Seminar History and Theory of Urban Design: Architects on a Mission

Abstract

The course examines the emergence of the post-war “global planning experts” who travelled the world on “missions” to solve urban design problems. These projects became sites of encounter between different models of urbanisation and development. In the course, students will explore the many actors involved in the architecture of foreign aid and investigate the changing agency of the architects.

Objective

The objective of this course is to obtain a general understanding of a wide range of multidisciplinary actors and stakeholders involved in international architectural work. Students moreover will developed the ability to identify and analyse a wide range of political, economic and social interests and rationales mobilised around the architecture of foreign aid and critically engage with these rationales. This will help to understand the complex processes engaged in the production of architecture through international organisations like the United Nations. Through their examinations, students will developed a critical and reflective perspective towards the paradigm of development and architecture of international aid organisations.

Content

The course will explore the figure of a “global planning expert” that emerged in the post-war period, along with changes to planning practice brought by this transnational turn. During this time, architects converted to jet-setters who travelled the world on “missions” to solve complex problems posed by rapid urbanisation and mass migration. Practitioners like Otto Koenigsberger, Ernest Weissmann, Jaqueline Tyrwhitt, Constantinos Doxiadis, Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry were commissioned by the newly-independent states for large urban development projects initiated by the United Nations. Such projects required new interdisciplinary expertise, as planners and architects worked alongside politicians, sociologists, anthropologists, economists and engineers. And although these planning “missions” were arranged under the seeming neutrality of “technical assistance” by the United Nations, they relied on western ideas of modernisation and development, often at odds with local realities. Architects developed new knowledge as they adapted imported models to specific social and climate conditions and local material and logistical networks. Coupled with the discipline’s participatory turn, these projects delegated design agency to the users, profoundly shifting the role of the architect in the design process. Through three main modules—Projects, People and Knowledge—this course explores how these transnational design projects conceived under the idea of “development” redefined the position, agency and knowledge of the architects. The course is based on weekly two-hour seminars, workshops, and group research work. The course is structured through three main study modules: Projects, People and Knowledge. Following the introductory session, the first module explores transnational urban development projects initiated under the Technical Assistance programme of the United Nations. To help students contextualise a case study they will examine throughout the semester, we will read a selection of texts that discuss how architecture and urban planning were mobilised as tools of development. In the second part of the course, we will focus on concrete people behind these design projects. Students will investigate professional figures of transnational planners and architects and study their roles in the selected projects. Through archival and literature research, the students will also try to discover other less-known actors that were involved in these projects—politicians, UN officials, engineers and other experts. As a final task for this module, students will produce a map of concrete people behind their selected projects using an online mapping tool like Miro Mind Map. The last part of the course will expand on the previous exercise and produce a knowledge map of different concepts and ideas related to international planning projects. As a final deliverable for this part of the course, students will expand the actor’s map with a layer of new architectural knowledge that emerged from these international planning projects. Throughout the course, students will work on individual project diaries. This exercise tests the format of the architect’s field notes, popular in the context of international planning. In their personalised version of a project diary, students will be able to integrate hand drawings and notes based on their selected project’s research they have conducted during the semester. Students are encouraged to adapt different conflicting positions on the project by real or imaginary actors to showcase the complexity of transnational design practice and reflect on the changing body of architectural knowledge. The course will conclude with a small exhibition with individual presentations of these project diaries.

Resources