NOTES FROM BOOZY MEETING
24 JUNE 2004
Co-op city -- more successful that we had expected
*we* might not want to live there, but really it didn't seem too bad
we don't really have enough info, of course
does it end up being just a place to sleep? can't walk to the corner bar, deli, etc
Radiant City -- not as a substitute for CITY living, but as a substitute for SUBURBS ???
reduce suburban sprawl, make for DENSER suburban living
plan in more delis, sports centers, movies, bars, restaurants, etc
* This is more akin to Ebeneezer Howard's original Garden City plan, but more vertical than Howard had planned (Le Corbusier's influence)
Is part of the failure in implementation of Radiant City:
1) trying to replace CITY LIVING
2) most implementations are low-income housing?
Singapore -- Mandarin Gardens estate as a successful vertical garden city
is this in part b/c it's upper-middle class?
Also, if it were more the norm -- most people living in high-rises (e.g. Singapore) -- then is the Radiant City made more successful?
In USA we're so obsessed w/owning our own space, horizontal expansion
living vertically = failure, poorer, lower class?
Jones Beach:
really pretty
big pity it's so hard to get there
less moved by it than we had expected
hard to imagine a time when it was truly revolutionary
is this just changing times? we have more parks / greenspace in the city proper, population density (of manhattan at least) is much lower now than it was then, etc.
Riverside Park / West Side:
Trump Place: high-income hi-rise example
if it had greenspace, shops, restaurants, gym, bars, etc -- would it be a successful Radiant City?
oneupsmanship, views, building higher than the lasst person, etc
Pushing west in manhattan, creating land for new development
reclaimed land, esp on west side, Battery park City even more so than Riverside Park (also Singapore)
Riverside Park -- much more successful than we had expected, seemed safe, well-used, pretty, no vagrants, etc
People treat their environment according to how they perceive it (if they think it's nice, they treat it well, and vice versa)
Moses taking away "unneccesary amenities" (like toilet seats and closet doors) in Title I projects
[find quotes in THE POWER BROKER]
P.O.V.:
Maybe all of societies ills would be solved by creating these Radiant Cities
Almost a spiritual notion of compartmentalized society, everyone knows how they fit in, their place in the world
Transparency to living, can see everyone else, what their place is, where they go, etc
Vaguely religious fervor to this goal
"I want to believe"
Rigidity of Utopias -- find Jacobs quote about this
have to be subservient to Master Plan
Make Plan, cannot ever change the plan afterwords, no adaptation of plan to real use
Legacy of building which makes you immortal
Moses and his bridges, etc etc
Faceless figure who affects the lives of millions (for good and ill) decades after his death
e.g. us, living in NYC in 2004, dealing with Moses' constructions from 40-70 years ago
Le Corbusier as architectural precursor to Moses in this role
Coming in with some sort of angle / crazy theory, and being didactic thru that angle
Less space for living = good!
reduce excess, having too much time/space creates too much time/space to think about miserable lives
"Le C's nuclear destruction of cities to rebuild at Radiant Cities" conspiracy
e.g. 1925 Voisin Plan for Paris, destroying chunk of Paris to build a vertical garden city in its midst
[but to put this in perspective, it's not really so different from Baron Haussmann's cutting and redesign of Paris for Napoleon III, creating the city of boulevards that we know today]
Subtle parallels to Iraq (destroying th country's infrastructure so that we can rebuild it in the American image)
NOT TOO CUTESY
Goal for Audience Experience:
Know who LeC and RM are (historically)
Understand that there are pluses and minuses to what they did
Challenge preconceived notions about Housing Projects / hi-rise living?
What is relationship between LeC and RM?
Plato (LeC) /Aristotle (RM)
Plato as teacher, Platonic forms etc
Aristotle "I like your ideas, need better application" = empirical forms not Platonic ideals
LeC was completely theoretical and ineffectual
RM never gave up on the theory/master plan, but still got thousands of things built
Grand Inquisitor Scene idea (Jacobs & RM? or LeC?)
DEM will try to write
Radiant City as salvation, removes the curse of freedom / freedom of choice / freedom to create their own environment / city / neighborhood from humanity
http://www.online-literature.com/view.php/brothers_karamazov/36?term=grand%20inquisitor
[complete online text of Grand Inquisitor chapter, Ch. 36]
(Look at Brave New World scene)
"Toward the end of the book, the World Controller explains to Bernard and the Savage why contentment is more important than freedom or truth. This lengthy explanation is very much like the Grand Inquisitor's tale in The Brothers Karamazov."
http://www.online-literature.com/aldous_huxley/brave_new_world/
[complete online text, World Controller scene in Ch. 16 & 17]
How many obscure historical figures do we tackle?
the more we tackle, the more they have to be caricatures, not psychologically realistic
YES, this is good, boil them down to essences
Le Corbusier
Robert Moses
Jane Jacobs
Lewis Mumford
Ebeneezer Howard ?
"Public Housing / the Radiant City / vertical cities with reduced square footage for living -- this will be the salvation of mankind!"
Corbusier is the Architect, has a Master Plan
Moses is the Builder of the Plan
and alters it in so doing?
is he a Corrupter of the Master Plan, and sort of Gnostic Demiurge figure?
is he trying to found his own religion / Plan, different from Le Corbusier's?
But the people who use the Built Plan don't use it in the way it was intended, create new Orders / systems of Organization
(Emergence Theory / Jane Jacobs)
Jacobs as villain / heretic / revolutionary figure who is ultimately and tragically successful in leading The People in the destruction of the Radiant City, the reinstatement of mixed-use zoning, "Viva la Sidewalks!" etc
W. Alexis
Je veux être libre! ... C'est mon droit et je me défends
[I Want to Be Free!…It is My Right, and I Defend Myself]
[Paris]: Duclaux, [1871?]
Lithograph
NYPL, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Print Collection