BURO MOCT - 02 - Memory

BURO MOCT winter 2010-11 memory

CONTENT

01. MEMORY - DIALOG-ESSAY ON MEMORY - PLACES+SPACES - 10-MINUTE MEMORY SERIES 02. PHENOMENOLOGY AND THE CITY - DIALOG-ESSAY ON THE CITY - CITY MEMORY GAME - IN SEARCH OF HORIZON: SKETCH DIALOG ON THE CITY

BURO MOCT (pronounced ‘mohst’, russian for ‘bridge’) is a collaboration between hus-band and wife architects – Christopher Wolf and Masha Safina. The architects, raised on either side of the Pacific Ocean, Seattle and Vladivostok, now reside on the inland sea of Lake Michigan in Chicago.BURO MOCT newsletter began with the goal to regularly summarize the collective thinking, work and writing of the duo, and to articulate their architectural and social values and ideas

The newsletter is meant to strengthen the internal dialog of the pair while projecting it onto the local community with the aspiration to make a contribution. It is not meant to blog, collect or process, but to source, create and propose. It is intended to focus on a particular project or topic at a time.

02

MEMORY - DIALOG-ESSAY

…’I am convinced that a good building must be capable of absorbing the traces of human life and thus of taking on a specific richness.

Naturally, in this context I think of the patina of age on materials, of innumerable small scratches on surfaces, of varnish that has grown dull and brittle, and of edges polished by use. But when I close my eyes and try to forget both these physical traces and my own first associations, what remains is a different impression, a deeper feeling – a consciousness of time passing and an awareness of the hu-man lives that have been acted out in these places and rooms and charged them with a special aura. At these moments, architecture’s aesthetic and practical values, stylistic and historical significance are of secondary importance. What matters now is only this feeling of deep melancholy. Architecture is exposed to life. If its body is sensitive enough, it can assume a quality that bears witness to the reality of past life.’1

This issue on memory is our exploration on the subject of phenomenology in architecture as we search for alternative methodologies to investigate all the different senses that we as human beings are granted.

The dominance of the eye in today’s world of design is leading to certain pathology of senses: the emphasis on the image. ‘However, it has left other senses, as well as our memory, imagination and dreams homeless….The dominance of the eye and the suppression of the other senses tend to push us into detachment, isolation and exteriority. The art of the eye has certainly produced impos-ing and thought-provoking structures, but it has not facilitated human rootedness in the world. 2

It is a careful observation of the technological world of today and resonates with the pathological one-sidedness of architectural production and representation that depends totally on the image. The experiential and sensory is overlooked and forgotten. In fact, various art forms explore image as an original stimuli. As much as those explorations reflect the modern world and technology, and attempt to criticize them, on occasion, in the end they fall victim to the trend that is flat and alien-ated from the nature of human being.

We would like to focus on the role and significance of memory to help us remember who we are and who we can become. 1 Peter Zumthor. Thinking Architecture. Birkhauser, Second Edition, 2006. P.24-252 Juhani Pallasmaa. The eyes of the skin. Architecture and the Senses.Wiley, 2005. P.19

ms: Memories of childhood, not conscious, but based on sensory memories of taste, smell and texture are some of the strongest memories I have. I grew to learn that they are also some of my stron-gest architectural experiences. The images and emotions that some spaces and places generate in my memory are very specific but ambiguous at the same time. Looked at in terms of architecture, the ambiguity is what distinguishes a metaphorical use of the past from the adoption of a historical style.3

Perhaps, there is a direct link between the sense of place and our memory. In other words, we tend to retain memories of spaces that give us a strong sense of place. A key factor in distinguishing place from space is the ability for humans to interact. This provides occupants with a feeling of belong-ing to the environment, instead of just “passing through it.

The connection between the process of building and the power of place is quite profound. Those methods of construction that involve multiple senses – touch, smell, sound - seem to generate a greater effect then an assembly of prefabricated elements. It is a similar effect to buying produce at the grocery store – not knowing where this tomato

came from – and buying it at the local market. The more senses are involved in the process the deep-er is our perception and response.

cw: Perhaps the “age” of a building has nothing to do with when it was built, or the style in which it was created, but with the human memories that can be felt in its presence.

To me, no other construction technique or mate-rial conjures a sense of history more than brick masonry. When I come upon a brick building, I don’t see a mass or a style, but a history of con-struction. The act of laying up a wall, one brick at a time becomes a way to understand the build-ing. The size of the brick is a perfect indication of its potential, one hand sets the mortar while the other grabs the brick. I think about the craftsman who did this work, their origins, their families and legacies. For me this all gets built into the fabric of the building. A brick building is a tapestry of memories of the people who built it as the city is a great library of human histories woven into its physical presence. There is a palpable sense of humanity in the world’s cities, perhaps that is why I love them. In the country of course, you have a better understanding of nature, but in the city, you understand people.

