Complexities and Contradictions in "Context"
Place de L'Etoile - Baron Haussmann, Paris
Plan Voisin - Le Corbusier, Paris
Parc de la Villette - OMA, Paris
There was a lot of discussion about the idea of “context”
during Tuesday’s class. Specifically, the way in which both Modernism and
Postmodernism disregarded context and did not respect the environments in which
they were creating their designs. Although I think this argument has some merit
in less urban situations, I believe that architects can ignore context in
cities. This is because cities can hardly be considered “context” at all. They
are synthetic conglomerations of architecture that completely erase whatever landscape
they are sited on. As Rem Koolhaas wrote, they are a “mutation” that “generates
its own Urbanism.” Take the projects from the images above as examples. Both Le
Corbusier’s Plan Voisin and OMA’s Parc de la Villette were described in class
as being noncontextual to the surrounding city of Paris. However, only a
century or so earlier, Baron Haussmann was commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III
to demolish large swaths of Paris that had been extant since the Middle Ages
(see picture: Place de L’Etoile) and replace them with the carbon-copy cream
stone facades, mansard roofs, and wide boulevards of the Paris that we know today. Can we truly
say that Le Corbusier or OMA were ignoring their context if the context in
which they were operating was itself artificial and noncontextual? I think not.
Cities are living urban centers. They can be considered as a living organism that grows, mutates, sheds and dies. Defining context in such a situation is a tricky aspect.
ReplyDeleteWho is to say which part of history is artificial or real?
I agree that due to the overwhelming nature of cities, it can be hard to create a piece of architecture that is truly compatible with all of its surroundings. It can be up to the architect to select which aspects he/she want to address. I'm sure this is something that many of us will have to address in our professional careers.
ReplyDeletePostmodernism and modernism both disregarded their context leading to a world which is increasingly becoming more and more globalized, generic, and with large metropolitan areas that are indistinguishable from one another. But in a large, diverse city, how do you choose which context to consider? A city can and I think should be a direct reflection of the movement of the current time – there should be modern, postmodern, art deco, and beaux arts buildings - yada yada, all juxtaposed with the current architecture of our time (would we call it parametricism/post postmodernism?).
ReplyDeleteI Like Juhlip’s question, in how can we decide which contextual references around us are “real” and therefore should be influential in the creation of a new design?