Hyphen American by Y Nhi Tran

HYPHEN AMERICAN — The Making of Hybrid Identities

Ý Nhi Tran

Advisors: Grace La & Elizabeth Whittaker

Harvard Graduate School of Design | Masters in Architecture Thesis | Spring 2021

SPECIAL THANKS TO The mentorship and guidance of my advisors Grace La & Elizabeth Whittaker.

The conversations with George Thomas & Susan Synder Lyndon Neri & Rossana Hu Kyat Chin

The endless support of my friends and family.

PART I RESEARCH

ABSTRACT

ON BELONGING + DISPLACEMENT

We seek to feel “in place.” However, one cannot feel a sense of belonging if there is nowhere to belong. Architecture is the mediator by which we understand our place in the world. Our sense of existence is verified by the tactility of place. In the 21st century, globalization has increased the mobility of people, information, and goods, ultimately destabilizing spatial permanence associated with identity. Mass displacement of people contribute to a conflicted sense of self – a crisis of belonging.

PART I RESEARCH

How do we establish a sense of belonging in the context of America, a country made of multiple identities? Who determines the contiguous place-identity of our fragmented America? Any effort to unite, or restore, a contiguous American identity runs into the greater problem that “there isn’t and never has been one America, but rather several Americas”. 1

1 Colin Woodard, “Introduction,” in American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America (New York: Penguin, 2012), pp. 1-19. 2 Felipe De Brigard, “Nostalgia Reimagined.” (Aeon, December 15, 2020). 3 Svetlana Boym, “Nostalgia and Its Discontents,” in The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic, 2001), pp. 13. 4 Boym, 15. 5 Boym, 13. 6 Boym, 15.

ABSTRACT

The nostalgic memory of a space emerges from a dislocation in place. It is a sentiment of loss and longing for a past identification with a specific time and place. Originally thought of as a psychological disease, nostalgia is dismissed as an unproductive engagement with the past, consistently paired as the opposite to progress. 2 However, nostalgia and progress are two sides of the same coin. You need progress so places do not deteriorate in its stagnancy. At the same time, you need nostalgia to ground identity and provide a value system for progress. Svetlana Boym makes a critical distinction between a familiar retroactive Restorative Nostalgia and a productive Reflective Nostalgia. 3 Restorative Nostalgia strives for a return to one original, essential status. It stresses nostos (home) and attempts to reconstruct the tradition and absolute truth of the lost home. Nostalgia of this type gravitates toward kitsch collective pictorial symbols. 4 On the other hand, Reflective Nostalgia “thrives on algia (the longing of home) and delays homecoming.” 5 It dwells not on artifacts, but on the ambivalent processes of an individual’s longing and belonging. “If restorative nostalgia ends up reconstructing emblems and rituals of home and homeland in an attempt to conquer and spatialize time, reflective nostalgia cherishes shattered fragments of memory and temporalizes space.” 6

“The experience of leaving home is what made me think and become aware for the first time of the notion of home as such. It could therefore be said that ‘home’ started to exist for me once I no longer had it.” Do Ho Suh

ON MEMORY + IDENTITY

Artifacts

Identity

PART I RESEARCH

Memory

History

7 David Lowenthal, “How We Know The Past,” in The Past Is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 195-219. 8 Anthony Giddens, “The Reflexivity of Modernity,” in The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), pp. 36-45. 9 Doreen Massey, “Places and Their Pasts,” History Workshop Journal, no. 39 (1995): p. 185.

ABSTRACT

According to Lowenthal, Memory is a process of the individual, our identity is informed by the cumulation of our personal memories. History is a process of the collective, our collective identity is informed by a collection of agreed upon memories. Artifacts are the residue of those processes and are evident in our place-identities. 7 For Giddens 8 and Massey, the construction of present place-identities is a compilation of “competing histories of the present.” 9 How can a layered understanding of ones’ past spatial memories of the everyday inform a future hybrid form for the present American urbanscape?

ON ETHNIC ENCLAVES

Mass immigration established pocket ethnic enclaves throughout the country. Historically, the formation of ethnic neighborhoods were a survival tactic against racial and economic oppression of immigrant communities. Marginal territories were a recreation of a remembered past home, generated forms of collectivity around the basis of shared culture and identity while providing a sense of belonging in the context of displacement. Presently, Chinatowns are only an abandoned memory of the ethnic enclave, riddled with dilapidated housing juxtaposed against thriving tourist economies. Recent maps show the migration of the Asian population out towards the suburbs, 10 leaving modern diasporas as mere tourist destinations enabled by historic preservation.

PART I RESEARCH

Seattle’s Chinatown-International District (CID) is a tricultural ethnic enclave servicing the larger Asian-American community. Chinatown and Japantown lie within the Historic District boundary, its place-identity falls victim to the hands of conservationists, prioritizing an ethnic aestheticization and romanticizing the foreign oriental stage set for tourism. Chinatown’s relatively new buildings are appended with historic details and declared as “authentic” markers of culture and identity, while Japantown’s historical buildings are statically preserved to the state of decay. On the other side of the highway, Little Saigon lies on the margin barely escaping the historic designation but occupies a generic low-density strip-mall typology that lacks any capacity for generating cultural identity.

10 Steven Manson et al., Mapping Race Seattle/King County 1940-2010, Mapping Race Seattle/King County 1940-2010 (The Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project. The University of Washington, 2017).

