Let me walk you through.

Cloudscapes – Tetsuo Kondo Architects and Transsolar Klima Engineering | Photo by Shumi Bose

The Biennale occurs across two main sites; the spectacular Arsenale, a corridor of vast old military navy sheds in an arrested state of decay, and the Giardini, a large urban park housing 30 national pavilions which is one vaporetto stop down the Gran’ Canal. The last biennale of Architecture, curated by Aaron Betsky, saw the Arsenale crammed with many busy exhibits. This year’s exhibits — let’s call it a symptom of the recession — seem on the whole more ethereal and artsy, more like something you’d use to fill a gallery at PS1. After the blinding sun and sweltering heat, I enjoyed running through Olafur Eliasson’s dice-with-death twirling hosepipes, spinning in pitch-darkness emitting ominous electric whipping noises and flashes of light – but there was no chance in hell I was going to “meet” anyone there. Similarly, I loved Transsolar’s ultra-delicate iron ramp that snaked around fat brick pillars, into an enveloping and carefully controlled mist-cloud in another of the giant Arsenale galleries – but I couldn’t see a soul once up there. Perhaps that is why the Biennale judges decided to award most of their prestigious Lions to arguably unspectacular, but certainly humane projects; the Bahrain exhibit, which scooped the Golden Lion (and involved New York pillar of architectural criticism, Michael Sorkin), followed the plight of an indigenous coastal population who are valiantly resisting the onslaught of glitzy development, and who are using reclaimed materials to stake out their settlements.

Fisherman's Hut, Bahrain | Photo by Camille Zakharia

Speaking of humanity, the most hilarious moment of the Arsenale occurs in Wim Wenders’ 3D film about the SANAA Rolex Centre, which promoted Biennale curator Sejima’s latest big project; at one point, breaking tone with the ponderous voiceover, Sejima appears on a segway – a segway! – doing a fine impression of G.O.B. (it hasn’t been too long has it?) as she zooms round the slick walkways. And if it counts for anything, I managed to collar Wenders on what his pick of the Arsenale was; he identified the haphazard but utterly fragile and humane display thrown together by Chile, in the two-week window they had after the recent earthquake.

Back in the Giardini, the pavilions were something of puzzlement to me: so many of them seemed to want to be books. Old books, books from the nineties, OMA and Actar books. The German pavilion was a case in point; drawings of their chosen theme (the untranslatable phrase “Senn Sucht”) hung framed around the walls of a red room. And there were chairs in the middle. That’s it! There were two ponderous exhibits in the wings but nothing that translated to a genuine experience. The Swiss Pavilion showed an arcane research on bridges, photographed in black and white – beautiful maybe, but why? – whereas the Israeli went one further, and had you make up your own book from stacks of photographs dumped on the floor, exploring the theme of the kibbutzim.

Most disappointing for me personally was the French contribution, curated by Dominic Perrault, who is smart enough to know better. Through thick plastic hanging curtains, the curators had managed to emulate the smell of a Foot Locker exactly; the audio from much-celebrated (but now boring) Parisian urban night-skating was uncomfortably loud, and all the urban graphics and movies were incredibly — in the true sense of credible belief — dated. No doubt about depth of research or points of interest, particularly regarding regeneration of lesser-investigated French cities like Lyon, but the graphic style was pre-OMA, like old MVRDV books; sad to say but all the Scandinavians & Brazilians followed suit, presenting something like a “greatest hits” of projects we have seen before.

