tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73096542433327920252024-03-13T23:36:06.811-07:00the city + the city"we must learn to see the hidden forms in the vast sprawl of our cities."
- kevin lynch, the image of the cityRudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-12369394581089511522014-09-14T08:28:00.000-07:002014-09-14T08:28:29.868-07:00jakarta :: (ex)pression<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b>structure and change</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">i had an good conversation with a journalist here in jakarta. he explained that for the recent presidential election the campaigns were waged largely on social media (and that for a time 4 of the top 5 top trending topics were coming out of indonesia - it sounds like they were using twitterbots, but anyway...) i'd </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">been reading up on evolutionary urbanism, and one of the tenets is to devolve decisions to as local a level as possible. the power of the very many... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">he also mentioned that the mayor of Bandung is an architect (Riwan Kamil) famous for pioneering the Indonesian Berkebun movement - taking a pejorative/joking term for outcast singles and designating small parks for these people, a move to include them in society, and turning the term on its head.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">also the mayor of Surabaya, Tri Rismaharini (or Ibu Risma - Mother Risma) also an architect, rejuvenating that city’s parks and turning many derelict plots into green spaces. Once described as a ‘dirty city full of pretensions and greed’, Surabaya is now known as a ‘million-park’ city.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">jakarta itself has a curitiba-inspired trans-city bus line with its own dedicated lane. I use it everyday and thank Allah it exists. otherwise, there is no getting around efficiently w/o a scooter. sadly, some developers are purposely choking the kampongs (local lane neighborhoods), in an effort to strangle the life out of them, and force the locals to sell their land. this has happened along the main roads, and the replacement product is glass-skinned office/residential towers on campus tissue, walled and gated to the surroundings, accessed by automobile. in my experience, the kampungs offer all of the redeeming qualities for this city. they are fun, easily walkable, with local food options, and the people are just lovely.</span><br />
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Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-34204669570169819492014-08-13T11:09:00.000-07:002014-08-13T11:11:54.297-07:00jakarta :: (com)pression<span style="font-size: large;"><b>the city is fractal</b></span><br />
jakarta really got me to think about the fractal nature of cities - there are fewer large-scale streets, more medium-scale, and many small-scale. It stands to reason the buildings associated with these street scales will be of that scale. this is true in most cases, though "breakage" of the rule can be found. more on breakage in a separate post. <br />
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[XL] multi-lane avenue - sudirman / tamrin on car-free sunday<br />
<pedestrian overpasses and spec office towers><br />
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[XL] multi-lane avenue - sudirman / tamrin on a normal day (relegated to the sidewalk)<br />
<fence - people - motorbikes - autos - bus - autos - motorbikes - people - fence><br />
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[L] wide two-way street - bendungan hilir (aka benhil)</div>
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<dearth of sidewalks and plethora of electrical wiring></div>
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[M] wide one-way street in a kampong<br />
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[S] pedestrian lane in a kampong<br />
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Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-22877615159316429142014-07-04T08:57:00.001-07:002014-08-18T10:05:24.678-07:00jakarta :: evolution (informal, formal)<div class="p1">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">a bemo in front of warungs </td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">streetscape</span></b><br />
on neighborhood spine streets, "chaos" results from more informal activities playing out along the street. sidewalks are rare, and the roadside is occupied by a host of vendor carts, parked cars, or scooters. warungs (less formal family restaurants and shops) often line the street. all space on the street is used and if a parked car needs to back out of a spot to get back into the flow of traffic, it requires the service of a spotter to direct them. in one instance, cars were parked so closely in front of a restaurant that the only way I could get by was to climb over a car or two.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">midtown manhattan still evolving </td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">informal --> formal</span></b><br />
food carts are an example of the informal activities that begin in the street and over time acquire architectural space. the activity acquires a cart and a little space, in time a shed is built, then rebuilt with sturdier construction, then a full building is built to multiple levels. these are the stages of typology that can be seen in any city (above image shows continued evolution in midtown manhattan, where older form-types give way to bigger and taller types.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">formal --> informal</span></b><br />
