Interior of one of the townhouses looking toward the common backyard.

Running parallel to the back of each row of townhouses is a long subterranean corridor, cramped, artificially lit but still dark, with pipes and cables running through its length, moisture trickling down its unfinished concrete walls, it’s the mechanical and services spine of the block. Garbage cans are lined up at each door marking the otherwise inconspicuous switch to another home. At the end of the corridor is another door, this one leading to a series of hidden exterior steps running parallel to the blind exterior end wall of the townhouse row. If you are not looking for them, the steps, and those coming in and out, are indeed hard to see… Ni vu ni connu. Here the ideology of making a distinction between what is allowed to be seen and what should remain hidden is designed into a long corridor allowing for the covert movement of trash and extra-marital affairs.

We are in Lafayette Park (1961-5), Detroit, the residential complex designed by Mies Van der Rohe. Our tour guides, all long time residents, are immensely proud of where they live. Given the recent financial crisis and the decline with which Detroit has become infamous for (Detroit, mausoleum of high capitalism) it is remarkable (at least for the visitor) to see such a viable community so near downtown. According to one of our guides, the reason why the complex has withstood the crisis is obvious: good design and pride in its architecture. This, it could be added, has gone hand in hand with the tastes of a portion of the middle class on more stable incomes and mortgages. ‘We sometimes have issues with new residents putting up fences, but they are quickly brought down.’ He has a chuckle recalling how he once asked a fellow resident to remove her patio furniture because he was showing the place to visitors. Lafayette Park, he comments with a sigh of relief, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places so resident owners are not allowed any exterior modifications, including modifications to the planting scheme. Appropriation takes place within. And each townhouse visited reflected the personal tastes of the owners within the boundaries set up by the architect and the NRHP–ultimately left to cosmetic changes.

Lafayette Park with shopping plaza to the right, high rise residential slabs in the centre and townhouses to the left.

Lafayette townhouses with its NRHP-protected planting scheme in the foreground.

‘Architecture is too important to be left to architects.’ (Giancarlo de Carlo, 1967)

‘And what did the users add? Their needs.’ (Henri Lefebvre, in 1968, discussing the modifications to Le Corbusier’s Maison à Pessac)

When I visited Lafayette Park in April 2011 I was in the midst of a review of the theory and practice of participation in architecture from the 1950s onward. And so I wonder how heritage conservation, also translated into a distinction between things shown and things hidden, relates to the notions of appropriation and occupation for residential architecture as developed since the 1950s. If we follow this trend and see creative appropriation as a form of emancipation from the rigidity of Modern architecture then how should we balance the conservation of residential projects that have become Modernist icons? These are, after all, representatives of a culture’s heritage and a strong emphasis on the process of design over the aesthetics of the product, might indeed make us forget about the value of the object that frames this same process. Lafayette Park is turning out to be a successful product and process. And its resident-owners have bought into the particular lifestyle and ideology it represents as well as how it should be represented. While this is certainly true for those we met, others may not be so convinced (those putting up fences, for example), but certainly everyone appears to be toeing the line. At the moment, Modern residential projects are being re-visited and re-valued so that the tension between ‘user needs’ and design determinism may not, in particular instances, be such an issue after all.

Yet I still cannot help thinking that there is something inherently fraught with the balance between conservation and appropriation, especially when it comes to ‘living’ communities like Lafayette Park. Given that there is no clear boundary between private interests and public concerns, should the ethics governing the conservation of private residential architecture be different from those governing publicly owned architecture? To what extent should the original design and aesthetics of a home be protected against its current occupants? Perhaps more importantly, when should the agency of individual owners be trumped in order to preserve the state of a cultural artefact whose function may invite exactly that type of creative behaviour? But Lafayette Park is a ‘finalized’ masterpiece whose transformation is denied by those who have chosen to live within its well defined perimeter. Here the theories of process and appropriation with roots in the 1950s and 60s meet the reality of actual lived-in Modern architecture at the beginning of the 21^st century.