It’s amazing to think that all human knowledge is carried within the memories of 4 human gen-erations. Each generation re-learns, modifies, and adds to the library of knowledge and experi-ence. There is a commitment to history through memory that perhaps defines us as human and separates us from other animals.

ms: If the building is capable of communicating the past, present and future, if through its careful positioning on the site we can sense the effect of generations of structures that stood there before and the presence of people that have used them, it then disconnects from its own aesthetics and functionality and attains ‘the power to inspire and transform our day-to-day existence’.4

3 Richard MacCormac, Architecture, memory and meta-phor, Architectural Review, November 1996.

4 Steven Holl. Questions of Perception. Phenomenology of Architecture. 2006, a+u Publishing Co.Ltd.,P.40

FOREWORD

01

Tadao Ando, Water Temple.

Getting to the remote island of Awaji in the in-land sea of Japan, takes a train ride from Osaka to Shin-Kobe, followed by a long trip on the bus. As the bus rolls across the long suspended Awaji Bridge leaving behind the bustle of the metropo-lis, you begin to feel detached, and content. The island is remote and quiet. Getting there shortly before the sunset, you feel the sense of calm even more profoundly: fields are empty from workers taking their before-dinner baths, kids are back from school, and everyone is at rest. After climbing a gentle hill past the local cemetery and a priest house, you enter the shrine grounds along a crisp white wall, gravel crunching beneath your feet. The August sky is spotless and you feel the relief of the evening in everything: the tired bare sky, the shadows on the gravel, and the closing water lilies in the pool.

Descending the stair through the calm waters you wonder, you are seduced and uneasy. The tran-quility of the place is almost frightening. The build-ing is empty. There is no one to greet you or give you a ticket. There is no trace of humanity under-neath the ground, - only a still statue of Buddha. The glow of the descending sun is forceful and gentle at the same time, filtering through bright red lattice. The power of this desolate temple on the remote hill of a distant island still resonates loudly in my ears: the power of emptiness, the piercing sound of silence. (ms)

Louis Kahn, Salk Institute.

The radiance and purity of the light on the west coast of the US makes everything look like as if shot with 60s color film – the intensity of color is almost artificial. You have to experience it; feel it yourself – with your bare skin, through the blinds of your eyelashes.

Driving north from San Diego through the land-scape of concentrated colors, your senses are tuned to high volume and it is very unlikely for you to dose off. La Jolla shores welcome you with salty breeze and ardent cries of sea birds. The aromas of eucalyptus and pines slowly add to the mix and when you enter the spacious courtyard of the Salk Institute, you are ready to take in the transforma-tion of light.

That is exactly what is happening here – from the blinding openness of travertine paved courtyard, to the sharp shadows of concrete walls rhythmically leading you along the research wings, to the cool filtered light of light wells. The pinkish color of bare pozzuolanic concrete is glowing in the midday sun adding a luminous cloud around two mirror-image structures. Unfinished teak walls of study towers work in a tranquil counterbalance to the powerful composition. Mila’s tiny feet hurry tirelessly across the courtyard, towards the edge, where the sky merges with the ocean beyond a breathtaking coastal landscape. Watching the paragliders in a distance adds a sense of weightlessness to the whole experience, as if the complex with its heavy concrete walls has been lifted off the ground; if only in a happy blur of your imagination. (ms)

Rain Shelter.

Some of my strongest memories of space have to do with rain, more specifically being sheltered from the rain. Just the other day I was caught in a downpour:

Waiting for the shower to pass

under a threshold.