ABSTRACT

I am investigating the forces behind the displacement and assimilation of immigrant communities that have formed pocket ethnic enclaves across America’s urbanscape, focusing specifically on Little Saigon within Seattle’s Historic Chinatown-International District. I’ve chosen this lens of analysis in order to prompt the contemporary image of AsianAmerican communities and critique the current preservation system that revolves around a dated singular essentialist idea of place-identities. This view is inadequate in dealing with a multi-generational, multi-ethnic state of the present hybrid America.

If remembering the past and imagining a future are parallel processes, What can the contemporary overlay of two cultures, the ‘A merican’ and the ‘other,’ look like? Using my personal experience as a case study and way to dive into the greater phenomenon of hybrid identities within an immigrant nation, My thesis explores the personal memory of a past culturalscape as a projective tool for place-making and an alternative to the hyperethnicity of reproductive nostalgia.

PART I RESEARCH

MEMORY ASSEMBLAGE

EXTERIOR

The processes of remembering and forgetting filters and creates imagined hierarchies. This series depicts the process of me trying to remember my first home in the States, using analog layers of acetone transfers, charcoal rubbings collaged with found architectural images. The procedures of grafting, blurring, and fragmenting drawn from the process of memory recall is generative.

PART I RESEARCH

Episodic fragments glitch in and out of place, stitching disparate parts towards a new whole. Imagined memories disguise themselves as reality amongst a recollected past.

my first home in the US, 2001 photograph

MEMORY ASSEMBLAGE

PART I RESEARCH

EXTERIOR

excavating crisp edges amongst undefined boundaries charcoal rub , acetone transfer , pencil trace , digital overlay

MEMORY ASSEMBLAGE

PART I RESEARCH

EXTERIOR

displacing prominent architectual features collage , pencil trace

MEMORY ASSEMBLAGE

PART I RESEARCH

EXTERIOR

stitching of found fragmented architectural images collage

MEMORY ASSEMBLAGE

PART I RESEARCH

EXTERIOR

scanning of surface marks & scratches acetone transfer rubbing, digital overlay

MEMORY ASSEMBLAGE

PART I RESEARCH

EXTERIOR

erasing of material tactility acetone transfer

MEMORY ASSEMBLAGE

PART II MEMORY ASSEMBLAGE

EXTERIOR

layering, documenting, archiving the process of remembering yet forgetting charcoal rub , acetone transfer , pencil trace , collage , digital overlay

MEMORY ASSEMBLAGE

PART I RESEARCH

INTERIOR

glitching interior perspective 01 watercolor, charcoal, acetone rubbing, digital erasure

MEMORY ASSEMBLAGE

PART I RESEARCH

INTERIOR

glitching interior perspective 02 watercolor, charcoal, acetone rubbing, digital erasure

MEMORY ASSEMBLAGE

PART I RESEARCH

INTERIOR

stitching composite interior perspective watercolor, charcoal, acetone rubbing, digital erasure

MEMORY ASSEMBLAGE

PART I RESEARCH

SITE CONTEXT

PART I RESEARCH

SEATTLE CHINATOWN - INTERNATIONAL HISTORIC DISTRICT

SITE CONTEXT

Designated Historic Landmarks Seattle Chinatown - International District

UNDERLYING OPPRESSIVE FORCES IN THE FORMATION OF ETHNIC ENCLAVES

In the late 1800s, the formation of Chinatowns were tied to acts of discrimination and systemic oppression stemming from a reaction to the heightened waves of foreign immigration in the United States after the first Old Wave. The Chinese immigrated to the US during the Second Wave in hopes of economic opportunity. They filled lowpaying laborious construction industry jobs and faced racial discrimination backlash for “stealing American jobs.” 11 In 1902, butchering machines that replaced the large population of Chinese cannery workers in the Fishery industry were named “Iron Chinks”. 12 Anti-Chinese sentiment went so far as to implement the 1880 Chinese Exclusion Act, the first act to place an immigration restriction on an ethnic group.

PART I RESEARCH

Heightened immigration levels corresponded with top-down segregation policies that enabled exclusionary and spot zoning, restrictive covenants, redlining that encouraged the segregation of race and class in America’s fragmented ethnic neighborhoods. 13 Seattle in particular has a long history of racial restrictive covenants that continues to shape housing segregation amongst its’ modern neighborhoods. “It was the right and duty of local government, as one amicus brief put it, to protect residents from the threat posed by a ‘‘disorderly, noisy, slovenly, blighted and slum-like district.” 14

11 History.com Editors, “History of San Francisco’s Chinatown,” History (A&E Television Networks, May 25, 2017). 12 Curtis Asahel, Museum of History & Industry Photograph Collection (Seattle Historical Society Collection, 1905). 13 Colin Gordon, Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 112. 14 Gordon, 114.

SITE CONTEXT

Seattle’s L shaped “Ghetto,” 1948 occupied by the “other” non-white demographic. Source: http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants_report.htm

PART I RESEARCH

UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION HISTORY

SITE CONTEXT

Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau, “Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-Born Population of the United States: 1850-2000” and Pew Research Center.

UNDERLYING OPPRESSIVE FORCES IN THE FORMATION OF ETHNIC ENCLAVES

Seattle’s local municipals along with the biggest names in real estate and land development (The Goodwin Company, South Seattle Land Company, Seattle Trust Company, Puget Mill Company, Crawford & Conover Real Estate partnership, W.E. Boeing of Boeing Aircraft Company) had the incentive and power to influence zoning legislation to maintain property values while sorting the population in a way that benefitted the elite and maximized tax returns. 15

PART I RESEARCH

The National Housing Act of 1934 introduced the practice of redlining which draws physical borders on maps delineating between neighborhoods worth investing in from those that are “risky.” Redlining policies tied real estate values to race and class identities, encouraging property owners to keep restrictive covenants in order to maintain the property values within their communities. America’s Big Sort is based on taste, class values, and lifestyle choices all intertwined with politics legitimizing social differences. 16 To maintain cultural authenticity, what we consume and where we live needs to fit closely with how we identify ourselves. Cultural distinction goes hand in hand with class distinction. 17 In the case of restrictive covenants, cultural exclusion is masked under the disguise of maintaining real estate value, an agreed upon economic ‘public good’ of the community.