Lafayette monochrome playground

The undivided backyard between two rows of townhouses is empty, no sign of either spilling out from living rooms or children playing (or having played). There is a common playground in the middle of the complex, with sparse metallic play equipment and painted, without much surprise and to everyone’s ironic delight, black. The only signs of inhabitation from the outside of the townhouses are the interior shading devices for the floor to ceiling windows (vertical blinds and low curtain rods cheekily omitting the original recess-concealed roller blinds) and the owners’ choice of art works for their vestibules. Architects are notorious for omitting the presence of people in the representation of their built projects. In this case people are wilfully removing themselves from the actual ‘living’ project, leaving very few visible traces, hiding most, and finding their agency, it seems, in the freezing of time and space.

The ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, vacuum packed.

Saturday 6th June 2011 saw the launch of the post-exhibition catalogue following up last December’s ‘Invisible Machines’ exhibition, held at Grand Parade in Brighton, which investigated the various relations between machines and architecture. Although the invocation of machines in architecture is well-trodden ground (dating back not just to modernism but to Book X of Vitruvius) the exhibition suggested that the many relations between architecture and machines have mostly been approached individually and proposed instead to attempt to discuss them in parallel.

To this end, curator Ben Sweeting assembled a group of exhibitors whose work relates to machines in quite different ways – from the physicality of Michael Wihart’s hydraulic devices and Tom Foulsham’s balancing installations to the abstract relationships of Tim Norman’s and Charlotte Raleigh’s drawings of the cosmos and bumblebees respectively.

The limited edition post-exhibition catalogue, which contained a selection of material from the exhibition, was assembled live at East London’s Redundant Architects Recreation Association and individually vacuum packed along with various small objects gleaned from the R.A.R.A. workshop. The event was accompanied by a BBQ as well as by the amplified sound of the vacuum packing machine. As R.A.R.A.’s Joe Swift points out, guests were left “with the conundrum of how to look at the fantastic images inside without disturbing the vacuum within this beautiful object”.

A pdf version of the catalogue will be made available next week, so be sure to check out http://invisiblemachines.wordpress.com/

Contributors: Michael Aling, Tom Foulsham, Ersi Ioannidou, Glenn Longden-Thurgood, Tim Norman, Charlotte Raleigh, Ben Sweeting, Michael Wihart

The RARA workshop in east London

A lot has been already said about the slums of Mumbai and their role within the city’s memory and identity. Dharavi, which is supposedly the largest of Mumbai’s slums, figures very prominently in most of these discourses. Dharavi has developed and expanded over the last few decades largely due to its central location within an otherwise very dense and expensive city, making it the preferred locus for migrant workers who relocate from all over the country to Mumbai, who either come to Dharavi and later move out of it, or alternatively live there permanently. Dharavi is thus defined by this constant state of displacement and flux, in the number of people, their living and working conditions and in its continuously altering edges with the city.

Within this organic and fluid urban condition, any attempts at mapping and documentation seems static and inert against an intrinsic transience. This has been evident since the announcement of the Dharavi Redevelopment Project by the State Government, which has led to an urgent demand for surveys, maps, recorded statistics and future projections, that are constantly being verified, revised and updated, making architecture’s engagement in Dharavi seem more like a tryst with numbers and their accuracy, operating outside of a larger design narrative.

Times of India, Mumbai Friday June 12th 2009

My interests in Dharavi are multilayered, but at this point I have been largely focussed on one particular predicament; any kind of intervention into its many complex and heterogeneous realities leads to an eventual confrontation with what I refer to as its ‘temporariness’. In reaction, the collection and organisation of information generates a grid of datums and constants that offer a fixity or permanence, connecting the disparities and more importantly, ultimately controlling the resultant responses.

