SummerManual-Sep26_2011

8/4/2019 SummerManual-Sep26_2011

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California College of the Arts

Master of Architecture

Thesis 2011-2012

Resistance

instructor: Neal Schwartz

Greg Baker

GROWING THE MEDIAN GROVE


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One way to tackle the distance between the self and the city is to travel, setting up ananalog experience as a mirror that allows a deeper understanding of self in the everydayexperience, the city of residence. Sub-axial commercial corridors off of the Dotomboriin Oksaka almost literally act as tributaries to the river of history. Likewise the Ramblas inBarcelona have small winding streets that feed into them where all of the commercialpedestrian traf c meets both roadway and urban plaza. It is from that deeper under-standing that one realizes ways that the city of residence can be improved. For me, that cityis Oakland, California, and Berkeley before that.

One might notice on a drift ( drive ) through Oakland that abstract space, representedby the rapid appearance of condominium complexes, is in danger of erasing what wassuccessful about the historical space, represented by the Paramount Theater, Fox Theater,and Oakland Airport. These icons of the pinnacle of Oaklands historical prominence refer to the historical narrative of cultural mixing during a short period of time, between 1860 and1930. Both the Art Deco and stylistic eclecticism of the citys architectural heritage mustfactor into the redevelopment of major sites such as the Oakland army base, AmericanSteel factory, Alameda naval base, and several small commercial sites along InternationalBoulevard. The collision of ideas about art and technology that led to Oaklands architec-tural icons is impossible under the current trend.

The techniques of drive and dtournement may provide a catalyst for urban transforma-tions: In such formulations, the city and its architecture become not just aesthetic objectsbut dynamic, practical realizations of art, unique and irreplaceable works and not repro-ducible productspolyrhythmic compositions of linear and cyclical times and differentsocial spaces, born from many labors. This is art not as the prettifying of urban spaces butas making time-spaces into works of art (Things, Flows, Filters, Tactics. The Unknown City.Bordan, Rendell, Kerr, and Pivaro. pp 17-18). An important concept borrowed from musictheory, polyrhythm is what makes African drum patterns sound complex, usually superim-posing different subdivisions of each measure of a song.

In a city grid, polyrhythm can be found when there is one alley dividing the block into twoparts on one side of a street and two alleys dividing the block into three parts on the other side. So how can polyrhythm be celebrated in urban planning? It is really nothing specialwhen the street happens to be polyrhythmic. Instead, how can we plan for pockets ofcommercial activity to superimpose with residential locations at different subdivisions oflarger metrics within a particular city? These larger metrics must come directly from history(and its projections of the future), including economic, ecological and geological histories.Such superimpositions allow people to wander through sections of the city that have uniquecharacter despite being planned. The goal, then, is to allow the river of history to ow inOakland, to keep its commercial tributaries healthy that they may give rise to iconic buildingcommissions once again.

ABSTRACT


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The site of this project must be a city with a tenuous history and relationship with the conceptof urban renewal and redevelopment. The project seeks to highlight the importance ofcultural elements in the city, so the site will be a multiracial city and the methodologicalfoundation will be ethnographic research. In an effort to understand how psychogeographycan be used to imagine urban problems and their solutions, sites should be restricted to citiesthrough which I have navigated and wandered. Sites within my own culture will be scruti-nized by extensive historical research, and all places to be studied will undergo some typeof environmental analysis, such as understanding geological and meteorological factorsthat in uence urban zoning and settlement patterns. For example, geological strati cationof Oakland bears a striking resemblance to the social strati cation of residential zones.Studying a site within my own culture will also require consideration of critiques from other cultures. This would most likely take the form of European criticism of American society in theearly twentieth century.

As an extension of such critiques, I nd it necessary to study urban renewal and redevel-opment in the European cities as well. The Diagonal in Barcelona that cuts the rationaliststreet grid designed for the Extension is an important thoroughfare that displays many of thecharacteristics one would expect extending from the Ramblas of the old city. The modernfeel of the Diagonal and its complex interwoven zoning and programming make it an idealcontrast to Oaklands freeways that cut through and soar over a city that has roots as anauthentic town of the wild West. Still other models of successful urban corridors exist, suchas the Dotombori, a canal that runs through the Japanese city of Osaka. Mapping theRamblas and Diagonal, as well as old Osaka and the Dotombori, would add comparativemethodology to the project.