but new activities will always pop up, because the city is dynamic. for example mexican laborers are now manning the corners of already formalized west berkeley. how long before they begin to get a cart for coffee and food while they wait to get picked up for work? over time maybe they’ll move into shops, with fussball and pool tables, as well as coffee and food service, while they wait for work. architect <a href="http://lizogbu.com/" target="_blank">liz ogbu</a> had already caught on to this and speculatively designed a center for the laborers where they could learn english while they wait for work, among other productive activities. an example of an architect inserting ideals into the natural evolution of the city. </div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">cyclical urbanism</span></b></div>
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a road is lined with opportunistic informal activity that uses carts. as the activities evolve, the carts are replaced with shacks. over time, the shacks are replaced by more formal shop/restaurant, perhaps with a level of residence above (the shophouse). as the neighborhood further evolves, the shophouse might be replaced with a shop with three or four levels of residences above (the insula). At some point sidewalks were introduced to handle the pedestrian flows and keep autos separate. this is another insertion of ideals - we assume it is safer and more logical to separate traffic modes. but this assumption is being challenged in parts of european cities, where some streets mix all traffic modes again. order can be found in each case. </div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">optimization or entropy?</span></b></div>
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policy can always intervene into natural systems and create breakage. consider this alternative to the natural evolution process: corporate developers raze all the piecemeal and construct gigantic shopping centers with office and residential towers on superblocks. more is being controlled now by fewer players, but what does this mean for naturally evolving street life?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">form follows finance </td></tr>
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Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-65458033437558619692014-07-01T19:09:00.002-07:002014-08-26T21:12:57.234-07:00jakarta :: (im)pression<div class="p1">
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">two urban orders</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on the one hand social relationships are established in the street where information can easily be exchanged. this is the driving social order behind a dense pattern of low-rise live/work form-types, where the street is heavily populated by pedestrians, bicycles, tricycle trucks, scooters, and donkeys - the old town.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on the other hand modern urban life is characterized by “increasing individualization by way of social relationships established through various networked media and dispersed work careers. so people can now lead functional urban lives without ever having to take others with whom they nominally share living and public spaces into any substantial consideration.” (abdoumaliq) this is a social order conducive to high-rise and suburban living - the new town.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>evolution</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the former urban order has been around as long as cities have been around. t</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">he latter has been around since the automobile and the telephone.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> t</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">he former is dying - perceived as impoverished, dirty, and backward, while t</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">he latter is growing, and becoming our global culture of space. f</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">inding the designer of the former is like trying to find the chef that created the hamburger, while t</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">he latter is financed by developers and designed by architects.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">*Simone, Abdoumaliq. City Life from Jakarta to Dakar. New York: Routledge, 2010.</span></div>
Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-798391838685908332014-06-27T00:28:00.000-07:002014-10-16T08:11:18.223-07:00singapore :: (com)pression<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
kampong glam: two streetscape compressions and one five-foot-way compression</div>
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arab street</div>
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haji lane<br />
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five-foot-way</div>
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Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-80162300619019727802014-06-15T08:28:00.000-07:002014-10-17T07:09:47.956-07:00singapore :: (ex)pression<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">is singapore fractal? </span></b></div>
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here i take to a neighborhood with some ideas put forward by urbanist and mathematician nikos salingaros, who has in turn incorporated a number of ideas from christopher alexander. </div>
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universal scale distribution: increasing numbers with decreasing scale</div>
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sleeve tattoos continue universal distribution of the body + some building facade analysis</div>
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traditional architecture tends to be fractal</div>
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a theoretical fractal street network forming a neighborhood</div>
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tiong bahru (an actual fractal neighborhood in singapore)</div>
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Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-48740280752156737262014-06-10T00:42:00.000-07:002014-10-17T07:11:05.395-07:00singapore :: (im)pression<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
