The concept of creating an architectural frame for the undefined purpose, in an unknown future was first inferred to me whilst reading ‘the Optimists guide to the Anthropocene’ by Manuel Kretzer (2017) This text speculated on the unknown effects of rapid technological change ‘so fast that we as humans cannot comprehend’ with an explicitly optimistic perspective- to embrace the change and its possibilities rather than reacting to the problems it creates.
Designing architecture which both optimises the future and itself benefits from future technologies is not a new concept. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre city manifesto of 1935 presented motorways, physical distance from squalor and access to wide open space to pursue freedom from the grip of a city. The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs reacted to the damage caused by such arterial roads and urban renewal 25 years later, praising the inherent fun and dynamism of cities as seen played out upon its sidewalks. Cedric Prices Fun Palace was designed in 1960’s London, an era where rapid technological change had enabled greatly increased free time for the urban masses, and catering for how that time would be spent was its aim.
Several references were made to Cedric Price’s Fun Palace in Kretzer's text. Stanley Mathews (2005) examines Price’s unique synthesis of contemporary discourse on cybernetics, game theory, situationism and theatre to create a new kind of improvisational architecture to negotiate a constantly shifting cultural landscape of the post-war years.
The main features of the project were the dynamism and impermanence of the building. ‘no concrete stadia stained and cracking, no legacy of noble contemporary architecture. Nothing will last 10 years, some not 10 days’ ‘with flexibility goes informality, and so the greatest pleasure of strolling casually through a park is preserved’
This reference to parks and public open space as an architecture for freedom was referenced in subsequent texts, yet the fun palace was not a park. Comprising a grid of gantry frames and tower cranes to arrange modular escalators, hot air curtains, floor slabs and wall panels, spaces could be formed in an innumerable variety of ways, shapes and sizes according to the user’s needs and desires. Incredibly complex, it would never look the same twice. When questioned on the difficulty of reading his architectural drawings, Price declared ‘it’s a mobile, not a watercolour’ Price envisioned the Fun Palace as an ‘Anti aesthetic architectural organism in continuous process.’
Designing architecture which both optimises the future and itself benefits from future technologies is not a new concept. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre city manifesto of 1935 presented motorways, physical distance from squalor and access to wide open space to pursue freedom from the grip of a city. The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs reacted to the damage caused by such arterial roads and urban renewal 25 years later, praising the inherent fun and dynamism of cities as seen played out upon its sidewalks. Cedric Prices Fun Palace was designed in 1960’s London, an era where rapid technological change had enabled greatly increased free time for the urban masses, and catering for how that time would be spent was its aim.
Several references were made to Cedric Price’s Fun Palace in Kretzer's text. Stanley Mathews (2005) examines Price’s unique synthesis of contemporary discourse on cybernetics, game theory, situationism and theatre to create a new kind of improvisational architecture to negotiate a constantly shifting cultural landscape of the post-war years.
The main features of the project were the dynamism and impermanence of the building. ‘no concrete stadia stained and cracking, no legacy of noble contemporary architecture. Nothing will last 10 years, some not 10 days’ ‘with flexibility goes informality, and so the greatest pleasure of strolling casually through a park is preserved’
This reference to parks and public open space as an architecture for freedom was referenced in subsequent texts, yet the fun palace was not a park. Comprising a grid of gantry frames and tower cranes to arrange modular escalators, hot air curtains, floor slabs and wall panels, spaces could be formed in an innumerable variety of ways, shapes and sizes according to the user’s needs and desires. Incredibly complex, it would never look the same twice. When questioned on the difficulty of reading his architectural drawings, Price declared ‘it’s a mobile, not a watercolour’ Price envisioned the Fun Palace as an ‘Anti aesthetic architectural organism in continuous process.’
The use of cybernetics to determine programming of the fun palace is examined deeply by Matthews. A team of cyberneticians who developed algorithms in a computerised system that would ‘learn’ behavioural patterns and plan by anticipating unpredictable phenomena the functions the inhabitants needed, from enlightenment education to more primal needs. It would theoretically provide the ideal spaces within the framework for the ‘fun’ in whatever form it identified. He details the involvement of Gordon Pask and Roy Ascott, describing a ‘pillar of information’ as a remarkable precursor to today’s internet which would have learned patterns of human interaction, developing a network of cognitive associations as a non-hierarchical information map, provoking further inquiry.
