scholarly journals Autopia: Notes on Banham’s Visionary Metropolis

2016 ◽  
pp. 54-63
Author(s):  
Alexander Eisenschmidt
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Le Corbusier ◽  
Entire Region ◽  
Urban Image ◽  
Urban Core ◽  
Contemporary Life ◽  
Post War ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Reyner Banham

In 1959 Reyner Banham challenged zoned urbanism by combining the Situationist psychogeographic drift with his love for Los Angeles. His essay “City as Scrambled Egg” (Banham, 1959) effectively produced a new urban image and introduced a new outlook on postwar modernization, communication, and leisure. The radicalization of contemporary life resonated in images of the city as decentralized, free, and in motion. While Le Corbusier had compared the city to an egg with demarcating zones and boundaries, Banham argued that motorization and telecommunications had long scrambled the city; “I don’t just mean in Los Angeles. A large part of the population of Europe already lives conurbatively” (Banham, 1959, p. 21). The entire region between Amsterdam and Rotterdam was already one conurbanized arena, effectively formulating an early definition of the megalopolis.Unlike CIAM’s city of the urban core with designated outskirts, thecenter was now seen to be everywhere. For Banham, this was theterrain of contemporary urbanization that needed to be understoodby holding prejudgments at bay and instead doing, what he called,“leg-work on the territory” (Banham, 1959, p. 21). But, as his ongoing fascinations with Futurism and post-war technologies revealed, this departure from modernist imagery of the city was not a disregard of modernist urban utopias but a way to rework these ideas towards a new kind of visionary; one that is less about forecasting the new and, instead, is contingent on a new optical vision of the existing city. A key site for his development of a different way of seeing the modernized urban world was the city of Los Angeles and particularly its traffic, which he called “Autopia.”

Agriculture in urban and peri-urban areas in the United States: Highlights from the Census of Agriculture

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Rogus ◽  
Carolyn Dimitri
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Current Trend ◽  
The United States ◽  
Land Values ◽  
Local Policy ◽  
Urban Core ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Vegetable Farm ◽  
The City

AbstractUrban agriculture, a current trend in many US cities, is purported to bring enhanced food security, reduction of food waste, community building, open green space in cities and higher property values. However, the literature lacks an understanding of whether urban farming has extended beyond a compelling concept into the practice of farming in the city and peri-urban areas. The exact definition of an urban farm is challenging, since many urban farms have a primary mission of supporting social goals rather than providing food. Use of the USDA definition of farm omits many self-identified urban farms, but the most consistent measure of agriculture is the Census of Agriculture. Using census data, this paper finds that urban farms are smaller than the typical farm, and while the amount of urban and peri-urban farmland declined between 2002 and 2007, the total number of farms increased. Growth in farmland is positively related to land values, suggesting that increases in urban farmland are more likely to take place in population dense, land scarce areas. Spatial analysis of urban and peri-urban farms in the Northeast finds fewer clusters of farms in areas with high land costs. In the most populous Northeastern cities, the farms are more likely to be located in the peri-urban area than in the urban core. Urban farms in the Northeast were more likely to produce vegetables, eggs and goats. Significant levels of vegetable farm clusters were detected surrounding Providence, Boston and Hartford Metropolitan Statistical Areas, which are regions that had no significant level of clustering of total farms. Future analysis, incorporating data from the 2012 census, should provide insight into whether local policy changes have resulted in growth in urban farms and farmland.

scholarly journals Emerging Urban Forms

1995 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jos Boseman ◽  
◽  
Brian Carter ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Le Corbusier ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Post War ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way

Joseph Rykwert held a lecture in Zurich five or six years ago in which he posed the question "is the city an object or a field." This question seems to be answered very easily: when the buildings are high and standing next to one another like in Manhattan, it looks like an object; when you look to many post war extensions that were prepared in response to a lot of propaganda by the modem movement in Europe, it looks more like a field. For my generation, which was educated in the 1970's, this kind of doubleness of object and fields has doubled again. You must know that Joseph Rykwert, when he poses this question, thinks of the Unite &Habitation of Le Corbusier and the way Colin Rowe criticized it as an object, and he is on the side of the Smithsons and other younger people, who tried as architects to link these slab-like forms in networks that looked more like a field.

