international conference on the research of modern architecture
30 august - 1 september 2002 jyväskylä, finland
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TIM AVERMAETE Catholic University Leuven, Dept. of Architecture, Urbanism and Planning, Belgium email tom.avermaete @ asro.kuleuven.ac.be ACCULTURATION OF THE MODERN: MASS TOURISM, CONSUMER CULTURE AND THE WORK OF CANDILIS-JOSIC-WOODS The canonical architectural histories of the postwar period hold that Team X sprang mainly from a so-called 'internal critique' of the modern movement. Though it can be argued that the deficiencies and limitations of the early modern movement were further developed and refined, the perspective of an 'internal critique' cannot account for the important changes that Team X evoked within postwar architectural culture. The perspective is exemplary for a larger weakness within conceptualization of post-war architectural culture that reduces Team X to the univocal, linear and natural development of the modern movement, and to the exclusive result of internal and theoretical debates within CIAM. In addition to these receptions this research explicitly positions the concepts and projects of Team X within the framework of new themes (practices and spaces) that the modernization project and upcoming mass consumer culture of the 1950s and 1960s brought to the fore: mass housing programs, popularization of university education, increasing automotive mobility… As an example, this text focuses on the values, aspirations, social practices and sites that mass tourism -as an important instance of consumer culture and welfare society- introduced in post-war France. The increasing social importance of leisure reflects itself clearly within the commissions of the Candilis-Josic-Woods partnership -the French contribution to Team X. Between the upstart of the partnership in 1956 and the decomposition of the office in 1970 about 90 projects related to leisure were elaborated. Moreover, Georges Candilis was in 1969 appointed by the Ministry of Equipment (Ministère de l'Equipment) to plan the coast of Languedoc-Roussillion, an area that was at the time the largest tourism zone in France. The Architectural Debate on Mass Leisure: CIAM V- 'Logis et Loisirs' Within the work of Candilis-Josic-Woods tourist projects are seen as opportunities for research into the role and meaning of one of the mass practices that was considered representative of a newly emerging society of welfare and mass consumption. This research is pursued against the background of earlier connotations and meanings that leisure acquired within the international and French architectural debate. 1937 is a pivotal moment in this sence. During that year, CIAM V (with the title 'Logis et Loisirs') and the resulting Pavillion des Temps Nouveaux put the theme of mass leisure explicitly on the international architectural forum and relate it to a new conception of city and country, of urban and rural, that radically departs from their traditional binary opposition. Throughout texts and collages the rural and the urban are defined as interrelated and interdependent categories. The arguments for this interdependency are not based on an abstract theoretical construct, but rather on a set of social and political intentions geared to generate a practice of mass leisure. Democratization of Leisure: Congés Payés and 'Droit à la neige/mer' CIAM's particular attention to the extra-urban (rural/natural) and to the theme of leisure was not coincidental. Both were paramount points of political attention and action for the Popular Front government of Léon Blum that was in power in France since 1936. At the very beginning of its term, the Blum government had underlined the importance of leisure with the legislation of paid vacations (congés payés) which immediately unleashed a wide-ranging debate around the cultural politics of leisure and social acces.Le Corbusier's 1937 dictum that: "'Dwelling and Leisure' seen as an obligation of society towards everybody, becomes a direct ancillary (prolongement) of public services" illustrates how the introduction of the ‘conge payés’ rapidly forged a new understanding of leisure and vacations. It challenged the prevailing notions of vacation as an elite -and generally foreign- practice and enacted a democratic model for vacations. Under the Popular government, paid vacations came to be understood as a right of citizenship bound up with a modern standard of living and part of a new social contract. During the first decades after the war, mass tourism came to be understood as an integral part of the developing ‘New France’ characterized by enhanced productivity, expanding mass domestic markets and an increased velocity of trade. During post-war years notions as ‘Right to the Snow’ (Droit à la Neige) and ‘Right to the Sea’ (Droit à la mer) structured the discourse on tourism. Paid vacations, along with other social policies (housing, family allocations and insurance benefits), came to be understood as benefits geared toward supporting the right of social groups to share in the general welfare and prosperity of society. Two large categories of tourist initiatives emerged and each imbued the realm of mass tourism with a specific set of meanings. Social tourism relied upon government subsidies to realize "vacations for all" through vacation resorts and group travel. Out of this perspective, vacations came to be understood as a form of democratic leisure, social consumption and group solidarity. Besides social tourism also commercial tourism was becoming big-business. The dominant meanings in consumer culture and commercial tourism converged. The tourism project provided a primer for living a modern, consumer oriented life valuing comfort, health, pleasure and self-indulgence. Mass Tourism as testing ground with broader resonance Against this