The world is on stage, passing by

and then, proceed on your way

continue the act

after a brief interlude of reflection

As a child, waiting for the bus under what I remem-ber to be a large cedar tree, its cover much more protective than the smaller trees around it. When the rain would penetrate the interior of that tree, you really knew it was pouring outside. I recall the rain in Florence, Italy with its many arcades and courtyards, providing many opportunities to stay dry and explore, but also the slippery stone un-derfoot and my feet being soaked through my new and quite cherished Italian shoes. Chicago is a great city for rain, and I’ve been caught in a downpour, unable to find relief, several times. I’ve passed a shower at a bus stop, where you get wet from below as the water sprays violently from the sidewalk under the glass walls of the shelter. I’ve also held prospect over the rain, with my family un-der the eaves of St. Michaels. All these compelling memories of rain, I can deduce a few reasons that these memories about rain are so striking for me. Rain engages your senses, perhaps more so than sunshine. At first, your uncomfortable with being wet, your clothes stick to you, your perspective changes; you must look down, the rain attacks your face and you don’t want to fall on the slip-pery ground. The rain focuses your attention to the destination; the world falls away a little. You are re-lieved to get out of the rain and your perspective lifts again. You see how beautiful the rain is, and how it has altered the landscape. The rain muffles the world, and the activities that take place in a rainy world seem isolated and set upon a stage. In Chicago, the heavy rain usually comes in the sum-mer, and you have the smell of rain, the fresh smell of wet earth and trees, the slightly cooler breeze of a humid day just before the downpour. The rain actively changes the environment, and your rela-tionship with it through a complete engagement of your senses. (cw)

MEMORY - DIALOG-ESSAY

SPACES THAT INSPIRE

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‘When I think about architecture, images come into my mind. Many of these images are connected

with my training and work as an architect… Some of the other images have to do with my child-

hood. There was a time when I experienced architecture without thinking about it…Memories like this

contain the deepest architectural experience that I know. They are the reservoirs of the architectural

atmospheres and images that I explore in my work as an architect…

When I design a building, I frequently find myself sinking into old, half-forgotten memories, and I try to

recollect what the remembered architectural situation was really like, what it had meant to me at the

time, and I try to think how it could help me now to revive that vibrant atmosphere pervaded by the

simple presence of things, in which everything had its own specific place and form. And although I

cannot trace any special forms, there is a hint of fullness and of richness that makes me think: this I

have seen before, Yet, at the same time, I know that it is all new and different, and there is no direct rel-

evance to a former work of architecture which might divulge the secret of the memory-laden mood.’

PLACES+SPACES - 10-MINUTE MEMORY SERIES

Peter Zumthor. Thinking Architecture. Birkhauser, Second Edition, 2006. P7-8

The 10-minute memory series derives from the notion of mining the depth of my memory from the sensory point of view rather then analytical.

The senses captured here are deep into my psyche, but can be brought to the surface within a limited pe-riod of time because of their sensory richness. (ms)

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lunch in the apple gardenmy grandparent’s summer cottage (da-cha) by omsk city in siberia was tiny even from my ‘little girl’ perspective. the only part of the house that I remember clearly from my two visits is a dining table set right outside the kitchen window, through which my grandma would pass food for lunch from the kitchen. my aunt would bring herbs from the garden for a salad and blackcurrant and mint leaves to brew tea with. a very familiar idea of merging inside and outside was at work there with very simple means – a window sill eleva-tion was at the same height as a dining table set outside. a space emerged at the edge of two worlds, at the boundary of defined and infinite.

summer shackit was in the summer before my little sis-ter was born…my parents were renting a little place in the suburbs of Vladivostok, in walking distance from the beach, by the railroad. the place must have been really small, as that was how it appeared to me even at the age of four. what was conflicting with the size of it was a very tall bed where my parents slept – so tall, I could not even see the top of it, le alone climb upon it. The bed must have been sitting on top of some sort of storage and was separated from my bed by the win-dow and (again)a disproportionably large stove. that contradiction and exaggera-tion of scales, in my mind, gave the place a special, magic quality.

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‘under the pear tree’ playgroundthere was nothing special about that play-ground – no swings, no climbing gear. but we used to like to play there. In spring, it would abound with pear tree flowers; in the summer, large pear trees would offer shade and we would build ‘houses’ with blankets in-between their branches. In the fall, the whole place would envelope in an aroma of ripe wild pears; they would fall on the ground and get smashed under our feet. In winter, we would bring sleighs to go down the steep slope above the trees; and during all the seasons there would be laugh and noise coming from across the fence, at the edge of the pear garden, where daycare grounds were sit-uated. the landscape boundaries of that playground somehow worked to create a special protected space for us to play and still remain in a sensory memory of my childhood.