15 Gordon, 112. 16 Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2009), Intro. 17 John Seabrook, “A Place in the Buzz,” in John Seabrook’s Nobrow: “The Culture of Marketing, the Marketing of Culture.” (New York: Knopf, 2000), pp. 3-55.

SITE CONTEXT

Restrictive Covenant Windermere. Source: http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants_report.htm

UNDERLYING OPPRESSIVE FORCES IN THE FORMATION OF ETHNIC ENCLAVES

US 2016 Census. Demographic Population: High Drug Crime Rates, Low income, High homeless. Source: www.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=e78561b875034a279259ef21dada08c7.

18 Doreen Massey, “A Global Sense of Place,” in Space, Place, and Gender (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1994), pp. 146-156. 19 Colin Woodard, “Introduction,” in American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America (New York: Penguin, 2012), pp. 1-19.

PART I RESEARCH

20 Gordon, 102.

21 Catherine Silvia, “Racial Restrictive Covenants History: Enforcing Neighborhood Segregation in Seattle,” Segregated Seattle (The Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project. The University of Washington, 2009). 22 David Lowenthal, “Fabricating Heritage,” in History and Memory, vol. 10 (Spring, 1998), pp. 5-24. 23 Catherine Silvia, “Racial Restrictive Covenants History: Enforcing Neighborhood Segregation in Seattle,” Segregated Seattle (The Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project. The University of Washington, 2009).

SITE CONTEXT

Massey states: “Mobility, and control over mobility, reflects and reinforces power.” 18 Those with high income bundle together, marginalizing those with poor income. Regional cultures are able to maintain their identities because modern mobility enables people to cluster around those they share worldviews with. 19 Restrictive covenants enabled informal segregation, allowing neighborhoods to sort itself while removing the need for zoning ordinance laws and easing blame off municipal leaders. 20 Restrictive covenants are legal private agreements made within a group of property owners (Home Owners Associations), developers, or real estate operators of a given neighborhood. 21 These like-minded individuals formed a group sharing a heritage narrative creating an ‘us and ‘them’ mentality. 22 Consequently, Whites occupied suburban neighborhoods around the perimeter of Seattle while ethnic minorities (African-Americans, ChineseAmericans, Japanese-Americans, Filipino-Americans) were viewed as “the others,” and pushed to marginal ‘ghetto’ residual spaces in the older zones of the Central District. Although these top-down discriminatory legislations are now illegal by a Supreme court ruling in 1948 and the Fair Housing Act in 1968, the history of segregation remains in the blueprint of our present neighborhood enclaves. 23 In Seattle, city officials renamed Chinatown as the “International District”, priding the area for its rich ethnic diversity. 24 However, the present demographics from the US 2016 Census, show this ‘diversity’ consisted primarily of the minority “other” – low income, high crimes, homeless rates, and neglected older population. 25

24 Wikipedia, “Chinatown–International District, Seattle,” Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation, April 26, 2020). 25 Areavibes, “International District, Seattle, WA Demographics,” 2016.

HISTORIC DISTRICTS: THE ‘AUTHENTIC’ ORIENTAL TOURIST EXPERIENCE

Ethnic enclaves, such as Chinatowns, were a recreation of a remembered past home, they provided a sense of belonging in the context of displacement. The International District was established as a historic designation through an ordinance in 1973 by the City of Seattle to “preserve the District’s unique Asian American character.” 26 A seemingly protective designation ultimately traps the International District, transforming it from a lively place that served its immigrant population to an overly- preserved oriental stage.

PART I RESEARCH

The International District falls victim to Banham’s Embalmed City, its’ over-preservation resulted in a “fetishism [that] replaced functionalism, men bowed down to wood and stone instead of inhabiting them.” 27 Single Room Occupancy hotel residencies occupy the majority of housing units in the historic district and are often left to deteriorate as renovations to get the buildings up to code are too costly. According to an interview with Tanya Woo, the owner of the Louisa Hotel, efforts usually go to the ground floor of these hotels to create a usable commercial friendly space that caters the tourist industry while the top floors functioning as residential SROs are empty and abandoned. 28

26 The City of Seattle. International Special Review District 1973. 27 Reyner Banham, “The Embalmed City,” (New Statesmen, Vol 65, Jan 4, 1963). pp. 528-530. 28 Meg van Huygen, “The Panama Hotel Is Both a Working Hotel and a Living Museum,” Curbed Seattle (Curbed Seattle, April 30, 2018).

