kahn
continued fro m page 1 weather, and we al/ know you can '/ predict the weather. And Disney, well, Disney is in the business of good of' dependability, that's for sure.) My host Interrupts the thought: "There, now 'Iou have the first Ime of your article. " I was planning /0 visit 拢uroOisney the nex t day. As an American architect who for years has marvelled al how Imported, Euorpean-msplled public spaces fail to take In American Cities, I was determmed to investigate this fantastiC urban -sca le Implant of exported Ameocana. I was Intrigued by the reversal, by the attempted transplant of distinctly Americanized culture onto European soil. J had read the reviews in the architectural press on the plane. Earlier thaI afternoon I had bought cigarelles {thanks to Gary Indiana of the Village VOice I was forewarned: at EuroD,sney tobacco concessions are banned except In the official Disney hotels}. I had even come up with a strategy to save paying the exorbitant entry fee-I would walk around the penmeter without going In, to see what I could see,
In 1981, Mitterand decentralized French urban planning; "projets urbains" would no longer be overseen by a single authority, Responsibility for urban development would subsequently fall to re9ional authofilles, each department and each mayor given leave to control their local realm, to shape the ir immediate urban environment. Mitterand's Paris, for example, gained the seven "Grands Projets, " In 1992, eleven years later, phYSical evidence of the reVised le91slallon IS easy to find a stone's throw from the capita l. Each of the mUniCipalities Just beyond the city stllve to create their own "Porte de Paris," Holding light to the traces of the old wall and the aging Boulevard Penphellque, each mayor, each promO/eur; workS hard to outdo the ne xt Vainly, they all try to compe te With Pans . None of these urban prOjects demonstrates the slightest Interest In what stands just next door. What resu lts resembles an urban necklace concocted of mis-matched glass beads trying to imitate more eKpensive gems, (EuroDisney, the ultimate paste piece, is only slightly further afield.) To the American-trained architect, it seems a distinctly unEuropean urbanspace, (But what eKactly constitutes a European urbanscape in 1990, anyway? All those cities we admire so much, weren't they all significantly shaped by forces of autocratic controls?) In fact , from the outside looking in, Paris IS circumsCflbed by a distinctly Ameflcan lzed urbanscape. Given the obVIOUS International trend of architectural conce,t In contemporary urban scale deSign, one might have cause to wonder abou t the veracity of Idealized urban models, about why we cling so strongly to old-world (European) viSions of the city when new-world (America nized] urbanscapes inSiSt on, and succeed at, establishing themse lves as the norm. When we conSider the difficu lties associated With recognizing other kinds of urban orders-those found In places like Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, or LA-the immediate sense of disdain for the peripheral urban agglomera tions ringing Paris is not so difficult to explain As we leave the urban (dls)comforts of home, It IS troublesome to let go of old criteria for thinking cities These models of once expansive urban though t. cultivated on and associated with distant ground, have long held out the promise of answers, Setting them aside is tantamount to admitting the need to reth ink the way we formu late urban questions. However_ in light of the multiple and necessarily conflicting forces sponsoring patterns of contemporary urban development in Europe, America, and beyond, it seems the moment to reevaluate these old values, to ponder our assumptions regarding the applicability of urban models predicated on centralized authonty (however much we admire them ), models that fail to accord wi th the circumstances of contemporar y life, As traditional ur ban fabric heaves, cracks and reforms itself to fit the orders of the day, no mount of pa tch ing, mending, or restyling Will return it to a pllor state, While the power of the image of the "old city " rema ins tenaCIOUS, the centralized powers sponSOring that image are no longer to be found. (E xce pt. of course, In Disney's land! ) Yet. stili today, too many American thinkers concerned w ith the built environment seem to harbor a penchant for that kind of centra lized power, and for the image, if not the space, of its attendant
5
urban forms . Reading reviews of EuroDisney in the American architectural press, t am struck by the authority of the image, by the way that archi tec tural critics confine themselves to a discussion of the few merits and many faults of seven themed hotels. It's reassuring that all the cr itics seem to agree that "Disneyland, c'est pas Arch itecture," but dlsqulellng Ihat the scope of critical discussion remainS limited to stylistics, Content to assess th is prOjec t on ItS own te rms, such criticism tacitly sanctions the structure of power underwriting the project and summarily dismisses any need for more substantive examination of architecture's position in relation to the values prescribed by a contemporary market Perhaps these issues are best left to those with less at stake? (Those on the Outside, looking in?) While still beholden to a discussion of the bU ildings, at least the British Architectural Review (May, 1992) points ou t, "Only Gehry has resis ted the temptation to compromise, 10 such an eKtent thaI one of the outlying volumes of hiS pan bears an uncanny resemblance to a white Klu Klu~ Klan hood, complete with eye sli\. Surely Disney cannot have noticed, for it is an IroniC reminder that the past is not all sweetly smiling, eaSily aSSimilable and available for dollars." From beyond the profession, (Gary Indiana of the Village VOice) there ar e Signs of a broader (more urban?! vision: this visitor to EUfoDisney writes about ItS reSidential neIghbors nightly suffering from the nOise of fire works displays. He remmds readers that the site of large-scale private developments extends beyond the surveyed boundanes of a building lot. that urban life is more than stylistic life, tha t architectural endeavors have more than Visual effects on thell immediate, and not so Immediale, environment. We all know that the economics of theme parks dictate they be Sited Within l ightly drawn, secure boundaries, ThiS Insures the most conlrol and hopefully, but not always, higher profits, (Even when these zones expand th is still holds true, since themepark growth occurs according to the laws of the Single, hard-sell organism: auto-r eproduction generates like from like, more of the same split off from a selfsufficient central command-core ) We all know that theme parks and theme park owners are self-interest lots, driven by the logic of short-term profits, But where do the interests of architecture and architectural criticism tie J When these endeavors conceptualize the ir growth according to Similar rules, their Sights seem set on remaining w lthm known, eaSily aSSimilated terntory, Rather than striving to reach beyond the boundary to explore alternative models, critics concede to the same market controls as the prOlects they are paid to reflect upon. Meanwhile, readerships that remain satisfied With this tack Insure that these con trols retain thell authollty an d rema in masked from view Given the vast expanse of the Disney development. the limited focus of the architectural press begs certain crillca l questions re lating to contemporary urban-scale design. Given the economiC d,men路 sions of Disney's endeavor, this project offers a chance 10 examine the increasingly complex network of relationships between architecture, power, and money. Given the high degree of control that leads to the caricature that characterizes Disney ventures ( not to m ention the apparent ease with which Disney's architec ts adapt to these controls) fundamental - in fact. ethical - questions are raised regarding the roles and responsib ilities of an architectural profeSSion no longer beholden to (or kepI in check by) singular authorities. Beginning to pursue these issues is to begin to learn to leave the image behind , Not a bad idea, since, after all, "Architecture, c'est pas Disneyland, "
Something kept me from boarding the RER train to EuroDisney. In the end I deCided I might as well spend the day visiting all my favorite cafes and bakeries in Paris Instead. What can I say? There was really no need to squander the time or the money. (/ mean, really, I was only in Europe for one ShOft week, and, . well "EuroDisney, c'est pas Europe, U) Andrea Kahn is a New York architect engaged practice of architectural the ory and criticism ,
In
a