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kindergarten

car garages

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car lights showhere is a layout of the first apartment my family shared in a five-story walk-up build-ing (‘khrusshyov style’ they were called). we lived in the unit on the fifth floor, which overlooked the road – three roads to be exact, railway and the ocean. and a small marina. my most vivid memory of that home of ours is the road noise com-ing through the windows. at night, my bedroom was ‘activated’ by an impres-sive light show – reflections of car lights on the ceiling of my room. i remember very clearly watching those light patterns bouncing against uneven surface of plas-ter ceiling…quickly moving across its surface. my favorite ‘game’ was to guess which one was that of a motorcycle.

bathroom windowone small detail comes to mind when I think of that apartment. there was a win-dow between bathroom and kitchen, a clerestory of sort, and it created a special effect much bigger and significant then the size or the character of the window itself. the window was very high; to see through it you had to climb a chair placed in the bathtub…a playful and mysterious event. it did, of course, let the light through into the bathroom, but also, it provided a connection between the most private and the most public spaces in the apartment – this fact made it very attractive.

my bed

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bathroom window


‘children’s palace’ - the texture of the placewhat is the first thing I remember about a place I spent so many hours of my child-hood at (while attending a dance stu-dio)?..- its rough, exposed aggregate con-crete walls…there were sparkly things in it – quarts perhaps…many little elbows got damaged against those walls – not a very smart choice of material for a children’s center, but definitely the first spatial-sen-sory memory that comes to my mind. And the floors were slippery, - especially for dancers in our tap shoes – marble floors. and there was light, lots of it, in the inner courtyards, coming through the pyramid-shaped skylights. the building was a little out of place for Vladivostok climate – cold in the winter. but spatially it was great for kids, with its multiple levels opening one onto another. We played countless hide-and-seek games there, and before my practice I liked sitting on a stone planter underneath the skylight, watching people going around the courtyards, on multiple levels.

plan-diagram of the children’s palace

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PROPOSAL FOR COLLABORATIVE SCENOGRAPHY FOR DANCE WORKS CHICAGO

Dance, space, architecture: it is clearly not a relationship based only on shapes and lines. Japanese Noh theatre separates, in a ritualized manner, the world of death and the world of life, through spaces filled with white sand linked by a diagonal bridge, upon which the Noh danc-ers – themselves a bridge between the world of the dead and the world of the living – have to walk in order to reach the actual perfor-mance area. Says Japanese architect Kengo Kuma: “This space of separation is extremely important in Japanese architecture…In dance this void can be used to signify both space and time.”

CONCEPT 1: intervention into a conventional dance theater

It is often said that dance and architecture share the same concern, that of space; both bodies in move-ment and the architectural built environment manipulate space. The concept of space is complex and multilayered. The space which dance and architecture claim to share is not only physical. In architecture we generally construct boundaries that are fixed. How can we challenge the appar-ent inevitability of that? At the same time, the way we occupy most spaces are completely predictable – should that always be the case? Most movements on the stage are performed in relationship and engaging the ground plane – the floor. That is only natural, as it is defined by gravity. The side planes are usually not lit and disappear, so the most prominent planes that define the movement of the dancer(s) are the bottom and the back. If an upper plane is brought into play and space on the stage becomes more compressed, how would that affect the dancers and choreography? If one of the side planes is transferred into a ‘back’ - how would that change the perception of a standard black box theater?

theme: manipulation of space location: Ruth Page theater stagescenography: architectural intervention in a dance theater that would explore an uncommon dimension of theater space both physically and conceptuallychoreography: to search for exploration of alternative dimension in a traditional performance space; it is to challenge the perception of space, both physical and conceptual

traditional hierarchy of boundaries of performance space

manipulations

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PROPOSAL FOR COLLABORATIVE SCENOGRAPHY FOR DANCE WORKS CHICAGO

‘The objects which surround my body reflect its possible action upon them.’ (Henri Bergson. Matter and Memory, Zone Books (New York), 1991, p 21)

CONCEPT 2: existing architectural site as potential dance performance venue

alternative 1:Spaces are meant to be occupied. They gain meaning from being inhabited. What happens to the space if it never gets populated or becomes abandoned? Buildings carry within their walls memories and traces of former life. How can we revive those memories and make them influence the destiny of the building/structure?

theme: memory location: to be determined – currently unoccupied or underutilized building(s) or structure(s) in the city of Chicago; for example, old Chicago Post Office scenography: architectural intervention is to be developed for the specific location(s) that would explore the possibilities of fusion of context (space) and content (dance) to investigate how the space can be transformed by the way that it is occupied. choreography: to be site specific and respond to the space in a way that would engage the memories associated with that space

These may become a series of performances that memorialize certain events that are related to selected locations, as another layer of the concept.

alternative 2:theme: memory location: to be determined – three architectural spaces that trace different historical and stylistic periods from classical to modern and contemporary; for example: Rookery Building, IBM Tower, Spertus Institute Building. scenography: architectural intervention to make a performance possible in an unconventional performance locationchoreography: a series of explorations to reflect on the stylistic characteristics and diversities of the selected venues. It could involve investigation of certain social issues in relation to ‘memory’ of those periods. For instance, if those were houses from three different periods, the choreography could explore the changing position of women in society in a similar manner as domestic architecture has been changing to accommodate that evolution (size and location of kitchen etc.)