'Hylozoic Ground' by Philip Beesley Architects for the Canadian Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia 2010 |Courtesy Philip Beesley Architects

It wasn’t all bad; with characteristically English trepidation I have to say I liked the nerdy, scholarly British Pavilion — which investigated John Ruskin’s time in the host city when writing his masterful “Stones of Venice” — purely for the richness of the literary references in there. With a wooden scale-section of the 2012 Olympic stadium occupying the main room, it did seem a tiny bit schizophrenic, but the construction made for a great space for the drawing workshops hosted there in honor of Ruskin himself. Canada’s contribution had to be seen to be understood; Philip Beesley’s “Hylozoic” investigations are not altogether new (check out some YouTube videos about hylozoic soil here); this installation progresses his Cronenberg-like explorations of post-human life. Intense, enveloping and freakishly responsive, it is composed of thousands of plastic, metal and motorised components, and glowing biocells containing reactive pheromones. The whole thing used several levels of internal communication (mechanic, computerised, chemical) to react and respond both to itself and visitors. Very scary and weird for an insectophobe like me, but thrilling all the same; kids like it! The Belgians submitted a quiet, minimalist collection of salvaged building fixtures which bore traces of wear, like those circular scratches on steel elevator doors, or the center of stair treads where paint and varnish have long flaked off – suggesting perhaps the ghosts of “people meeting” in architecture?

Installaion by Do Ho Suh | Photo by Shumi Bose

And in the Italian International Pavilion, which basically functions as Sejima’s personal “Cabinet of Curiosities,” American Tom Sach’s obsessive and very funny reworking of Corbusier buildings raised a few smiles, while Korean Do Ho Suh – whose exhibition at New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture opens in two scant weeks – installed a breathtaking cobweb of an installation; a 3D model of a Venetian Palazzo executed in mesh and suspended face down from the ceiling.

Romanian Pavilion | Photo by Shumi Bose

If I had to pick, the Romanian Pavilion was the one that shone for me – and from the sounds on the ground, for a few others too — if for no other reason than the fact that theirs was a refreshingly simple idea executed with poetry and precision. Entering the pavilion you are confronted with a large white box, around which runs a narrow corridor. The angles of the simple, whitewashed arc lean out ominously and twist, heightening the sense of slight claustrophobia as you are forced to edge past other keen biennalees. Reaching the far side of the ark, you are invited to enter through a door with no handle; only one person in at a time. Once inside, you occupy an eerily stark sanctuary, which corresponds exactly to the amount of personal urban space available to each citizen of Bucharest. The young team — some of them students aged 25 or so — make no bones about the absolute one-liner clarity of their project, but should certainly be commended for their courage, because it really works as an experience of space.

Romanian Pavilion | Photo by Shumi Bose

As with all review and opinion pieces posted on Urban Omnibus, the views expressed are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

Shumi Bose is an architectural writer and researcher. She is currently working between London and New York.

Natural disasters: how can we improve?
Panel discussion with Martin Bell OBE, Dame Barbara Stocking (Oxfam GB) & Cameron Sinclair (Architecture for Humanity)
May 25, 2010
Royal Geographic Society, 1 Kensington Gore, London

A mixed and studious crowd gathered at the Royal Geographic Society last week, exuding a slightly nervous goodwill as we waited for latter-day saints Cameron Sinclair, of Architecture for Humanity, and Dame Barbara Stocking, of Oxfam GB, to be introduced.

Natural disasters have long and often been the cause of major political reform, international cooperation and the coming together of intellect and humanity. However, with events occurring at a larger scale and greater frequency than previously witnessed, the need to galvanize and channel our energies seems more urgent than ever.

Panel chair, fêted journalist and erstwhile MP Martin Bell OBE first met Cameron Sinclair while reporting on the violence in Kosovo in the early ’90s. Set up in 1999, AfH engages in building activities, supplied pro-bono by volunteers, in communities of need – defined not only by crises but also including those beleaguered by endemic or sustained poverty. A genuine fairytale of an organization, garnering adoration and disdain in (not quite) equal measure, AfH nonetheless prides itself on somewhere near 5,600 volunteers from over 83 cities, and cynicism notwithstanding, does some amazing reconstruction work.

Behind the cuddly organization and camera-friendly baby face, Sinclair exhibits jaws of steel, using military terminology abundantly; volunteers undertake a “tour of duty,” services are measured “on the ground” and in terms of strategy and impact, and not simply as aid packages to be “air-dropped in.”