For example, when faced with the enormous challenge of counting the exact number of households in Dharavi, the government had to deal with the problem of trying to figure out who exactly qualifies as a ‘permanent’ citizen of Dharavi, permanent enough to warrant a newly reallocated flats in the redevelopment. To resolve this issue, the year 1995 was considered as the datum point; wherein if you lived in Dharavi anytime before the year 1995 you are considered a bonafide resident of Dharavi. 1995 since has became a much debated datum, that in its arbitrariness has become an issue of dispute. Similarly, the size of the reallocated flat was decided to be an area of 300 sqft, a number that stems from area codes set up by the Slum Redevelopment Authority of Mumbai. 300 sqft is the size of every new flat irrespective of existing occupied areas, which has again been disputed given the organic nature of the current live-work areas.

These are but two examples, but hopefully they make the point. My interest in these abstract numbers and the ‘expert systems’ i.e organisations that control these numbers and their dissemination, comes as much from their ability to offer a finality within an otherwise constantly mutating situation, but also from their enormous ability to define the future directions for Dharavi, wherein the design narrative is essentially governed and constrained by these numbers and what they imply. The numbers are collated often with the use of self created normative standards, to then themselves become the normative in the future.

To come back to the original question, how does architecture begin to approach conditions of extreme organicity and informality?  Maps and statistics as tools are unavoidable, but how do you deal with a situations like Dharavi where one needs to reflect the organicism and ‘temporariness’ of a place without falling into the constant trap of data, their verification and amendment?

I understand these questions as just one aspect within the incredible complexity of working in Dharavi, but nevertheless significant.

Contributor’s bio: Deepa is an architect from Mumbai, currently based in Chicago. She recently completed her MA in Histories and Theories from the Architectural Association in London. Her current interests stem from examining architecture’s modes of production and representation, especially when they are determined by processes that organize and classify statistics to shape the perception and comprehension of the city. Deepa has a Masters in Architecture from the US and a Bachelors in Architecture from India.

A stilt house in Laos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AttapeuStiltHouse.jpg

Buildings at their most primal provide a means of sheltering people from the extremities of climate; historically building fabric offered mediation between the external environment and inhabitants with minimal energy use.

Responding to the climate developed broad vernaculars that offer legible interpretations of local environmental conditions: Light weight stilted dwellings in the tropics respond to the hot, humid and still air by maximising circulation through large apertures, they block solar gain with overhanging roofs and provide thermal responsiveness through the use of lightweight bamboo, being positioned over water provides cooling. Mud brick courtyard houses of North Africa use a heavyweight structure to regulate large diurnal temperature fluctuations, small windows to avoid ingress of hot desert air and use water in central courts to trap a reservoir of evaporatively cooled air. Massively thick stone walls of Crofters’ cottages in the highlands of Scotland also use thermal mass to regulate temperature changes and small, deep-set openings prevent wind driven rain getting into the dwelling. Roofs of thatch are built with low eaves, weighed down with stone to avoid being torn off by strong winds.

The evolution of these buildings perhaps happened over generations, modifications would be made to achieve greater comfort, make better use of scarce materials and energy sources or to repair climate related ‘design’ failures. The group who did not get uncomfortably hot may have inspired others to rebuild their house on stilts. The clustering of rooms around a local water hole may have inadvertently led to the realisation that cool air could be trapped and used and through iterations of roof configuration the crofter may have realised that thicker thatch meant a warmer house with less collection of timber to burn. Buildings were built, maintained and modified by the people who used them, with a continual flow of quantitative and qualitative information being gathered, interpreted and acted upon in new technological developments.

Prosperity, social stability, trade and technological advance allowed an increased disconnection of building fabric from a role in the mediation between the external environment and interior conditions. The abundant cheap energy and building service technology of the 20th century enabled a complete decoupling of building fabric from an environmental role, completely freeing architects to discuss and express ideas of society, place, economy, industry and technology through their designs. An ideas based evolutionary process has happened rapidly, information streams that once were built around environmental performance expanded to include the myriad of complex indicators that help to inform, and are informed by, architecture.

Whilst architecture must continue to debate, articulate and define the culture and places that it helps form, the era of cheap energy is over and reducing consumption is increasingly important throughout society. There is a need to re-establish environmental response and interpretation as a key component of architectural expression. Discourse must move beyond the abstract and qualitative and open up to include discussion of the quantitative and measurable. Re-establishment of feedback loops between buildings, designers, occupants and climate will help to refine every aspect of our buildings; the abstract, the social, issues of usability and energy consumption amongst them. The future evolutionary narrative of the built environment can and should embrace artistic and scientific ideas and information exchange – it will only benefit us all in the long term.

