MOVIE TIME

This is one of my favorite movies, very inspiring. It provides a view on the atmosphere that filled the city of Havana in the 60's and presents a most unusual love story. Enjoy!
 

 

 

BARCELONA: ARCHITECTURE AND URBANIZATION

Photograph by Isabel Pérez Lago

Many artistic events have influenced the transformation and general perception of Barcelona. Among them are the Universal Exposition (1888), the International Exposition of 1929, the appearance of a school of rationalist architecture & surrealist painters (1939), and the Olympic Games (1992). Barcelona is mainly understood as a dynamic space regenerated and redefined in terms of cultural identity. By the end of the XIX Century, architecture became associated with the concept of Modernisme, “a broad cultural movement that emerged in Catalonia” (Robinson et al. 9). Artists organized meetings, exhibitions, poetry readings and performances at places like Barcelona’s Four Cats Café. Living in Barcelona between the two exhibitions mentioned above, Antonio Gaudi, one of the major exponents of the “fin-de-siècle architecture,” constructed churches, parks and schools. He also restored cathedrals and designed water pipes. Gaudi’s style was recognized for a harmonic integration of architectural elements, functionality, simplicity, organic abstraction, and the use of ceramic tilework (trencadis). In the 1950s, Catalan architects also tried to respond to urban growth with new spatial logics. There existed the idea of producing another exhibit in 1982, which was never carried out.

The Barcelona Forum was framed as an “urbanization project.” By combining economic and urban interests, the Forum supported the idea of using public events for “large-scale urban development schemes” that, in general, did not correspond with the needs of the people living in disfavored parts of the city. The “Barcelona Model” used urban renovation to control social coherence whereas the city developed into a “tourist icon offering accessible culture,” as urban planner Stan Majoor affirms (181). The new Barcelonese aesthetics distracted the visitors from questions like employment or housing. The Olympics motivated the regeneration of neighborhoods such as Poblenou and the so-called “red light district,” El Raval, where the construction of MACBA (Museu D’Art Contemporani De Barcelona) replaced part of the “working-class housing.” MACBA provided El Raval’s population with the opportunity to mix among the newcomers and enhance social life, inducing the most “socially vulnerable people” to leave the area. MACBA embarked on a long series of debates, workshops, exhibitions and other reconciliatory actions in a new political/artistic relationality with the community called “museu molecular” while children from the neighborhood would flagrantly skate on the ramps outside of the building, displaying an alternative and contagious sense of sociability.

References

Majoor, Stan. Disconnected Innovations: New Urbanity in Large-Scale Development Projects: Zuidas Amsterdam, Ørestad Copenhagen, and Forum Barcelona. Delft: Eburon Academic Publishers, 2008.

Robinson, William H., Jordi Falgàs and Carmen Belén Lord. Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí, Miró, Dalí. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006.

OUR STATICALLY KINETIC RIO

Carla Alanis: Tatts

Scholar Rahul Mehrotra defines a “formal” Static City, a two-dimensional entity built of concrete, steel and brick and an “informal” Kinetic City, perceived as a space in motion, constructed of recycled materials. Not necessarily the city of the poor, the latter suggests temporary articulation and occupation of space, filled with symbolic, spectacular representations of the urban condition: processions, festivals, and weddings, among other vivacious events (Mehrotra 207). The static and the kinetic spaces give the impression of being accommodated within each other, making the city viable for integration at physical and metaphorical levels.

Is there a similar pattern of interaction between kinetic and static realms that can be applied to our interpretation of “favelas” and the whole urban experience in Rio de Janeiro? What does a portrait of a globalized favela look like? How would the fear of rape, robbery and violence fit in such an image? The narratives of integration of the informal and the formal cities seem a bit more complex to be represented in Brazilian urbanism. The “informal” disposable conditions and living architecture of the favelas have been “formalized” not only before the eyes of the elite inhabiting the Zona Sul who detest favela people but in the eye of those in the slums as well. A sense of carelessness and lethargy inundates both “the underprivileged” and the rich.

     A symbolic version of Mehrotra’s concept of Kinetic City partially exists in the favela insofar as there are spiritual and artistic sources like music and gospel constantly reenacting the community. The funkeiro culture, for instance, has contributed to a reconfiguration of the social space: the youths have found a way to construct pleasure and identity (Yúdice 128). Cultural projects, with an aura of stability, try to hide the urban sense of insecurity: even lower middle class people have been forced to move to the favelas due to the high real estate prices. How to expect models of development serve for the integration of communities when the great majority of individuals living on the other side of the fence keeps identifying favelas with narcotrafficking gangs, wasted lives, and de-humanized youths? Why can’t the media pay more attention to music, gospel and other positive things these creative human beings have to offer?

References

Mehrotra, Rahul. “Negotiating the Static and Kinetic Cities: the Emergent Urbanism of Mumbai.” Other Cities, Other Worlds: Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing Age. Ed. Andreas Huyssen. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. 205-218.