background of neither stable nor fully worked out meanings of mass tourism, the Candilis-Josic-Woods partnership realises around 90 tourist projects in a time span of 24 years. Throughout the texts that accompany the projects, there is the general assumption that tourist projects are sites of architectural experiments: "This major phenomenon of contemporary civilization calls for research into, and the discovery of a new architecture: the architecture of leisure." Characteristic for the practice of Candilis-Josic-Woods is that this idea of a testing ground is interpreted as well along practical as theoretical lines. Within the theoretical approach of the partnership, tourism gets clearly linked to the ideological and political load that it acquired in the pre-war architectural debate. Thus the chapter 'Leisure for the Greatest Number' in Candilis' book Batir la vie of 1977, mirrors the partnership's earlier concerns with 'Habitat for the Greatest Number'. Both leisure and habitat are considered as essential –and interrelated- elements of a larger political project for a society of the ‘greatest number’: "The acceptance of the prime importance of leisure in everyday existence, and its widespread and permanent presence, is bound to undermine ideas about tomorrow's habitat. Nowadays leisure affects the greatest number, is subject to economic laws and has to be "organized", so that it may be accessible to all." Besides an ideological concern, leisure was also an important practical issue for the partnership. The large state investments into the encouragement of mass tourism and into the widening its social access (domestic and foreign) resulted in important commissions for the newly founded office. In the practice of Candilis-Josic-Woods, mass tourism projects function as exemplary attempts to deal with the -often contradictory and tensious- urban reality that results from the new meanings and practices that the welfare state (modernization) and consumer culture introduced during the post-war period. The projects of Candilis-Josic-Woods, can be considered as a critique of certain aspects of this newly emerging urban condition. This critique does not present itself in opposition to the new urban condition, but is rather nested at the very centre of it -to unfold from there as a careful investigation. As an integral and essential aspect of the new urban condition, the practice of mass tourism is considered one of the ideal platforms for this investigation. The janus-faced identity of mass tourism, as a practice that both provides a 'home' to the masses and represents escape from the 'homely', is made operational as a field of tension wherein the investigation can unfold. Connecting New Dwelling Ideals to Density Within this field of tension the tourist projects of Candilis-Josic-Woods investigate the possibilities of reconnecting a new general dwelling ideal of 'privatisation', 'escape' and 'mobility' to the dense and ecological characteristics of collective urban patterns. As Candilis writes in Planning and Design for Leisure: "A separate home (detached house), however excellent, is no longer of interest if it can not be integrated into the fabric of a town, or if it does not contribute to the creation of any such a pattern.". The necessity of mass tourist projects to deal with the tension between two poles proper to mass leisure -on the one hand, the democratic intention to give everybody its individual aces to natural resources (snow, sea) and on the other hand, the need to fore come the disappearance of the natural resource- is taken here as start for a general research into urbanisation patterns. According to Georges Candilis this requires a: "new perspective (that) is bringing new forms of human groupings, new relationships between such a groupings (…) which demand a fresh attitude to architecture and urbanism.". The tourist projects of Candilis-Josic-Woods are remarkable investigations within the possibility of these new kinds of groupings; they represent research into the feasibility of relating the 'privatised' dwelling ideal to density. As multiple conceptual schemes illustrate, the general strategy that the partnership develops to obtain this goal, relies on a double move of 'dissection' and 'reconnection'. In a first dissecting move, the tourist project is unravelled into its smallest composing entities; being it the single dwelling cell or even parts of it. In a second instance these different parts are combined, juxtaposed and superimposed and thus reconnected as a new urban tissue. Centrality: The Stem as Collective Figure The mass tourism projects of Candilis-Josic-Woods are also researches into the prospects of introducing new figures of 'centrality' within the emerging urban condition. They represent a critical stance towards the ongoing developments of dispersal within the post-war urban realm and its important consequences for urban public space. That the new rhythms of vacations offer new modes of sociability and of collectivity, is taken as a starting point for the architectural definition of an alternative for the generally impoverished design and use of public space. The definition of this alternative is inextricably linked to the introduction of common collective figures, which can be considered representations of what Woods would theorize in 1960 as a ‘Stem’. Offshoot is the partnership's belief that within the newly emerging reality, propelled by welfare society and mass consumption, public space can no longer be an urban figure defined by stable architectural, programmatic and social characteristics. In contrast to the Smithsons -who with their 1953 presentation in Aix-en-Provence plea to re-anchor public space within a clearly defined social and architectural matrix- Candilis-Josic-Woods envision public space within the upcoming mass society as still architecturally