Since the site of the project is at the urban scale, there must be certain aspects of theprogram for all residents of that city, nding ways to span across its surface area. Thisengagement will likely interface with major transit corridors, which must become a centralcomponent of the project. The program inherently has this engagement as its public andinfrastructural focus. How this central transit component interfaces with speci c redevel-opment plots will determine the degree of privacy and permanence at those nodes.Traditional programmatic distinctions such as residential, commercial, and industrial areunderstood as different voices in a carefully crafted polyrhythm.

This project seeks to ally itself with Marcus Novaks idea, architecture and music as groundsfor the present and poetic processes for the making of the future, set forth in PamphletArchitecture 16. Certain computer processes may yield results follwing in the footsteps ofGreek architect/composer Iannis Xenakis, such as those made possible by the softwareprogram Max/MSP. This software has the ability to read images to make sounds, and readsounds to make images. Cartography has the potential to yield geometry that expressesmusical ideas in graphic form.

PROPOSAL FOR METHOD OF INQUIRY


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How can the history of Oakland inform a better method of redevelopment?

Can a programmatic rhythm of the city contribute to generative strategies of development?

How can slow change of Oaklands socio-economic strati cation be set in motion?

LIST OF QUESTIONS


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Architecture as a Translation of Music. Pamplet Architecture 16. Princeton: Princeton AP,1994.

Bernhardi, Robert. The Buildings of Oakland. Oakland: Forest Hill Press, 1979.

Gutman, Marta Ruth. On the Ground in Oakland: Women and Institution Building in anIndustrial City. Dissertation, University of California, 2000.

Hood, Walter J. The Next Generation of Parks. 2010 Walker Channel. Walker Art Center,Minneapolis. 2 December 2010.

Lewis, Paul, Marc Tsurumaki, and David J. Lewis. Situation Normal.... Pamphlet Archietcture21. Princeton: Princeton AP, 1998.

Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory. Ed. Neil Leach. New York: Routledge,1997.

Self, Robert O. American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland. Princeton:Princeton UP, 2003.

The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space. Ed. Borden, Iain, Joe Kerr,Jane Rendell, and Alicia Pivaro. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.

BIBLIOGRAPHY


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The architectural precedent for this project must not be a private institution such as anapartheid museum, although will draw on such projects for additional strength. In order toaddress racial segregation in a more public way, an urban design precedent that exploresthe potential of medians can be found in the Poplar Street project in Macon, Georgia.Located along a downtown street where an obelisk commemorating the United Daughters

of the Confederacy stands at the main entrance to a parking area, Poplar Street hasbeen transformed into an integrated social space. Two lanes of diagonal parking stalls areseparated by a meadian that features blocky white picnic tables made to resemble cottonbales. The idea behind the Poplar Street project, also known as Macon Yards, is to createparking yards that take advantage of the car culture in the South, where meeting other people most often happens through these chance encounters. These yards may be under-stood in the sense that the car is mobile real estate, and that a transitional space is neededthat takes form as a front yard for each piece of plug-in real estate. The Oakland-baseddesigner of the project, Walter Hood, grew up in North Carolina, and was able to draw on his

personal knowledge of the local culture in his treatment of the 180-foot wide street where,when blacks and whites come together, their history is, like, right in front of them (The NextGeneration of Parks. Hood). He describes how, in the South, people drive their cars to go asingle block, and so meet more people in the act of parking than walking on the sidewalk.By activating a strip of hardscape between two rows of parking, the negative aspect ofSouthern car culture is opportunistically mined for its positive effect on neglected urbanland. The cotton bale picnic tables are accompanied by inscriptions of Confederate history,taking a background role compared to the obelisk, but nonetheless beginning to erode thetraditional focus on White male history in urban commemorations.

Given the importance of racial issues in this project, an attempt is being made to identifyarchitectural projects that overtly deal with race, particularly focusing on segregation and

its effects at the urban scale. While some projects do exist, such as the apartheid museumsin South Africa, almost all of the literature on the topic of race in architecture deals withthe practice not the projects. In some ways, this project would actually be an inversion ofthe Red Location Museum in Port Elizabeth. The issue of apartheid is dealt with there bycontaining historical narratives, or memories, in room-like stalls with the voids between ascirculation. The void space is also a space for personal re ection, and the place for seeingother museum patrons. This project seeks to tell the story of historical tension in Oaklandalong major transit corridors rather than contain it in a building. In some ways, however,the freeways act as a transit void space for personal re ection in between the points of

departure and destination; but only in the sense that they lack historical information about aplace. The freeway does not commemorate the communities it destroys.