Tugboat vs. Ocean Liner
Not for the first time, Sinclair pulled out his analogy of tugboat vs. ocean liner, in his demonstration of the agility of a NGO operating as a small, nebulous and peripatetic network. Perhaps this mentality is best demonstrated by the TED-funded Open Architecture Network, which utilizes open-source innovation to develop and host designs; in three short years of activity, the OAN shares thousands of design projects under creative commons licensing, from the prosaic to the outlandish, across the globe.

The flipside is that whilst tugboat AfH may well be more nimble and efficacious at community level, ocean-liner Oxfam, due to its size and longstanding relationships with organizations such as the UN, weighs in at the criticial stages of advocacy and government policy. Though the effects of grassroots activity can filter up and effect change, such change must be established at the level of national governance to become sustainable rather than spontaneous or sporadic.

Dame Stocking emphasized that protective measures need to be embedded in local governments and societies as well as at the national level; a predictable but no-less urgent agenda for action included pushing for climate change goals to be met, particularly in the cutting of greenhouse gas emissions, as agricultural societies are placed in greater jeopardy than ever. Governance at the national level needs to become more porous and engaged with disaster management, taking responsibility for aid management and crisis protocol, activating local and social networks; foremost though, year-round disaster risk reduction needs to be acknowledged and given much higher priority both by governments and humanitarian organizations such as Oxfam, though urgent appeal in the event of disaster is oftentimes a more emotive “call-to-arms.”

Media
Indeed, what happens when the media leaves? Media attention naturally drives up donations of resources and time – which need to be spread out over longer periods, rather than arrive in inefficient, erratic spikes. There is also a seeming public appetite for failure, and this is in a sense on the shoulders of NGOs and the media; too often a realistic timescale is not projected, leading to a sense of expectancy and the proliferation of misinformation. The need for commercially saleable news often supercedes deeper investigative journalism; either this reliance on AP-wire reporting must be reversed, or citizen journalism could step up. In fact, such use of social networking has benefited crisis areas in Kenya, Haiti and South East Asia, utilizing GPS technology to create more accurate geospatial maps of activity and need.

Sinclair conceded that the media should be welcomed to critiquing NGO activity where relevant – but they could also hold similar fire to private sector stakeholders or participants, for example the oil companies in the wake of the recent Gulf spill, which was practically unreported in the US mainstream media.

Stocking noted that aid agencies can also be very defensive with the management of information. Increased honesty would create a more fruitful relationship between the media, agencies and the public.

In punk-rock style, Sinclair cited Fred Cuny, whistleblower and humanitarian martyr who’s been missing in action since 1995, as a major influence. And he reminds us that with the increase of social networking, one cannot hide. Instead, the use of storytelling, not to manufacture truth, can expose a greater complexity of aid work than has been attempted. Recognizing the need to share failures, he pondered why donors expect NGOs to demonstrate a 100% success rate when even politicians need just over 50% – a seemingly whimsical thought, but particularly biting in the light of the United Kingdom’s currently “hung” parliament.

Architecture
Architects, surveyors and planners are often at a loss in terms of how to gear their practice towards aid. Firstly, architects can’t expect to get involved straight away – it’s one for the long haul. AfH are often the “last ones out,” and Sinclair states their key activity takes place between four months and four years after crisis events. The key is in balancing immediate humanitarian concerns with the potential for economic stability and recovery, towards long term solutions. For example, a crisis in housing in Haiti must not benefit the manufacturers of prefabricated housing in Iowa, whilst creating no jobs and making no use of indigenous skills and materials in Haiti. Architects operating in a humanitarian sphere needs must accept greater liability, looking at his projects less like an artwork but more like a business model, much in the same way as a developer.

No final delivery is worse than no response at all, so architects cannot afford to be prima donnas about designs; a degree of humility must be learned. Yet beauty need not be discarded for functionalism; what needs to be produced is not just a beautiful building aesthetically, but also in terms of equity; “building in beauty” at this level becomes crucial because of the maintenance and subsequent equity. This is an example of an aesthetic concern being reconfigured in terms of development and sustainability in economic terms.

