Peponis - Culture and Modern Urb

Athens Center of Ekistics
Space, culture and urban design in late modernism and after

Author(s): John Peponis
Source: Ekistics, Vol. 56, No. 334/335, Space Syntax: Social implications of urban layouts
(JANUARY/FEBRUARY–MARCH/APRIL 1989), pp. 93-108
Published by: Athens Center of Ekistics
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43622107
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Space, culture and urban design
in late modernism and after
John Peponis
Dr Peponis, Associate Professor of Architecture teaching at not come about simply because cities are densely, diverse-
the Doctoral Program of the College of Architecture, Georgia ly or diachronically occupied. They occur according to
Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA, received his Ph. D at Univer- the global morphological properties of urban layouts.
sity College London where he worked as a researcher and lec- Thus, space can be seen as the distinctive and most
turer. He has consulted on the application of space syntax in
resilient dimension of urban culture because it not only
the design of communities and other urban areas in London
expresses but also overcomes the classifications
and in Athens, where he also runs a small architectural practice.
His current research interests include the extension of descrip- established by social structure and discourse, including
tive theories and methods refprring to the intelligibility of built the classifications of architectural types. Accordingly,
form and its aesthetic properties. His published articles deal it is possible to prescribe certain global properties of
with cases such as museums, factories, health centers and urban space without seeking to enforce a particular social
other building types, focusing on the way in which architecture content or outcome but rather in order to defend and
becomes entailed in the implementation of cultural, administrative
promote a democratic ethos in which contents and out-
or social policy. comes can be collectively created, recognized, compared
and assimilated.
Introduction The article is organized as follows:
• It introduces some of the wider cultural issues raised
Among the questions underlying recent debates about by recent discussions of urban design from a variety
the architecture of the city, two are perhaps more fun-of perpectives. It is argued that recent approaches
damental. The first concerns the legitimacy of architec-to urban design are open to the same underlying
tural practice: can we be assertive about how we should criticism: it fails to come to terms with the question
design our cities without seeking to enforce social assump- of how to design individual projects, or local areas,
tions which are ultimately authoritarian? The second con- while taking into account the global patterns of con-
cerns architectural theory itself: can we be specific about tinuous flow, centrality and differentiation which give
what architecture does without being reductive about urban space its distinct cultural character.
what society is? The two questions arise as a corollary • Then it introduces an alternative theoretical perspec-
of a disillusionment with the architectural ideas of the tive on the basis of which it identifies two strategic
first half of the century. cultural functions of urban space in contemporary
This article identifies and criticizes two kinds of recent society.
responses to these questions: • Finally, it concludes with a statement about the criteria
- The first is to defend an architecture of localism and for judging the architecture of the city.
containment in some new and some old ways.
- The second is to retreat into relativism, sometimes Key urban design issues since the
supported by the assertion that architecture is of limited 1960s - A critical review
consequence because society is increasingly indepen-
dent of space. The recent international literature on urban design, par-
The article defends the view that we can and must be ticularly in the West, presents a bewildering range
assertive about the architecture of cities in global issues
rather and opinions: there are those who advocate the
than local terms. integration of urban space on a large scale and those
Stated simply, the thesis defended here is as follows- who prefer well-bounded local territories. Some autho
the experience of genuinely urban environments is about start from architectural preoccupations such as those
meeting, though not necessarily interacting with, other of "type" while others depart from broader social concerns.
people, mostly unknown, who can be of recognizably Finally, some authors see a fundamental discontinuity
different class, status, race or ethnic origin; it is also between the present city and the city of the past, while
about exploring the strange, and becoming aware of, others identify elements of continuity. What follows is
though not necessarily participating in, other ways of life. a selective discussion of issues relevant to the argument
Building in such environments is about addressing this to be developed.
mixture of familiarity and difference; it is also about set-
ting a form, however well ordered in itself, in a wider
The advocacy of density, mixed use and
collective context of juxtaposition which influences how overlapping patterns of movement
the form will become intelligible. Such interactions do Among the criticisms of modern town planning during
Ekistics 334, January/February 1989 93

335, March/April 1989
the 60s, Jacobs' stands out for the acuteness of its percep- conceived of neighborhoods as self contained and clear-
tions if not for the systematic nature of the evidence ly separated units which may share the facilities provided
on which it is founded. Jacobs (1961) has essentially in more centralized nodes which are equally separated
argued in support of richly connected and continuously from them. Alexander attacks separation and zoning for
accessible street environments with mixed functions and fragmenting life and decomposing society, in an argu-
high densities of use. In a negative way, these en- ment which is compatible if not related to that of Jacobs.
vironments were seen as a remedy to the underused Alexander attributes the tendency to plan non-
cultural and civic centers and the monotonous and lifeless overlapping hierarchies on the natural impulse of the
suburbs; they were also seen as a remedy to the housing human mind to think in simplified and crude patterns.
improvement schemes which developed higher vandalism, Perhaps a similar tendency towards simplification has
dereliction and crime rates than the housing slums they led him to deal less with the morphology of space than
were designed to replace. with the spatial distribution of facilities and their pat-
In a positive way, the proposals were supported by terns of use. It is much easier to make a diagram of
two fundamental ideas: the relationships between activity patterns than it is to
give a formal description of the seemingly disordered
• First, well used streets attract the interest of local
physical fabric of unplanned cities. Yet, while it is clear
residents and shopkeepers and are informally super-
that modern planners have used physical design in order
vised. Indeed, the feeling of street safety is enhanced
to reinforce their functional classifications by spatial
by the presence of others, including the presence of
separation, it is less clear in what precise properties
strangers. In this context, it becomes easier to
of unplanned cities helped to sustain patterns of overlap.
assimilate particular requirements of control, like the
One longer term implication of arguments such as
control over children, without special investment.
Jacobs' or Alexander's, has been the emphasis on pro-
• Second, well used streets allow a natural merge be-
blems of distribution over problems of morphology. This
tween private life-style differences and informal public
has meant that, in at least these cases, the criticism
contacts. Thus, the dilemma of choosing between
of modernism has been limited to a rejection of its pro-
overexposure to public scrutiny and total isolation,
grammatic aims, mostly of zoning, rather than extended
which is imposed by more closed communities, is
into the development of better descriptive theories of
eliminated. Those who live in the street, but sustain
urban space. The principles of "dense occupation," "mix-
contacts across space, are naturally interfaced with
ed use" and "continuity" still remain in search of their
those for whom the street is the main horizon of every-
architectural counterpart.
day encounter.
The more recent work does not seem to have substan-
Mixed use and high density are clear planning principles tially altered this situation. Schumacher (1978), for exam-
and have easily been recognized and adopted since by ple, accepted density, mixed use, and the balance rather
those who agree with Jacobs' main arguments. Her ad- than the separation between car and pedestrian access,
vice is less developed concerning the physical properties as preconditions for the creation of well used streets
which characterize the environments that she advocates. in residential contexts; but he described the configura-
Her account is full of particular insights. For example tional variable as the most elusive (fig. 1). He called for
she suggests that, in the interests of informal encounter, the continuous constitution of streets by buildings and
different paths of movement must not be channelled thetoclear demarcation of streets as public spaces -
meet only at a great distance from front doors but athat property that he called "enclosure." He also drew a
they must be more continuously diffused. However,distinction the between systems of major and minor grids
way in which her insights are formulated as general prin- enmeshed into each other to preserve continuous con-
ciples leaves much to be desired. The only design variable nection, and tree-like hierarchies of spaces running from
which she advocates is that of having small blocks. Taken major arteries, into distribution roads and cul-de-sacs
by itself, the size of blocks does not exhaust those more thus segmenting the urban fabric. He suggested that the
global properties of connectedness which are evoked, first should be preferred and the second avoided. However,
or implied in her discussion. What is worse, small block the distinction remains diagrammatic and dichotomous
designs can be associated with underused public spaces rather than analytical and quantifiable.
when not integrated into their larger context (HILLIER
et al., 1983; HILLIER et al., 1987b).
Paradoxically, the same lack of clarity with regard to
the physical morphology of successful cities has underlied
the arguments of architectural theorists. In an often cited
article, Alexander (1965) has emphasized that unplanned
cities are characterized by the overlap of the catchment
areas of different facilities and by the overlap of the
areas routinely covered by individual inhabitants in their
everyday life. He has contrasted such patterns of overlap
Fig. 1 : Schumacher's diagrammatic distinction between tree-
to the common conceptualization of planned cities in
like and network-like hierarchical arrangements suggesting that
terms of a hierarchy where units are either fully discon-
the latter are more supportive of dense use. However, the proper-
nected or fully encompassed by units of higher order. ties of the network pattern remain, at best, merely indicative.
Unplanned urban areas, argues Alexander, provide All streets in each direction seem to have the same connections
facilities used by the inhabitants of other areas and de- and to be differentiated only by their width. As a relational pat-
pend on other areas to satisfy the requirements of their tern the enmeshed networks turn out to be merely a regular grid.
own inhabitants. Modern town planners, in contrast, have (Source: T. Schumacher, Buildings and Streets).
g/ Ekistics 334, January/February 1989