ARCHITECTURAL PRECEDENT SUMMARY

NARRATIVE

SUMMARY


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This project reimagines large scale urban planning as infrastructural transit reform. Whileparking yards may work in Georgia, residents of Oakland are multi-mode minded when it

comes to transit options. While automobiles remain a mainstream method of transportation,it is not uncommon for Oakland residents to own any combination of a skateboard, bicycle,motorcycle, and automobile. The issue this project will confront is, rst with the CypressFreeway and now with the Grove-Shafter, the lack of physical access to West Oakland. Thatlack of street connectivity is what solidi es the lack of access to basic resources such asgrocery stores. In the future, Oakland residents will be able to ride a bicycle from one side ofthe city to the other, sampling the best food from all of the top notch markets along the way.In order for that to happen, the redevelopment projects such as the Grove-Shafter Freewayand possibly even the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) lines have to be modi ed. In order for the motives of this project to be clear, the history of racial segregation must gure heavily inany landmark or memorable features of this modi cation. It must be clear that physicallyseparating communities of color from the rest of the city using federal money is no longer acceptable. Now that Oaklands redevelopment agency is nancially impotent, projectssuch as these must rely on the support of the community and of mindful developers whounderstand the potential of increased access and circulation to boost economic activity. Intodays world of tax-increment nancing, by which projects are funded based on projectedincreases in property tax revenue, one could argue that this project could demand a newmethod of calculating revenue based on the potential for retail and other highly taxedcommercial uses to sprout up organically due to infrastructural adjustments. Creatingspecial underpasses for bicycles will improve the quality of life, translating into higher densitybecause it will be a more desirable place to live. Enough density to support increasedrevenues from property taxes could only come about by perforating the physical barriers.

ARCHITECTURAL PRECEDENT CRITIQUE

EXPERIMENT

CRITIQUE


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A strong argument can be made from the history of racial segregation in the New Worldthat cities such as New York, Chicago, and Rio de Janeiro all limit African American accessto employment opportunities. Taking the extreme case of Oakland, California, many citiesstand to bene t from this type research. Oaklands residential settlement pattern strati esthe city rst by class and geography, with the wealthy on stable bedrock in the hills, then by

race and environment, with all of the minorities living in West Oakland until after the secondWorld War. Although West Oakland was racially mixed, the at-large electoral system meantthat the city council did not have members representing speci c areas of the city. Facingno political representation, African American women in West Oakland during the Thirtiesrelied on face-to-face interaction to construct reciprocal relationships of exchange andmutual dependence that provided newly arrived families with essential goods and services(American Babylon, Self. p 56). The seed for political change was planted when the districtelection or ward-based system began with the municipal election of 1945. Many industries inthe Forties brought jobs for African Americans in West Oakland, such as the Southern Paci c

railroad yards, Oakland Army Base, and two U.S. Naval Stations. Even with the magic ingre-dient of proxmity to work, the job ceilings that Black workers faced, combined with redliningpractices, limited African American mobility. Only professionals became homeowners, andwere limited to liberal neighborhoods in Berkeley or North Oakland. The important thing toremember about the political climate in the East Bay is the way that racial segregation wasbuilt into the suburbanization process, which converted vast amounts of southern AlamedaCounty into white homeownership. The real estate industry maintained that racially mixedcommunities would deplete property values, offering whites a way to hide racism in a strictlynancial decision (American Babylon. Self. p 117).

Oakland has the best examples of Art Deco theaters, stores and apartment houses in thecountry, all built in the late Twenties and early Thirties (Buildings of Oakland. Bernhardi. p ii).

Following in the footseps of the colonial expressionism of its predecessor, Art Nouveau, thismore manicured European style was imported at a time when the theoretical avant-gardetended toward phenomenology, or the study of sensory (ontological) potential of humanexperience. Martin Heideggers 1927 book Being and Time describes how interpretation andself-re ective thinking are the key to understanding existence. His later writing asserts thatearth, sky, divinities and mortals a fourfold oneness that humans dwell in. The act of dwellingsecures the fourfold in things, and lies somewhere in line with cultivating and constructing asa way of building (Building, Dwelling, Thinking. Rethinking Architecture. p 103). By dwelling,we measure reality against our concept of divinity, and in doing so dwelling becomes a

poetic act. He claims that poetry... is the primal form of building (Poetically Man Dwells.Rethinking Architecture. p 118).