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PHENOMENOLOGY AND THE CITY

Some cities can be described by its places/spaces that possess strong presence and define the character of the city. Others, particularly contemporary cities, are experienced by connecting physi-cally and mentally the fragments of urban fabric. New methods and tools are needed to describe, map and analyze these ‘experiential cities’ that could inform future urban planning methods of the ubiquitous urban environment. Urban public space can no longer be defined and aestheticized by static objects like houses and squares. The emphasis is put on structuring a space in ‘open’ terms as a product of social, economic and political processes. Space (public or private) is a field of action in which countless spatial patterns - material and immaterial - overlap.

Urban social space consists of a combination of various interrelated things such as social events, symbols, and people’s memories of the place. If architecture fails to reexamine itself in this context it restricts its own field of action and reduces itself to the design of individual objects, to the smooth administration of space and to being a commercial service.

Finding new ways to analyze the city in these terms could point out solutions to the fragmented (ubiquitous) city of our present.

Spatial City vs Experiential City

‘The contemporary city is increasingly the city of the eye, detached from the body by rapid motor-ized movement, or through the overall aerial grasp from an airplane. The processes of planning have favored the idealism and disembodied Cartesian eye of control and detachment; city plans are highly idealized and schematized vision seen through le regard surplombant (the look from above), as defined by Jean Starobinski, or through ‘the mind’s eye’ of Plato.’ 6

6 Juhani Pallasmaa. The eyes of the skin. Architecture and the Senses.Wiley, 2005. P.29

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cw:I would like to talk a little bit about Chicago; some impressions of the city and how it compares to other cities. You often hear Chicago described as a “city of neighbor-hoods.” I always thought that was quite a bland description, and more importantly not really true! Chicago is no more a city of neighborhoods than Seattle, which is where I am from, or countless other American Cities. To me, Chicago is much better understood as a city of streets, and these streets set up certain spatial and experiential conditions that give one an impression of the city. The streets of Chicago run through neighborhoods and connect them. I think that the neighborhoods are better described as strung along the streets like beads on a necklace, with indeterminate city infrastructure and fabric filling the gaps between the more defined cores of neighbor-hoods. The city seems to be defined by the experience of traveling: either on street, el-evated train, or freeway. The street grid is the underlying organizer of the city, but is crossed by major diagonal streets and elevated trains. Chicago, city of streets: Halsted, Ashland, Division, Devon; the diagonal streets, Clark, Lincoln, Milwaukee, Ogden and Blue Island - each of these names conjures different memories, emotions, impressions. The nature of the street grid in which every fourth street becomes a major street, overlaid with the diagonal streets and the boulevard system gives the city intersection conditions that vary from the pedestrian to the monumental. The intersections become nodes for neighborhood definition and activity. The flatness of the ge-ography and the massive length of nearly all streets allows for a street such as Halsted to pass through 10 or so distinct neighborhoods within the city. The width of the common street is very great in Chicago, which adds to their ability to define the city, but also separate dif-ferent parts of the city from one another. The “other side of the street” can be an awfully big proposition in Chicago. The streets connect, but also separate.

Lake shore drive - the edge of the city; between the horizon and the city. Chicago confronts the horizon in two ways. The first is a wall of building that defines a vertical cliff, an edge. The second is a high speed motorway that skirts the space of the horizon (lake) and the vertical city.Chicago is not really a city defined by space. There is no central space to the city; the downtown is even called by the term “loop”, defined by the trains that circle it. The experi-ences of the inhabitants are less spatial then experiential. Not I was “here”, but I did “this” and “that”, I went “this way”. Newberry Park seems an anomaly in the city because it is this very spatial park within the dense city, like a New York park in Chicago…our major parks, Lincoln, Grant, Jackson are at the edge, again…not within, but between - between the city and the horizon.Since the streets in Chicago carry so much importance, they should be able to do more than carry cars and busses throughout the city.

Perhaps sports have become so important to American culture because of the need for people to be engaged in public space. Churches are the only other large space to really accomodate a community.

ms:When talking about the idea of ‘city memory game’, we discussed how in Chicago it is very difficult to describe a space, an area of the city. Most descriptions of the city involve movement through the city versus specific places. The areas of the city are described more often as intersection of streets (Clark and Division, North and Wells) rather than ‘such and such park, pla-za or neighborhood’. This constitutes what we began to describe as ‘experiential city’, a city based on the experience of moving through.

