On Urban Implosion

Universal Studios Parking Lot, Universal City, CA. (Photo by Edward Ruscha, 1967) 8

II. On Urban Implosion Sandro ARMANDA

Text of reference: Pope, Albert. 1996.

‘Ladders’. Princeton Architectural Press.

Case study: Ludwig Hilberseimer’s Four Proposal (From The Nature of Cities, 1955)

9

II. On Urban Implosion

Centrifugal, Centripetal, Hilberseimer The second chapter of Albert Pope’s book, Ladders, started with an introduction to the beginning of the inversion and closure of the open system of the 19th-century city. Promoting even greater degrees of closure from the Garden City, to the Modern City. This started the postwar urbanism movement where the ‘urban reform’ of the 20th century planners and designers ceaselessly promoted the grid’s disappearance.

According to Pope, the most consistent and didactic body of work on modern urban closure comes from Ludwig Hilberseimer, the German architect and theorist who is also known for his strong association and partnership with Mies van der Rohe.

Hilberseimer’s projects not only provide a systematic study on the mechanics of closure, both in the production of new urban settlements and in the replanning of existing gridiron constructions, but also provide important strategic thinking on the processes of postwar spatial production, specifically spatial ‘implosion.’

The ‘urban implosion’ is the transitional process between the open, centrifugal organisation of the prewar gridded city into the closed, centripetal organisation of the postwar city, in which one of them is the ladder system. In his book, Pope later called Hilberseimer as ‘the prophet and prime theorist of the ladder system.’

The transitional process starts by one thing, and that is the erasure of the gridiron infrastructure of the Metropolis that instigates a territorial reorganisation. This erasure of the traditional urban form displaces the open, centrifugal gridiron, and collapses the universal continuum of the 19th century cities.

The residue of the erasure process leaves the grid system fragmented. These smaller fragments of the grid, cut off from its surrounding spatial field, forming into polynuclear systems that formally resemble the shape of ladders. Here the qualities and characteristics of the contemporary Megalopolis begin to emerge.

The increasingly fragmented grid produces the residual spaces that often taken over by the ladder, a system that shares the same morphology as the grid but behaves completely the opposite. The grid manifests the characteristics of open, centrifugal organisation while the ladder manifests the characteristics of closed, centripetal organisation.

The centrifugal grid is an infinite system that naturally tend to expand, it is an unlimited expansion of an inherently open system, and therefore its entirety can never be known, it gives access to a greater unknowable whole. It is synecdochical. Yet beyond those qualities, it is apparent that the grid is not 10

only an icon of order, but also a benign apparatus capable of bringing out of an undifferentiated flux an inclusive, heterogeneous field of almost unlimited complexity. While the centripetal ladder is a bounded figure, its extent is known and limited. The system is contained and implosive, a closed and contracted system, and therefore it doesn’t represent space beyond itself. It is not synecdochical. The grid signifies vision, while the ladder signifies plan.

The grid is dynamic, while the ladder is static.

If grids are the index of the most rudimentary level of urbanisation, then their remarkable evolution throughout this century would serve as a key to understanding the city.

It was already mentioned earlier how both the grid and the ladder systems share the same morphology. At first glance, a ladder will just look like a small fragment of a grid system, however the fundamental opposite characteristics then become evident once the two systems are placed in a separate hypothetical open fields. Albert Pope illustrates this with clarity in with his Ten Points diagrams (See Figure 1 & 2).

The Ten-point Diagrams show how the grid system is capable in generating a multitude of interconnections with just ten points being placed. The number and sequence of the grid points can always be adjusted to a variety of itineraries, and thus this implies the flexibilities and possibilities that the grid system could offer in an urban context. On the open grid, the number of available options multiplies.

While in the same ten points that are placed in the exact same place in the ladder system shown in Figure 2, don’t really generate as many interconnections as the grid system shown in Figure 1.

However, this limited interconnection is not something that is a surprise, in fact, the system is designed to work just like that. Written in his book, The Nature of Cities, Hilberseimer seemed to do this rather intentionally. He was aware of these seemingly ‘incapabilities’ of his ladder system and these exact limitations are the things that he tried to design.

Grid Erasure, Birth of Ladders ‘Replanning parts of the city—residential, working, recreational—may achieve good results, but we can never solve the problems of the city as a whole merely by replanning parts of it.’ (Hilberseimer, 1955) Going through his proposals briefly in aim to understand the reasoning behind the implementation of the ladder system will at least give clear intention behind his decisions. Start from the Chicago Marquette Park (Figure 3), for instance, the many street intersections is dangerous for children to go to the 11

II. On Urban Implosion

nearby park and to their schools, and thus closing some streets and removing others would eliminate this danger. It would then be possible to reach park and schools without crossing a single traffic street. He later took further steps by eliminating a number of blocks, and extends the park and brings it closer to the residential area, where schools can also be relocated to.

In the case of Elkhorn (Figure 4), Wisconsin, although he considered it a nice town with no slums and has many trees, the only thing that is wrong with it is the highways which pass through the town and cross each other in the town’s commercial area. Thus, the first thing he proposed was to remove them to the outskirts of the town. Subsequently, secondary roads could be provided to make these highways still convenient for the people of Elkhorn. These secondary roads connecting with the highways then placed as to connect all other residential streets and to make all streets within town closed-end streets. Some residential streets then were taken out, and some were closed.

The dispersed industrial buildings scattered around the town then grouped and placed across the railroad where they belong for efficiency. Small commercial establishments were removed and placed in a single building, similar to a shopping centre. This according to him, would make it easier for the people of Elkhorn to buy their daily needs in one go. Next to this commercial building will be a large parking space for shoppers from outside of the town.