SITE CONTEXT

Seattle Chinatown Gate. Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Seattle_-_Chinatown_gate_04.jpg

HISTORIC DISTRICTS: THE ‘AUTHENTIC’ ORIENTAL TOURIST EXPERIENCE

PART I RESEARCH

There is a nostalgic tendency to preserve places for the sake of preserving traditions, creating an assumed relationship for the user between a place and its romanticized history. Massey defines this relationship with place as ‘place-bound’ by the traditions of a place and resistant to progressive change. The Panama Hotel in Japantown thrived in 1910, serving the Japanese population as a residential unit, café, bathhouse, laundromat, etc. After the World War II, it was used to store the belongings of families who were displaced to internment camps. Presently, it is a preserved museum and hotel priding itself on ‘preserving’ the only Sento bathhouse typology surviving in the US. 29 This idea of preservation perpetuates a non-functioning bathhouse that is left to decay with time, objectifying architecture into a static museum object that can no longer contribute to the creation of culture. According to Han, Western preservation of historical monuments is a “museumization of the past, whereby cult value increasingly gives way to exhibition value” going hand in hand with the increasing tourism industry. 30

29 Meg van Huygen, “The Panama Hotel Is Both a Working Hotel and a Living Museum,” Curbed Seattle (Curbed Seattle, April 30, 2018). 30 Han, Byung-Chul. “The Copy Is the Original.” Aeon, The MIT Press an Aeon Strategic Partner, 2 Dec. 2020.

SITE CONTEXT

Preserved Sento Bathhouse. Panama Hotel. National Register of Historic Places Source: https://seattle.curbed.com/2018/4/30/17303288/panama-hotel-seattle-history-preservation

PART I RESEARCH

HISTORIC DISTRICTS: THE ‘AUTHENTIC’ ORIENTAL TOURIST EXPERIENCE

SITE CONTEXT

“If restorative nostalgia ends up reconstructing emblems and rituals of home and homeland in an attempt to conquer and spatialize time, reflective nostalgia cherishes shattered fragments of memory and temporalizes space.” Svetlana Boym

THE PROJECTED DEATH OF CHINATOWNS & ETHNIC MIGRATION TO SUBURBS

1950 Chinatown District.

2010 Migration of Asian Population to Rainier Valley Suburbs.

PART I RESEARCH

Source: https://seattle.curbed.com/2018/4/30/17303288/panama-hotel-seattle-history-preservation

31 Ben Nuckols and Hope Yen, “Urban US Chinatowns Wane as Asians Head to Suburbs,” The Seattle Times (The Seattle Times Company, January 19, 2012). 32 Laura Bliss, “Chinatown Businesses Face a Particularly Brutal Winter,” Bloomberg City Lab, December 7, 2020.

SITE CONTEXT

The new generation of immigrants are more educated and affluent than their predecessors. They are less likely to work service jobs in laundry and restaurant and more interested in high-tech manufacturing jobs. The trend in migration patterns show the Asian majority skipping over the lowerincome, inner city Chinatown entirely and entering straight into American suburbs. “New York’s Chinatown, one of the nation’s oldest, has lost its status as home to the city’s largest Chinese population, based on the 2010 census. Shifts also are under way in Los Angeles, Boston, Houston, San Francisco and Seattle, where shiny new “satellite Chinatowns” in the suburbs and outer city limits rival if not overshadow the originals.” 31 As the younger generation move out of their first homes and assimilate into American culture, what will be left of the older generation and the cultures they’ve retained within these original enclaves? Although originally formed of out exclusionary practices, Chinatowns, at one point in time, fulfilled a role of a residential, political, and cultural center. Presently, Historic Chinatowns are functioning only as stage sets fueled by the tourist economy. The streets are filled with restaurants catering to a westernized consumption of oriental taste. An entire place-identity centered around neo-liberal economic interests of the tourist industry is not sustainable. Covid-19 highlights the frail nature of a solely tourist-dependent place sparking the conversation for the future of Chinatowns. 32 It has led to a decrease in tourism accompanied by an increase in Chinese stigmatism and business closures. How can we reintroduce vitality and retain the essential sense of belonging in the dying enclave for generations to come?

PART I RESEARCH

PAST — THE VIETNAMESE TUBE

HOUSE

Vietnamese Tube Houses. Ha Noi, Vietnam. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/98981062@N00/315689823

CHARACTERISTICS

Vietnamese Residences. Ha Noi, Vietnam.

PART I RESEARCH

Source: (Left) https://blog.quintinlake.com/2010/06/16/tube-houses-of-vietnam/ (Right) https://art.branipick.com/small-medium-large-tube-houses-townhouses-in-hanoi-long-bien-area3024x4032-oc/

The typological evolution of the contemporary tube home, as a narrow form, came as a result of high density and land tax laws dependent on the width of the facade facing the street. 33 Its’ spatial conditions are characteristic of a rhythmic sequence of interior-exterior courtyards typically found throughout Southeast Asia. Intimate voided alleyway conditions bleed inwards from the semi-public street alleys into courtyards and skywells of the private home. This mass-void sequencing provides a method to bring light and ventilation into these deep narrow homes.

PAST - THE VIETNAMESE TUBE HOUSE

In place of iconographic mimicry that reduces ones cultural identity to a digestible language of semiotics, architecture can draw forth an understanding of past spatial memories within the domestic, such as materiality, spatial arrangements, and rituals of living, in order to embody the multifaceted identities of the present American urbanscape.

Programmatically, it provides a model to intermix many households and programs under one roof. The front-facing ground floor hosts family-owned public programs such as cafes, bookshops, and restaurants. Generations of households occupy each floor, with grandparents on the lower level building upwards to a shared garden rooftop.

33 Ngo Kien Thinh, Yun Gao, and Adrian Pitts, “Self-Built Housing in Hanoi: The Study of Socio-Cultural Values and Its Influence on Housing Design,” University of Huddersfield Research Portal (AMPS (Architecture, Media, Politics and Society), April 4, 2018), pp 368.