HISTORICAL/THEORETICAL PRECEDENT SUMMARY

NARRATIVE

SUMMARY


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Although the social networking of African American women in West Oakland during therst half of the twentieth century was born out of necessity and lack of access to public

media, their approach to urban society aligns with some of the theoretical concerns ofphenomenology, namely that everyday life must be created through social interaction or risk domination by mainstream propaganda. Social interaction can address what HenriLefebvre often describes as the violence of the city by keeping eyes on the street. Theseinteractions improve the quality of everyday life, Lefebvres critique of which led to GuyDebords concept of the Spectacle Society. It claims that the decisions in our everyday livesare not really are own, but are in fact controlled by the association of goods with mediacelebrities. Debord argued that face-to-face interactions could allow us to build our ownlives again. This project seeks to counteract the violence of the city, which takes a very

real form on the streets of Oakland, by attempting to understand the female folk traditionsassociated with West Oakland. The Art Deco buildings in the city center are a reminder of an architectural golden age, and yet stand in stark contrast to historical conditions thathave persisted alongside them for almost a century since they were built. There must be areconciliation of urban wisdom and the ideology behind the imported historical style. BeforeHeideggers treatise of that era, Gerog Simmel suggested that cities overstimulate the public,creating weak followers of the relationship betwewealthy people and their commodities.Later, Jean-Francois Lyotard wrote a critique of Heideggers notion of dwelling as a bucolicmirage in the computer controlled megacities of today, in which we dwell only in passing.The domestic rhythm of the community becomes the most important aspect of urban life,and nostalgia for the impossible dwelling awakens the domain of transit, transfer, translationand difference ( Domus and the Megalopolis. Rethinking Architecture. p 275).

HISTORICAL/THEORETICAL PRECEDENT CRITIQUE

EXPERIMENT

CRITIQUE


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The project seeks to challenge postmodern practice by insisting that cultural symbols, ie.architectural styles, must be understood only as archaeological remains. Any new design

proposal must not simply show people a faade image of the past, but must arise fromcomparative historical study of any precedents context to the present (virtual) reality.Oakland faces a great challenge in rehabilitating its abandoned industrial landscape, andhistorical narratives reveal a complex set of social relationships that are now being strangledby the new economy. The old industrial lifestyle afforded children the opportunity to beborn by and learn by the hands of the daughters of wealthy company executives. This wastrue for the German, Irish, and later Asian immigrants as it was for the African Americans,all of whom lived in West Oakland during the citys initial development (On the Ground inOakland. Gutman. p42). There was also a thriving Hispanic community in West Oakland,

but the freeway system dislodged that community (which ended up settling in Fruitvale) andinfringed upon the border of Chinatown, halting any potential for its expansion.

The methodology for this project must somehow ensure that I obtain a particular depth ofhistorical understanding from which to act. Ethnographic research methods will uncover thespatial memory of people who remember the changes brought about by redevelopmentin the Fifties that has lasted until the present day. As the freeway system reinforced existingboundaries in Oakland, the West Oakland residents visions of what the city could becomewere darkened by the shadows of the overpasses. Working class people in a diverse set ofWest Oakland neighborhoods became dispersed so that various neighborhoods are nowassociated with particular ethnicities. Any new development along the waterfront and oldCypress freeway location must commemorate the diversity of West Oakland by respectingthe spatial memory of its historic routes in that portion of the project. According to DoloresHayden, care is not taken to preserve the spatial history of ordinary working people andtheir everyday lives due to relentless pace of urban (re)development (Claiming WomensHistory in the Urban Landscape. The Unknown City. p 357). Her Power of Place project inLos Angeles uses the history of Biddy Mason, a Black woman involved in the gold rush whofought to maintain her freedom and wealth, to monumentalize her success in the face ofextreme socio-economic disparity. Her studies reveal that most urban landmarks commem-orate the history of White male achievements. She argues that the history of minority womenin American cities is a vast resource that has barely been tapped for its potential to solidifythe connection between urban populations and their neighborhoods. Using the techniqueof ethnography in design, this project aims to infuse the history of West Oaklands AfricanAmerican women into the proposal for the Fourteenth Street transit corridor. This corridor will stand in contrast to the section of the Macarthur Boulevard transit corridor to the eastof Market Street, which will tell Oaklands history from the point of view of the wealthylandowners of downtown commercial real estate.

METHODOLOGICAL PRECEDENT SUMMARY

NARRATIVE

SUMMARY


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Documents

SummerManual-Sep26_2011