Remembering the "why"

A number of years ago I read a book called Why We Build, by Rowan Moore. The book told stories of Dubai’s explosion, opulent weekend shag houses built by millionaires, the work Brazil by Lina bo Bardi and the story of the Bijlmermeer housing development in Amsterdam. This last project fascinated me because it is an example of an architecture without architects, at least in its most recent use. The series of building were vacant and over time were overtaken by migrant and worker class families in desperate need of housing. Units designed for two people became home to a dozen and amenities such as electricity and gas heat were abandoned in place of fires.

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While the architectural mass of the Bijlmermeer remained, a solid mass of concrete, the life it adopted was far more vibrant than the rigid organization it offered. It was in this case that  “all barriers between builders and users [were] abolished, so that building and using [became] two different parts of the same planning process.” The structures, originally developed by the elite, authoritarian architects and financial ruling class, lost their perceived value over time, but with that change regained their use when allowed to be manipulated by the users.

Social housing becomes the most controversial place in architecture, where authoritarian financiers attempt to control the lives of the lower class through housing projects. Even to the poor, the dollar still rules and projects become isolated and enclosed, hardly different than a prison or camp. However, no matter how stark the architecture or how rigid the implementation, people will find a way to make a place their own if given the opportunity. Having to light fires for warmth is a stretch, but at some point a building's use should become the responsibility of the user.