With the exceptionally high amount of personal data available today, a building that adapts to our desires almost seems within reach. However, Matthews derives that the synthesis of technology, cybernetics and game theory were the means rather than the objective, concluding that Prices motivation was primarily social ‘The emancipation and empowerment of the individual.
Jane Jacobs’ ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’ suggests that cities serve this function and have done for the entirety of their existence. Time and capital generated in cities led to the development of art, science, education and entertainment. The city is an inherently flexible, dynamic space which undergoes transformation with the flow of demand and supply. Just as the Fun Palace was designed as a theatre in which the guests are the performers, Jacobs argues that the city is a theatre, with daily life on show in the ‘sidewalk ballet’ an incomprehensible complexity expressed upon the most mundane. A variety of uses promotes constant crossing of paths.
The successful street is an inherently flexible, dynamic space morphing and changing according to its users’ needs and desires. The importance of the street and sidewalk as a framework for this interaction, dynamism and enterprise recall Prices fun palace – the structural matrix shown in Price’s drawings was to be little more than an armature on which an extraordinary interactive and cybernetic model of architecture would be arrayed. Jacobs sidewalk and street possess a more nuanced dynamic technology built up over millennia.
’Under the seeming disorder of the old city, is a marvellous order for maintain the safety of the street and the freedom of the city…. The order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life and not art, we may call it the art form of the city and likening it to a dance…an intricate ballet in which all the individual dancers and ensembles have distinctive parts and miraculously reinforce each other composing an orderly whole’
With the exceptionally high amount of personal data available today, a building that adapts to our desires almost seems within reach. However, Matthews derives that the synthesis of technology, cybernetics and game theory were the means rather than the objective, concluding that Prices motivation was primarily social ‘The emancipation and empowerment of the individual.
Jane Jacobs’ ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’ suggests that cities serve this function and have done for the entirety of their existence. Time and capital generated in cities led to the development of art, science, education and entertainment. The city is an inherently flexible, dynamic space which undergoes transformation with the flow of demand and supply. Just as the Fun Palace was designed as a theatre in which the guests are the performers, Jacobs argues that the city is a theatre, with daily life on show in the ‘sidewalk ballet’ an incomprehensible complexity expressed upon the most mundane. A variety of uses promotes constant crossing of paths.
The successful street is an inherently flexible, dynamic space morphing and changing according to its users’ needs and desires. The importance of the street and sidewalk as a framework for this interaction, dynamism and enterprise recall Prices fun palace – the structural matrix shown in Price’s drawings was to be little more than an armature on which an extraordinary interactive and cybernetic model of architecture would be arrayed. Jacobs sidewalk and street possess a more nuanced dynamic technology built up over millennia.
’Under the seeming disorder of the old city, is a marvellous order for maintain the safety of the street and the freedom of the city…. The order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life and not art, we may call it the art form of the city and likening it to a dance…an intricate ballet in which all the individual dancers and ensembles have distinctive parts and miraculously reinforce each other composing an orderly whole’
Jacobs elevation of the sidewalk successfully countered the contemporary narrative of motorways, extraordinary public investment in urban renewal, large empty green spaces and urban squalor. Appreciation for city streets is also at the core of Jan Gehl's ‘Life between buildings’ and are praised as the quintessential urban artefact in Aldo Rossi’s Architecture of the City. Rossi discusses the Smithson’s proposal of ‘streets in the sky’ at Golden Lane (and later Robin Hood Gardens) and Jack Lynn and Ivor Smiths Park Hill in Sheffield with decks wide enough to cycle along and for milk carts to drive along. They were attempts to apply this technology in high rise architecture, replicating the integrated community and rich social interaction of the slums they replaced.
‘The street (is a) rectangular stage set where encounters, gossip, games, fights , jealousies, courtship and displays of pride occur’
Attempts to emulate the fun of streets is apparent in shopping centres and in theme parks such as ‘Downtown USA’ at Disneyland parks across the world.
Yet the ballet of Hudson street no longer exists as it did in 1961. The key may not be the sidewalk, but rather the variety of uses. Independent units are rare. Enormous amounts of capital are required to occupy New York street space, let alone change it. The freedom (and diversity) of its occupants is severely curtailed. Adam Caruso speaks of the perils concealed by a fine-grained street:
While planning authorities may argue about facade materials and the survival of medieval street patterns in the master plan, several city blocks, that once housed thousands of tenants and was in the ownership of hundreds, is now controlled by one owner backed by international financial institutions. Do not be fooled by the medieval street pattern, the well-maintained squares, the lunch time activities, these developments constitute a serious erosion of democracy and of the public realm.