Sinclair and Stocking both underlined the importance of utilizing both indigenous and donor skill sets – squeezing not just money or even donations-in-kind but crucially, knowledge. Like the sunken-eyed Bob Geldof at LiveAid (go study pop history, those of you too young to remember), the perkier Sinclair exhibits a hunger for extracting the maximum from those who approach his organization, but unlike Geldof, they don’t just want you to “give us your f***ing money” – they want your mind too, which, in these times, is all to the good.

N.B.  Hat-tip to Cameron, the guys at AfH and particularly to Susi J Platt & Purnima McCutcheon, designers of the Yodakandiya Community Complex, briefly discussed during the RGS event, it was also shortlisted for the Aga Khan Award 2010 on the same day, and deservedly so.

Shumi Bose is an architectural writer and researcher. She lives in London.

As with all review and opinion pieces posted on Urban Omnibus, the views expressed are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York. Images via 21st Century Challenges.

Wandering around the industrial landscape of Gowanus, with its odd mix of tire shops, taxi yards and enterprising creative hives, often yields pleasant surprises (Omnibus-enabled birdhouses, for example). At the moment, one such surprise is a poetic exposition of the neighborhood’s eponymous canal: the show Pre-Retroscope IV: Gowanus Journey. British artist Conrad Shawcross uses a fantastic rowboat contraption (more on that later) both to capture and to exhibit video imagery of the banks of this uncelebrated waterway.

The folks at Cabinet, always with an eye for the beautiful and slightly bizarre, are exhibiting Shawcross’ video, photographs and his specially pimped-out vessel which is both the method and means for showing his documentation, at their HQ-gallery-reading room tucked away on Nevins Street (a short, rainy walk from the Omnibus office.)

The centrepiece is Conrad’s rowing boat, beautifully engineered and hand crafted back in Britain. The vessel – or ‘Pre-Retroscope’ – is supplanted with a giant wheel, with a seat for Conrad himself in the middle. A motorized deck carries a video-camera around the tracks of the wheel, recording a 360-degree panoramic view, circumambulating the artist as he propels the boat forward (very smooth rowing skills on this guy to avoid nauseating his audience). The care and craftsmanship put into the boat – complete with litte lockable cabinets for ropes and camera equipment – as well as its singular function and design, recall a laboratory apparatus, and Shawcross’ recording of the Gowanus Canal is somehow more scientific than humanly possible, as it takes in more than the eye ever could.

For the exhibit, the armatures are rejigged to accommodate a projector in place of a camera, and a moving projection screen revolves around the outer periphery of the whole kit, so the captured scenery revolves around the boat, recasting the camera’s roving eye. As a result, the effect is something like a merry-go-round or a lighthouse beacon; the spectator can follow the image up to a point, until the screen turns out of view, suggesting as the curators say, “the impossibility of a comprehensive understanding of our surroundings.” The boat skims past gas cylinders, chimneys, raw industrial architecture, dilapidated remains of collapsed workshops, half submerged sheds… These are the kinds of images we have seen before, but looking a little more closely transforms the realities of neglect into something fragile and profound.

Shawcross began his unique process of waterborne exploration in London’s East End, exploring the soon-to-be-transformed banks of the Lea River, due to be altered forever by the Olympic developments in that area. Likewise, potential Superfund designation and the ongoing (albeit delayed) gentrification of almost-post-industrial Gowanus means that these delicate images of decay and stillness will probably gain more poetry in posterity.

CONRAD SHAWCROSS: “PRE-RETROSCOPE IV-GOWANUS JOURNEY”
June 20 – July 10, 2009
300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn, NY
Open Tuesday to Saturday, 12-6 pm

As with all review and opinion pieces posted on Urban Omnibus, the views expressed are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

Shumi Bose is an architectural writer and researcher. She is currently working between London and New York, and lives in Brooklyn.

West Harlem Piers Park
Linking Riverside Park, which begins at 72nd Street, to Riverbank State Park, from 135th to 145th Streets, the West Harlem Piers Park is the last jigsaw piece in a now unbroken strip of publicly accessible waterfront running all the way up from Battery Park. A safe, continuous and dedicated bicycle path now extends along the west side of Manhattan, allowing a no-dismount ride from the Battery all the way to Dyckman up at 200th Street – a bright feather to the city’s cap, or bike helmet.