It came back to mind after the event concluded because to me it illustrates we might be dealing with two co-existing models of authorship and interpretation. I guess the thought may have been triggered by the question of authorship raised in the comments that followed the last session. Well, that may be how it originated… Or was it from a discussion at the bar or on the inhabitation of Casa Malaparte? Anyway. So on the one hand, we have the post-structural notion of ‘the death of the Author’, i.e.: as we were repeatedly told in architecture school: the work must speak for itself. I think that was actually brought up yesterday as well. And on the other the belief that the truth about a work of art (or research project in this case) must somewhat reside with the author.

The latter point is the one directly addressed by the question. It seems to me that this one seeks a personal foundation and justification for what is being presented in order to understand the work as a succession of logical steps. In other words, it wants to put the work into a narrative framework. I am wondering how a personal starting point, whatever that may be, might forgive the possible inaccuracies or the relative impact of our research when it is told as a story. After all, should not the argument stand on its own? Or is this just an indication that although we believe the work should stand on its own we still enjoy the comfort of knowing there is a person behind it all? Perhaps there is no contradiction there. But I am also wondering about the relationship between personal narrative frameworks and accounts of subjectivity in our research work. When are they equivalent?

Oh yes, just to clarify, I started writing this post after reading the line ‘In 2001 Jeremy Paxman interviewed Slavoj Zizek on BBC radio.’

Mossbourne Academy by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. Source: www.richardrogers.co.uk

There is certainly need to improve the delivery of school buildings; BSF often resulted in buildings costing over the odds. However, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DSCF) has chosen to associate these overspends with an apparently frivolous and greedy architectural profession rather than looking at the root causes within the BSF procurement process. Whilst the DSCF has apologised for Gove’s original assertion that architects have been “creaming off cash” from the BSF programme, they still hold the role that architecture plays in delivering education in low regard. A DCSF spokesperson said:
“Rather than spending large amounts of money on consultants and unnecessarily expensive building projects, we believe more funding needs to go directly into schools, on the front line.”(2)
It is difficult to argue against funding going directly into schools and the ‘front line’ but the dismissal of new schools as an ‘unnecessarily expensive’ component of this reveals the contempt that Mr Gove holds for architects. He recently told a free school conference that:
“we won’t be getting Richard Rogers to design your school, we won’t be getting any ’award-winning’ architects to design it because no-one in this room is here to make architects richer” (3)
The idea that school buildings have little effect on children’s academic performance has been very publicly championed by the coalition’s celebrity free school cheerleader Toby Young. He recently remarked on the claim that buildings can make a difference to educational attainment:
“How do you know buildings have this impact? It is extraordinarily arrogant. Architects are clever people. Why not design a building that is a bit more flexible?”(4)
In attempting to achieve more flexible buildings in more cost effective design and construction processes the DSCF is developing a school development programme that will include a suite of standardised designs that:
“Would cut out the need for architects, planning advisers and other consultants to design each school from scratch.”(5)
So whether you live in Cornwall or Kirkwall there will be one of a small range of designs ready, waiting and appropriate for your education, urban, environmental, aesthetic, social and all round architectural needs. This will apparently reinvigorate school building, according to Mr Gove:
“The truth about free schools is that they will introduce the sort of innovation and dynamism that we’ve already seen in schools like Mossbourne” (3)

Mossbourne Academy (6) being a Hackney school that has been transformed into an ‘innovative’ and ‘dynamic’ institution with high academic attainment levels through the hard work and dedication of the staff and teachers in a new building designed by an architect, in fact the ‘award winning’ Richard Rogers that Mr Gove singled out.
According to CABE “it has been designed for a rather specific and distinctive educational approach”(7). It was not built through the BSF programme but clearly demonstrates the impact that buildings, designed to work to compliment the educational aspirations of a dedicated staff, can have on a school community. Mr Gove has praised the results that this school has produced but has chosen not to acknowledge the architecture that helped deliver them. Indeed he has embarked on the removal of architecture from the future development of schools. This policy is a chillingly naïve misunderstanding of the role that architecture can play in education and represents a reminder to the architectural profession of just how hard we must work to prove the value of our work.