The streets power to emancipate and empower the individual has been quashed by the ‘cataclysmic wall of money’ Jacobs warns of in the book. Jacob’s evidence reads as nostalgic isolated anecdotes, with warm albeit gritty New Yorker’s looking out for one another- the eyes on the street-. This contrasts with the lived experience of eyes on our phones, in our own bubbles of purpose. The eyes on the street are now computerised cameras. While no less a deterrent of crime, devoid of the fuzziness of humanity, an undercurrent panopticon of faceless paranoia is apparent to some, an indifference for most.
An earlier technological solution is the focus Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1935 Broadacre City. The car and telecommunications take over the countryside, using motorways and designated plots where man could grow his own food, develop a more local culture and work independently. Rather than the confines of the structure of the fun palace, or the streets of the ‘unwholesome’ city where capitalism removes flexibility for all but those who can afford it, Wrights Broadacre city offers users the land, infrastructure and resources to fulfil their needs and desires independently as they see fit.
‘whatever a man did would be done- obviously and directly by himself in his own interest under the most valuable inspiration and direction. Economic independence would be near, a subsistence certain, life varied and interesting.’
Like Prices Fun Palace, Wrights was an architectural solution. The goal to emancipate and empower the individual was to be achieved by a cost efficient- if prescriptive- form of building, enabled by contemporary technological developments.
‘Houses make much of synthetic fireproof materials, factory made unity adapted to free assembly and varied arrangement with utilities stacked together’. Hypocritically these factory made goods contradict the proposal for the self-made inhabitants of ‘little houses, little farms, little schools, little laboratories’ with their farms ‘the most attractive unit of the city’ Broadacre city yearns nostalgically for a simpler pre-technological age.
‘The street (is a) rectangular stage set where encounters, gossip, games, fights , jealousies, courtship and displays of pride occur’
Attempts to emulate the fun of streets is apparent in shopping centres and in theme parks such as ‘Downtown USA’ at Disneyland parks across the world.
Yet the ballet of Hudson street no longer exists as it did in 1961. The key may not be the sidewalk, but rather the variety of uses. Independent units are rare. Enormous amounts of capital are required to occupy New York street space, let alone change it. The freedom (and diversity) of its occupants is severely curtailed. Adam Caruso speaks of the perils concealed by a fine-grained street:
While planning authorities may argue about facade materials and the survival of medieval street patterns in the master plan, several city blocks, that once housed thousands of tenants and was in the ownership of hundreds, is now controlled by one owner backed by international financial institutions. Do not be fooled by the medieval street pattern, the well-maintained squares, the lunch time activities, these developments constitute a serious erosion of democracy and of the public realm.
The streets power to emancipate and empower the individual has been quashed by the ‘cataclysmic wall of money’ Jacobs warns of in the book. Jacob’s evidence reads as nostalgic isolated anecdotes, with warm albeit gritty New Yorker’s looking out for one another- the eyes on the street-. This contrasts with the lived experience of eyes on our phones, in our own bubbles of purpose. The eyes on the street are now computerised cameras. While no less a deterrent of crime, devoid of the fuzziness of humanity, an undercurrent panopticon of faceless paranoia is apparent to some, an indifference for most.
An earlier technological solution is the focus Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1935 Broadacre City. The car and telecommunications take over the countryside, using motorways and designated plots where man could grow his own food, develop a more local culture and work independently. Rather than the confines of the structure of the fun palace, or the streets of the ‘unwholesome’ city where capitalism removes flexibility for all but those who can afford it, Wrights Broadacre city offers users the land, infrastructure and resources to fulfil their needs and desires independently as they see fit.
‘whatever a man did would be done- obviously and directly by himself in his own interest under the most valuable inspiration and direction. Economic independence would be near, a subsistence certain, life varied and interesting.’
Like Prices Fun Palace, Wrights was an architectural solution. The goal to emancipate and empower the individual was to be achieved by a cost efficient- if prescriptive- form of building, enabled by contemporary technological developments.
