beyond style to larger issues of urban and ecological infrastructure.

• By far the most direct, enjoyable, and all-around best piece I've read recently on post-Katrina: Mike Davis's piece "Gentrifying Disaster" from Mother Jones. If you read nothing else, read this. Good enough for me to cite twice in one post.
  

• Christopher Hawthorne's piece in the LA Times that clarifies what exactly is at stake. Hawthorne explicitly makes the parallel between the New Urbanists and their right-wing patrons:

"The Biloxi charrette, in other words, may go down as the architectural elite's Ohio: the place it watched rather helplessly as its ideological opponents outclassed it notthrough nimble thinking or grand theory or inspiring plans but simply by being more disciplined and better organized."

reconstruction: read between the lines

MORE TO COME LATER on the ominous trajectory of Katrina reconstruction plans... in the meantime, check out this weekend's Times article on the current state of affairs in Biloxi. Does anyone else find the New Urbanist slant unsettling?