Yúdice, George. “The Funkification of Rio.” The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in the Global Era. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. 109-132.

THE EMPIRE STATE

Por Eduardo Rodríguez Solís

Subir al Empire State Building es una experiencia sensacional. Estar ahí, casi de noche, con lluvia o con un poco de tormenta en Nueva York, es increíble. Parece que uno va viajando en un cohete. Los nubarrones y la lluvia hacen de aquello algo único. Y si todo está claro, y el cielo está azul, uno se imagina el dueño del universo… Una vez, hace mucho, hubo la idea de anclar un zepelín en la punta del edificio, para que luego la gente que viajaba en aquel vehículo aéreo, se bajara directamente al edificio. Pero esa locura no se experimentó…

Nueva York tiene varios distintivos. El Empire State Building es quizás el principal. Otro grandioso distintivo de la ciudad es Broadway. Uno se puede pasar tres meses viendo todo el teatro que se hace ahí. También está la Estatua de la Libertad, que fue un regalo de los franceses, y que está hecha sobre una estructura que hizo el ingeniero Eiffel, el de la Torre Eiffel. El escultor, Bartholdi, se inspiró en el rostro de su madre para diseñar la estatua. La llevaron en partes a Nueva York, y ya en terreno americano se soldaron las secciones. Era como un gran rompecabezas, que fueron armando. Poco a poco… A mí el tema me apasiona. Y hasta me lancé a escribir una novela corta titulada De la mano de la libertad. Joaquín Diez Canedo quería publicar el texto con imágenes antiguas de Nueva York. Pero el proyecto cambió, y esa novela corta, donde la Estatua de la Libertad es casi protagonista, se publicó en la Editorial Joaquín Mortiz, junto con otras dos novelas cortas. El título del libro es Primer curso de amor… La parte donde entra la estatua recoge muchos temas neoyorquinos, y se cuenta la historia de un millonario excéntrico que vive escondido en el brazo de la Estatua de la Libertad.

 

Eduardo Rodríguez Solís (D.F.) ha publicado libros de teatro, cuento y novela. Fue el primer editor de la revista Mester, del Taller de Juan José Arreola. Su cuento San Simón de los Magueyes ha sido premiado y llevado al cine por Alejandro Galindo, con guión de Carlos Bracho. Su obra de teatro Las ondas de la Catrina ha sido representada en muchos países, así como en Broadway, New York. Actualmente vive y trabaja en Houston, Texas. (erivera1456@yahoo.com)

BERLIN: MONSTER OF MODERNITY

If Paris earned the title of “Capital of Modernity,” the city of Berlin in the mid-twenties could have been labeled “Monster of Modernity,” an avant-garde Charybdis, so to speak. Not only a functional architecture became the mark of the city, but also chaos, speed and noises played a special role in the configuration of its identity. “The incessant movement of Berlin was the embodiment of hypermodern urbanity,” says Brian Ladd in his book The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape, along with a mixture of neon lighting, advertising, heavy traffic and polished window-panes. Even a character like Franz Biberkopf, who inhabited the underworld, felt smashed by the mechanics of the street when he got out of jail in 1928, as described in the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin. He got swallowed by visual effects, so he had to learn to apprehend the new psychology and the spirit of the city. Berlin’s “discourse of purity” seemed concerned with the appearance of glass, hygiene and transparency, in connection with other issues like public and private spaces, as well as nakedness and fashion within the city. As Nicole Shea argues, “By the mid-twenties, Berlin had everything that one expected of a glamorous and sexy metropolis” (31).

The female body happened to be one of the most fashionable/functional objects in Berlin. Women were employed in advertising (culture of the future) and the surface culture. The idea of women as sexual symbols is addressed in Döblin’s book as well as in Phil Jutzi’s cinematographic version of it. Women played the game of make-believe, by offering themselves as objects of desire. Men also turned into objects manipulated by the city, and they had to either adapt to the new urban rules or succumb within them. Biberkopf, for example, wanted to live a decent life, but he could not do it because his surroundings seemed stronger than he was. He was absorbed, trapped into a spider web. Biberkopf became a part of the milling architecture of the German society. After losing his right arm, he went back to prohibited places. The city made people involved in an aggressive action-reaction pastime. Trash and violence appeared to be legitimate components of industrialization, and they were exposed through the ornamented façades and transparent walls.

References

Shea, Nicole. The Politics of Prostitution in Berlin Alexanderplatz. Studies in Modern German Literature Vol. 110. Bern: Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, 2007.

 Ladd, Brian. The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997: 28.