singapore is a city of superlatives and firsts, but the one i would be most proud of is "city with the highest population density in the world" (people/area). one might think this a negative - how is less area per person a good thing? - fact is singapore, a country and a city, boasts a good deal of nature and yet it is able to effectively organize and house multiple millions on such a small footprint. this requires order and efficiency. question is: have they held on to "cityness" after all this optimizing? or is the city now a lifeless machine with good numbers but no soul? </div>
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areas of study in singapore (l-r): tiong bahru | orchard | tanjong pagar | singapore river quays | bugis | little india | kampong glam | joo chiat</div>
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the yellow lines are connecting walks. the red line is an elevated railway/metro from which i take tracking videos (i nickname these "streetpans") for later comparison with other cities.Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-65561106117997797432014-06-04T02:25:00.000-07:002014-08-09T05:31:31.876-07:00Q2 :: (com)pression<b><span style="font-size: large;">cultures of space</span></b><br />
these images are taken every thirty paces with the same focal length and horizon line, then overlaid. the idea is challenge traditional opticality by compressing both time and space, highlighting rhythms and flows unique to a place. comparing these montages across different cultural and physical latitudes would hopefully reveal more about the respective cultures of space.<br />
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fez medina | villeurbaine gratte-ciel<br />
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rabat ave mohammed V (ville nouvelle) | paris ave du marechal gallieni (hotel des invalides)<br />
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firminy unite d'habitation | marseille quai du port </div>
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Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-83106126368769922102014-06-03T09:01:00.000-07:002014-08-05T21:09:21.972-07:00Q2 :: islamic | christian<div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">visual priority</span></b></div>
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The Islamic city privileges environment. Streets are narrow, opening only to courtyards inside buildings. The city is a fabric made up of a similar building type throughout. Surfaces outside the building are simple, while inside the courtyards are decorated with zelige - geometric designs and script that strive to achieve a vibration between our reality and the cosmos. The city is structured for meditation, which is key to the Islamic faith. Though minarets rising high above the urban fabric are easy to spot, as a visitor to an older Islamic city it is possible to be standing next to a great mosque without realizing it is there. </div>
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The Christian city privileges spectacle. Long straight avenues create major axes that end in focal points (spatial nodes). Churches almost always enjoy a front plaza for gathering. Here the facade becomes a design that narrates stories and aggrandizes the entrance. The naves are continuations of urban axes, culminating in a pulpit, the closest space to God. Like the passion of Christ, linear procession is reinforced. The streets in a Christian city are wider than their Islamic counterparts, creating a space ripe for spectacle. This usually takes the form of procession (parade). These processions comprise spectacles, effigies, and costumes that narrate the Christian stories. A visitor to a Christian city quite easily sees the churches both from afar and through the streets. </div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">urban ordering</span></b></div>
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In the Christian city, streets are laid out first. As buildings fill out the blocks, courtyards are formed. These serve as semi-public or private outdoor spaces. The street is the public realm. Blocks that have not been built upon become public Squares. Courtyards are semi-public, sometimes turned private. Indoor spaces are private. </div>
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In the Islamic city, private courtyards come first (riads). Buildings are created by laying out living spaces around the riad. As families grow, the house grows by laying out more rooms around the riad. The maze of streets result from this spatial aggregation.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">object | field</span></b></div>
The Christian city exhibits far more object buildings than the Islamic city. This could stem from traditional spatial usage resulting from religious ideas. The Bible is made up of stories, with characters doing things. These lend themselves to depiction. The Quran is largely a book of prayers, that are meditative in cadence. The architecture that results from these different backgrounds exhibits these values spatially.Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-78721147153006524922014-06-03T01:56:00.000-07:002014-08-05T18:15:34.841-07:00Q2 :: architecture (realm, role)<div class="p1">
<i>this is problematic, but over-simplification can still get discussion going...</i></div>
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all scales are in the realm of architecture, if we're talking about form and its counterpart, space. a building should be considered a part to a greater whole. medical doctors who specialize in an area of the body have first to learn all the systems of the human body and how they work together. like this we should approach the study of architecture. in our post-study apprenticeship we will begin to specialize in building design; later, if we like, we would specialize in a type of building, or an aspect of architectural service (spatial design, technical design, project management). On small projects an architect can and should wear all these hats; on large projects it is impossible - only a team of people performing different roles can pull it off. But I digress…</div>