Over ten years in the making, the West Harlem Piers Park has been the laborious fruit of many stakeholders and the subject of discussion at every level of government. The site exists where several different neighborhood initiatives intersect: the West Harlem rezoning, the 125th BID westward expansion and Columbia University’s Manhattanville expansion. The complex consultation process brought in many parties, evidenced by the long succession of assemblymen and community leaders who took the stage to thank their colleagues. Congressman Charles B Rangel, who procured federal funds (including still-to-come stimulus dollars), and Assemblyman Herman “Danny” Farrell reminisced about the ferry to the Palisades Entertainment Park in New Jersey and trolley cars which rattled into the area when the West Harlem Pier was still functioning (indeed there were plans to rebuild the pier as an additional stop on the Manhattan Circle Line). Others grimly recollected the site’s seedier and more dangerous recent history: the milk bottles of the erstwhile Borden Milk Factory gave way to crack vials, broken glass and prostitution during the recession of the seventies. Today the park has been transformed into a highly usable and attractive addition to Harlem’s public spaces. Hope Knight from the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, and Pam Jones from Community Board 9 both spoke of the site’s proximity to 125th Street, a major east-west connector, and of the ongoing developments planned for the area as being strategic to the park’s popularity.

W Architecture & Landscape Architecture and Archipelago Architecture and Landscape Architecture, who design exclusively for New York City, worked with the EDC to come up with a design for the space on this rather awkwardly shaped sinew of land. Several narrow lawn areas are neatly dissected by north-south pedestrian and bike paths; the southern end of the park has an ample number of benches and reclining areas, facing the water or the green spaces within the park. A triangular void in the decking separates the lawns from a pier-like strip of walkway running parallel to the park over the water, and increases the feeling of proximity to the river as it sparkles and spits underfoot. The strip allows fishermen – who have been provided with cleaning tables – and spectators of the growing kayaking community to be closer to the river whilst being undisturbed by the park’s other users. The park has also been landscaped to allow for small performance spaces, as demonstrated during the park’s inaugural ceremony by the company of the Dance Theatre of Harlem and the Patience Higgins Trio of jazz musicians.

Local artist Nari Ward was brought into the mix by Percent For Art, which ensures that one percent of public project funding is given over to the arts on site. His three metallic sculptures, derived from the shapes of fishing hooks, punctuate the lawns of the Piers park, while a walkway on the sidewalk edge of the park attempts to weave in spatial memories from the local community and from the history of the site.

Marine Transfer Station at 135th Street
Now relatively benign on the northern fringe of the Piers Park, until 2001 the Marine Transfer Station at 135th Street received 95 truckloads of garbage every day, all of which was largely transported by barge to Freshkills Landfill in Staten Island; the air pollution caused by the garbage and idling trucks exacerbated the locality’s already high asthma rate. The protests against seeming environmental racism gained weight as the negative effects to air quality were compounded by the local bus depot and the North River Waste Treatment Plant just behind the MTS, which processes sewage from all of West Manhattan, as well as the Riverdale area of the Bronx.

Two parties who are highly concerned in contesting the future of the 28,000 square foot space of the defunct Transfer Station are WEACT and Community Board 9, both of whom have been fundamental in the collaboration to develop the park so far. While WEACT, headed by the Jane Jacobs Medalist Peggy Shepard, sees the structure as playing host to further leisure activities such as kayaking, boat trips and a visitor center, Community Board 9 suggests that the creation of local green jobs is of paramount importance and so proposes long-term aquaculture and hydroponic agriculture projects, as well as promoting tourism and cultural activities. Having promised never to reopen the MTS for waste disposal, the Mayor’s office has commissioned WEACT to organize a broad-based steering committee and community-based charrette process that would work to find the best possible use.

