While on semi-lockdown here in Netherlands, having traveled from London the week before I decided to self-quarantine myself due to my exposure to air travel and being abroad. Have caught one of the last flights out of London after the announcement from EU of the travel ban, and the stricter travels on the UK side. It simply was not in the equation even a week, or a few days ago, that commuting between these two borders could be a problem, and yet, that day it felt the border was closing in. I felt an honest relief the moment I went out of immigration at Schiphol airport.
“DON’T PANIC”
Douglas Adams
Someone once said that phrase is one of Douglas Adams’ most important legacy to humanity. Judging by how prevalent the phrase is, repeated and attributed to Adams, and even written on one of the marvels of 21st Century engineering – SpaceX rocket – perhaps it is true.
“It is said that despite its many glaring (and occasionally fatal) inaccuracies, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy itself has outsold the Encyclopedia Galactica because it is slightly cheaper, and because it has the words ‘DON’T PANIC’ in large, friendly letters on the cover”
Douglas Adams
Adams knew a thing or two about the power or psychology. Where glaring truth cannot fill the gap, simple direct instruction of “Don’t Panic” will perhaps do. He also had advices for hitchhikers like: know where your towel is (because it’s a neat psychological trick in case you nead to rough it out at your mate’s, tip for our time: its also for hand washing)
Back to reality, not space time. The truth is, there are many people who thinks that this event will change everything. Many people are saying this is a familiar feeling to war, those who experienced war, and to some it is similar to 9/11, or the 2008 recession, or for people in my home country it is bringing back memories of 1998, the Asian economic recession. But I argue that it is different. By virtue that we are experiencing it on a global scale at around the same time period, in a world that is now almost completely completely connected physically and virtually. What with with China being the world’s largest economy in the world right now, and the rising influences of other Asian countries means that people around the world are traveling and mixing more. Have we reached peak earth?
In his lecture “Atmospheric Violence and Lethal Doubt”, Eyal Weizman of Forenzic Architecture took an example of the forest fires of Indonesia, where the smog encompasses three countries: Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. This situation placed the inhabitants of the spaces within the clouds in a temporary state of emergency as what he called a “state of action”, a state which “defy across political borders.
Borrowing from his principle, perhaps we are in this space right now. There is now instead a biological violence within our spaces, which changes the textures, the materiality and how we interact with the things around us. We no longer trust what we had casually touched before, tactility becomes intimacy. It is not lethal doubt but lethal trust that we are wary of.
Perhaps this would change things, even after we recovered. As we tend to our wounds, and mourn and grief, maybe we will change. We see already the discussions online, so swift are societies called to action – people calling out their governments to action, government calling out other governments, people calling out other people and the message is clear: do for the good of all, selfishness is not tolerated.
Don’t panic. Don’t be selfish. Call out your governments. Work together. Let’s see each other on the other side.
Before I alienate you with my faulty logic, I can assure you it is the very faulty logic that I am questioning. Like the Parks who stare at the windows of their house at the heavy rain, admiring the view and completely being oblivious of its consequences to the Kims of the world, it is problematic. Yes, it’s a Parasite reference.
What does this mean? What do things represent? So much meaning.
We entered 2020 with a terrible start on a climatic standpoint. In Australia, bush fires that started since as early as September 2019 has since still been burning due to continued drought and hotter and drier climate. On the other side of the ocean, in Jakarta, the New Years Day was met with flooding – a result of both years of uncontrolled water subsidence issues and rising sea levels. And these are only two examples of climate emergencies we are facing right now.
Architects, due to our guilt for being part of a sector most responsible to the climate crisis, and our problem saving nature (the scope of the problem, and its solving, continues to be questioned), we tend to come up with designs, schemes, exhibitions to provoke thought of what can be done in the face of this disaster. In the 2010’s from student projects, competitions, to government projects, natural disaster is seeing a lot of attention as a theme.
Of course, post-apocalyptic aesthetic is not new. Anyone who has seen drawings by Lebbeus Woods, with its odd landscapes and jagged materiality would be familiar with the style. Though his work in War and Architecture, which was based on the violence in Sarajevo, is more complex and requires further reading, I argue that his style has had a profound impact on the fascination on post-apocalyptic landscapes and forms.
Keeping up to this theme, in January 2020, the Singapore Arts and Science museum opened a museum wide exhibition about the future life in Singapore, and the future is bleak. Superflux, a London experiential design studio, designed the exhibition “Mitigation of Shock”. It depicts an immersive experience of how life would be like in a post-apocalyptic world, when the city is flooded. Flash flooding is a problem even in Singapore, and in the Island country, as with in many island countries around the world, the effects of the rising sea levels, our fondness for density and concrete developments has resulted in the big question of where do water go to in the city? The exhibition describes life after “water-world”. It contains a detailed real-life imitation of a living room in that time, when the resources were scarce, and each household have to grow their own plants (Ikea sells those tools now if you want to start). There’s a stamp book for grocery quotas, hunting paraphernalia as people would resort to hunting for food, and solar panels for energy.