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the realm of an architect is space. therefore architecture is environmental - thinking of our surroundings - how we have structured and articulated space. a building as object has its place, but it should be only one out of hundreds. It must be so, or we get dubai (though i haven't been there). Indeed the fewer special buildings a city has and the more continuous fabric a city can produce to set up its special buildings, the better. Examples: guggenheim bilbao, the eiffel tower, empire state building, chrysler building, freedom tower (point towers supported by a sea of slab towers), the skylines of venice, san francisco, zurich. the church in a medieval european town, the pompidou center in paris. All these examples are set up by a dense, continuous urban fabric.</div>
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at the lower level of the city the same spirit of hierarchy occurs in material and form. the cooper union school of engineering and the new museum in lower manhattan are striking departures from their pre-war, masonry surroundings. if the whole block of these buildings were of forms and materials similar to the morphosis or saana designs, then i would be celebrating the one masonry building on the block. </div>
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it's okay to be a-contextual, as long as your project is the first and only one in the immediate area to be so. if too many buildings are a-contextual: dubai (though i haven't been there)</div>
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in the villa borghese gallery in rome, one is surrounded by great art. the sculptures of ancient rome create a mood, and the renaissance paintings line the walls and in some cases the ceiling. the architecture takes a decidedly understated role, but that is not my point here. my point is that when one turns the corner and enters the room with bernini's "rape of proserpina", one is almost knocked off one's feet. that is the essence of the special object set up by continuous context. and truth be told, there is another scale of space - that which is created by the object itself. all in the realm of the architect.</div>
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cities cannot be curated (at least not so easily). for cities to be composed like this, it comes down to architects. future architects: if you want to create the object then you must become a master. dive into architecture and sacrifice a lot. and even then, no guarantee. if you are not a master, take pride in your work all the same, and create excellent, continuous fabric. otherwise: dubai (though i haven't been there). </div>
Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-14790699864350341922014-06-02T19:28:00.000-07:002014-08-05T18:17:18.582-07:00Q2 :: report<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">breakage</span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Use overrides the ideal ordering of space in “planned” cities, while ordering mechanisms emerge in “unplanned” cities. I call this “breakage” and analyze its impact on flow (people, sunlight, wind).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>space / form typology</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An indicator of typology of space is my level of comfort taking photographs. In public space I feel free to photograph anything I want. In semi-public I begin to feel conscious of subjects in the frame, and in the private realm permission to photograph is necessary. I study how these spaces transition. Additionally, I study building form types - whether their use has changed over time and how the form types change with culture and climate. Together these space and form types aggregate into urban fabric. Where two distinct fabrics come together is of interest. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>culture of space</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Religion as ordering mechanism makes the Islamic city a field, while the Christian city is object-oriented. In Fez I stood next to a great mosque without realizing it. In Rome, churches are on axis, with large plazas clearing space to appreciate the decorated facades. In the Christian city streets come first, and the courtyard results within the block. In the Islamic city the courtyard comes first, and the street results outside of the block.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>methodology</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sketching, writing, and sound recordings have been most effective, with photography documenting light qualities and people flows that are difficult to sketch. A photo montage technique captures continuity and movement through space while challenging traditional opticality.</span></div>
Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-86741138181233120832014-05-09T06:31:00.000-07:002014-08-09T05:32:19.724-07:00paris :: (com)pressionparis exhibits straight, large scale avenues that are organized with focal points. how do we experience these in time and space? below is an attempt to demonstrate parallax in a single image.<br />
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Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-43866679010906015312014-04-14T19:20:00.000-07:002014-08-09T05:33:09.824-07:00rabat :: (com)pression<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
rabat is now the capital of morocco, but it was only chosen by the french in the 20th century to be a strategic city, setting up a delicate integration of the old medina with the new french city. rabat has a very special layout with physical and visual connections - the casbah is connected to the medina and the medina is connected to the new town. moreover, a strong visual connection exists between rabat and its neighbor city, salé.