335, March/Apr
In the absence of a clear understanding of the con- he was not concerned with the properties of street net-
figurational properties which support the naturally evolv- works because they could only be comprehended sen-
ed patterns of dense, mixed and overlapping use, the sorily in their entirety and hence lacked all aesthetic
lines of argument mentioned above cannot, without fur-
ther development, guide the architectural design of ur-
ban areas. However, more recent discussions seem to
have altogether shifted their attention away from the
problem definitions such as those by Jacobs or Alex-
ander and a more prominent consideration of architec-
tural form seems almost universally associated with the
elimination of the question of whether familiar street
environments have morphological properties supnortive
of their characteristic patterns of use.
Three recent retreats to localism

Interestingly, the advocacy of self-contained urban units
has appealed to both those working within the language
of classical architecture and those wishing to evolve the
tradition of modernism, and is even one of the tacit
assumptions of architects who try to develop a genuinely Fig. 2: One obvious limitation of R. Krier's description of urban
theoretical perspective. space in his preoccupation with local arrangements, usually
The localism of regressive utopia: Among the critics of single squares, or urban blocks, and his neglect of global spatial
structure.
modern urban design Leon and Rob Krier have most pro-
minently advocated a return to traditional urban culture (Source: R. Krier, Urban Space).
with its familiar streets, squares and continuous building
systems, with its mixture of uses and the variations of
architectural and spatial configurations. Their advocacy
of urban culture has been associated with a consistent
criticism of some of the foundations of modern town
planning. For example, the principle of zoning was re-
jected for causing the fragmentation of life, the physical
decomposition of the city and the creation of areas which
admit only one use and only for certain hours of the
day; industrialization was deplored for destroying tradi-
tional artisan and craft cultures without achieving either
faster construction or better technology. Thus, the Kriers
seem to share at least some of the views presented above.
But more than anything else, the return to traditional
urban forms was justified in terms of a revival of public
life and culture (L. KRIER, 1978; 1984) the loss of which,
partly associated with the destruction of traditional ur-
ban space, was also deplored by other authors writing
in the early 70s (SENNETT, 1970; 1974). But, the broader
statements of principle can, in the case of the Kriers,
only be judged according to the specific architectural
and spatial ideas on which they rest especially since
they do not claim to be derived from either an elaborate
sociology or from historic scholarship.
At the architectural level, the Kriers have criticized
modernism for imposing a reductive and over-simplified
conception of space: the free-standing block set in unstruc-
tured open space where neither built forms nor activities
are allowed to interact continuously. To oppose moder-
nism, the Kriers want to reinstate the principles of con-
tinuous building. Their approach explicitly echoes the
approach initiated in 1889 by Sitte. Rob Krier has set
out visual catalogues of the different visual configura-
tions of urban spaces. For example, squares (fig. 2) are
classified according to their geometric regularity and
Fig. 3: The other obvious limitation of R. Krier's description
the number and angles of incident streets (fig. 3).
is the lack of genuine theoretical foundation. Squares, for exam-
The limitations of the approach are almost too obvious.
ple, are classified according to the number of intersecting streets
The Kriers describe urban space only at the cost of decom- and the type of incidence. At best, this approach produces an
posing it into elementary units. For Sitte, the focus on empirical inventory.
local relationships alone was both explicit and justified: (Source: R. Krier, Urban Space).
Ekistics
335, 334, January/February
March/April 1989 1989
Qf-Qf- yîD
yîD
interest (SITTE, 1986). For the Kriers, who suggest that conditions, would refer to particular situations, and
design must proceed from the logic of the whole (R. KRIER, qualities which need to be recognized and consciously
1979), the analytical emphasis on local properties alone cultivated. This choice of focus in concluding his history
is an obvious handicap which exposes them even more has become clearer in a subsequent publication (framp-
to the criticism leveled by Rossi against Sitte: that in TON, 1983) in which "place" was presented as one of
reducing the city to a series of artistic episodes he fails the founding ideas of "critical regionalism."
to deal with the overall experience, the street system Frampton's latter argument departs from the broader
and the urban topography in their entirety (ROSSI, 1982). distinction between "civilization" referring to instrumen-
Given the lack of explicit theory about global form, tal reason and "culture" referring to the expression of
any assumptions and views held by the Kriers themselves meaning. Frampton accepts that modern civilization tends
can only be revealed by an analysis of the projects. Such towards universality and disregards local conditions. Fur-
an analysis might reveal several themes of containment. ther, he suggests that modern architecture has allowed
The strong geometrical axes and arrangements are either itself to be driven by technical progress on the assump-
fully internal or only peripheral, they seldom create strong tion that this would in itself be liberating. The result
internal integration and direct links to the outside at the of this process has been a loss of cultural identity,
same time. Any squares whose geometrical regularity especially for those to whom the "international style"
might suggest that they act as focal points seem to be came to be imposed from above. The present task, sug-
removed from the main lines of movement. Thus, Krier's gests Frampton, is to oppose this trend by inflecting
informal classicism, where urban axes hit buildings slightly
off center, where the frontal view of major buildings does
not catch the main line of approach and where building
elements are allowed to interrupt major lines of sight
in order to give oblique views, is probably a classicism
of spatial fragmentation, for all its visual coherence (fig. 4).
From the point of view of the argument pursued here,
however, it is sufficient to point out that the analytic
emphasis on local configuration is coupled to a program-
matic statement of much wider relevance: Leon Krier
believes that cities should be decomposed into well defin-
ed quarters incorporating a variety of uses so as to act
as "cities within cities" (L. KRIER, 1978; 1984). Two reasons
are given for proposing to replace the spatial and func-
tional fragmentation of zoning by this new form of spatial
fragmentation:
• First, the quarters would provide a domain for the
pedestrian - the radius of a 4 to 10 minute walk
is offered as a guideline for the size of quarters (L.
KRIER, 1984).
• Second, they would solve traffic problems - in a city
of quarters there would be less need for motorized Fig. 4: L. Krier's design fortheSpitalfields market area in London
- An illustration of how key architectural elements interrupt
travel (L. krier, 1978).
lines of vision and accessibility and how discontinuities are
Taken together, the idea of contained quarters and the introduced even within the confines of a rather small urban area.
emphasis on localized spatial descriptions constitute an (Source: The Architects' Journal , 5 Nov. 1986).
anti-urban ideology. They seem inspired by the same
unease with the metropolitan city that underlied numerous our usage of modern technology according to the diversi-
projects of reform, from the garden city to the self- ty of local cultural conditions. The interaction between
contained modernist estate. Where Krier's proposals seem local traditions and our universalized civilization will per-
to differ from the ideas they are intended to combat is mit a critical continuation of modernism. The proposed
in the assertion that once you have broken up the big program will require a new emphasis on place as oppos-
city, sm^ll cities with a dense street life are acceptable, ed to space, on topographical and climatic context, on
indeed preferable. Thus, for Leon Krier the answer to tactile properties rather than purely visual ones and on
the suburb and the estate seems to be a return to the the tectonic structure of buildings as opposed to their
small town. Accordingly, the regressive Utopian character scénographie dressing up.
of the ideas of the Kriers lies less with their call for In the context, both the initial evocation of place and
a classical architectural style, and more with this anti- ts later development contain a rather surprising support
urbanism which seems to underpin their stylistic for the idea of physical enclosure as the natural means
classicism. for creating "places." Thus, in 1980, Frampton seemed
Does cultural resistance need enclosure? Frampton's to associate both the idea of "cities within cities" and
(1980) critical history of modern architecture ends with the idea of the "urban enclave" as strategies of cultural
a statement of the opposition between "space" and resistance. And almost as if to leave no doubt as to
"place." While space, as the inspiring concept of major how small scale these enclaves can be allowed to become,
currents of modern architecture, would refer to abstract he uses the term "city within a city" to describe Kleihus's
and homogeneous extension which can be freely organiz- perimeter block design of 1978, in which place takes
ed, place, as the inspiring concept of a critique of modern the form of a courtyard, as well as Portman's Peachtree
no Ekistics 334, January/February 1989