‘Houses make much of synthetic fireproof materials, factory made unity adapted to free assembly and varied arrangement with utilities stacked together’. Hypocritically these factory made goods contradict the proposal for the self-made inhabitants of ‘little houses, little farms, little schools, little laboratories’ with their farms ‘the most attractive unit of the city’ Broadacre city yearns nostalgically for a simpler pre-technological age.
Both Jacobs and Wright are united in the need for purpose and utilisation. Wright goes further to say that land should only be held by ‘use and improvement’ stating that land could be seized and reallocated if not used. There is no ownership without use. Wrights aim for self-determination, the empowerment of the individual using technology link him to Prices Fun Palace. Unlike in Price and Jacobs texts, the individual here is pulled from the theatre and the framework to determine their own, if isolated, future. As with Price, the technology was a means, not the objective.
Since this earlier critical analysis stage, I have begun to focus on technological aspects of Architecture to adapt to unknown human needs. The technologies of Broadacre City and The Fun Palace have now joined Jacobs sidewalk ballet as ubiquitous. Cars and motorways abound. Hot air curtains, escalators and leisure purposes from ski slopes, sex clubs and shops in which to stuff your own teddy bear coexist in ever larger shopping centres. But the technologies are not new- they are old. Each could be considered obsolete in an age of working from home, and shopping, sports and dating more accessible through swiping online. I am reminded once more of ‘the unknown effects of rapid technological change -so fast that we as humans cannot comprehend- from Kretzer.
Catering for the unknown leans heavily back to the Fun Palace- the most high-tech of the previous references. One of the first subsequent readings was a discussion piece between Omar Khan and Philip Beesley on the technology of architecture which responds to and interacts with its occupants. Further it proposes a renewed engagement with instruments that establish complex organic relationships space and occupants. They claim that it was this ‘combustion engine’ this gritty, un-precious ‘palace’ that through its very un-preciousness removed attachment to any particular layout. ‘it’s representation of incompleteness seems potent’
‘What remains provocative about the Fun Palace is that its technologies are deliberately wild and dangerous, ripe with creative potential. This is very different from the optimism that pervades contemporary smart technologies’
They go on to compare the responsiveness of the fun palace to the resistance of Lovejoy Plaza by Lawrence Halprin in 1966. In a radically low-tech space, the plaza serves the same purpose –fun-. An artificial ‘primordial’ landscape full of valleys, fissures and gorges is created in an urban centre. Activities are ephemeral. It does not learn- yet appears ‘pregnant with possibility’ The cascade of steps and plinths consistently get co-opted into amphitheatre and bleachers. It works when full and empty. ‘You would have no hesitation of having a bonfire or playing as hard as you can in this space.’ Both Price and Halprins projects are considered for what they both offer: Danger, excitement, friction, opportunity, unpreciousness. They both promote engagement with their architecture. Is this the essence of their ‘fun’?
Since this earlier critical analysis stage, I have begun to focus on technological aspects of Architecture to adapt to unknown human needs. The technologies of Broadacre City and The Fun Palace have now joined Jacobs sidewalk ballet as ubiquitous. Cars and motorways abound. Hot air curtains, escalators and leisure purposes from ski slopes, sex clubs and shops in which to stuff your own teddy bear coexist in ever larger shopping centres. But the technologies are not new- they are old. Each could be considered obsolete in an age of working from home, and shopping, sports and dating more accessible through swiping online. I am reminded once more of ‘the unknown effects of rapid technological change -so fast that we as humans cannot comprehend- from Kretzer.
Catering for the unknown leans heavily back to the Fun Palace- the most high-tech of the previous references. One of the first subsequent readings was a discussion piece between Omar Khan and Philip Beesley on the technology of architecture which responds to and interacts with its occupants. Further it proposes a renewed engagement with instruments that establish complex organic relationships space and occupants. They claim that it was this ‘combustion engine’ this gritty, un-precious ‘palace’ that through its very un-preciousness removed attachment to any particular layout. ‘it’s representation of incompleteness seems potent’
‘What remains provocative about the Fun Palace is that its technologies are deliberately wild and dangerous, ripe with creative potential. This is very different from the optimism that pervades contemporary smart technologies’
They go on to compare the responsiveness of the fun palace to the resistance of Lovejoy Plaza by Lawrence Halprin in 1966. In a radically low-tech space, the plaza serves the same purpose –fun-. An artificial ‘primordial’ landscape full of valleys, fissures and gorges is created in an urban centre. Activities are ephemeral. It does not learn- yet appears ‘pregnant with possibility’ The cascade of steps and plinths consistently get co-opted into amphitheatre and bleachers. It works when full and empty. ‘You would have no hesitation of having a bonfire or playing as hard as you can in this space.’ Both Price and Halprins projects are considered for what they both offer: Danger, excitement, friction, opportunity, unpreciousness. They both promote engagement with their architecture. Is this the essence of their ‘fun’?