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outside the old wall</div>
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medina (blvd mohammed V)</div>
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ville nouvelle (blvd mohammed V)</div>
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<img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CJCpap4LfEY/U8cxIjrFvSI/AAAAAAAACdM/kBAXEWIquXo/s1600/rab_3_mohammedV-out.jpg" height="478" width="640" /></div>
Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-48097219269492420902014-04-04T08:03:00.001-07:002014-08-05T19:47:51.307-07:00fez :: self-trace<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Self-traced paths through the medina begin to reveal the urban structure. There are two main streets climbing the hill (to the left). At the bottom of the hill the great mosque </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(to the right)</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span><br />
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<span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;">Fez looks so manageable. The map I made of Fez el Bali (old Fez) shows only streets that connect to another street on both ends. There are THOUSANDS of dead-end streets not shown here. </span><br />
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Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-23030648563066353832014-03-29T07:36:00.000-07:002014-08-07T21:52:49.195-07:00fez :: medina breakdown<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>pedestrians and animals only</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">fes el-bali (fez old town) remains preserved due to its status as a world heritage site and to the fact that fez new town was made on the other side of the hill. it is the largest car-free area in the world. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"medina" means "town" in arabic; but also refers to the old town of current islamic cities. here are some of its the major elements.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">the wall</span><br />
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<img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rWemXiaY2_4/U-RKniGrrQI/AAAAAAAACeo/s4y3UnF93Gg/s1600/br_sketch_037.jpg" height="478" width="640" /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the dar (house) + the riadh </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(private courtyard</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">an elongated dar in marrakech with riadh off to the side</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(more like 4m)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the bab </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(gate)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the sqaq (street) + the derb </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(dead-end alley)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">fractal nature of the streets of fes 4.0/1.5 = 2.7 (e) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the mosque</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the souk (covered market)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the fondouk (pension)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the madrasa (islamic college)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the factory</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the hammam (spa)</span><br />
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Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-71807437822616496322014-03-23T06:33:00.000-07:002014-08-07T22:01:45.486-07:00fez :: (im)pression<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"My friend! You want to get high? Really, no? Okay okay, I don't push like Bush".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">fez medina is labyrinthine and intense. the call to prayer here is haunting and arresting - the whole medina from hill to valley fills with a ghostly but commanding wail. i've been offered hash, beer, massage about 200 times in three days. i can't take a walk without attracting a "guide" that follows me home, sometimes helps me through the maze, sometimes seeming to want to get me more confused to possibly pick my pockets, but there are usually just enough "eyes on the street" to spot this and call it out. the scams are infinite, but so far harmless and even amusing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">roofscapes [fez el-bali]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">cityscape [fez el-bali]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">roofscape [marrakech]</span></div>
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Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-87220292636738346322014-03-21T01:09:00.000-07:002014-08-05T19:51:50.646-07:00Q1 :: daylight conditions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
sky</div>
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<img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3HNrEdNKoAM/Uzwvx0NICgI/AAAAAAAAA_g/XFRwYDmlz0M/s3200/Sky.png" height="400" width="337" /></div>
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horizon</div>
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face</div>
