Rationality vs. Radicality

“The building was a straightforward extrusion of the block it occupies multiplied by 100. The lower third of the Building is devoted to industry, the middle part to business, the upper part to living. On every 20^th story a public plaza that occupies a whole floor and articulates the demarcation between the different functional sectors: a “general market” on the 20^th, a cluster of theatres on the 40^th, a “shopping district” on the 60^th, a hotel on the 80^th, and an “amusement park, roof garden and swimming pool” on the roof.” (Koolhaas)

What feeds radical design? New and unforeseen situations require radical responses. But just because these response tend towards the radical and the unknown, does not mean they are irrational. In Koolhaas’ text he describes a 100-story building that houses everything from apartments to business to an amusement park. A radical decision, yes, but made from rational understandings that there is nowhere to go but up do to the mass congestion. Manhattan in itself was not a rational situation, but it was not always that way. Many rational decisions were made (i.e. immigration hubs, starting of a city, congregations of businesses) that led to a situation that could no longer be contained by ‘standard’ architectural practices. These rational understandings lead to change because what has been done before in design, cannot translate to the reality of Manhattan. These unique conditions produce new architecture which feeds the radical change. Build more, go higher, bring more people, keep building at all costs. We are led to a radical artificiality that further feeds the culture of congestion.

This leads into the question that the CIAM was trying to find an answer to. How does the world need to be built? Do we move forward and forget the past due to a rapidly changing urban context? This begins to be answered by outlining values and reacting to the society. There must be a reinvention of program and a reinvention of how space is managed and organized. We need to understand the intellectual and social context which only then can lead to radical interventions created from rational thought.

Habitat 67, Canada, Moshe Safdie

The City of the Captive Globe, Rem Koolhaas and Zoe Zenghelis