defined, but no longer bound to specific programmatic elements or social groups. The tourist resort seems to announce a way of experiencing collectivity that differs in at least two ways of what Alison and Peter Smithson propose. First, the new collectivity is not mediated through perennial social entities such as family, neighbourhood and town. In the post-war period the relation between the private dwelling unit and the public order of the city is no longer mediated by these traditional categories. The realms of privacy and publicity seem to be in a much more direct way confronted with one another. Second, the disappearance of the perennial social entities involves the appearance of a new temporality within the collective realm. The collective realm is not a stable social given, but is rather subject to different time rhythms. From this perspective, the 'stem' cannot be a literal replacement or facsimile of the traditional street; it is not an urban figure aligned with clear architectural and programmatic elements. The "permanent, continuous, diversified and increasing presence of leisure in men's live (..) undermines the established hierarchy of values and implies the predominance of facilities in future realizations." writes Candilis. The 'stem' is a similar facility that is based on: "…a system of construction which accepts the diversification and spontaneous nature of these facilities, while at the same time ensuring unity to the whole.". It is a collective space in the form of a large infrastructure; an open organizational structure that can sustain social events and interaction. In the project for Barcares-Leucatte (1969) the partnership offers a view upon the concrete design of such a stem in the two so-called 'Meccano' axes linking the lagoon to the sea. Here, the stem gets the form of a three-dimensional and polyvalent structure built up out of a module that comprises of a post and two beams. The stem presents itself as a nearly dematerialised mega-structure. It is assembled like a set of meccano sticks and allows for endless variations of covered and uncovered spaces, walkways and streets. The stem is thought to function as a three-dimensional grid that serves as a framework, assuring a certain urban discipline and permitting, at the same time, a supple and diversified adaptation. Candilis describes the stem at Barcares-Leucatte as a large (dematerialised) unifying structure; "a super urban furniture - (that) defines ancillary activities and provides spontaneity and mobility" As such, the stem is connected to direct observation of the developments within the immediate urban environment: it acknowledges the important role of large-scale infrastructures and evolving programs within the urbanity that a society of welfare and mass consumption produces: "The temporal validity of the home is the life of the family (…), that of the stem varies with its social and economical milieu. (…) It is felt that stem will change constantly to reflect the mobility of the society." The Role of Small Open Space: 'Niches' It is only from the perspective of this new idea of a large infrastructural urban space -the 'stem'- and its related new meanings and practices of collectivity that another aspect within the tourist projects of Candilis-Josic-Woods can be understood: the emergence of small open spaces or 'niches'. In all projects, these open spaces have something of an unclear or dubious character: in the sense that they are both strongly related to the private realm of the tourist dwelling and at the same time in close connection to larger collective infrastructural and natural scales. Throughout the work of Candilis-Josic-Woods, the relation between the private and the collective has always been a paramount theme. Within their projects there is a permanent questioning of the relation between the small human scale and the large scale of the processes, techniques and infrastructure of modernization. Moreover, there is an attempt to reconnect different scale levels that seem to be disconnected through the processes of modernization. The small open spaces within the tourist projects are elements where connections between these different scales can come to the fore. As Candilis writes, they serve: "…as a link between the dwelling proper (designed for rest and simplified family life) and the natural environment (i.e., the sea, the sun, the beach). The small open spaces in tourist projects are places where the relationship between the small scale of the dwelling and the large infrastructural scale of the tourist developments and the landscape can be mediated. These are places with a large degree of freedom, both inside and outside the controlled domestic and collective realms, where the tourist can develop its own identity. Within the increasingly controlled realms of publicity and domesticity these are 'niches' that offer place for personal expression. In the view of Candilis-Josic-Woods, this strategy of the small open space does not limit itself to tourist developments, but is a way of dealing with a more general confrontation of different scale levels characteristic to modernization: “the idea of the patio dwelling or of the garden terrace dwelling is at present used within certain vacation developments. The thirty years that separate us from the year 2000 will be needed before this ‘way of living’ (mode d’habitat) will join the city...” Research into density, centrality and 'niches' in the work of Candilis-Josic-Woods can be regarded as an attempt to maintain the cultural continuities of the city while addressing new emerging scales of operation and new dwelling ideals. In this sense, despite all their contradictions, or perhaps because of them, these mass tourism projects may hold clues to the challenges of our contemporary urban condition. « CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS |