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Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-56181608291694992662014-03-20T21:27:00.000-07:002014-08-05T21:07:17.379-07:00Q1 :: (com)pressionthese images are taken every thirty paces with the same focal length and horizon line, then overlaid. the idea is challenge traditional opticality by compressing both time and space, highlighting rhythms and flows unique to a place. comparing these montages across different cultural and physical latitudes would hopefully reveal more about the respective cultures of space.<br />
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barcelona (spain) | florence (italy)<br />
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<img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UCVI-b1AyTk/U7jE5Q0_JRI/AAAAAAAACZM/w0VDGtPwaxU/s1600/flo_compression_001web.jpg" height="476" width="640" /><br />
<br />Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-39574072833600593622014-03-20T00:50:00.000-07:002014-08-08T22:08:57.669-07:00Q1 :: scale + grit<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I Found this </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">well-written argument on</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> archrecord.com. </span><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span id="docs-internal-guid-19c834ab-4e6d-e186-1276-68e675665292"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's always an unquestioned premise that cities have to accommodate large-scale development projects, and yet there is always an undercurrent of concern that the need to contain the scale of 'large scale' sufficiently that they don't lose their soul. </span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's a tender balance, made more difficult because the sites and investments are too large to permit the city to be shaped by its own evolution. The use of large-scale development techniques favored by private-sector developers and bankers is now so ingrained in our culture that we have lost track of the fact that this is utterly at odds with the way cities organically develop from public infrastructure and incremental, lot-by-lot development.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cities also have to adjust to the mores of each successive generation. Hardworking blue-collar places like San Francisco (or Brooklyn) became havens for messy vitality precisely because they had lost their mainstream economies and there was thus a vacuum to be filled. But you can't sustain that vacuum artificially; the city sucks up energy and comes back to life, and since the city sustains itself on that economic energy it will not, as an organism, be easily prevented from doing so. </span></span></blockquote>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-19c834ab-4e6d-e186-1276-68e675665292"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span id="docs-internal-guid-19c834ab-4e6d-e186-1276-68e675665292"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That creative period of economic vacuum can't be bottled up and sustained, like an interesting artifact found when the demolition crews arrived. To plan their destinies more successfully, cities need to reduce the size of each incremental input, based upon a clear, simple, and publicly-owned plan of development and smaller, simpler tasks for the individual developers.</span></span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then we won't have to worry about bottling a few gallons of "artistic temperament" to scatter like a perfume through lifeless new urban spaces.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; white-space: pre-wrap;">someguy (</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; white-space: pre-wrap;">screen name), </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; white-space: pre-wrap;">ArchRecord.com, message board re: SF Pier 70 development.</span></blockquote>
Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-22934115440487518952014-03-19T09:24:00.003-07:002014-08-08T19:32:37.261-07:00Q1 :: report<div style="font-family: arial;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">musing on single-purpose cities</span></b><br />
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Palmanova and the Florentine new town were a healthy contrast to the layered cities I'd been studying. I'm in Fez, Morocco now. The medina is extensive, labyrinthine and intense. the call to prayer is one of the most amazing things i've heard; ghostly, intensifying, and then thinning out to a few voices, then a couple voices and then one, and then it's over. it aurally connects the various parts of the maze, and it is commanding. </div>
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Morocco poses an invisible cities-like comparison opportunity in the actual color of these places due to building materials used - Marrakech (the red city), Fes (the gray city), Casablanca (the white city), and finally Chefchaouen (the blue city). Is color and culture associated? Each city is quite unique. </div>
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smaller places like palmanova, florentine new towns, fes, marrakech and chefchouen are easier to study and seem to yield more poignant lessons in terms of form-generating ideals. In layered cities like barcelona, rome, naples, paris I am pulling out ordering systems and relationships to make sense of the "chaos", or looking at parts of them, i.e. EUR, Eixample, Spanish Quarter in Naples, to see how they work, as well as identifying building typologies across them like the Palazzo, piazza and the Domus up and down italy. </div>