MEDELLÍN & BOGOTÁ

     The transformation of Medellín and Bogotá is, in my opinion, a valuable example of how theories of human and social development can actually be brought into practice. Considered the “deadliest city in the world,” Medellín was once crowded with violent people as a natural consequence of the high levels of drug trafficking. In recent years, however, murder and kidnapping have been reduced considerably as the government’s spending on educational opportunities has increased. Mayors of both cities have developed efficient plans to reconfigure/improve the public space, pedestrian zones, and the coverage of domestic services, among other strategies. Enrique Peñalosa, who served as a mayor of Bogotá from 1998 until 2001, was considered a hero. He dedicated himself to carry out the construction and maintenance of roads as well as the design of a more well-organized transportation system and an educational campaign. In an attempt to make Bogotá a model of urban renewal, Peñalosa took on a creative operation or “the economics of happiness,” establishing the Día sin Carro and trying to infuse a new optimistic aura to the process of revitalization of the city.

     Architecture, on the other hand, played an important role in the social and urban restoration of Medellín. As described in the novel La Virgen de los Sicarios by Fernando Vallejo, the city had become a dangerous place with constant assaults and assassinations. The youths were ready to shoot one another for whatever reasons: whistling, discussions, misunderstandings in the streets. Both Vallejo’s novel and Barbet Schroeder’s movie, inspired by the book, are impregnated by a distressing feeling of hopelessness, as if the city’s desperate situation were a permanent curse. And the situation did change, though. Through a new method of doing politics, Sergio Fajardo grew to be regarded as the city’s most popular mayor. He increased government spending on education, public space, and the designs of beautiful architectural projects within the poorest neighborhoods. Great opportunities altered the course and the “curse.” Architecture impacted urban planning and transformed into a vehicle for bettering society. The rate of homicides decreased as a long stream of libraries, schools, parks and other educational and recreational places were created. It seems that hope, after all, does exist, and it has been rightly installed in the minds of the Colombian people.

BERLIN AFTER 1989

In accordance with the memorial urgencies of the 1990s, Berlin felt in need to deal with its Nazi and communist past. The city became a site with an irregular, discontinuous history pervaded with collapses, confrontations, shameful events, and the impossibility to find an accurate method to acknowledge and address those issues within the plans of reconstruction of the city. Upon the fall of the Berlin Wall, old time memories blended in an intermittent space filled with joy, pain and uncertainty for the future. In the German movie Goodbye Lenin! that gives a panorama of how capitalism came to East Berlin after the fall of the Wall, for instance, we see that, at some point, Alex Kerner spends a great amount of time searching for bottles displaying old communist labels. Alex uses the bottles for storing pickles from Holland, which may offer a symbolic reading of the architectural/political process of reconstruction that took place in East Berlin, trying to offer content and the new image of the city somehow respecting traditional structures.  Histories and imaginary architectures built a culture of disappearance in the city, with shadows of the victims from the Holocaust and the shattered socialist dreams. The plans to rebuild important places seemed concerned with constructing an image that would help to alleviate uncomfortable memories, and yet major buildings still managed to permeate Berlin with the aura of the past.

How to represent an agonizing past without trivializing the German crimes against the Jews? How to convey collective guilt, mass murder? Daniel Libeskind’s project to reconstruct the Jewish Museum in Berlin articulated the human relationship with memory, inevitably packed with voids, a broken link that would translate into a searching-for-meaning architecture. The “empty” –sometimes inaccessible- spaces were to be filled, if at all, with silences and people’s imaginations. Although Libeskind tried to make visitors experience the Jewish Museum as though they were experiencing history itself, his architectural designs couldn’t escape from the realms of representation.  (Representation inevitably refers to the notion of interpreting, mediating as well as manipulating conditions, documents, feelings, and events). So, how can we experience compassion and humbleness in a space that has been “prepared” beforehand to make the public feel that way? Does the Jewish Museum really show respect or an image of it? Maybe, Libeskind did not need to “represent” the trauma of the guilt in the Jewish Museum, which became merely a tourist attraction. Even if Berlin developed into a high-tech product after 1989, memories of suffering and affliction would always haunt the city.

THE REBUILDING OF CAIRO

The rebuilding of Cairo was conceived not only as a means of urban reconstruction but as a principle of military? order to be represented and inscribed in people’s lives. The process of modernization was developed through a framing technique (“new order”) that involved surveillance, disciplinary control, and the reconstruction of villages that worked as containers for human beings, objects and functions. People were controlled, collected, and classified according to distinctions and categories to create an artificial, yet believable sense of harmony. The process of restructuring became a never ending, asphyxiating machine that rested upon the idea of seeing the world as an exhibition, a performance with suspicious scenery, producing an effect apart from reality. 

The city and the world were beautifully interpenetrated, creating an imaginary structure (nurtured from real and fictional realms) that forced the viewers/performers to experience their surroundings as a picture or a painting. The space of the real developed into a representational space. In the new dimension of Cairo, there was a continuity of order, modes of government and ways of understanding the social totality. Elite micro-collectives were protected and “gated.” The memory of the city was resurrected through a process of cultural heritization that focused on rescuing the “belle époque’s legacy,” mainly in sites dedicated to tourism. Such sites were considered places for generating income and promoting images of the city as a modern-state, with high quality of life, creativity, safeguarding, commercial architecture, and surveillance to the extent that the mere concept of tourism ended up being seen as a way for cultural preservation.