scholarly journals An Allegory of Good Government: A Comparison of Gothic Siena and Modern Los Angeles

1995 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Figura Lange ◽  
◽  
Sandra Davis Lakeman ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Teenage Pregnancy ◽  
Service Organizations ◽  
Social Service Organizations ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
Urban Core ◽  
The Social ◽  
Good Government ◽  
American Cities ◽  
The City

As our American cities struggle with the problems of growth and development, the human initiated disasters of crime and violence threaten the very existence of the urban core ofmost large cities. Los Angeles dominates the American crime scene with its gangs and drug dealers, where violent crime will strike one in every three Angelenos in their lifetime. The city is a leading example of environmental disintegration preceding rampant crime. In fact, environmental decay, drug use and crime continue to rise apparently in collaboration with each other. Additionally, the social service organizations are overwhelmed by the influx of immigrants, teenage pregnancy, and AIDS.

scholarly journals The right to comfort in the century of the self

2021 ◽  
pp. 4-7
Author(s):  
Zara Ferreira
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

After the war, the world was divided between two main powers, a Western capitalist bloc led by the USA, and an Eastern communist bloc, driven by the USSR. From Japan to Mexico, the post-war years were ones of prosperous economic growth and profound social transformation. It was the time of re-housing families split apart and of rebuilding destroyed cities, but it was also the time of democratic rebirth, the definition of individual and collective freedoms and rights, and of belief in the open society envisaged by Karl Popper. Simultaneously, it was the time of the biggest migrations from the countryside, revealing a large faith in the city, and of baby booms, revealing a new hope in humanity. (...) Whether through welfare state systems, as mainly evidenced in Western Europe, under the prospects launched by the Plan Marshall (1947), or through the establishment of local housing authorities funded or semi-funded by the government, or through the support of private companies, civil organizations or associations, the time had come for the large-scale application of the principles of modern architecture and engineering developed before the war. From the Spanish polígonos residenciales to the German großsiedlungen, ambitious housing programs were established in order to improve the citizens’ living conditions and health standards, as an answer to the housing shortage, and as a symbol of a new egalitarian society: comfort would no longer only be found in bourgeois houses.

scholarly journals Architecture in Translation: Le Corbusier’s influence in Australia

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antony Moulis
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Le Corbusier ◽  
Northern Africa ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Opera House ◽  
Post War ◽  
The City

Abstract: While there is an abundance of commentary and criticism on Le Corbusier’s effect upon architecture and planning globally – in Europe, Northern Africa, the Americas and the Indian sub-continent – there is very little dealing with other contexts such as Australia. The paper will offer a first appraisal of Le Corbusier’s relationship with Australia, providing example of the significant international reach of his ideas to places he was never to set foot. It draws attention to Le Corbusier's contacts with architects who practiced in Australia and little known instances of his connections - his drawing of the City of Adelaide plan (1950) and his commission for art at Jorn Utzon's Sydney Opera House (1958). The paper also considers the ways that Le Corbusier’s work underwent translation into Australian architecture and urbanism in the mid to late 20th century through the influence his work exerted on others, identifying further possibilities for research on the topic.  Keywords: Le Corbusier; post-war architecture; international modernism; Australian architecture, 20th century architecture. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/LC2015.2015.752 

scholarly journals El método en la investigación: imaginarios y representaciones de la forma urbana en la vida cotidiana

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 17-24
Author(s):  
Juan Carlos Pérgolis ◽  
Clara Inés Rodríguez Ibarra
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Method ◽  
City Life ◽  
Urban Image ◽  
Physical Elements ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way

