change week 7

change

LOTTE VAN HULST

Revolution or revolutionary

To be revolutionary has lost actual meaning because it is so commonly used in advertising. The same goes for progress.The term is vague and does not necessarily say on which of the ends of the political spectrum you are. But it entails moving forward in a way. The connotation of change has changedas well. People have become lazy. Why do people use “revolutionary” all the time but seem to be scared of the word “revolution”? I would say revolution entails something someone would have to work for. Revolutionary is a label and an easy way to wear the identity of being progressive.

People have become lazy

Hail the Maintainersis an essay that resonates with this, saying capitalism produces a tunnel vision of innovation and progress, but fails in maintaining the mundane. Whereas, in the end, maintenance has the greatest impact on inhabitants of a society (Russell & Vinsel, 2015). The necessary day-to-day labour is lost from sight due to the solutionist drive of constant innovation through technology. Andrew Russel also mentions that ‘ economics had already turned to technology to explain the economic growth and high standards of living in capitalist democracies’ (2015).

As soon as they figured that innovation had lost its meaning because it was used so excessively, it was already too late and more books with meaningless innovative titles were on their way to the shop shelves. The same happened to CIAM in the first half of the 20th century. This International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM) had radical ideas about how to design a city.

An example of one of their modernist projects is the Bijlmer (shown in the photograph). This design also went down in history as a result of fancy progressive words without regard for the necessities and maintenance of the daily lives of the people who would actually be living in it. By the time they realised it was not working as they expected, new apartment blocks were already shooting up out of the ground like mushrooms, explains Pi de Bruijn, co-architect of the Bijlmermeer, in an interview for the podcast 99% Invisible (Mingle, 2019).

The construction workers had contracts to build as many as 30 flats in the next few years. But finding tenants was already becoming difficult because of the lack of roads and shops (Mingle, 2019). The innovation outpaced the infrastructure. Russel (2015) refers to this by explaining the unattractive connotation of the word “infrastructure”. But as he says, and as is evident in the example of the Bijlmermeer, infrastructure is essential for the social success of

Modernist Bijlmer tower blocks in hexagonal honeycomb formation (ANP & Anefo, 1994).

modernist or innovative ideas (Russel, 2015). Tenants were found, but they were not the type of tenants the architects initially had designed for.

The impact of identity on innovation or maintenance

Migrants sought sanctuary in the concrete blocks of the Bijlmer, and because of the continuing lack of infrastructure and the fact that the desired residents no longer lived there, the Bijlmer acquired a negative connotation; the identity of the failed Modern in the Netherlands. It became the drain of society and there was not much incentive to improve it. Only destruction and redevelopment were mentioned. Again, erasing and innovating instead of maintaining and improving. Or as Lepore (2014) in her article for The Newyorker calls it disruptive innovation.

Only after a plane crashed into one of the apartment blocks, did the identity of the neighbourhood change into one that the rest of the Netherlands could sympathise with. Finally constructive improvement came about and designs were made in cooperation with the users. So, in conclusion, complexity of user interactions often goes beyond what a designer can anticipate and identity, I think, has an impact on the question of innovating or maintenance.