We want to hear from designers about precedents and lessons learned from relevant experiences elsewhere, and from users and stakeholders about what they think should be considered too – let us know in the comments section below, and stay tuned to Urban Omnibus for updates. Though the park looks set to become a much-loved spot over the summer months, the MTS will remain ‘hot’ for some time yet.

As with all review and opinion pieces posted on Urban Omnibus, the views expressed are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

Shumi Bose is an architectural writer and researcher. She is currently working between London and New York, and lives in Brooklyn.

So Brooklyn is (one of) the “bloggiest” place in America (see endnote) – a fact verified and positively fêted at Thursday night’s Brooklyn Blogfest, now in its robust fourth year. Here was the opportunity to put faces to the blogs based in this truly outspoken borough, and more than 300 digerati emerged to revel in each other at The Powerhouse Arena in DUMBO.

The event was orchestrated by a coalition of many, including the folks behind Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn and outside.in, which bestowed Brooklyn’s crown as America’s blog supreme in May 2007. After video and photo essays showcasing the best of the local pictorial blogs, the evening’s main discussion was entitled  “Why Do We Blog?” chaired by Brooklyn Independent Television‘s Megan Donis and featured Jake Dobkin of Gothamist, Anne Pope of Sustainable Flatbush, Tracy Collins of Freakin’ Blog, Sharon Kwik of Bed Stuy Banana (who deserves applause for walking and documenting every single street in Bed-Stuy, with partner and toddler in tow), and Melissa Lopata of Hip Slope Mama.

It’s a good question. The diversity in subject matter and approach seen last night is perhaps symptomatic of the blog-boom experienced all over the interweb, but what was striking about this event is exactly WHY there are hundreds of blogs in and about Brooklyn. How much is there to be said about this place? Why isn’t it exhausted yet – is Brooklyn really more dynamic, diverse or blogworthy than the Bronx, Staten Island, Queens or even Manhattan? What is it about Brooklyn that encourages its residents to be so vocal about it? True, not all of them are about “place” as such, but most are very localized and aware of their immediate community, if not actively trying to discuss and strengthen it. Following outside.in’s pronouncement in 2007, champion BK-blogger and founder of Brownstoner Jonathan Butler, said “Brooklyn in general lends itself to blogging because it’s a borough of neighborhoods. Unlike Manhattan, people feel connected and empowered to do something about the changes happening in their neighborhoods.”

This year the blogfest held a short period of breakout sessions entitled Blogs of a Feather. As suggested by the title, these were small group discussions intended for typological blogs, including Political, Food & Craft, Comedy & Pop Culture, Social Activist, Place, Historic, Photographic, Parenting and Eclectic. The mommy and daddy bloggers had so much to share that it took more than a gentle nudge to usher them from the Powerhouse to the afterparty across the street at Galapagos.

So: does Brooklyn need more bloggers? Gothamist’s Jake Dobkin – who is surely one of relatively few in attendance raking in a healthy profit from localized online publishing - says NO. The man might have a point; a lot of voices make for an incomprehensible Babel, and while it is fantastic that the charismatic physical space of Brooklyn can effect and occupy such a burgeoning virtual space, last night’s event showed that canny networking – singing in chorus, if you like – might be a way to share and provide resources and dialogues more efficiently and actually utilize the networks that blogs establish.

The proceedings of the evening were dedicated to the memory of the late Robert Guskind (1958-2009), true citizen journalist and founder-editor of the Gowanus Lounge (a local blog close to UO hearts and headquarters), and something of a legend in these parts. His online enthusiasm for discussing spatial, developmental and psychogeographical conditions in Brooklyn, and particularly his talent for finding beauty in the unsavory – of which there is plenty in Gowanus and Brooklyn in general – was infectious. A touching video tribute has Bob himself narrating his favorite anecdote about a chopstick warehouse, an illegal Matzo factory and farcical catastrophe. Only in Brooklyn…

NB: To qualify the “bloggiest place” further: Clinton Hill get the prize for highest density of bloggers in a neighborhood, and Atlantic Yards came second in terms of being of interest to the blog-reading public. Research undertaken by outside.in in early 2007, see here and here.

The views expressed are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.