(1) http://www.guardian.co.uk
(2) http://www.educationinvestor.co.uk
(3) http://www.bdonline.co.uk
(4) http://www.bdonline.co.uk
(5) http://www.bdonline.co.uk
(6) http://www.mossbourne.hackney.sch.uk
(7) http://www.cabe.org.uk

The broad topic of his talk was campus architecture and the ‘poverty of student architecture.’ He argued that the current trends of urban segregation and exploitation are most appalling in the student context. Segregation because new campuses and residence projects show a general lack of any architectural sensibility and sensitivity to the city. Exploitation because the student body is sold a prepackaged lifestyle for profit. These trends, he further suggest, exist because they have been encouraged by public policy and quickly draws a line from the previous Conservative government to New Labour and ‘Blairite architecture.’

Jubilee Campus extension, Nottingham, by Make Architects

The first part of his talk focused on the disjunction between campus and town. It started way back with the ‘exclusive’ All Souls at Cambridge and jumped forward to new campuses like the Jubilee Campus at Nottingham by Make Architects. These new campuses, again completely disconnected, are prime examples of what he described as the ‘vacuous optimism’ of Blairite architecture that are turning universities into ‘jolly versions of business parks.’

The proposed Quill student residence at Waterloo was given planning approval last week.

The second part of the talk focused solely on housing. In many English cities, the newest, tallest and possibly worst buildings welcoming you as you arrive are student residences that have little or nothing to do with the place -witness Nido Spittafields or the recently approved ‘Quill’ at Waterloo. They  are the result of speculative property development tapping into the new ‘knowledge economy’ (partly inflated by the recent dependency of universities on overseas fees). Hatherley argued that the new residence projects by developers such as Unite or Nido are versions of gated communities completely disconnected from their surroundings, offering minuscule accommodation at high cost -but each with its own plasma screen. Although it might keep the parents who are paying rents from the thought of their children being unsafe, cold, whatever, these projects stand for a general impoverishment of the public realm (its own and the city’s).

Hatherley was followed by Douglas Murphy who gave a brief overview of Modern architecture, the radical responses of the 1960s and 70s, and the theoretical trends of the last 30 years (developed solely within the field of architecture). If one is to look to affect social change through architecture, as I understood his conclusion, you have to forget the last 30 years and focus on historical precedents, practices from outside the field and to the critical practices of the 60s and 70s because ‘these projects of Modern architecture are still unfinished.’ Will Wiles, senior editor at ICON, closed the session before opening a lengthy discussion and question period.

The discussion that followed was quite animated and raised crucial questions on occupation, education, participation, engagement and alternative means of making architecture. Instead of jumping into a description of the salient points or into my own thoughts right here I will leave these for the comments section below. Please comment, correct and/or criticise generously!

Still from Robinson In Ruins, Patrick Keiller, The Royal College of Art/BFI

Filmmaker Patrick Keiller studied architecture at the Bartlett, and his latest offering Robinson in Ruins is part of a larger AHRC-funded project,The Future of Landscape and the Moving Image, which explores narratives of mobility and the political in landscape and place. The film acts as a filter for some of these narratives, combining near-static images with a fast-moving script which jumps from Lidl to Heidegger in one sentence. Keiller sees the film in the terms of a ‘political intervention’, challenging notions of ownership over the landscape, of a perceived ’settledness’ in English agriculture and instead of the constant forces of mobility and displacement at work in forming the landscape we experience.