This brings me back to the cold truth of the story. The irony of the January exhibition in Singapore is that at the same time of the exhibition, the same urban flooding was happening on the other side of the strait. Jakarta was having one of the worst floods in a few years. The people most affected were the poor, those who lives in slums, low-tide areas, it resulted in mass human displacements. Other than that, normalcy in the lives of everyday people of Jakarta were disrupted. The government of Jakarta had failed to commit to a plan to stop or mitigate the flood. And just like in Parasite, the poor people are more severely affected by disasters, with no thresholds and supports on their reach. The results of a climatic disaster is: displacement, economic uncertainties, lack of resource, and also future climatic disaster.
The parallels I could draw between Parasite and “Mitigation of Shock” is that like the Park’s youngest, the exhibition seem to portray taking on the issues I’ve surmised, like it is a Wes Andersen-esque adventure – with self-sufficiency and curated collectibles. It is a strange sort of Dystopian thinking, which would reflect a society’s anxiety, but don’t worry it is also a Utopia – with its self-sufficiency, resourcefulness of the people, and the established governmental system. It is indeed a parallel to the Parks, looking at the rain, unworried, as the sun will come out, tomorrow (They’ll have a party too!).
Perhaps you might ask why I would fuss about one exhibition such as this. I would argue that it is worth to talk about how we talk about our climate emergency, and how we design for it, and especially how we educate people about it. I think we can stop the disaster survival aesthetics and give space on how we can conserve instead. What are the things being done that has been successful, things that can inspire people to innovate, vote, demand, etc, for their land, or to start conversation and not to end it.
The Zalige bridge in the Netherlands is designed to be submerged at some points of the year due to rising sea levels. Designed by Dutch Architecture company NEXT Architecten, it was made so that people can “experience the changing sea levels”. The sea level could rise to 11.5 NAP+ where the bridge would disappear, and normally it would be 7 NAP+. What normally is a threat here is taken as something beautiful and even poetic, experiential.
Zalige Bridge. Source: Next Architecten
The Zalige bridge project was a part of a landscape project called Room for the Waal, after in 1993 to 1995, the threat of flood became real, the dikes were only managing to hold, as people had to be evacuated. The government responded with a nationwide program, to make space in river sides for floods to happen slowly, and thus mitigating the sea level rise.
Perhaps it is this: the design for disasters, or impending disasters, could not be in the hands of one designer or thinker looking at one problem. The beautiful Zalige bridge was a result of a team of designers and local government working together to solve a single issue. Designing for disasters thus must think of the system it is designing for, lest it could be seen as too childish, naïve, or tone deaf like the Parks.
I will close with another nod to Lebbeus Woods, quoting his reflection on his work in Sarajevo. Even if war cannot be equated with climatic disasters, it is a similar traumatic and disastrous event that causes destruction of cities, death and displacement of people.
“Again, I strongly believe that reconstructions should be designed by local architects, who understand the local conditions far, far better than I ever could. I did and still do feel, equally strongly, that I and other ‘conceptualists’ can make a contribution to reconstruction on the level of principle, because we can more readily have a broader view, not having directly suffered the trauma of our city’s destruction and its lingering emotional and intellectual effects.”
“Zalige Bridge: the Dutch Bridge Showing Sea Level Rise Is Here.” UrbanNext RSS 092, urbannext.net/zaligebrug/.
It was a windy and cloudy Saturday. I called up my friend, S. We have just moved to The Hague. Both wanting to save money we decided that we would meet up for a walk. Me being an experimenter, and sometimes plain-old pretentious, decided that I want to do the walk without internet. I would, for example, try to print out a map. A feat that in the end was not accomplished because my printer ended up eating the paper. I had a tablet thankfully. And I put the map on pdf for us to consult. My friend chuckled at this as she saw me pull it out when we met. She reminded me of how much I made fun of a certain professor who pulled out a physical map on one of my study trips. It’s not funny how education changes you to someone you’re not… or who am i?
I declared that we should use our brains. And if we get hungry we should explore, like where is the bakery? Where is the Albert Heijn? Where do we want to go? etc. As destinations go, we are drawn to greeneries, and decided to go to the nearest one to the church near center of the Hague. I guessed it to be Paleistuin. We just followed the signages, turns out, its quite easy. I’m quite a natural with direction (if i do say so myself, arrogant).
Well, my friend said, In case of disagreements, you are right.
About directions you mean?
Ugh. Of course. You’re not ALWAYS right. She added.
On our way back I accidentally led her to three right turns. Soon after this my friend got tired of my little experiment.
We finally made it towards the parliament and got ourselves a seat at the benches where we ate our sandwiches. The seagulls preyed on us. We lamented that these days we don’t have so much nature to take walks on, and we don’t have any dangerous animals to keep us alert. Instead we have those rodents, pointing at the birds. We then read excerpts from Henry David Thoreau’s Journals:
“Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.”