By the end of the restructuring stage, the town will be surrounded by a park where schools would be placed in it.

While the medium-sized city, Rockford on the Rock River (Figure 5-8), is the largest industrial settlement created in the development of the river valley.

It was originally an agricultural area turned into industrial area the produced mainly saw-milling and flour-milling, both which later went into decline rather quickly because of the small forests in the valley that were soon exhausted and wheat farming gave place to dairying. The river is not well suited for transportation and instead became a source of power. His proposal was to relocate the railway and the highways so they don’t bypass the city instead of crossing the city centre, and also to gradually move the soon become obsolete old industrial buildings in the city centre to the outskirt so they don’t pollute the city.

While the residential areas will be kept where they are but their street structure will be modified, and commercial areas will be relocated to one single building. All this will be following the logic of the previous proposals.

The last proposal is the replanning of the city of Chicago which is more in complexity and in size compared to the previous ones. He picked one part of city and that is the North Side Section (Figure 9-12) to demonstrate this. The first one shows the present street pattern, the second illustrate the steps in its redevelopment, while the last two diagrams show alternate configurations for final stage: one with rectangular communities, the other one with square communities. The street hierarchy is very evident: from residential streets, to highways, then eventually to the superhighway that leads to the city. The hie12

rarchy creates a downward spiral that leads to the individuated subject.

In his transformation diagrams, intersection after intersection gets erased through simple demolition process as the stages progress. His restructuring stages are part of a comprehensive study which shows how the city could change itself gradually. In his argument, the simplification of the street system would make it more functional, i.e. traffic could be avoided, and if residential areas were within walking distance to working areas, even local traffic could be reduced to minimum.

The Settlement Unit All of these proposals show clearly how the restructuring of the street network will be, but how about the buildings then? What’s happening in between these ladders?

Each of Hilberseimer’s replanning proposals show a sequence of stages in the total reorganisation of existing urban conditions. This reorganisation is executed by transforming the open urban grids into a series of separated and closed settlement units, where one unit consists of residential, working, and recreational areas—things that he listed as the essentials of a small community (Figure 13 & 14). This packed areas work as one functioning unit in which related areas are within walking distance that would never exceed 15-20 minutes of each other and thus the need for local transportation is decreased and even possibly eliminated. The number of people living within the unit would be determined by the number of people working in offices and factories which are part of the unit. Therefore the density would always vary accordingly.

The industrial area is placed on one side of the transportation line. The opposite side will be occupied by commercial and administration buildings, and beyond them will be the residential areas that are surrounded by a park, its natural recreational area, but also where schools are located, where both are accessible without the need to cross the streets, which means more safety.

The settlement unit will become part of the landscape. This defines an organic relation between the city and the countryside.

Impacts and Contradictions Pope later wrote that the grid of the industrial city is a dehumanising apparatus of its subjects merely as an anonymous crowd, as the grid offers only a series of arbitrary stopping points in relentless continuity, and on the contrary, the ladder gives people exact coordinate on where they live. In the ladder system, everyone lives not on anonymous grid coordinate, but specifically at the end of a particular path, e.g. on the last driveway, in the last cul-de-sac, and so on like a downward spiral that moves toward the individuated subject, 13

II. On Urban Implosion

giving each of them an identity.

This notion is in line with Frank Lloyd Wright’s who, on speaking about his Broadacre City, said ‘In the contemporary Megalopolis, we are exactly where we have always wanted to be, at the very origin of the spiral, each of our delicate egos safely seated at the base of a headlong downward implosion.’

A home, according to Wright, is the ‘true centre,’ and the ‘only centralisation allowable. (Pope, 1996) This notion of egocentric city that is promoted in the centripetal system, and the elimination of street intersections that Hilberseimer called as ‘death traps’ come in contrast with Jane Jacobs, who saw how vital street intersections in the grid system are for the lives of the city to intermingle.

14

Figure 1 (Top). Ten Grid Points: Several interconnections generated, can possibly multiply, and more flexible to adjust. The open, non-hierarchical network is capable of generating complexities.

Figure 2 (Bottom). Ten Ladder Points: With the same ten points placed in exact same place, the system generates less interconnections. The hierarchy eliminates options and therefore signifies a closed system.

15

II. On Urban Implosion

Figure 3. Chicago Marquette Park restructuring in three stages 16

Figure 4. Elkhorn restructuring in four stages

17

II. On Urban Implosion

Figure 5. Rockford: Existing Plan

18

Figure 6. Rockford: First Stage of Redevelopment

19

II. On Urban Implosion

Figure 7. Rockford: Second Stage of Redevelopment 20

Figure 8. Rockford: Final Stage of Redevelopment

21

II. On Urban Implosion

Figure 9. Chicago North Side Section: Existing Street Pattern 22

Figure 10. Chicago North Side Section: Different Stages of Redevelopment 23

II. On Urban Implosion

Figure 11. Chicago North Side Section: Possible Final Stage of Redevelopment with Rectangular Communities 24

Figure 12. Chicago North Side Section: Possible Final Stage of Redevelopment with Square Communities 25

II. On Urban Implosion

F F

F

F

F

F

G

G

E E E

G G

D D A

D

C B A

A

26

Figure 13. The Settlement Unit: A. Industry; B. Main Traffic Line; C. Local Highways; D. Commerce and Administration; E. Residential Area; F. Apartment Buildings; G. Schools

Figure 14. Unit Detail

27