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still it is a search for form-generating ideals (i.e. single-purpose cities/sectors that get their form from a single source/ideal - sometimes this is top-down, other times bottom-up).</div>
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A categorization of cities, some of which I've studied or will be studying in person. </div>
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roman city (barcelona, rome, ostia, naples, florence, pompeii)</div>
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medieval city (barcelona, rome, naples, san giovanni valdarno, venice, fez, marrakech, cordoba, granada, lyon, paris)</div>
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renaissance city (rome, naples, florence, venice, palmanova)</div>
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colonial city (casablanca, jakarta, mexico city, sao paulo) </div>
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modernist city (casablanca, barcelona, paris, lyon, chandigarh, dakah)</div>
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structuralist city (toulouse, rotterdam, apeldoorn, montreal, tokyo, berlin) </div>
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religious city - fez, marrakech, santiago de campostella, rome<br />
islamic city - fez, marrakech, cordoba, granada</div>
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spiritual city - brasilia, cuzco, mexico city</div>
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[cultural] integration city - roman cities, florentine new towns</div>
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defensive city - palmanova, French Bastides towns, toledo</div>
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water city - venice, amsterdam, Jakarta</div>
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garden city - versailles, caserta, grenada, english new towns...</div>
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industrial city - lyon, sheffield, partizanske (slovakia), </div>
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american dream city - celebration, radburn</div>
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gateway city - istanbul, kashgar, kunming, tangier</div>
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vertical city - manhattan, hong kong, singapore, sao paulo</div>
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continuous city - eixample, manhattan</div>
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multi-layer city - rome, barcelona, paris, </div>
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imperial city - beijing forbidden city, kyoto </div>
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with the idea of returning next spring to work on apollopolis - the solar city, i'm learning first-hand how urban systems work, how they are continuous and interdependent, and how it is usually impossible to "preserve" a part of the system - a tightly knit urban fabric needs all its parts in order to survive. </div>
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Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-88303034179121617262014-03-15T10:23:00.000-07:002014-08-05T21:13:11.448-07:00palmanova :: ideal city for defense<span style="font-size: large;"><b>overview</b></span><br />
Palmanova, Italy is a town in northeast Italy that was the culmination of renaissance studies into the ideal urban geometry for defense. The fortress was erected, starting from 1593, to defend the eastern borders of the Republic of Venice from the menace of a Turkish invasion and from growing Austrian pressures. The choice of a nine-pointed star-like plan unites the influences of the Renaissance cultural debate and the most advanced solutions of the contemporary military engineering. The first defensive ring, protected by a moat, is made up of the cortine (fortifications) and the ramparts. Because of the new besieging technologies, a second ring was erected in the 17th Century. A further ring was built in the time of Napolean, between 1805 and 1813, by the French Engineers Corps settled within the fortress. The fortress is accessible by three gates, ascribed to the architect Vincenzo Scamozzi, named Porta Udine, Porta Marittima or Aquileia and Porta Cividale.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">site</span></b><br />
Flat, swamp land.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">tissue</span></b><br />
A nine-sided polygon. At the center a six-sided polygon.<br />
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<img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DCJrkYkXPs4/U5NHpqamDAI/AAAAAAAACKk/MQ_FZgRrAkQ/s1600/Palmanova_Plan.png" height="459" width="640" /></div>
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Crossfire vectors determine the shape of the ramparts.</div>
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Often called the "star city" as the ramparts form multiple points.</div>
<img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NYu3fzr9Fv0/U5NHn9TlfpI/AAAAAAAACKU/LEKY1OHk8yc/s1600/IMG_4978.jpg" height="640" width="640" /><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Historical Notes</span></b><br />