yD 335, March/April 1989
complex in Atlanta, where place is presumably express- the emphasis on the idea of "type" in recent urban design
ed in the enclosed shopping and leisure center at the theory. The authors criticize modernism for seeking to
lower levels of a high rise hotel and offices complex subject the design of cities to the uniform application
(FRAMPTON, 1980). The 1983 article includes an equally of a limited set of design principles justified either by
unambiguous support not only for the courtyard but also claims to rigorous analysis of facts, or as a response
for "other introspective types" such as the galleria, the to the perceived direction of social change. On the grounds
atrium or the labyrinth (FRAMPTON, 1983). that modernism has not succeeded to change the world
There are at least three reasons why the interpretation according to its postulates, it is suggested that formal
of place as enclosure is open to dispute: choices can neither be fully justified by reference to
• The first has to do with the long tradition of modern
methodology, nor deduced from the prediction of the
future. Thus, the possibility of designing according to
architecture, since the 18th century, to use enclosed
a single set of principles is questioned. But the authors
forms to segregate those who are thought to be in
want to eschew falling into relativism by accepting that
need of "moral improvement," or "social discipline,"
any form is as good as any other form. Thus they ad-
not only in institutional buildings but also in "model
vocate the exploration of ideal types but within the con-
housing."
• The second stems from the fact that, upon more careful
fines of individual projects. Their ideal city arises from
the juxtaposition and collision of such types but its global
consideration, the sense of place typical of traditional
form is not submitted to any one among them. Collage-
towns is usually associated with spatial openness,
where local character has to do with subtle irregularities
city is proposed as the embodiment of political democracy
and philosophical liberalism.
and deformations of the urban grid (HILLIER et al., 1987a).
This analysis is coupled to an interesting morphological
• The third is more closely related to Frampton's own
observation. In common with other authors (L. KRIER, 1978;
concerns. Atria, gallerías and other introvert forms
ELLIS, 1978; R. KRIER', 1979), Rowe and Koetter describe
were already being adopted massively by architects
the formal discipline of modern urban design in terms
and developers using "universalizing technologies,"
of the arrangement of discontinuous solid forms within
so that they are amply illustrated in his book. Enclosed
a dominant and continuous open-space context, a void
places cannot, therefore, be the distinctive symbol which reverses the traditional creation of voids by a con-
of cultural resistance and differentiation (figs. 5 and 6).
tinuous built form. This kind of arrangement leads to
Why then should spatial enclosure feature on an agenda a loss of overall intelligibility as the structureless open
of cultural development which does not seem to call space replaces the traditional street and as the local
for it? One way to answer this question is by suggesting place is dissociated from its linkages to other places.
that we see here the work not only of a tacit paradigmatic For Rowe and Koetter, however, the juxtaposition of
assumption but also of a genuine difficulty in architec-
tural theory. The paradigmatic assumption is that space
can only express cultural identity by being enclosed so
that the spatial and cultural boundaries correspond to
each other (HANSON and HILLIER, 1987). This leads to the
paradox that the presumed onslaught of "universalized
technology" is answered by a deliberate marginalization
of culture - an ostrich tactic. The genuine difficulty
is to do with the description of global spatial patterns
which are not geometrically regular. Given this difficulty,
and if one takes the (quite plausible) view that an over-
riding geometric order can be an imposition and further-
more be unintelligible on the ground, then one can resort
to local place as the only architecturally describable alter-
native.
It is perhaps indicative that in the latest expositions
of his ideas on cultural resistance Frampton has not
explicitly associated place with physical containment
(FRAMPTON, 1988). The idea of place is opposed to the
design of homogeneous and infinitely extensible grids,
such as those of Milton Keynes. But rather than signify
containment, the idea of place seems to suggest the
concrete spatial and configurational definition of things.
Such more open-ended evocation of the idea of place
would, therefore, help to focus attention on an underlying
conceptual problem: namely, how to develop abstract
ideas to describe with precision concrete and differen-
tiated physical realities, rather than seek to design space
Figs. 5-6: Kleihus's perimeter blocks, among Frampton's ex-
according to preconceived abstractions.
amples of an architecture of "place" and "critical regionalism."
Typology as localism by default: Rowe and Koetter's Col- However, courtyard forms have been most common in housing
lage City (1978) can perhaps be read as the clearer state- since the 19th century as the embodyment of the naive belief
ment not only of the formal intentions but also of the that architectural containment produces community.
social and philosophical aspirations which often underlie (Source: Lotus International, no. 19, June 1978).

buildings as part of a continuous solid (fig. 7) has certain authors who have also seen the city as the context of
additional morphological implications: a dialogue between architectural types (VIDLER, 1978), or
as the main source of architectural inspiration (HUET,
• First, within the irregular site contours which are likely
1984; 1986).
to occur with continuous building, any regular
However, the criticism addressed to Rowe and Koetter
geometrical form must be internalized within the ir-
regular contour as with some Parisian hotels, in con- can also be addressed to Rossi (1982). This is curious
because Rossi stands apart from other recent authors
trast to free standing buildings where free plan ar-
on the architecture of the city for two reasons:
rangements are internalized within a regular contour,
as with the Villa Savoie. • First, because he seeks to define its formal order not
• Second, building within a continuous structure im- in terms of superficial formal regularities but rather
poses some dialogue with specific conditions, while in terms of underlying logical relationships.
building on open structure encourages generality sub- because he seeks to combat the naive assump-
• Second,
ject to normative principles alone. Collage city, as tion of a one-to-one relationship between forms and
advocated by the authors, would stimulate a similar functions by studying how the crucial and broader
dialogue between program and context, ideal form function of forms is to make the city intelligible over
and site configuration, finite object and collective and above their changing particular uses.
effect. Furthermore, Rossi has not limited himself to the con-
sideration of individual building type by distinguishing
But the authors' wish not to impose a single typological
between individual monuments - as the permanent
principle on city form as a whole leads them to complete-
physical elements whose presence contributes to the
ly ignore any global properties. This is perhaps reflected
recognition of urban order - and the city as a collective
most interestingly in the analogy they use to describe
artifact whose most permanent characteristic is its spatial
their proposal. Collage city would encompass a variety layout.
of types much as a museum encompasses exhibitions.
For all its intellectual promise, Rossi's approach seems
What would hold the exhibitions together is the "scaf-
to have ended up with the same local emphasis as the
folding." In itself, the choice of the word "scaffolding"
approach of Rowe and Koetter. In this case, however,
is problematic because, of course, in any museum, what
localism has to do not with an explicit choice but rather
holds the exhibitions together is the architecture of a
with an implicit analytic limitation. As Scolari has pointed
museum building. The choice of the word seems to ex-
out, Rossi's theory of the architecture of the city has
press a wish to denigrate the architectural relevance of
not led to a scientific methodology for describing mor-
global structure. Yet, as with museum buildings, so with
phological properties. Thus, the idea of type ended up
towns, the interesting question is not only whether there
by being interpreted in terms of individual morphological
are different narratives, as opposed to a single one, but
how these narratives are interrelated. In towns, variety
is the natural consequence of the way in which the collec-
tive global structure results from decisions to build which
are not necessarily coordinated and are usually spread
over time. What gives towns their distinctive character
is not merely the range and nature of different types
but also the way in which they are interrelated. For exam-
ple, even within a continuously built fabric, different types
can be kept distinct from each other if set in a labyrin-
thine layout or their contrasts can become more readily
comparable within a deformed grid layout.
The weak concept in Rowe and Koetter's formulation
is that of "context." Context is too vague a concept to
carry the burden of their argument. That argument, we
might suggest, can be developed in a new direction by
substituting the dialogue between morphology and type ,
for the dialogue between type and context. In the spirit
of the author's theses, we might use the word "type"
to refer to the association between an explicit social
and functional program and a recognizable built con-
figuration. We might then define "morphology" in terms
of abstract relationships of topological rather than
geometrical order, which are systematic though not
prescribed, and which allow urban space to be intelligible
as a global system (HILLIER et al., I987a; 1987b). Any discus-
sion of pluralism then becomes a matter of setting the Fig. 7: Rowe and Koetter have argued that modernism has
destroyed the traditional urban fabric, which was based on the
configurations of type against the structures of mor-
continuity of solid form, and replaced it with continuous empty
phology. And if indeed types are to be allowed to vary,
space with free-standing objects. One of the main cultural and
the theoretical and methodological task entailed in the architectural consequences of this has been the elimination
advocacy of pluralism is the task of describing the global of the dialogue between individual architectural type and the
morphological structure as the context of type (fig. 8). collective and continuous and irregular urban context.
This is a task which has escaped the attention of other (Source: C. Rowe and F. Koetter, Collage City).
98 Ekistics 334, January/February 1989

335, March/Ap
scenery, acts much less to constitute society and much
more to represent it. Indeed, the constitutive spatial device,
if any, is the network of freeways.
And yet, though Banham brandished Los Angeles to
demolish all assumption that spatial and social form
have any necessary relation, and to attack Le Corbusier
and Jacobs at one stroke, he admitted one difference
from older European cities. In Los Angeles, the likelihood
of encounter between pedestrians, the "kerbside en-
counters with friends and with strangers to which I am
accustomed in other cities" (banham, 1971), is missing
What is at stake in this observation is not simply the
balance between vehicular and pedestrian society but
rather the nature of urban space as a public domain.
Variety and choice can be sustained in totally different
spatial arrangements. "Cosmopolitan style, creative
energy, international influence, distinctive way of life and
corporate personality" mentioned by Banham as func-
tions of cities (BANHAM, 1971) can possibly be delivered
from a set of country houses, or from a set of green-belt
Fig. 8: Roman planning is given as an example of how the dialogue
corporate headquarters. If anything, therefore, Banham's
between architectural type and urban context can operate. Though
the images may be powerful, nothing is said about the spatial
arguments invite rather than eliminate the question of
structure which holds the urban fabric together. whether urbanity has an identifiable and distinctive spatial
(Source: C. Rowe and F. Koetter, Collage City). dimension (figs. 10 and 11).
Not every attempt to neutralize urban space raises
social questions as clearly as Banham. For Venturi (1977),
elements which could be found, recognized and reinter- the "strip" of Las Vegas, with its fast vehicular move-
preted. But, in Scolari's words "the architecture of the ment, is taken for granted and seen in isolation from
city should not have been described as a city of architec- the rest of the city, as the context of an architecture
tures; morphological aspects should have pushed the which has to act less to construct the urban fabric and
discourse on the type into a more global planning strategy" more like a visual sign. In studying the "strip" (figs. 12
(SCOLARI, 1985). Indeed, the task of describing what Rossi and 13) Venturi sought a justification for dealing with
has called the "logical geography" of the city (ROSSI,
1982) - the morphological structure which weaves the
parts together, which is abstract and material at the same
time, and which is the context of individual monuments
- is largely left unfulfilled (fig. 9).
Two recent escapades from urban space

If descriptive or programmatic localism is one of the
underlying architectural responses to the problem of the
city, the seemingly opposite response is to argue that
the global properties of space do not in themselves
significantly affect society.
Interestingly, this view seems to be scared by an ar-
chitectural historian and a modern philosopher.
The aspiration to neutral space: Perhaps an early state-
ment on the "irrelevance" of spatial structure, which did
not make claims to generalization, was offered in
Banham's description of Los Angeles (BANHAM, 1971).
For Banham, Los Angeles is about variety both in ar-
chitecture and in life styles. But, in a city that has grown
recently and simultaneously from many points variety
can be reviewed neither in terms of historical evolution,
nor in terms of the relation between a center and its
periphery. The context of variety is a network of roads
and freeways which allow movement in all directions Fig. 9: Rossi's attempt to study typological and permanent
and suggest an equality of parts. In the absence of a elements seems to stop at the identification of obvious
geometrical archetypes, in these examples those resulting from
clear structure of social space, architecture is then
the assimilation of old amphitheater shapes. Nothing clear is
classified in terms of natural ecological zones.
stated about non-geometrical underlying structures. But, neither
The picture Banham is painting is one where universal can we find any specific comments on the different ways in
vehicular accessibility has erased the relevance of tradi- which geometrical form is embedded in the urban fabric in the
tional spatial structure and where architecture, whether two examples.
as conventional building, as road sign, or as Disneyland (Source: A. Rossi, The Architecture of the City).

architecture in terms of visual expression alone. From
the strip he learned that "this architecture of styles and
signs is antispatial (fig. 14); it is an architecture of com-
munication over space" (VENTURI, 1977).
Such attempts to neutralize space and to emphasize
visual form are not limited to considerations of low densi-
ty urban sprawls. It seems that they can be extended
to encompass dense urban centers. For example, the
lesson that Koolhaas (1978) drew from Manhattan was
that within a uniform and therefore undifferentiated grid
with a standard urban block, the architecture of
Figs. 12-13: Venturi has chosen to analyze the Strip of Las Vegas
as an interesting example of a modern environment.
( Source : R. Venturi, D. Scott Brown and S. Izenour, Learning
from Las Vegas).
skyscrapers could create different worlds of imagery so

as to differentiate the city, independently from spatial
structure as well as from internal functional programs.
In assuming the spatial structure to be a neutral
background to visual form Venturi and Koolhaas seem
to undermine rather than reinforce the relevance of ar-
chitecture to society. Their emphasis on image seems
to be motivated by the awareness that in a culture of
mass media and advertising, images assume an increas-
ingly important role. However, the architectural presenta-
tion of images, as distinct from, for example, the presen-
tation of images on television, is about the setting of
images within a spatial structure that creates distinctive
conditions for their exploration and comparison. The ur-
ban structure decides, for example, how far images can
be perceived in different sequences, or how far they can
be perceived simultaneously. Most of all, space decides
how predictably the exploration of images is likely to
be in the presence of others - the kerbside encounters
Figs. 10-11: Banham saw the highway and its architecture as whose elimination from Los Angeles is noted by Banham
the constitutive spatial device of Los Angeles' culture. En-
vironments which look traditional are merely "stage sets," in
but whose relevance is ignored by Venturi and Koolhaas.
The strip and the uniform grid are trivial spatial structures
this case most literally. The question is whether Los Angeles
is an urban culture in any definable sense of the word. which allow images to be juxtaposed as almost equivalent
(Source: R. Banham, Los Angeles, The Architecture of Fourchoices of spectacle, as if they were different television
Ecologies). channels.
•J QQ Ekistics 334, January/February 1989

335, March/Apri
The illusion of an a-spatial society restaurants, bars and sitting areas overlooking each other
The perception of space as a homogeneous background across multi-level voids. The placelessness of the hotels
for an architecture of visual imagery finds its counter- is further emphasized, Jameson continues, by the reflec-
part in those social analyses which suggest that contem- tive walls which offer a distorted mirror image of their
porary society has overcome space. This argument was surroundings as if the building conceals its own presence.
taken up by Jameson in a recent article in which he This same placelessness is duplicated in an arrangement
argued that a whole array of cultural trends converge of internal space that defies the easy identification of
volumes and makes orientation rather difficult. Within
to form a distinct stage of cultural periodization which
he denoted as postmodern (JAMESON, 1984). Architecture this interior, movement, which cannot really lead very
features prominently in his account. But the particular far, becomes a dominant visual theme emphasized in
buildings with which he illustrates his arguments seem the prominent display of stairs, lifts and escalators.
a rather unlikely choice. Portman's Bonaventura Hotel Jameson explains his interest in these features by
in Los Angeles, or Portman's hotels in Atlanta seem typical presenting them as a sort of analogue of the spatial
of the modernist tradition of simple geometrical shapes logic of our society. Society, argues Jameson, is underlied
in either exposed concrete or patent glazing, with none by extensive decentralized and globalized networks of
of the figurative motives - doors, windows, columns control, partly resting on information technology. Even
or pediments - which are normally associated with the self is increasingly defined as a node in networks
popular postmodernism. This makes Jameson's spatial of relationships which span across space and whose
analysis all the more interesting. extent or intermeshing is not easy to comprehend. This
Though the buildings make no attempt to rhetorically idea, that in a society of telecommunications and transport
stand out from their surroundings in visual terms, they technologies space has a minor role as a basis of social
nevertheless have no obvious entrance. In principle, identity, is frequently taken up in current discussions
Jameson argues, they should have no entrance at all (see for example Virilio, 1984; Baudrillard, 1985). Further-
since their aim is to create an enclosed miniature world more, the idea has well known precedents. For example,
- a seemingly informal arrangement of shops, the proposition that we have shifted from a society where
identity was based on relationships of propinquity to
a society where it rests on common interest groups
dispersed across space was developed with particular
force by Melvin Webber more than twenty years ago (WEB-
BER, 1964). He used the term non-place urban realm to
describe this new social context.
But even if such diagnoses were accepted - which
is open to question - they would only reveal part of
the story. The other part was in the case of Portman's
hotels presented by Davis (1985). Davis sees Portman's
strategy as one of providing pseudo-public spaces within
protected environments designed to exclude the popula-
tion of the surrounding low-income and often immigrant-
dominated neighborhoods. This strategy stands in con-
trast to the alternative trend whereby the traditional ur-
ban core gets gentrified (a trend that Davis identifies
in Boston or San Francisco) and the lower income groups
are displaced from it. In other words, Jameson's inter-
pretation of certain projects as indications of a new spatial
logic of culture is countered by an interpretation of the
same projects in terms of a longer history of organizing
space so as to segregate different social categories some
of which are more spatially dependent than others. The
creation of an architecture of placelessness turns out
to be a profoundly spatial strategy.
A defense of urban space as a

cultural resource
The preceding review shows that in recent discussions
the most prominent theoretical views either defend the
design of cities as an aggregation of more or less self-
Fig. 14: Venturi has argued that in contemporary environments
contained localities, or suggest that the structure of ur-
visual communication takes over and space retains a secondary
role. The choice of his case study may have preempted his
ban space is of secondary cultural relevance. Taking into
conclusion. Nevertheless, the strip has a rather simple spatial account the earlier criticisms of modern town planning
structure which is at the root of the functions which have to which stopped short of systematically identifying the
be performed by the road signs. architectural variables which affect how cities are used,
(Source: R. Venturi, D. Scott Brown and S. Izenour, Learning we can therefore suggest that in these discussions, one
from Las Vegas). particular discursive position is avoided: by and large

there is silence over the design and configurational pro- is better correlated with spatial variables as compared
perties of cities which are spatially integrated on a global to the presence of people analyzed according to
scale without compromising the differentiation and sub-areas.
distinct character of their parts. Let us attempt to discuss • Orientation can be inferred when we ask whether the
this position and draw out its relevance for contemporary presence of people in an area is better correlated with
culture. spatial variables when we analyze the area as an in-
The point of departure is the theory of space developed dependent system, as compared to the analysis of
by Hillier and Hanson (1984), a brief outlne of which is the same area as part of a wider urban context.
necessary to pursue the discussion. Both exercises associate the intelligibility of urban space
with the pattern of predictability of people's presence
Design and configuration properties of spatial-from configurational variables (PEPONIS et al., 1988).
ly integrated, locally differentiated cities as This method does not, in itself, provide confirmation
a prerequisite for intense local interactivity and
that the variables in question come into the way people
pluralism think of the city. However, it allows us to identify an
The descriptive theory of urban space (HILLIER et al., 1983; artificial but systematic pattern which people seem to
HILLIER and HANSON, 1984; HILLIER, 1985; HILLIER et al., 1987a) sustain and to make sense of as they circulate in the
differs from other modes of description in several respects: city and to overcome a crucial limitation of the alternative
• first, space is described in terms of abstract proper- definitions of intelligibility offered in architectural theory.
ties of topological nature rather than in terms of In his classic study of how cities are perceived, Lynch
geometric regularities; (1960), to give but one example, bases his description
of urban form on the association between the immediate
• second, space is described as a relational pattern which
can be explored and understood without being direct- visible and the readily verbalized: Lynch dealt with recurr-
ly visible in its entirety; ing urban elements such as "landmarks" or "edges" by
• the structure of urban space is analyzed as a pattern checking whether the account given by people in response
to questionnaires matched the intuitive description that
of connections in order to describe with precision how
local areas are differentiated within the context of he was able to establish himself by looking out for the
the urban whole, and how the system is held together occurrence of such elements in the urban landscape.
by a pattern of centrality; to do this, But this method of describing the imageability of cities
• each space is described according to its position in points to a major difficulty. There is a sharp difference
the system as a whole by asking how accessible it between the practical everyday understanding of urban
is from all the other parts of the system and how form as an explorable and usable pattern of spatial rela-
many paths between other spaces go through it; then, tionships and the ability to describe this understanding
and direct a visitor or an interviewer with reference to
• the system as a whole is described according to the
distribution of the spaces from which it is more direct- visible features. If I am asked how one could go from
ly accessible and more easily controllable; one place to another I may reply not by offering the familiar
• the pattern of centrality, or integration, is given by path, the shortest path, or the more interesting path,
this distribution which can be clustered or distributed but rather by presenting the path which can be more
with respect to the rest of the system; easily signposted with visual reference points lending
• differentiation is studied by decomposing the system themselves to easy verbal description. If this is borne
into sub-areas and exploring their structures of spatialin mind, then the study of urban imageability becomes
integration and the extent of their overlap with respectonly a limited part of the study of urban intelligibility,
to each other and to the pattern of integration of the indeed a part related to how cities might be represented
system as a whole. rather than how they might be actively used.
Thus, the descriptive theory of urban space offers a way As defined by Hillier et al., the intelligibility of urban
in which we might give a precise account of what Rossispace is dependent neither on verbal accounts nor an
has intriguingly called the logical geography of the city explicit knowledge or intentionality. Individual people do
(ROSSI, 1982) without having any means of describing it. not necessarily circulate according to explicitly rationaliz-
But the most interesting effect of the proposed analysis ed decisions concerning their choice of path; on the other
is to allow the exploration of how urban space becomes hand, different people move according to different pur-
intelligible in its everyday use. poses and their pattern of co-presence is not pre-planned,
even if analysis reveals it to be persistent and predictable
from spatial variables. In this sense, the intelligibility
The intelligibility of urban space as "habitus" of urban space is the intelligibility of what Bourdieu might
This exploration is based on the study of correlations call a habitus , a durable pattern which is both the out-
between the observed density of moving or standing peo- come and the point of departure of actions, a pattern
ple and the relational properties of urban spaces. It is which needs not to be reflexively known in order to be
argued that if the distribution of people is according acknowledged in day to day practices (BOURDIEU, 1980).
to the relational properties of spaces we can infer thatIndeed, we are able to circulate in the city in ways which
these properties are the organizing principles of people's either maximize or minimize our awareness of other peo-
presence (HILLIER et al., 1987b). In particular, we can ac-ple, balancing the duration of the journey against the
tually begin to explore the twin ideas of system of referencerange of partly anticipated messages and spectacles that
and orientation. we are likely to encounter, occasionally putting off the
• Systems of reference can be identified when wearrival ask to a known destination to favor some more open-
how far the presence of people in an area as a whole ended search. This practical mastery of the city is subject
-1Q2 Ekistics 334, January/February 1989

335, March/Apr
to what Bourdieu has called a practical logic, a sort of observable form of spectacle. At the same time they gave
game of limited decisions which do not need to rest rise to uncertainty. Detective novels emerged as a fic-
on a systematic picture of the structure of the city and tional revelation of plots and connections which would
of its use taken as a whole, but whose effect is to reproduceotherwise pass unobserved, as if to provide a missing
some sort of collective end - the pattern of co-presence. intelligibility, the literary depiction of facial character
Empirical studies have shown that in traditional urban attempted to read the personality or the human type from
visual traits, as if to counter the depersonalization of
areas the habitus has two crucial properties:
relationships.
• First, it is open towards the global scale, in the sense
The interplay between intensification and loss of in-
that we can make better sense of how people use
urban areas by setting them in their wider urban con-
telligibility brought with it a deeper dilemma. Was the
crowd to be the ultimate refuge, the ultimate hiding place
text, not only when these are central shopping areas
of individual personality, of the modern cultural hero,
but also when they are ordinary residential ones
(HILLIER et al. ,1987b). who tried to imbue the transient with validity, and to
• Second, the habitus seems to assimilate local in- reconstitute art as part of the everyday; or was the crowd
habitants and strangers - either visitors from other to be seen as the basis of a new emerging social force¿
the collective will asserted over individual will and mak-
parts of town, or strangers coming from the outside
ing the part of the hero unavailable. Such were the terms
- within the same logic of space use, in the sense
in which Benjamin saw the fundamental difference be-
that correlations between spatial and occupancy tween Baudelaire who slid towards the first alternative
variables do not change significantly according to
and Hugo who opted for the second. But even this dilem-
whether visitors are present (PEPONIS et al., 1988).
ma of individual consciousness was coupled by a political
In other words, the habitus is characterized by a struc- dilemma which can seem more challenging. Could social
tural openness both in responding to the way in which change be initiated by conspirators intimate with the
local areas are embedded in their global morphological informal networks of popular solidarity and could insur-
context, and in assimilating the through movement of rection, supported by that same kind of solidarity, act
visitors, the exploratory movement of strangers and the as the mechanism of change; or did social change require
local movement of inhabitants within a single predictable formal organization on a new scale, backed by more ex-
distribution of encounter. Both effects seem to depend plicit theoretical understanding?
on spatial morphology over and above the effects of the This set of dilemmas maps the whole range of transfor-
distribution of facilities, activities and functions. mations of the 19th century experience of spatiality, from
Those properties of openness are weaker in suburban the changes in the nature of face to face contacts, to
areas, and seem completely destroyed in modern hous- the changing relationship between spatial propinquity
ing designs not only when they are based on the free- and political. consciousness. The work of Williams has
standing high-rise blocks and the segregation of different further highlighted the emerging experience of the crowd.
types of traffic but also when they try to reproduce tradi- For some, including Engels, there was a marked contrast
tional or even vernacular settlement forms. In other words, between spatial proximity and the divergence of private
the association between spatial morphology and the individual interests; for others, like Hardy, the crowd seem-
predictable encounter with other people is a form of every- ed less like an aggregation and more like an organic
day habitus which seems to be made or destroyed by whole which took the shapes of the streets and spilled
architecture. This justifies Hillier and Hanson's claim into neighboring alleys; but for most authors, including
that the failures of modernism have to be sought in its Hardy and Dickens, the crowd seemed like the source
spatial solutions more than in its formal vocabulary of a social danger, of an irrational force (WILLIAMS, 1973).
(HILLIER and HANSON, 1982). This emerging consciousness was to replace an earlier
The theoretical and empirical study of the intelligibility peripatetic experience of cities as centers of variety. And
and use of urban space initiated by Hillier helps to refor- it was to become associated with the careful recording
mulate an elusive but central question which lies at the of social facts and their geographical distribution, as
root of modern consciousness and of modern architec- modern social policies were to replace random charities.
ture. Does urban space have a cultural role, and if so Slowly, the crowd would be seen as mechanistically predic-
how is its cultural significance to be described and assess- table rather than chaotic and varied. And the modes of
ed? This question has been pursued more vividly by Ben- its observation and depiction became distanced and
jamin and by Williams in their study of literature and typified.
culture, and their work offers a good point of departure The accounts offered by Benjamin and Williams revolve
for understanding the issues involved. around a simple central idea. That in its earlier stages,
In 1938, in trying to set the poetry and the personality our modern consciousness has seen in the city something
of Baudelaire in its historic and cultural context, Ben- which cannot be fully described: the difficulties of descrip-
jamin (1973) traced some of the dilemmas concerning tion are to do partly with the numbers involved and the
the cultural perception of urban streets in the 19th cen- need to use systematic abstractions rather than deal
tury. On the one hand, Parisian boulevards could appear with cases; but most importantly, the difficulties of descrip-
to enhance the face to face encounter and exchange tion arise from the inability to associate spatial form,
of information which one might expect in smaller set- Hardy's organic whole which fills the streets and ex-
tlements, and, with the assistance of the emerging popular cretes into alleys, with a coherent social content. In other
press and the easy spread of information by telegraph, words, the spatial formation seemed to work independently
they could also give it a more cosmopolitan character. of and perhaps against the social. Many of the architec-
The boulevards also made the proliferation of shops and tural projects and ideals that developed in the same period,
the density of crowds a more intense and more readily as summarized by Vidier (1978), can be seen as an at-
Ekistics 334, January/February 1989 -t no