CHARACTERISTICS

PART I RESEARCH

The success and vitality of the individual tube house is dependent on a collective urban network of interior alleyways and the social practices associated with it. The series of photographs on the right document the informal occupation of the alleyway void. Clusters of neighborhood communities branch off alleyway streets into shared courtyard spaces. Sounds of collective life - cafe chatter, children playing, brooms sweeping, dishes clanking, and food sizzling - radiate outwards. The logic of twists and turns of the alleyway is completely antithetical to America’s Cartesian ordered neighborhoods.

PAST - THE VIETNAMESE TUBE HOUSE

(Top) “Candy Shop” (Bottom) “Food and Telephone Stall” Saigon 1997 Series. Photographed by Doi Kuro. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/13476480@ N07/24987355174

URBAN TYPOLOGY

PART I RESEARCH

Traditional 1000 years Chinese Rule 100BC - 1000 AD

Semi Traditional French Colonial Rule 1858-1945

PAST - THE VIETNAMESE TUBE HOUSE

Contemporary Post Doi Moi Economic Reform 1986- Present

BUILDING TYPOLOGY

PART I RESEARCH

Traditional 1000 years Chinese Rule 100BC - 1000 AD

Semi Traditional French Colonial Rule 1858-1945

PAST - THE VIETNAMESE TUBE HOUSE

Contemporary Post Doi Moi Economic Reform 1986- Present

BUILDING TYPOLOGY

voided exterior

PART I RESEARCH

mass interior

Traditional Vietnamese Tube House mass/void diagram

PAST - THE VIETNAMESE TUBE HOUSE

shared kitchen - living - roof garden public commercial private residential

Traditional Vietnamese Tube House programmatic diagram

BUILDING TYPOLOGY

voided exterior

PART I RESEARCH

mass interior

Semi - Traditional Vietnamese Tube House mass/void diagram

PAST - THE VIETNAMESE TUBE HOUSE

shared kitchen - living - roof garden public commercial private residential

Semi - Traditional Vietnamese Tube House programmatic diagram

BUILDING TYPOLOGY

voided exterior

PART I RESEARCH

mass interior

Contemporary Vietnamese Tube House mass/void diagram

PAST - THE VIETNAMESE TUBE HOUSE

shared kitchen - living - roof garden public commercial private residential

Contemporary Vietnamese Tube House programmatic diagram

PART I RESEARCH

PRESENT — THE

AMERICAN STRIP MALL

Generic Strip Mall located in the US. Source: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/2/25/revenge-of-the-strip-mall

CHARACTERISTICS

(Top) Ye Market Place. Los Angeles, CA. Source: https://tropicsofmeta.com/2014/04/01/retail-california-cars-drive-in-markets-and-consumers/

(Bottom) The Las Vegas Strip.

PART I RESEARCH

Source: Matthew J. Manning, “The Death and Life of Great American Strip Malls: Evaluating and Preserving a Unique Cultural Resource,” (The University of Georgia, 2009), pp 37.

Characterized by one to two story simple frame construction, set back parking, and embodied signage on the front façade entablature, the generic nature of the strip mall enables an endless adaptability resulting in an architecture with no identity or lasting impression. In its ubiquity, “By trying to be everything to everyone, it has failed to be anything to anyone.”

PRESENT - THE AMERICAN STRIP MALL

Flash forward to the present condition of the omnipresent American Strip mall thriving in immigrant communities due to its cheap construction and low rent. Originally labeled for its convenience and efficiency for the modern age of cars, they were historically created as machines for selling.

The strip mall is “extroverted” with signs facing outward towards the street. The parking lot and signage occupy the majority of the lot while the building becomes the backdrop. The investment in signage over architecture was an economic move allowing chains to easily replicate the image of a building’s identity without replicating the actual building. For the strip mall, the sign, not the building, became the dominant figure in the American-scape.

34 Matthew J. Manning, “The Death and Life of Great American Strip Malls: Evaluating and Preserving a Unique Cultural Resource,” (The University of Georgia, 2009), pp 56.

CHARACTERISTICS

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg speaks of the “third place” as one that evokes a sense of belonging, allowing the individual to participate within a larger community. 35 If the home is the primary place and work is secondary, what is the third place in the American context?

PART I RESEARCH

In its conception, the Strip Mall and its parking lot originally fulfilled the role of a social and cultural center for suburban residents, providing social amenities traditionally found in the city center. The parking lot became a host for community events for civic organizations such as churches, and various ethnic communities.

35 Avery Trufelman, “The Gruen Effect,” 99% Invisible, January 1, 1970

PRESENT - THE AMERICAN STRIP MALL

Strip Mall as the neighborhood community center, Levittown, NY Source: Matthew J. Manning, “The Death and Life of Great American Strip Malls: Evaluating and Preserving a Unique Cultural Resource,” (The University of Georgia, 2009), pp 41.

PART I RESEARCH

URBAN TYPOLOGY

uniform property blocks and cartesian suburban streets

PRESENT - THE AMERICAN STRIP MALL

PART I RESEARCH

URBAN TYPOLOGY

personal urban network and subsequent path of travel

PRESENT - THE AMERICAN STRIP MALL

BUILDING TYPOLOGY

Strip Mall Typology. The Community Builder’s Handbook. 1968.

PART I RESEARCH

Source: The Community Builders Handbook, Ed. J. Ross McKeever and prepared by the Community Builder’s Council of the Urban Land Institute, Anniversary Edition, (Washington, DC: Urban Land Institute, 1968), 320-21.

