|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
As the first of this series of reports on urbanism,
I asked Shiuan-Wen Chu to report South Africa (Johannesburg).
In the suburbs of Johannesburg, each property is enclosed by a wall with full
of security-devices, and the whole of the residential district is also enclosed
by a wall with security guards. That is to say, urban space is enclosed like a
double box-in-a-box. In order to make this spatial enclosure, they exploit walls
or golf course which normally exist in every city, but also they invent various
security-devices, and moreover they establish a kind of social system by security
companies. In fact, she told me that security is the fastest-growing sector in
the South African economy. What is interesting here is this enforcement of spatial
articulation by enclosure was caused by disappearance of social articulation by
the abolition of apartheid. Because of the disappearance of the institutional
articulation, residential territories moved radically. But at its conclusion,
we can say the spatial form of enclosure indicates that the social articulation
still remains between whites and blacks. Here, we can recognize one of the limits
of articulation or fragmentation of urban space, even with the parentheses of
the very special context of apartheid.
At the same time, these residential districts become theme parks full of historical
icons. This means that post-modernism of the 80fs still demonstrates its ability
in a commercial realm as seductive signs.
However, I think this two phenomena, spatial enclosure and theme park, don't exist
only in Johannesburg. Looking back to urban space in Tokyo, for example "Venus-Fort",
a new shopping mall targeted for young women in Odaiba bay-area, is a totally
black-box with Italian streets and blue sky inside, where spatial enclosure and
theme park come into existence even at smaller scale. "Venus-Fort" may be literally
a Tokyo-version of the "fortification" in Johannesburg. While society is getting
borderless and seamless, not only seen in the abolition of apartheid, maybe this
enforcement of articulation of space can happen in any city.
While various new media like IT come up, spatial media like architecture or cities
are somehow being contingent. I think, however, it indicates the enormous power
of spatial media that the spatial form of enclosure exposes a social articulation
which still remains between whites and blacks even after the abolishment of apartheid.
Nevertheless, it is also true that it is not allowed to revolutionize the social
system by providing a new spatial image, which is called a modern process. Maybe
in this delicate interdependence, I think the potential of spatial media today
exist.
In this series, I intend to speculate on urban spatial form and its condition
through reports on present phenomena in various cities. This is like a relationship
between a function and a graph in mathematics. It is an experiment to examine
which function (urban condition) makes which graph (urban form) through cross-referencing
observation of cities. The functions are, for example, capital logic, regulation,
desire for better life, and also physical context like geography. The graph is,
for example, the schema of spatial form like enclosure shown in this report. Even
if conditions are the same between two cities, their forms may be organized differently.
Or even if conditions are seen totally different, the same spatial form may be
organized. Or if a proper value to each city (for example, proper geography) is
substituted into a variable (allowed width in a condition), a part of the variables
becomes constant and the spatial form may be transformed. In order to find out
this relationship between functions and graphs, we maybe have to observe not only
generic characteristics common to cities but also specific ones proper to them.
Or this may be to find out relationships between the generic and specific in cities.
To summarize this operation, I would like to put a tentative title: "Urban Form
and Condition in Specific Cities".
While the potential of spatial media seems getting somehow decreased by the emerging
of various new media, I nevertheless would like to find out the possibilities
of spatial media in urban space as its concrete form.
profile
Akio YASUMORI
Born in Tokyo, 1972. Architect and Urbanist.
1997 Member of Team "Made in Tokyo"
1998-99 the Berlage Institute Netherlands
Currently attending Doctor Course at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Sakamoto lab.)
Works= "Tokyo Suburb Void Map", "LA Surface Urbanist's Catalogue&Tutorial"
("Hunch" No.1,"10+1" No.24), "Sport-Voids Home"
(Honorable Mention in Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition 2001, "JA"No.44,
"Shinkenchiku"0112), "Housing in Woods" (First Place in Future
Indivisual House competition, Harima Science Garden City, "Shinkenchiku"9708),
"House Carving Distance" (Kazuyo Sejima Prise in the 6th S*L International
Competition, "Shinkenchiku"9607) etc.
|
|
|