tempt to remedy this. If the city was physically messy, categories of class, race or occupation. Where social
architecture would have to embellish it and make it in- categories are kept geographically completely segregated,
telligible; if society seemed too complex and unintelligi-as in apartheid, the role of space in the preservation
ble, spatial order, usually geometric, would make it more of social structure is perhaps all too obvious. However,
accessible; if morality and social order were threatened, segregation can operate in subtler ways. Hillier and Han-
architecture would be the means facilitating their en- son (1984) have argued that in modern society the elimina-
forcement. Thus, ideal projects, Utopian or realized, aim- tion of traditional street patterns has consistently been
ed to reestablish the link between spatial and social in- associated with a pervasive form of domination of class
telligibility by proposing an association between fixed rather than race. Their argument raises some of the ques-
descriptions of spatial form and specified social norms. tions discussed previously.
Set against this background, the first half of this cen- We may recall Melvin Webber's (1964) assertion that
tury initiated a fundamental change. As projects of modern we have moved from a society in which social relation-
architecture have eliminated the street on an increasing- ships were based on propinquity to a society in which
ly large scale and for increasingly larger sections of the they are based on common interest groups which trans-
population, it has become more easily apparent that this cend particular localities, or Jameson's (1984) assertion
elimination could in itself be a social deprivation, that that our society is characterized by networks of influence,
the seemingly formless co-presence could in itself be communication and dependence which are so globalized
a form of community even if undescribable in terms of as to become independent of geographical space. Both
specific social contents. In other words, while earlier assertions do nothing but restate the fact that in every
debates could take one form of street culture or another society there are groups, institutions and functions which
for granted, the street itself appears to us like an institu- are less restricted spatially than others and that these
tion which can no longer be assumed in our society. groups are invariably those that command greater power.
But if the elimination of the street is a cultural depriva- For example in discussing the spatial logic of our society
tion despite the difficulties of associating streets with Castells (CASTELLS and GODARD, 1974; CASTELLS, 1975) has
particular social contents, then its relevance as a social contrasted the transpatial logic of capital and of modern
and architectural institution may be less in terms of corporate organizations with the much more spatially
specific contents and more in terms of providing the based logic of the provisions of the welfare state which
common ground against which contents become intelligi- are addressed to working communities, and with the social
ble. This would allow for Anderson's observation that relationships within those communities themselves.
"streets, in concept and in reality accord poorly with Hillier and Hanson's contribution is to have described
institutionalized categories of problems and profes- with precision how classes with different degrees of spatial
sionals" (ANDERSON, 1978). And it would require us to dependence for maintaining their contacts also have
seek the social relevance of street patterns not in the different morphological requirements. In creating a field
enforcement of active forms of interaction or the pursuit of predictable but unplanned encounter on a global scale,
of particular activities but rather in the natural sustain- street patterns privilege those who depend on space.
ment of mutual awareness. Not least, it would require On the other hand, morphologies which do not encourage
us to reject the idea that spectacle, as contrasted to high densities of predictable encounter may be compati-
active engagement, is necessarily a form of alienation ble with the requirements of social classes whose con-
(DEBORD, 1970). Within the context of urban space, spec- tacts are established more selectively and supported by
tacle is a form of symbolic recognition over and above the spatially independent networks identified by Melvin
interaction. Webber or Jameson. The main social paradox in the evolu-
If we accept the analysis initiated by Hillier et al., tion our of urban design over the last two centuries, argue
ability to perceive the relevance of the street over and Hillier and Hanson, is that forms of design which were
above the resolution of the questions of content depends unsympathetic to the sustainment of spatially based com-
on our appreciation that street patterns, as an architec- munities were addressed precisely to those who depend
tural morphology, constitute patterns of unintended but on space in order to generate their social contacts -
systematic co-presence as a social resource. Thus the the lower income groups in need of state subsidized hous-
question of streets as a social institution is a proper ing. Ironically, this was done in the name of community.
concern of architecture. This appreciation is natural within The underlying mistaken assumption, argue the authors,
Hillier's framework but seems impossible to formulate was that spatially based communities depend on the
with precision within the frameworks of architectural provision of delimited territories and enclosure. But
theory discussed previously. However, as a common enclosure, rather than forcing community upon the in-
ground, street patterns are not neutral. They make an habitants, actually isolates them from the ebb and flow
essential contribution to democracy by mediating social of the movement of strangers and eliminates the poten-
and discursive structures. tial of encounter and of integration in society (HANSON
and HILLIER, 1987; HILLIER, 1987).
The alternative to these design practices which have
The question of urban space: Against the worked to intensify social inequality is the provision of
segregation of people and ideas environments which help to partially overcome structural
Urban space, as a habitus in which the logical geography differences. This is possible due to a fundamental fact
of the city is associated with the predictability of public which has implicitly been noticed by Jacobs (1961). When
encounter, has two crucial interrelated functions bearing she observed that streets allow a natural merge between
on the communication of people and ideas. the preservation of different personal life styles and infor-
The first function concerns the assimilation of different mal public contacts, she was noticing that the en-
categories defined by the sociaT structure, whether vironments which are supportive of those whose social
-1 04 Ekistics 334, January/February 1989

335, March/Apr
life depends on space are not adverse to those who wish 1979) are all strongly bounded and internally strongly
to preserve more transpatial and selective contacts. This classified spaces governed by explicit and increasingly
is why old urban centers with intensive street life are elaborate discourses which combine the application and
often popular with members of elite executives, profes- advancement of specialized knowledge with the exercise
sionals or media people all of whom command social of authority. It is characteristic of those spaces that while
networks independent of locality. On the other hand, hous-they may share some broadly similar organizing prin-
ing estates which destroy street life can only accom- ciples, they are well insulated from each other. In one
modate the latter category of people but not the former. of his lectures, Foucault (1984) has suggested that the
In other words the issue is not one of deciding whether principle of creating insular specialized spaces governed
one group will dominate over the other: one option is by their own discourses might have more general ap-
co-presence with differentiation; the other is discrimina- plicability to our society and might increasingly encom-
tion to favor transpatially based groups over spatially pass buildings addressed to leisure. He has used the
dependent ones. The choice is not symmetrical. So, the term heterotopia to describe the logic of a society where
relationship between social categories is one of the ma- spatial dissociation becomes a common trend.
jor social issues which are at stake with regard to the When choices and diversity are uncoupled from our
design of urban space. common understanding of public space in terms of both
Another major issue concerns the relationship between differentiation and integration, the result is heterotopia.
ideas, discourses and cultural identities. This also raises At this point Foucault's analyses are critical. Heterotopias
questions discussed previously. That cities are associated are associated with stronger, not lesser regimentation
with variety and pluralism is perhaps one of the most and discipline. A society that builds heterotopias is not
common themes in studies of urbanism. It can be traced more open to variety. Heterotopias are-about the contain-
back to the analysis developed by Durkheim in 1893ment ac- of differences, not their creative confrontation and
cording to which the large and dense populations of cities assimilation. This is why Lefebvre (1971) has seen the
are associated with more extensive division of labor and combination of centrality and differentiation as the con-
with the dominance of difference and interdependence dition for the creative potential of urban society.
over similarity and repetition as the basis of social solidari- The heterotopic trend is perhaps more clearly visible
ty (DURKHEIM, 1933). It can be followed in the later work in the attempts to reproduce the variety characteristic
of Simmel (in Wolff, 1950) and Wirth (1938) in which urban of urban areas within the bounded spaces of self-contained
density is related to diversity, increased individual freedom developments. The Portman hotels referred to by Jameson
and impersonal relationships. The same association can as evidence of an a-spatial society are just one instance
also be traced to the relationships between the growth of an internalized microworld. Tafuri (1980) has perhaps
of cities and the growth of trade and exchange brought traced their antecedent in the Rockefeller Center which
into focus by Pirenne in 1925 (PIRENNE, 1969) and a sub- represents the first attempt to incorporate within a single
ject of extensive study (including, most notably, Braudel, complex all the functions of the city and to express this
1979), discussion and debate since (see CARTER, 1983). with an inward architectural emphasis. However, in re-
Diversity, as the main chracteristic of traditional urban cent years, such attempts have proliferated. Whether one
culture, is the underlying theme of historically informed looks at the new shopping and leisure centers, at the
accounts (GIROUARD, 1985). And Sennett's ideas are merely renovations of old industrial areas, or at the mix of shops
a recent example of how urban diversity can inspire and bars at concert hall foyers and airport departure
ideologies of individual freedom and a permissive society lounges alike, the emulation of the atmosphere of the
(SENNETT, 1971) - he argued that in a diverse environ- street seems to be the common theme. In every case
ment people must confront other people rather than an attempt is made to reproduce the pedestrian move-
reproduce an idealized view of the world, thus reaching ment and mixture of uses typical of streets within highly
a stage of greater psychological maturity. controlled and highly localized contexts. The ensuing
However, as the previous discussion of the ideas of sense of variety without centrality seems to be a step
Banham has indicated, diversity can possibly be delivered towards the substitution of genuinely public space. Within
in a variety of spatial contexts. The question is whether the self-contained spaces no natural flow of through-
street patterns make any distinctive contribution to the movement can influence the economy of diversification.
presence of diversity. One answer is implicit in Williams' There can be no simultaneous awareness or appeal to
(1973) statement that his more permanent sense of cities what has not already been programmed to be adjacent.
is a " sense of possibility, of meeting and of movement. " There may be choices but they are pre-set.
If diversity is implied by "possibility" then the street culture Such are the reasons why the architectural pluralism
is implied by "meeting," by the reference to the "kerbside advocated by Rowe, or the cultural resistance within in-
encounters" that Banham missed in Los Angeles. It is trovert places advocated by Frampton seem profoundly
characteristic of cities that they set diversity in the con- complacent. With any acceptance or advocacy of cultural
text of the predictable and unforced presence of others variety the critical concern must be whether and how
within a continuously connected fabric. Why should thisthe different ideas and propositions can communicate,
be significant? can be open to exploration and can be judged by com-
The concept of heterotopia introduced by M. Foucault parison. The answer to homogenization cannot be discon-
can help to clarify the issue. Most of the work of Foucault nection because the cultural or ideological differences
has been concerned with the creation of certain spaces that would have been eliminated in the first case will
which have characterized the early stages of develop- merely become neutralized in the second.
ment of modern society and which are the exact opposite Both the arguments about social categories and about
of urban spaces. The modern asylum (FOUCAULT, 1967), cultural differences presented above amount to this: if
the hospital (FOUCAULT, 1973) or the prison (FOUCAULT, spatial morphology does on its own create a global field
Ekistics 334, January/February 1989 -1Q5