PRESENT - THE AMERICAN STRIP MALL

Strip Mall Parking Layout. Architectural Record, 1932. Source: Matthew J. Manning, “The Death and Life of Great American Strip Malls: Evaluating and Preserving a Unique Cultural Resource,” (The University of Georgia, 2009), pp 19.

PART I RESEARCH SITE

PRESENT - THE AMERICAN STRIP MALL

Seattle Chinatown - International District, “Little Saigon.” Strip Mall Mapping.

SITE

PART I RESEARCH

Existing Building Plan

PRESENT - THE AMERICAN STRIP MALL

Existing Building Site Section

PART II I RESEARCH PROPOSAL

PROJECTIVE NOSTALGIA

URBAN SCALE

PART II PROPOSAL

site plan - before

PROJECTIVE NOSTALGIA

site plan - after

PART II PROPOSAL URBAN SCALE

PROJECTIVE NOSTALGIA

PART II PROPOSAL

THE STRIP MALL

new front entrance

PROJECTIVE NOSTALGIA

ground floor plan

PART II PROPOSAL

THE STRIP MALL

interior hyphen atrium

PROJECTIVE NOSTALGIA

third floor plan

THE STRIP MALL

PART II PROPOSAL

still frame 00:00s

still frame 00:11s

PROJECTIVE NOSTALGIA

rear entrance https://vimeo.com/544416837

THE STRIP MALL

PART II PROPOSAL

still frame 00:00s

still frame 00:12s

PROJECTIVE NOSTALGIA

interior hyphen connecting residential and civic spaces https://vimeo.com/544134592

PART II PROPOSAL

THE STRIP MALL

hyphen fragment model - front

100

PROJECTIVE NOSTALGIA

hyphen fragment model - back

101

PART II PROPOSAL

THE NEW RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD

neighborhood cluster alley entrance

102

PROJECTIVE NOSTALGIA

ground floor plan

103

PART II PROPOSAL

THE NEW RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD

interior hyphen skywell

104

PROJECTIVE NOSTALGIA

second floor plan

105

THE NEW RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD

I - One Bedroom Loft

I + I’

PART II PROPOSAL

II - Studio

III - Multi Bedroom Bi-Level

II+ III + II’ + III’

unit module types

106

PROJECTIVE NOSTALGIA

third floor plan

107

THE NEW RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD

PART II PROPOSAL

still frame 00:00s

still frame 00:25s

108

PROJECTIVE NOSTALGIA

extended collective balcony https://vimeo.com/546767811

109

THE NEW RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD

PART II PROPOSAL

still frame 00:00s

still frame 00:20s

110

PROJECTIVE NOSTALGIA

back alley courtyard https://vimeo.com/548029907

111

PART II PROPOSAL

THE NEW RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD

hyphen fragment model

112

PROJECTIVE NOSTALGIA

113

114

CREDITS & ATTRIBUTIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

115

ON MEMORY — IDENTITY — DISPLACEMENT — BELONGING

Boym, Svetlana. “Nostalgia and Its Discontents.” Essay. In The Future of Nostalgia, 7–18. New York: Basic, 2001. Banham, Reyner. The Embalmed City,-530. New Statesmen, Vol. 65, Jan. 4,1963. Barthes, Roland. 1972. Mythologies. London: J. Cape. Bishop, Bill. The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2009. Davis, Charles L. “Introduction: The Racialization of Architectural Character in the Long Nineteenth Century.” In Building Character: The Racial Politics of Modern Architectural Style, 3-28. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019. Accessed May 02, 2021. doi:10.2307/j.ctvp2n2fx.4. De Brigard, Felipe. “Nostalgia Reimagined.” Aeon, December 15, 2020. https://aeon.co/essays/nostalgia-doesnt-need-real-memories-animagined-past-works-as-well. Forster, W Kurt. “Monument/Memory and the Mortality of Architecture.” Oppositions 25.

CREDITS & ATTRIBUTIONS

Giddens, Anthony. “The Reflexivity of Modernity,” pp. 36-45. The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press. 1990.

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Han, Byung-Chul. “The Copy Is the Original.” Aeon, The MIT Press an Aeon Strategic Partner, 2 Dec. 2020, aeon.co/essays/why-in-china-and-japan-a-copy-is-just-as-good-asan-original.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lowenthal, David. “Fabricating Heritage.” In History and Memory. Vol.10, No. 1. Spring, 1998. Lowenthal, David. “How We Know The Past.” Essay. In The Past Is a Foreign Country, 195–219. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Massey, Doreen. “Places and Their Pasts.” History Workshop Journal, no. 39, 1995, pp. 182–192. Massey, Doreen. “A Global Sense of Place.” In Space, Place, and Gender, 146–56. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1994. Rossi, Aldo. The Architecture of the City. ‘The Collective Memory’. Seabrook, John. “A Place in the Buzz.” In John Seabrook’s Nobrow: “The Culture of Marketing, the Marketing of Culture.”, 3–55. New York: Knopf, 2000. Woodard, Colin. “Introduction.” Essay. In American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, 1–19. New York: Penguin, 2012.

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ON ETHNIC ENCLAVES — IMMIGRATION

ArcGIS. “An Investigation: The State of Seattle’s Homeless Population.” Map Journal, ArcGIS, 2017, www.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/indexhtml?appid= e78561b875034a279259ef21dada08c7. Areavibes.International District,Seattle,WA Demographics 2016, www.areavibes.com/seattle-wa/inter national+district/ demographics/. The International District, Seattle, WA demographics data displayed above is derived from the 2016 United States Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS). Asahel, Curtis. “Iron Chink” at Work in Pacific American Fisheries Cannery, 1905. Museum of History & Industry Photograph Collection. Seattle Historical Society Collection, 1905. https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/ imlsmohai/id/7030/. Bliss, Laura. “Chinatown Businesses Face a Particularly Brutal Winter.” Bloomberg City Lab, December 7, 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-07/covid19-has-been-a-disaster-for-u-s-chinatowns.