The significance of streets in Chicago comes from various geographic, historical and eco-nomical processes behind the development

of the city. The prominence of the ‘grid’ makes streets a major medium of experience of the city. But streets are not only arteries and a background field that supports the ‘experiential movement’, but also major dividers between neighborhoods and districts. Such contradictory nature of streets in Chicago together with the significance of them as a major constituent of the city suggests several topics for investiga-tion:

- ‘stitching streets’ versus ‘divider streets’ – what are the main boundary streets and the main unifying arteries in Chicago?- streets as moving arteries through neigh-borhoods – which streets connect the most neighborhoods and what kind of potential does it give them- amount of city that is accessible to us – a combination of street-neighborhood analysis - memories of ‘vanished’ streets: i.e. Ogden in Old Town Triangle

What I am curious about, is understanding if the experiential character of the city comes pre-dominantly from modernization…or if it could be a product of other processes. For instance, are all newer cities essentially ‘experiential, nodal’? Or are there ‘spatial cities’ among those? What part do geographic features play in the charac-ter of the city?

DIALOG-ESSAY

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CHICAGO STREET STUDY - LOCAL STREET

PHENOMENOLOGY AND THE CITY 13

Existing Condition 1/2 mile x 1/2 mile typical Chicago grid

5-year Plan - 1st Step of Intervention: 1 (one) pedestrian street (A) and 4 (four) mixed function streets (B) per 1/2 mile x 1/2 mile

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A - reinvention of street as public space; no vehicular traffic pedestrian street; 1 unit per 1/2 mile x 1/2 mile

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50-year Plan - Conglomeration: Conglomeration of pedestrian and mixed function streets into a system of public space and traffic integration districts

You would never guess that Chicago was built for something other than the car, because it is perfectly suited for it. The width of the streets from local to arterial and the redundancy of the grid make the car a dominant element of Chicago street life. The Chicago grid in its overriding redundancy becomes stifling at some point. Often are not the diagonal streets or boulevards of Chicago listed as the favor-ite streets of Chicagoans? We don’t need all these streets facing the same direction with the same function. This set of ideas is a way to break

the monotony of the system and introduce some other planning objectives to the city, objectives that don’t rely on the convenience of automobile trans-portation. After all, the car has only been around for 100 years or so, it is by no means a given fact for the future, and we think it is worth exploration for the idea of abandoning or drastically reducing its function within the city. In the middle of this century, neighborhoods were cleared for the construction of expressways; perhaps it is time to clear the expressways for construction of neighborhoods.

As a response to the experiential city, here is a set of ideas that introduces spatial experience to Chi-cago. As the streets are such a dominant force in the city, and also occupy so much actual “space”, we propose to use them in simple but powerful ways to transform the fabric of the city. Rather than clearing areas to make “piazzas” or “parks” or town greens, types of spaces that are known, but not totally relevant to the city life of Chicago, we propose to use the street space as a new Chicago public space.

B B

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B - multifunctional street: pedestrian and vehicular traffic are integrated; 4 units per 1/2 mile x 1/2 mile

These studies on the potential uses for streets in Chicago derive from the simple observation of the scale of streets and infrastructure in Chicago. Since I have lived here, the immense scale of the streets and buildings has struck me as perhaps the most dominant physical characteristic of Chicago. It truly is a city of big shoulders, and these wide streets accommodate them. It’s not just that there are big streets, it’s that they repeat at such a regular interval. I can walk quite easily from Chicago Ave.,

to Division St., to North ave., and these are all major streets, functioning in the same way. The arterial street study addresses this redundancy by proposing several different options for the major streets that occur every ½ mile.

The local street study examines the possibility of modifying the common block layout to explore mixed function streets within the neighborhoods and, perhaps, rich unexpected spatial environ-

ments through the combination of pedestrian, ve-hicular and recreational activities. By combining the elements of life in the city, not segregating them, we fulfill the potential of a street as a space, not merely a road to accommodate vehicles.