of unprogrammed and predictable encounter, then it pro- this assimilation was perhaps explored in greater depth
vides urban society with the material common ground by Tafuri (1976) but it is the common ground of a larger
for negotiating structure and difference. If society set of independent analyses. Superficially, the assertion
classifies people in different classes, roles and positions, revives the old 19th century question of architectural
urban space can be one of the means of reintegration. determinism and indeterminism: whether social reform
If different ideologies become the means by which we can be engineered by architectural means. Upon more
recognize ourselves, urban space can allow the awareness careful consideration, however, some current
of differences to become the basis for questioning developments of the argument do not question whethe
familiarity. Of course, spatial morphology does not by the physical environment is systematically related to soci
itself guarantee that there will be variety or creative jux- ty, but whether architecture as a discipline has any author
taposition; it does not create social differences nor can ty over the relationship.
it eliminate them. It is one of the conditions for the exer- This can be seen quite clearly in Habermas's defence
cise of a certain kind of freedom to become aware without of modernism (1982; 1985). Habermas lists the social re
necessarily interacting, to present choices as well as quirements which formed the background to modern ar-
taking them and to be a member of a wider society where chitecture, from the requirement of mass housing con
politics is more than the search for optimization on the struction to the pressures towards industrialization in
basis of predetermined aims. Thus, urban space, as a the building industry. Such requirements were enmeshed
physical morphology, may fulfill much more pervasively with the interaction between the forces of the free market
and those of state planning. In this context modern ar-
the role of "anti-structure" which the anthropologist T urner
chitectural design came to assume impossibly complex
(1969) has attributed to rituals and cultural trends which
are nominally about transitional, marginal, or unprivileg- and contradictory tasks to do with the organization of
ed social groups, but which can assume the function society. Yet, Habermas suggests, architecture cannot
of reintegrating society as a whole. If this is the case,be blamed for failing to solve problems inherent in the
space would not appear to have a "real but unimportant structure of society and in social modernization. Thus,
effect" (SAUNDERS, 1981) to those for whom the question he makes room for the claim that the modernist project
of the public realm seems of secondary significance. remains viable as a project of artistic expression, un-
burdened from the responsibility of solving problems which
are not of its own making. Modernism, as a movement
Modernism conditioned of art, would still be about giving formal expression to
functions and about relating artistic culture to everyday
The review of theoretical positions suggests that the life. In other words architectural modernism would bè
criti-
ques of modernism in the field of urban design have a project of enlightenment and of reflection upon condi-
developed against a proliferation of targets. But any at- tions which influence architecture but are external to
tempt to create the inventory of the accusations raised it. In the context of this argument, the cost of salvaging
against modernism, from the creation of underused public modernism as artistic expression seems to be the aban-
space, to the impoverishment of architectural language, donment of claims over the spatial and functional organiz-
would perhaps be futile. More important is the identification of society on the grounds that neither the organiza-
tion of the underlying stategic dilemmas raised by recent tion of space nor the definition of functions can be raised
discussions. The regressive return to small town society or answered as purely architectural problems.
advocated by L. Krier is perhaps the only instance where The arguments presented in this paper suggest that
urban morphology is discussed in relation to the uses the current underlying dilemma of architecture, at least
to which it might be put, even if this discussion is ex- with regard to public urban space, needs to be formulated
hausted in the statement of generalities. The other in quite different terms. Architecture may not in itself
theories, from Frampton's places of cultural resistance determine the structure of society nor the direction of
to Jameson's sceneries of fake urbanity, avoid raising social change. This, however, does not mean that it can
the question of how architecture works and seem preoc- only reflect upon them. The answer to naive functionalism
cupied exclusively with decoding what architecture may or naive architectural determinism can be given in terms
express in the context of contemporary culture. of a new definition of the social functions of architecture.
The avoidance of the question of how architecture works This article has argued that the strategic cultural choice,
can perhaps be explained. It partly derives from the rejec- with regard to urban design, is whether we will try to
tion of naive functionalism: it is asserted that architec- resolve problems and evolve institutions in the context
tural form cannot be derived from an analysis of func- of an open and differentiated urban space with a struc-
tional requirements (COLQUHOUN, 1981) and that form can- ture of centrality supportive of a public realm, or whether
not determine a unique mode of use (ROSSI, 1982). Thus, we will try to resolve problems and evolve institutions
form is seen as relatively independent from the uses in the context of a spatially fragmented society, where
to which it may be put, and its relationship to society differences are contained and where centrality is weaken-
is seen as a matter of artificial convention rather than ed. This choice has a genuinely architectural component
logical or technical necessity. because the presence of institutions, the concentration
More fundamentally, there is considerable doubt as of uses and the densities of population are not in
to whether the relationship of architecture to culture can themselves sufficient to define a city and an urban culture.
be anticipated or controlled. It is pointed out that ar- If the theories presented by Hillier and his colleagues
chitectural ideals such as those of early modernism, which are correct, then the properties of built form which im-
were proposed as part of programs of radical social reform, pinge upon this cultural choice are not those which com-
could be adopted and assimilated so as to reinforce the monly preoccupy architecture as an art. The former are
reproduction of the existing social order. The history of rather of a topological abstract nature, the latter are usually
■106 Ekistics 334, January/February 1989

335, March/April
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Athens Center of Ekistics

Space, culture and urban design in late modernism and after

Ekistics 334, January/February 1989 93

g/ Ekistics 334, January/February 1989

Three recent retreats to localism

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Two recent escapades from urban space

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skyscrapers could create different worlds of imagery so

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A defense of urban space as a

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