CREDITS & ATTRIBUTIONS

Crowley, Walt. “Chinatown-International District.” National Trust Guide Seattle: America’s Guide for Architecture and History Travelers, New York City: Preservation Press, 1998, p. 55.

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Friends of Little Sàigòn, 2011, flsseattle.org/. Gordon, Colin. Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Guanlao, Joseph. “SCIDpda.” Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation Development Authority, SCIDpda, 20 Mar. 2020, scidpda.org/. Hansen, Lily. “Friends of Little Saigon to Open Creative Space for the Vietnamese American Community in Seattle.” International Examiner, 4 Dec. 2019, iexaminer.org/friends-of-little-saigon-to-open-creative-space-forthe-vietnamese-american-community-in-seattle/. History.com Editors. “History of San Francisco’s Chinatown.” History. A&E Television Networks, May 25, 2017. https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/san-franciscochinatown. Huygen, Meg van. “The Panama Hotel Is Both a Working Hotel and a Living Museum.” Curbed Seattle, Curbed Seattle, 30 Apr. 2018, seattle.curbed.com/2018/4/30/17303288/panama-hotel-seattlehistory-preservation. Manson, Steven, Jonathan Schroeder, David Van Riper, and Steven Ruggles. “Seattle Segregation Maps 1920-2010.” Map. Mapping Race Seattle/King County 1940-2010. The Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project. The University of Washington, 2017. http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/maps_race_seattle.htm. These maps and tables were created by Anna Yoon, Brian Lam, Gihoon Du, Jiang Wu, and Yurika Harada using data and shape files from the National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS). National Trust for Historic Preservation; Preservation Green Lab. Publication. Untapped Potential: Strategies for Revitalization and Reuse. savingplaces.org, October 2017. https://forum.savingplaces.org/viewdocument/untappedpotential-strategies-for.

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ON ETHNIC ENCLAVES — IMMIGRATION

Nguyen-Akbar, Mytoan. “Socio-Cultural Facts about Seattle’s Immigrant and Refugee History,” August 15, 2016. https://www.asanet.org/news-events/footnotes/jul-aug-2016/ features/socio-cultural-facts-about-seattles-immigrant-andrefugee-history. Nuckols, Ben, and Hope Yen. “Urban US Chinatowns Wane as Asians Head to Suburbs.” The Seattle Times. The Seattle Times Company, January 19, 2012. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/urban-uschinatowns-wane-as-asians-head-to-suburbs/. Said, Edward. “Introduction.” Orientalism, Pantheon Books, 1978, pp. 1–28. Schofield, Kevin. “Understanding the Chinatown / International District MHA Upzone.” Seattle City Council Insight, Kevin Schofield, 30 Apr. 2017, sccinsight.com/2017/04/29/under standing-chinatowninternational-district-mha-upzone/.

CREDITS & ATTRIBUTIONS

Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority (SCIDpda). Little Saigon Landmark Project Feasibility Study, 2014. w w w. s e a t t l e . g o v / D o c u m e n t s / D e p a r t m e n t s / O P C D / OngoingInitiatives/ChinatownInternationalDistrict/Little%20 Saigon%20Landmark%20Project%20Feasibility%20Study.pdf.

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Seattle City Council. Chinatown/International District Strategic Plan, Seattle City Council, 15 June 1998. www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/Neighborhoods/ Planning/Plan/Chinatown-International-District-plan.pdf. Silvia, Catherine. “Racial Restrictive Covenants History: Enforcing Neighborhood Segregation in Seattle.” The Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project. The University of Washington, 2009.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The City of Seattle. Design Guidelines for Awnings and Canopies, Façade Alterations, Security and Signs, International Special Review District, 13 September 1988. h t t p : / / w w w. s e a t t l e . g o v / D o c u m e n t s / D e p a r t m e n t s / Neighborhoods/HistoricPreser vation/HistoricDistricts/ InternationalDistrict/id_guidelines.pdf The City of Seattle. Livable South Downtown Planning Study, City of Seattle Department of Planning and Development. December 2009. http://wayback.archiveit.org/3241/20130513173937/http:// seattle.gov/DPD/cms/groups/pan/@pan/@plan/@proj/ documents/web_information al/dpdp018365.pdf. Wikipedia. “Chinatown–International District, Seattle.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Apr. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wikiChinatown%E2%80%93International_ District%2C_Seattle. Wong, Dr. Marie, et al. “History Collective: Chinatown - International District.” SeattleChannel21, YouTube, 12 Nov. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_rfCDUxmUw.

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ON THE VIETNAMESE TUBE HOUSE:

Doling, Tim. “Icons Of Old Saigon: Shophouse Architecture.” Saigoneer, June 8, 2015. https://saigoneer.com/saigon-heritage/4584-icons-of-old-saigonshophouse-architecture. Kien, To. “‘Tube House’ and ‘Neo Tube House’ in Hanoi: A Comparative Study on Identity and Typology.” Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering 7, no. 2 (2008): 255–62. https://doi.org/10.3130/jaabe.7.255. Nguyen, Phan Anh; Bokel, Regina M.J.; Dobbelsteen, A.A.J.F. van de. “Towards a sustainable plan for new tube houses in Vietnam”. In Carola Hein (ed.) International Planning History Society Proceedings, 17th IPHS Conference, History-Urbanism-Resilience, TU Delft 17-21 July 2016, V.02 p.211, TU Delft Open, 2016. Accessed Feb 22, 2021. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7480/iphs.2016.2.1237

CREDITS & ATTRIBUTIONS

Nguyen, Tu Uyen Dieu, and John Boudreau. “Hanoi Shophouses Reveal City’s Communist and Capitalist History.” Bloomberg City Lab. Bloomberg, September 17, 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-18/thehistory-behind-hanoi-shophouse-floor-plan-design.