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CHICAGO STREET STUDY - ARTERIAL STREET

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Wind-Break Solution

Minor Edge Intervention Parking lanes are replaced with dedicated bike lanes and enhanced sidewalk

Major Edge Intervention Edges expand to include plazas as well as dedicated bike lanes and express bus routes

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Major Edge Intervention Edges expand to include plazas, dedicated bike lanes and recreational areas

Intermediate Center Intervention Center of street is developed to include plazas, retail areas and park space

Intermediate Center Intervention Center of street is developed with emphasis on transportation including dedicated bicycle lanes and express bus routes

Major Intervention The street is re-thought of as an urban condi-tion, complete with housing, transportation and vehicular routes, pedestrian and bicycle areas alongside recreation, park and gardening spaces

CHICAGO STREET STUDY - ARTERIAL STREET

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OGDEN AVENUE - ‘VANISHED STREET AND ITS IMPACT ON THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

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Old Town Related to our study on the street grid in Chicago, here is a map and photo sketch of the neighbor-hood we live in, Old Town. Old Town offers some examples of neighborhood characteristics that we sought to introduce into the street grid study. In fact, Old Town used to have a major street running through it that was blocked off in 1967 - Ogden Av-enue. What has filled in for the former street; town homes, pedestrian walkways, pocket parks and playgrounds add to the charm and livability of Old

Town. Other spatial and formal conditions make it attractive as a model for neighborhood planning. Old Town’s streets are narrower than most Chicago streets, and the grid does not hold precedent over the neighborhood order. Many side streets are not continuous through the neighborhood, they stop, bend or don’t line up, traffic speed is reduced and a ‘slowness’ to neighborhood life permeates the area. The architectural scale throughout the neigh-borhood is varied and multi-stylistic. Town homes, mansions, walk-ups, Victorians, and

apartments all vie for attention along the street and provide interest for the visitor. The Landmark of St. Michael’s spire, which can be seen from all corners of the neighborhood is the dominant image of Old Town and gives its residents a sense of place and identity. We certainty don’t mean to infer that this traditional and quaint idea of neighborhood is the preferred or only option to viable neighborhoods, but there are some lessons to be learned from Old Town. By defying the grid, blocking it, infilling it and building within it, rich spatial opportunities can be mined to the benefit of neighborhood inhabitants.


PUBLIC SPACES ALONG FORMER OGDEN RIGHT OF WAY

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CITY MEMORY GAME

The game is about the many and unexpected events and personal memories that make up a city. The objective is to augment the approach of designers and the community in general to the subject of urban planning, and suggest alternate solutions based on notions of play. The City Memory Game as idea incubator for urban improvement. The collection of rich urban conditions from the design community of a certain place becomes a catalog of ideas to be used as an idea generator for challeng-ing urban conditions.

- a city is a collection of spatial and experiential fragments and episodes- these episodes dwell in the minds and memories of the city’s residents- what is your most memorable place/spatial condition/experience in the city?- the design community is asked to answer this question in form of a sketch, drawing, photograph, etc. - the goal is to construct a ‘catalog of memories’ or ‘city memory game’ that represents rich sensory experiences of the city- the next step is to introduce this ‘memory game’ to the broader community as a guide, inspiration, or catalog of recipes as basis for discussion and action- the game users would filter the memories, possibly add their own and apply the ideas derived from them to improve challenging urban conditions

It was an extremely humid summer day, the air was heavy and warm. We were scheduled to play volleyball at the beach, however the impending thunder storm cancelled the game. We weren’t going to let the cancelled game cancel our beer afterwards, however, so we went looking for a pint. As the clouds grew increasingly dark we found an interesting spot. Outside, there was a wooden bench wedged between a wood fence and a picnic table. A large tree interrupted the table, which continued on the other side, as if the picnic table was built around the tree. You could sit on the bench and lean back against the fence, it was very comfortable, and you felt secure. Of course, this was also a great place to people watch as the whole of the outdoor bar patio and the street were in front of you. Sure enough, the rain came barreling in, and it was a downpour. The dense leaves of the tree, however, provided a temporary reprieve from the onslaught of water. We could finish our beers, and decide how to move on. While everyone else in the bar and on the street were scram-bling for shelter, we enjoyed the last of our beer until the water soaked leaves could hold no more and began to drip with the force of the rain.

It was an early summer evening... We walked several miles along one of the city main east-west arterial streets to the lake shore. There, on a concrete bankment, an abrupt and rough edge of lake Michigan, where the city comes to an end and to a beginning, we watched. We watched a moonrise. And we watched the horizon. Chicago, stretched along this powerful edge, is an open-ended city. The city that is constantly reaching into a distant horizon, never to be attained. City terminates here, at the lake and it also flows here - into a continium. Other cities have urban vistas and plazas that are their focus, in Chicago, the vista is an unreachable line.