The ephemeral nature of the fun palace trusses is referenced again in relation to fragility and vagueness of boundary. Rayner Banham is referenced regarding the campfire in an alternate tradition of architecture. He discusses it relative to nomadic cultures and their attitude towards the architectural boundary which is “vague, adjustable according to functional need and rarely regular.” The campfire is seen as a permeable boundary around which people can organize in adaptable ways. The heat and light form concentric gradients that people negotiate depending on their needs’
Here, architecture of walls, roofs and enclosures is discarded and replaced with a utility. The function of the fire and the space it enables is the architecture. Controlling it, with chimneys, flues, hot water pipes is an elaboration on that architecture, and these utilities through elevators, heat pumps and air conditioning drag it into the modern era. The architecture of utility at first seems as far as possible from the focus of fun and the unknown- yet they serve as an example of technology in architecture being used to harness freedom.
Khan and Beesley’s concluded that Banham’s ‘well-temperedness’ is not provided by technology alone, but that it requires negotiation between occupant and the architecture. Personal technology is rapidly addressing this problem. Proximity sensors, ‘IFTT’ algorithms that know when a space will be occupied a space and connected thermostats are now commonplace. Thermally a space can be ready for and adapt to an occupant’s arrival, responding without conscious interaction. Lighting intensity, warmth and colour adjust to mood preference. Ovens turn on or food ordered and delivered to your door. In Omar Khan’s ‘Open Columns’ algorithms divide space and disperse people according to the co2 content in the air, dropping spiderweb like towards the floor until the co2 levels drop, and then retract, allowing people to reoccupy the space. In the world of big-data, is the negotiation done for us? What are the architectural implications? Could our buildings sense our mood from how a door is closed or how we move along the floor, and adapt for us adjusting light, sound, temperature and texture?
Such utilities can exist independently of a defined ‘function’ or purpose of a space. The idea that form follows function is discredited in ‘Form follows what?’ by Jan Michl (1995) and ‘ A Semblance of order’ by Jeremy Till.
There is a richness of unintended functions which follow form. In discussing one of Piranesi’s Vedute di Roma etchings Till notes that the detail of drawing almost ‘overwhelms one in its inclusion of low life, weather, fragments, mess, lovers kissing, broken roads, and vegetating cornices. Each time one looks at it one finds something new.’ These functions of a space are ignored in modernist interpretations. The ‘fun’ of the space, evocative of Jacobs life in the city, is erased.
There is a richness of unintended functions which follow form. In discussing one of Piranesi’s Vedute di Roma etchings Till notes that the detail of drawing almost ‘overwhelms one in its inclusion of low life, weather, fragments, mess, lovers kissing, broken roads, and vegetating cornices. Each time one looks at it one finds something new.’ These functions of a space are ignored in modernist interpretations. The ‘fun’ of the space, evocative of Jacobs life in the city, is erased.
Michl asks if every function didn’t take place originally in a specific context- a form. ‘Whether we wonder about the function of the heart in human physiology, or the function of facades in a townscape, hearts and facades have to exist before anybody starts inquiring about their functions.’ He is critical of the damage done by architects in insisting functions work a certain way only, a way a free public would never choose. Functionalist architecture is ‘inflicted’ on a weaker society through public housing and facilities. He hints that there is little space for ambiguity in this type of architecture- yet I am reminded of Philip Beesley’s argument that the space itself is almost irrelevant- ‘Arguably, the environment hardly mattered, only our willingness to embrace whatever was there’ Functionalist architecture is not universally hated. Just as the architect can’t be credited for the lovers kissing in Piranesi’s etching, there is life and joy to be had in functionalist architecture.
From spaces were fun happens despite design, my final reading discussed a deliberate architectural form for fun- The novelty of Coney Island in Koolhaas’ Delirious New York. Coney Island developed in a ‘laughing mirror image of the seriousness with which the rest of the world was obsessed with progress. Coney Island attacks the problem of pleasure, often with the same technological means.’