Palmanova was one of the <a href="http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citt%C3%A0_di_fondazione_nel_periodo_fascista" target="_blank">Citte Fondate</a> (1930's Fascist Italy)<br />
A Citta Fondata was a fascist town zoned for uses and expressed with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_architecture" target="_blank">fascist architecture</a>.<br />
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During WWI, the Austrians occupied the town. In the opera house, operas would still go on. At the end of some Verdi operas, the Italians would shout: "Viva Verdi!" and clap for him. The Austrians would clap, too, thinking they were clapping for Verdi. But there was a hidden meaning: VERDI was an acronym for "<b>V</b>ittorio <b>E</b>manuele <b>R</b>e <b>D</b>'<b>I</b>talia" and so the Austrians were unknowingly clapping for the King of Italy, their enemy.<br />
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Designed for 20,000 inhabitants, the maximum was only ever 10,000 people. 5,000 of those were military. The city has no towers, so as not to be seen over the ramparts. The Napoleonic stores would later become convention centers. The abandoned barracks take up a lot of area, and have not yet been adapted to new use.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Field Notes</span></b><br />
Though Palmanova has perfect geometrical layout, its architecture is imperfect. Floor levels vary, building heights vary, acute corners resulting from the star layout are dealt with in various ways, the main square is extra large and therefore underpopulated as it was originally designed for military gathering. Some buildings are imported, and a hierarchy is not apparent.<br />
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A streetscape looking toward the center of the town. Instead of a lookout tower as planned, a flagpole.<br />
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The regular geometry of the street layout creates particular building form-types at various corners.<br />
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Palmanova is undetected in the landscape, because no buildings rise taller than the ramparts.<br />
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Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-23369526267235280132014-03-13T04:32:00.000-07:002014-08-05T21:11:30.003-07:00venice :: (ex)pression<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This public space is a carefully designed balance of rigid geometries and breakage of those geometries using angles from the bend in the canal. All elements are highly relational bringing the various parts together in a tautly arranged whole. </span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hKCwXLqUSME/U0fLejd-mmI/AAAAAAAABFA/adJu0H4ADQQ/s1600/RialtoSatellite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hKCwXLqUSME/U0fLejd-mmI/AAAAAAAABFA/adJu0H4ADQQ/s1600/RialtoSatellite.jpg" height="261" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-52333448648732582272014-03-11T23:41:00.000-07:002014-08-05T21:13:21.012-07:00sg valdarno :: ideal city for political economy<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">San Giovanni Valdarno is one of several Florentine New Towns built from scratch in the late 13th century as tools for Florence to organize the countryside. Despite coming into being in medieval times, these towns mark the beginning of the renaissance of ideal town planning through relational geometries and proportions. </span><br />
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Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-66213908692040712202014-03-08T20:49:00.000-08:002014-08-05T21:07:33.635-07:00florence :: (com)pression <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Compressing time and space of a walk through a series of arcaded loggia in the middle of florence.<br />
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<br />Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309654243332792025.post-29844637283477384192014-03-06T21:37:00.000-08:002014-08-05T21:09:52.439-07:00florence :: time stamps<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kxcrq1EFsjo/U83nxzY9_0I/AAAAAAAACdY/eUxD1mjipaY/s1600/Florence_3Walls.jpg" height="452" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">drawing by <a href="http://annagibb.com/towersofflorence/" target="_blank">anna gibb</a> </td></tr>
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This drawing by Anna Gibb shows Florence has distinct time stamps as it was a walled city for long periods of time. As the city grew the wall was removed and built further from the center. The roman town at the center has a distinct tissue from the two subsequent time periods, due to a different urban ordering mechanism, namely the grid. The medieval tissue is not much different from one period to the next, but outside of this representation is the modern town. That fabric is characterized by larger buildings, bigger roads, factories, airports, stripmalls, gas stations, etc. as it relates to the modern mode of transportation - the automobile. the shape of the walls is potentially an ideal form. see analysis below.<br />
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<br />Rudy Letschehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10499339924194858704noreply@blogger.com0