Resumen: La investigación urbana durante muchos años, ha centrado su interés en el estudio de los elementos físicos de la ciudad. Este trabajo se desarrolla desde un enfoque distinto al discurso de un urbanismo abstracto basado en cifras y estándares, es decir, en un urbanismo apoyado en la existencia del habitante, la ciudad, sus significados, su pertenencia y el sentido de su vida en ese territorio. El objetivo principal de este artículo es mostrar un método de trabajo basado en la identificación y el análisis de relatos urbanos y en la lectura de un texto generador de preguntas conducentes a hipótesis. La investigación en curso de la cual se desprende, utiliza dos ejercicios metodológicos particulares, uno a partir de una investigación enmarcada en la definición de “método científico”, surge de la lectura de un único libro, la pregunta que guía el desarrollo del estudio. El segundo ejercicio consiste en generar una práctica a través de la aplicación de una metodología ya experimentada en trabajos precedentes, preguntándonos ahora, ¿Es posible encontrar la esencia o el deseo que motiva un acontecimiento en el relato?; como conclusión parcial del estudio en curso, se confirma que el modo de acceder a las particularidades del espíritu del tiempo y su expresión en la ciudad y en la vida de la ciudad está presente en los relatos, que al pasar de la descripción a la narración, profundizan en las prácticas que los habitantes realizan con los espacios de su ciudad. ___Palabras clave: Deseo, relato, ciudad, ciudadano, imagen urbana, vida urbana. ___Abstract: The urban investigation for many years has centered his interest on the study of the physical elements of the city. This work develops from an approach different from the speech of an abstract urbanism based on numbers and standards, but rather an urbanism focused on the existence of the inhabitant, the city, his meanings, his belonging and the sense of his life in this territory. The principal aim of this article is to show a method of work based on the identification and the analysis of urban statements and in the reading of a generating text of questions conducive to hypothesis. The investigation in process with which it parts, uses two methodological particular exercises, one from an investigation placed in the definition of “scientific method", arises from the reading of the only book, the question that guides the development of the study. The second exercise consists of generating a practice across the application of a methodology already experienced on previous works, wondering now is it possible to find the essence or the desire that motivates an event in the statement?; as partial conclusion of the study in process, it is confirmed that the way of acceding to the particularities of the spirit of the time and his expression in the city and in the life of the city it is present in the statements, which on having gone on from the description to the story, penetrate into the practices that the inhabitants realize with the spaces of his city. ___Keywords: Desire, story, citizen, city, city life, urban image. ___Recibido enero 3 de 2014 / Aceptado marzo 12 de 2014  

Suburbs in the City

2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-167
Author(s):  
Jason Jindrich
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Blue Collar ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Core Analysis ◽  
Rural Districts ◽  
Socioeconomic Characteristics ◽  
Urban Core ◽  
Political Boundaries ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The City

Political boundaries are the criterion scholars use most often to define American suburbs; a problematic approach when applied to the late nineteenth century. Annexation distended the boundaries of nineteenth-century cities so far as to obscure broad swaths of suburban and rural districts within their limits. The absence of a literature about these “suburbs in the city” is problematic, because it encourages historical researchers to consider newly annexed territory as urban equivalents of older city districts. This article argues that under the generally accepted definition of suburb, the condition of nineteenth-century urban overbounding obstructs a full appreciation of the historical breadth, ubiquity, and composition of working-class residence outside the urban core. Analysis of the socioeconomic characteristics of regions with suburban population densities within the 1880 city limits of Cleveland, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Newark, New Jersey; and St. Louis, Missouri, indicate that researchers have underestimated the degree and diversity of blue-collar suburbanization during this period.

scholarly journals El paseo imposible por la ciudad inabarcable. Una relectura de las ecologías urbanas de Reyner Banham

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (44) ◽  
pp. 08-19
Author(s):  
Javier Malo de Molina-Bodelón
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Synthetic Image ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Automobile Use ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Reyner Banham