Coney Island adopted novelty as its framework for fun. In contrast to all the above examples, the solution was prescribed. Train-tracks were adapted to become rollercoasters, Mechanical horses could be raced around a track. Men and women could enter rotating barrels from opposite ends, with the intended goal of falling on top of each other. Nature is subsumed in Lunar landscapes and mocked in giant elephant hotels. ‘Its legs were 60 feet in Circumference. In one front leg was a cigar store, in the other a diorama; patrons walked up circular steps in one hind leg and down the other: '5 Rooms can be had in thigh, shoulder, hip or trunk. Searchlights flash erratically from Its eyes, illuminating anyone within range who has decided to spend the night on the beach. While choice is not apparent- freedom from the city, from a prescribed way of living, from rational thought, are achieved. The Novelty, while short lived -a break from regular life- portrays a radical and optimistic application of technology as a framework for the informal. It’s not designed for the unknown future, but as an alternative for ‘right now’ An un-precious palace of fun with all the danger and excitement of Halprin’s Lovejoy plaza, space that catered for freedom, free time and fun.
Synthesising these readings, elements of each begin to converge to suggest a particular architecture for investigation. Key to the examples above is novelty arising from the juxtaposition and interaction of both people and activities which are otherwise unrelated, yet connected through their presence in the same space, and their shared experience of that novelty. Spaces are distinctly public, not necessarily always in the sense of their ownership, but that space can be occupied by ‘others’, strangers, or people outside the usual family, work or social unit.
Secondly the concept of temporality, the ability to adapt, change, break and wreck spaces, to adapt them to our needs rather than us adapting to the space is their ultimate freedom. The idea of movement, danger and the removal of responsibility for this adaptability as it becomes delegated to technology is inherent. This may appear to contradict the robust, outdoor spaces such as Lovejoy plaza, Coney Island or a New York street, yet as mentioned above, these spaces share that adaptability of use, create a similar vulnerability for the user and despite a certain disrespect at the hands of the public, remain primarily as a framework for further alteration.
Finally, through the lens of Architecture and Technology, an architecture is suggested which is occupied by people because it responds to them, either through cybernetic generation of programme and function, but perhaps reaching further to adapt space in terms of our experience of volume, light, temperature, sound, and interior/exterior according to a similar cybernetic recognition of our needs, knowing before we do, so fast that we as humans cannot comprehend.
Bibliography
By order of Reference
Kretzer, Manuel. (2017). “The Optimist’s Guide to the Anthropocene.” Edited by Maria João de Oliveira e Filipa Crespo Osório. Kine[SIS]tem From Nature to Architectural Matter International Conference. Lisbon
Mathews, S. (2005), ‘The Fun Palace: Cedric Price’s experiment in architecture and technology’, Technoetic Arts 3:2, pp. 73–91,
Jacobs, Jane (1961) The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety, a chapter from ‘The Death and life of Great American Cities’ published in The City Reader 5th Edition p 105-109
Gehl, Jan (1971) Life Between Buildings Island Press
Rossi, Aldo (1982)The Architecture of the City English Publication MIT Press pp85-87
Caruso, Adam (2001) The Emotional City Quaderns (Barcelona, Spain: January 2001) Issue 228, pp8-13
Wright, Frank Lloyd (1935) “Broadacre City, A New Community Plan” Architectural Record
Beesley, Philip and Khan, Omar (2006) Situated Technologies Pamphlets 4: Responsive Architecture/Performing Instruments The Architectural League of New York
Citing: Lawrence Halprin, (1966) Lovejoy Cascade
Nicholas Negroponte (1976) Gordon Pask and The Fun Palace from Soft Architecture Machines, MIT Press
Reyner Banham (1984) Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment University of Chicago
Buckminster Fuller (1962) Geoscope Project
Michl, Jan (1995) Form follows What? Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning Magazine Issue10 IIT Haifa pp31-20
Till Jeremy (2009) A Semblance of Order an extract from Architecture Depends, MIT Press
Koolhaas, Rem (1978) Coney Island: The Technology of the Fantastic from Delirious New York, The Monacelli Press pp 29-80
From spaces were fun happens despite design, my final reading discussed a deliberate architectural form for fun- The novelty of Coney Island in Koolhaas’ Delirious New York. Coney Island developed in a ‘laughing mirror image of the seriousness with which the rest of the world was obsessed with progress. Coney Island attacks the problem of pleasure, often with the same technological means.’