Still from Robinson In Ruins, Patrick Keiller, The Royal College of Art/BFI

The images jump between distance and detail, from a derelict cement factory punctuating the Cotswold hills, to lichen colonising road signs, and this jarring only reinforces the narratives of battles fought over territory. It also reminds us of the need to view space through a different lens, to understand the constructed nature of our seemingly natural landscape, or what anthropologist Tim Ingold refers to as Taskscapes, the socially constructed space of human activity.

Still from Robinson In Ruins, Patrick Keiller, The Royal College of Art/BFI

Whilst viewing bucolic pastoral visions of the ruins at Hampton Gay, we are told that this was the site of anti-enclosure protests which eventually lead to the instigators being hung, drawn and quartered. In this sense, Keiller is rebelling against the English fascination with the picturesque, and as an anti-scenic gesture, unveiling the policy forces that lead to the creation of ruins. Landscape is in a constant state of change, and through the medium of film it is possible to discern this, and dispel notions of ’smoothness’ or ‘finishedness’ that can stick to perceptions of rural environments. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the images of former military sites, many of them literally enclosed from common land, and taken possession of by another nation state (the US) for purposes of their own defence. Understanding the intention behind this network of bases and their connectedness through a network of gas pipes which criss-cross the country further unravels the ‘Englishness’ with which these rural sites are tagged.

Robinson in Ruins is currently showing at cinemas around the UK.

The Future of Landscape and the Moving Image blog: http://thefutureoflandscape.wordpress.com/

Tim Ingold (1993) “The Temporality of the Landscape”, World Archaeology, 25(2): pp. 24-174

The "Seed Cathedral", UK pavilion by Thomas Heatherwick

…In Expo’s final week, people seemed determined to ward off the meta-question of “what’s it all for?” by concentrating on the mechanics of the Expo breakdown. The newspapers were full of speculations about the fate of various national pavilions, which, with a few exceptions (such as China’s), must be taken down according to the rules set by the Bureau International des Expositions. Amidst talk that Italy’s pavilion would likely be resurrected as a shopping mall, editorials complained that few countries appeared to have planned eco-friendly afterlives for their buildings, though Heatherwick’s Seed Cathedral again was the exception: the first charity auction of 7000 of the Pavilion’s seed rods caused an e-frenzy. Tellingly, there was little reflection about the purpose of the whole.

Perhaps this lack of reflection can be attributed to the fact that the point seems so obvious on one level. As with the Beijing Olympics, Shanghai Expo is intended to announce China’s ascendance to superpower status – probably the only message that every single visitor will take away from Expo. (Although such triumphal muscle-flexing was once an American specialty, ever since Congress decreed that public money can no longer be put towards Expos, U.S. pavilions have been in decline; 2010’s lacklustre effort, which came seriously close to not coming off at all, was sponsored by corporations from Citigroup to PepsiCo and derisively dubbed “Best Buy”.) There was little pretence that Expo might contribute to meaningful technological innovations or to global discussions about climate change, though the displays and case studies in the Urban Best Practice Area (Zone E) were apparently more high-minded. Few national pavilions made more than a nod to the green theme in their displays. One corporate pavilion was even dedicated to Oil: its theme “Petroleum Stretches Urban Dreams” was only marginally less credible than the Coca-Cola Pavilion’s theme of “Happy Plants”.

Coca-Cola signage on the main Expo axis

Instead, individual pavilion displays tend to resemble nothing so much as travel brochures, with a strong emphasis on cultural attractions, national values, and local products. The Canadian pavilion, for instance, showcased the National Film Board and Cirque du Soleil (not Celine Dion, thank heavens), the shop sold t-shirts and maple syrup, and the cafeteria featured poutine, a gravy-and-cheese-curd french fry concoction that seems designed to baffle any non-Canadian. The Pavilion was an unapologetic exercise in national branding: everyone left waving a free flag. Though the stereotypes can get tired, the sense that visitors ‘travel’ to different countries through their pavilion visits, experiencing the best of foreign lifestyles and consumer goods, has historically been one of Expo’s greatest attractions. Since Expo 67 in Montreal visitors have even been issued with passports which get stamped at each pavilion.