“We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day. We must make root, send out some little fibre at least, even every winter day. I am sensible that I am imbibing health when I open my mouth to the wind. Staying in the house breeds a sort of insanity always. Every house is in this sense a hospital. A night and a forenoon is as much confinement to those wards as I can stand. I am aware that I recover some sanity which I had lost almost the instant that I come outdoors”
Thoreau, H. D., & Stilgoe, J. R. (2009). The journal, 1837-1861. New York, NY: New York Review of Books.
We explored the city some more until we grew tired, and walked back home. Us having thought that perhaps our little methodical outing is just a little bit pretentious.
Is it though?
my life right now
Though not a perfect method, and certainly not the oddest one (try walking tied wrist to wrist around Rotterdam with around 15 Architecture students, it was nice), it certainly was removed from my normal walk. To be honest I haven’t been walking much lately, aside from catching the tram right on my doorstep and the walk to the university, or the walk from the bus stop to the workplace. The others were strolls I made in the city center at the Shopping Street or doing Groceries run. (It pains me that since I’ve moved here in The Hague how little I’ve biked). Half a year in, my life has become a series of location points, and tram-stops.
A flaneur. This is what Walter Benjamin would have called what I was being that day, or what I wish he would have called me. The twentieth century writer of The Arcades Project was interested in exploring the impact of the modern city to the human psyche especially in the city of Paris (Seal, 2013). He categorised two reaction to the world: Erlebnis, an overwhelming alienation experienced by a worker bound to his/her work routinities, and Erfahrung, a positive feeling that points to being mobile, and experiencing the city, the experiences of the flaneur.
The greater the share of the shock factor in particular impressions, the more constantly consciousness has to be alert as a screen against stimuli; the more efficiently it does so, the less do these impressions enter experience (Erfahrung), tending to remain in the sphere of a certain hour in one’s life (Erlebnis).
Walter Benjamin, ‘Illuminations’
The ‘battle’ between Erfahrung and Erlebnis is what interests Walter Benjamin as he looked at the Paris metropolis of the early 20th century. Benjamin especially likes cafes and bookshops as he likens it as an extension of the the street. Almost 100 years on, perhaps what alienates the common workers of the cities remains the same (and now most people in the world lives in cities). Furthermore, in most cities cafes has become an extension of not only the street but also your own living room. Now though, our consumption of social media and our reliance of our gadgets disrupts us from experiencing the calling of the city in its fullest (Erlebnis). Because the experience of the Flaneur in my understanding is not of its capitalistic offering. Or does this way of living make us all Flaneurs, each of us posting and tweeting and tiktok-ing as we go, reporting our experiences with the city? Who knows.
This of course is a very privileged issue to ruminate on. In many other cities including where yours truly came from, the safety of whole groups of walkers (women, transgenders, people with disability, minorities) are not guaranteed, not to mention the rights of pedestrians alone. I’d like to end with this, that walking and roaming, is a right and a privilege. And as Will Self had said in his seminal essay: a political act. As citizens of the city, I’d fight for that!
“We need a new spatial contract. In the context of widening political divides and growing economic inequalities, we call on architects to imagine spaces in which we can generously live together
Hashim Sarkis on his decision to title the 2020 Venice Biennale How will we live together?
Gustave Caillebotte, La Rue Halevy 1878
The metropolitan idea was built in the 19th century Europe. Then, for the first time, in cities like Paris or London a person can come into the city and exist without anyone ever knowing who they were before [1]. The anonymity, paired with the density of the city, breeds a certain sense of individuality that still marks life in the city today.
The city almost always represent the future, for better or for worse. We see it in 1927 in the silent movie Metropolis, and in 1967 Jacques Tati’s movie Playtime (a surprisingly spot-on commentary of our lives in the city with our new technologies and our descent to amusing alienation). As time went on, the ideas around what the life of the city represent grows, enriches, paired as more and more people around the world move from the rural to the city. The city may also represent otherness. People from anywhere flock the city, and one becomes anonymous. And as air travel became easier, the world becoming more ‘globalised’, so too became the globalised city. People became lost in another city, travel more. These days though, a scroll through any social media platform could show different types of people making homes in places of otherness describing the fluidity of how people make their homes in the world. This is 2019, Lost in Translation no more.
In 2014, the UN World Urbanization Prospects report showed that 54 percent of people in the world now lives in cities, and they are set to rise to 68 percent in the coming decades especially in developing countries. Pair this with growing concern about climate change, and the effects urban centers give-off, and the effects of indefinite growth (of what? of economy, families, buildings) on the environment, not to mention the interconnected web of economy of materials, food, merchandise, even waste. 21st century city life is a complex organism that we are still learning how to tame.
This blog is going to be about that. A person’s navigation through the 21st century city life. Observations, interrogations, and reflections on issues through the lens of architecture, environmental science, and social issues.
[1] Richard Sennett: The Fall of Public Man, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1977. Page 66
*needsmorecitation 