Coney Island adopted novelty as its framework for fun. In contrast to all the above examples, the solution was prescribed. Train-tracks were adapted to become rollercoasters, Mechanical horses could be raced around a track. Men and women could enter rotating barrels from opposite ends, with the intended goal of falling on top of each other. Nature is subsumed in Lunar landscapes and mocked in giant elephant hotels. ‘Its legs were 60 feet in Circumference. In one front leg was a cigar store, in the other a diorama; patrons walked up circular steps in one hind leg and down the other: '5 Rooms can be had in thigh, shoulder, hip or trunk. Searchlights flash erratically from Its eyes, illuminating anyone within range who has decided to spend the night on the beach. While choice is not apparent- freedom from the city, from a prescribed way of living, from rational thought, are achieved. The Novelty, while short lived -a break from regular life- portrays a radical and optimistic application of technology as a framework for the informal. It’s not designed for the unknown future, but as an alternative for ‘right now’ An un-precious palace of fun with all the danger and excitement of Halprin’s Lovejoy plaza, space that catered for freedom, free time and fun.
Synthesising these readings, elements of each begin to converge to suggest a particular architecture for investigation. Key to the examples above is novelty arising from the juxtaposition and interaction of both people and activities which are otherwise unrelated, yet connected through their presence in the same space, and their shared experience of that novelty. Spaces are distinctly public, not necessarily always in the sense of their ownership, but that space can be occupied by ‘others’, strangers, or people outside the usual family, work or social unit.
Secondly the concept of temporality, the ability to adapt, change, break and wreck spaces, to adapt them to our needs rather than us adapting to the space is their ultimate freedom. The idea of movement, danger and the removal of responsibility for this adaptability as it becomes delegated to technology is inherent. This may appear to contradict the robust, outdoor spaces such as Lovejoy plaza, Coney Island or a New York street, yet as mentioned above, these spaces share that adaptability of use, create a similar vulnerability for the user and despite a certain disrespect at the hands of the public, remain primarily as a framework for further alteration.
Finally, through the lens of Architecture and Technology, an architecture is suggested which is occupied by people because it responds to them, either through cybernetic generation of programme and function, but perhaps reaching further to adapt space in terms of our experience of volume, light, temperature, sound, and interior/exterior according to a similar cybernetic recognition of our needs, knowing before we do, so fast that we as humans cannot comprehend.
Bibliography
By order of Reference
Kretzer, Manuel. (2017). “The Optimist’s Guide to the Anthropocene.” Edited by Maria João de Oliveira e Filipa Crespo Osório. Kine[SIS]tem From Nature to Architectural Matter International Conference. Lisbon
Mathews, S. (2005), ‘The Fun Palace: Cedric Price’s experiment in architecture and technology’, Technoetic Arts 3:2, pp. 73–91,
Jacobs, Jane (1961) The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety, a chapter from ‘The Death and life of Great American Cities’ published in The City Reader 5th Edition p 105-109
Gehl, Jan (1971) Life Between Buildings Island Press
Rossi, Aldo (1982)The Architecture of the City English Publication MIT Press pp85-87
Caruso, Adam (2001) The Emotional City Quaderns (Barcelona, Spain: January 2001) Issue 228, pp8-13
Wright, Frank Lloyd (1935) “Broadacre City, A New Community Plan” Architectural Record
Beesley, Philip and Khan, Omar (2006) Situated Technologies Pamphlets 4: Responsive Architecture/Performing Instruments The Architectural League of New York
Citing: Lawrence Halprin, (1966) Lovejoy Cascade
Nicholas Negroponte (1976) Gordon Pask and The Fun Palace from Soft Architecture Machines, MIT Press
Reyner Banham (1984) Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment University of Chicago
Buckminster Fuller (1962) Geoscope Project
Michl, Jan (1995) Form follows What? Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning Magazine Issue10 IIT Haifa pp31-20
Till Jeremy (2009) A Semblance of Order an extract from Architecture Depends, MIT Press
Koolhaas, Rem (1978) Coney Island: The Technology of the Fantastic from Delirious New York, The Monacelli Press pp 29-80