The city of Los Angeles, CA, is, for sure, the first city to authentically emerge as a result of the widespread popularisation of automobile use, and it should, therefore, come as no surprise that the analytical and synthetic understanding of its profound nature is associated with this means of transportation and the infrastructures that make it possible. This is how the critic and historian Peter Reyner Banham understood it, when he proposed that only from behind the wheel of a vehicle could it be possible to reveal the true idiosyncrasies of this unusual city that the most orthodox European critics rejected, who were unable to extract a synthesis that could explain it. What was happening was that the city appeared as the pioneer of a new urban form which, relying on the widespread use of the car and the single-family dwelling, which is typical of the suburban garden city, proposed an absolute decentralisation as an alternative to the compact industrial city. In 1971, Banham published a now canonical text -Los Angeles, The Architecture of Four Ecologies- which aimed at revealing a clear and synthetic image of the city. This article highlights the main points of Reyner Banham's proposal, looking to expand its theoretical approach -which handles the structural and morphological scales- to a third scale: that of the sensory perception of the physical experience of space, based on some academic works of reference, but also on literary references by writers linked to the city in an attempt to transfer the poetic and sensitive vision to the field of urban studies. This vision makes it possible to show a change of paradigm regarding the relationship that the inhabitant of a contemporary city like Los Angeles -and, by extension, so many others- establishes with the scenario of collective life, represented by public space.

Codifying Invisible Borders: How Municipal Ordinances Inscribe Market Values on the Landscape in Downtown Los Angeles

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-393
Author(s):  
Mindy Farabee
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Homeless Population ◽  
Neighborhood Revitalization ◽  
Housing Crisis ◽  
Market Values ◽  
Urban Core ◽  
The City

AbstractZoning codes dramatically impact every community they touch. Ostensibly, these ordinances are meant to impose some collectively determined order on our built environments. In practice, they often draw lines in the sand that distribute power unevenly between residents. As home to the U.S.’ second largest homeless population, Los Angeles is but a stark example of the widespread housing crisis hitting many cities around the globe. In the 1970s, this is where the city drew borders around its Skid Row and consolidated social services in a bid to contain homelessness within the region’s urban core. As part of a an ambitious initiative launched in 2013, the city is now updating the zoning codes across its downtown area, a move that is prompting a vigorous debate over the role of municipal ordinances in codifying market-driven approaches to neighborhood revitalization. This interview engages with the Janus face of borders as inclusionary and exclusionary, asking: through what mechanisms – subtle and overt – do zoning codes dictate the shape of our private and communal spaces? And how can communities stake out their turf among competing value systems?

scholarly journals THE PLANETARY GARDEN. WHERE NATURAL AND HUMAN INTERTWINE

2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramón PICO
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Le Corbusier ◽  
Human Action ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Public ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
Aerial Observation ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The City

Spring 1935. After twenty-five years of fascination for heights and six of flying, stimulating experiences, Le Corbusier published Aircraft, a real “Manifesto for a New Era”, according to his own words. Even though Vers une architecture had limited the aeronaoutic model validity to the framework of housing and easthetics ten years before, the reference then was expanded to the city and its fitting within the natural framework, to the definition of a new global habitat in which public space became the focus.The flying experience allowed him to look into the past and find the subtle balance of man and nature. Revelation and rebellion at the same time. Thanks to the new visual as well as mental perspective provided by height, he would drive his reflec-tions towards “geoarchitecture”, a definitive, Humboldtian approach to Earth.His aerial observation of the Algerian M’Zab valley or the layout of the settlements along the Paraná crystallised both into texts such as Sur les quattro routes, Aircraft or Les trois établissements humains, and a series of proposals for Rio, São Paulo, Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Algiers. Epic adventures through which, and connecting with the interest of those geographers worried about reclaiming human action on the writing on the Earth through his “establishments”, Le Corbusier tackled the configuration of a new public space beyond the limits of the traditional city, claiming for a new planetary order.

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