Canadian pavilion by Saia Barbarese Topouzanov

Prior to going to China, I’d assumed that the chance to ‘travel’ to other places and to glimpse other lifestyles must be the primary draw for Chinese visitors – and this did appear to be true for many, particularly those from rural areas, who’d been given free tickets (normally about £20 each).  But was this the whole story? The last night before I left, I had the opportunity to speak to one middle-class 24-year old Shanghainese woman who had specialized in Exhibitions and Conferences at university (complete with German teachers and English instruction). Stylish and confident, she had just come back from a beach holiday in Thailand. When I asked her what she thought Expo was all about, she replied without hesitation: “Cultural communication, not concepts.” While I am certain she is right, the communication ended up seeming surprisingly one way. Instead of feeling as if China is out to impress the world, I was ultimately more struck by how hard many countries were working to impress China. And as the record-breaking crowds confirm, the Chinese are enjoying the spectacle.

Shanghai World Expo 2010 will probably to go down in the history books as one of the most successful world’s fairs ever. The Chinese government was aiming for 70 million visitors; by the time Expo closed on 31^st October, they’d reportedly had 73 million. (To compare: Expo 67 in Montreal, one of the most successful world’s fairs of the twentieth century, had 50 million). As well as record-breaking attendance, Shanghai World Expo could justifiably claim success in other ways: the event was efficiently run, amazingly clean, with lots of user-friendly amenities in a vast underground city built to protect visitors from summer heat – restaurants, shops, and, yes, toilets, both Asian squat or throne-style. Take your pick.

Better City, Better Life

Expo also benefited from larger developments that took place at a scale and a cost that today seems only conceivable in China. The notoriously haze of pollution that normally engulfs Shanghai was gone, thanks to manufacturing restrictions in place for the duration of Expo, and the site was accessible thanks to a massive expansion of the subway infrastructure, now one of the world’s largest. And let’s not forget that the site itself – 5.3 square kilometres in the centre of one of the world’s most populous cities – was freed up by the displacement of 55,000 locals, giving an undeniably ironic twist to Expo’s “Better City, Better Life” theme. These developments added tens of billions onto the already staggering $4.2 billion spent on Expo itself, over twice what Beijing spent on the 2008 Olympics. Many say that Shanghai Expo is the world’s most expensive event ever.

Architecturally, the 190 pavilions on site ranged dramatically in quality. Some were spectacular, some were little more than painted big boxes, and some were derivative: Japan’s pink eco-blob was distinctly Graz-like. There were a few obviously eco-friendly green structures like New Zealand’s and Switzerland’s and even a few brown ones like Spain’s and Portugal’s (made of wicker and cork respectively).

Swiss pavilion

Spanish pavilion

UK pavilion by Thomas Heatherwick

Thomas Heatherwick’s UK “Seed Cathedral” deservedly stole the show: bristling with 60,000 acrylic rods, each containing a seed from Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank, it was genuinely on-message and genuinely beautiful. Many national pavilions, however, made no effort to interpret the “Better City” theme environmentally. Certainly China, with its oxblood-red crown like colossus, did not. Nor did Saudi Arabia, whose pavilion – a gigantic ovoid “moon boat” topped by an electronic sign projecting celebratory messages about Chinese-Saudi Arabian friendship – turned out to be the fair’s most popular venue with nine hour waits.

Chinese pavilion

Saudi Arabian pavilion

Indeed, in the face of queues averaging 2 to 3 hours, I gave up after visiting the Canadian and African pavilions and simply wandered around Expo dreamland for the day. There was much to marvel at and enjoy. The visitors – even those in nine-hour queues – seemed curious, patient, and good-humoured. For all the slickness of the operation, there were frequent reminders that we were in China, from passing military parades to announcements exhorting us not to eat too much.  The signage was wonderfully bossy, as if written by someone’s mother. “Polite Language and No Noising,” instructed one. “Be patient and No Jumping the Queue,” said another. The sheer scale of the spectacle was hugely impressive. Yet walking around, I couldn’t help wonder, “yes, it’s fun, but what is it all for?”

Read the second part here.