Christopher Wolf

Masha Safina

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20CITY MEMORY GAME

I am most struck by those rare moments when it seems I have the city to myself. I am not sure if its just the unusualness of the moment or because I grew up in a rural place and part of me misses that.One particular moment was an early morning train ride. I got on the last car which was empty and it remained empty for the entire above ground trip. I stood in the very center of the car, hung on with both hands and watched out the back window. The view is normally so obstructed or I am so surrounded by people that all my concentration is focused on going inside myself, ignoring sounds and smells and the close proximity to strangers. With the train car to myself, I felt like I was flying, sailing or surfing through the city and I was powering the train myself.

I would like to thank the artist, for providing me with a daily dose of perspective as I traveled southbound on Kedzie Avenue each day.

The artwork has since been erased by an austere patch of bright white paint. When I pass by, its absence evokes its memory, and its optimism.

Nell Westerlund

Lisa Korpan

IN PURSUIT OF HORIZON - SKETCH-DIALOG ON THE CITY

Tokyo – hidden horizonOn one bright clear day in October, after four or so years of living in Tokyo I set out to find it – find a horizon in this maze-like city. If you go to the city edges or adjacent parts of the metropolis – port of Yokohama or volcanic sands of Enoshima, you can usually distinguish it – right there, a line that traces a vague border between water and the sky. However, within the boundaries of Yamanote line looking for a hori-zon turns into a real chase game. I took a train to the middle of the city and walked the banks of Sumida River for hours. Each turn promised the notorious line, but no luck. City closed on itself and almost compressed me in. (ms: August 2010)

Vladivostok – multiple horizonsIf you come to my hometown, Vladivostok, I would definitely take you to the port.- ‘Why port?’ – you ask. ‘Is there anything better than staring into oily water and listening to the ship buzzers?’ - ‘You probably wont find the scenery very at-tractive’, I tell you. ‘But if you want to know what this city really looks like, this is a place to come. Port is a mirror of Vladivostok. Destinies of thou-sands of people are reflected here, on this thin strip of ground, linking the sea to the land.

Fisherman, leaving for long months of fishing season, travelers coming to explore new places, seamen starting out for unknown lands, their families remaining to wait for them on the shore, youngsters dreaming of great adventures, stu-dents coming for language practice with foreign seaman in snow-white uniforms, vagrants, hop-ing for benevolence of those who leave forever, prostitutes offering pleasures for those coming for a short time.Lives of many different people mix up here, like lines on the palm of your hand. There is no other place you can see them closer, all their feelings seem to be naked.You can almost experience the heartbeat of wanderers coming back to their native land, sense sorrow that tears hearts of those who for a long time won’t see the ground, feel the grief of a mother who lost her son to the depths of the sea – the whole spectrum of human emo-tions is here.‘In and out from the city’ – ‘back and forth from the sea’: two constant currents stream through the port, which is the most dynamic part of the city, the ‘door’. It opens before and closes behind you; it lets you to explore the wonders of the world and welcomes in to share the stories of your wonderings.Ironically, Vladivostok was a closed port for a long time. Was it a port then?(ms: July 2000)

Chicago – static horizonTo find your way around the city of three waters, you should always keep a ball of yarn in your pocket.Before starting out in the morning, you tie one end of the thread to the railing on the stairs of your porch.You spread it out all the way along your day wonders, and to get back home in the evening you have to follow your thread.People from different parts of the city have threads of different colors, so that they never lose direction from where they came.Within one area there may be millions of shades of one color – for purple you may find plum purple and eggplant purple, which makes it easier to tell your thread apart from one of your neighbors.Sometimes, threads get tangled and then people spend long evening hours on the lawns in front of their houses trying to unravel the threads. You can always tell the age of the person from how his thread is worn out.Eventually, thread may break, so when one sees a broken thread he spends a moment to tie it back together.You can also tell that some threads are thick and some are thin, but when they intersect, they form a smooth beautiful pattern.You can follow only straight lines to make your way between two points of this pattern.It makes a choice of routes you can take lim-ited, but once you have established your way, you will find yourself around people who go in the same direction.And you will weave your new patterns with them.If you come to this city from a different place, you will have to choose your own shade.Otherwise, you may be lost forever in the maze of colors. (ms: September, 2000)

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IN SEARCH OF HORIZON - SKETCH-DIALOG ON THE CITY

Tokyo, Sumidagawa

Vladivostok, Port

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Chicago, Downtown

BURO MOCTChristopher Wolf - Masha Safina 200 West Menomonee Unit 11 Chicago, IL 60614 [email protected] 312.649.0790

Documents

BURO MOCT - 02 - Memory