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Nguyen, Thao Phuong, and Bart Julien Dewancker. “A Comparative Study on Visibility Relation of Vietnam Traditional and Contemporary Tube House Plans.” Sustainable Development and Planning IX 226 (2017). https://doi.org/10.2495/sdp170181. Thinh, Ngo Kien, Yun Gao, and Adrian Pitts. “Self-Built Housing in Hanoi: The Study of Socio-Cultural Values and Its Influence on Housing Design.” University of Huddersfield Research Portal. AMPS (Architecture, Media, Politics and Society); University of Derby, April 4, 2018. https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/publications/self-built-housing-inhanoi-the-study-of-socio-cultural-values-an.

Bainbridge, Danielle, and Kornhaber Brown. Why Do All Malls Look the Same? YouTube. PBS Origin of Everything, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTqnaNATlqk.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ON THE AMERICAN STRIP MALL:

Hart, John Fraser. “The Bypass Strip as an Ideal Landscape.” Geographical Review 72, no. 2 (1982): 218-23. Accessed Feb 15, 2021. doi:10.2307/214868. Manning, Matthew J. Thesis. The Death and Life of Great American Strip Malls: Evaluating and Preserving a Unique Cultural Resource. Thesis, The University of Georgia, 2009. https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/manning_matthew_j_200908_ mhp.pdf. Schneider , Benjamin, and Alfred Twu. “A Field Guide to California Urbanism: Five Tropes of City Life That Originated in the Golden State.” SPUR. The Urbanist, May 2019. https://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2019-05-16/ field-guide-california-urbanism. Trufelman, Avery. “The Gruen Effect.” 99% Invisible, January 1, 1970. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-gruen-effect/. Urban Land Institute, and Community Builder’s Council. “Planning the Shopping Center Site.” Essay. In The Community Builders Handbook, Anniversary ed. Editor, J. Ross McKeever.ed., 313–20. Washington: University Microfilms International, 1968. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015006307436 &view=1up&seq=353. Vogel, Traci. “It’s a Mall World After All: More than the Architecture of Convenience, the Strip Mall Is California Epitomized.” Metroactive, January 24, 2002. http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/01.24.02/cover/ stripmalls-0204.html.

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AUDIO FOR COLLAGED PERSPECTIVE VIGNETTES TAKE FROM:

Credits and attributions are listed below for any work shown in the thesis project that is not exclusively my own. “20080811.Sunday.morning.ambience” by dobroide (https://freesound.org/people/dobroide/sounds/77244/) licensed under CCBY 3.0 “Alley downtown ambience 01” by klankbeeld (https://freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/ sounds/171425/) licensed under CC0 1.0 “Chinatown Alleys” by Mings (https://freesound.org/people/Mings/sounds/325047/) licensed under CCBYNC 3.0 “cork_bottle_opening” by DrMaysta (https://freesound.org/people/DrMaysta/ sounds/367545/) licensed under CC0 1.0 “Family Ambience, Background Noise” by f-r-a-g-i-l-e (https://freesound.org/people/f-r-a-g-i-l-e/ sounds/496749/) licensed under CCBY 3.0

CREDITS & ATTRIBUTIONS

“Female humming” by drotzruhn (https://freesound.org/people/drotzruhn/ sounds/405207/) licensed under CCBY 3.0

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“Frying Sounds” by Sassaby (https://freesound.org/people/Sassaby/sounds/535323/) licensed under CC0 1.0 “Market street alley opening morning sweeping light activity voices rooster Beijing, China” by kyles (https://freesound.org/people/kyles/sounds/452403/) licensed under CC0 1.0

CITATIONS

AUDIO FOR COLLAGED PERSPECTIVE VIGNETTES TAKE FROM:

”Music in room playing through Radio2” by Jordishaw (https://freesound.org/people/Jordishaw/ sounds/490797/) licensed under CCBY 3.0 “Museum Café” by mrmayo (https://freesound.org/people/mrmayo/sounds/351264/) licensed under CC0 1.0 “Sweeping” by BiancaBothaPure (https://freesound.org/people/BiancaBothaPure/ sounds/365767//) licensed under CCBYNC 3.0 The Temptations. “My Girl.” Youtube. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEztui18cA8) “Window open and close” by TItibles (https://freesound.org/people/Titibles/sounds/539327/) licensed under CC0 1.0 “WalkingDownStairs” by Taira Komori (https://freesound.org/people/Tair a%20Komori/ sounds/213300/) licensed under CCBY 3.0 “Walking Down Back-alley behind The Palomino” by IESP (https://freesound.org/people/IESP/sounds/339920/) licensed under CCBY 3.0 “White Noise” by MoveAwayPodcast ( h t t p s : / / f r e e s o u n d . o r g / p e o p l e / M o v e Aw a y Po d c a s t / sounds/555366/ ) licensed under CCBY 3.0 “Wooden Chair 4” by Aiwha (https://freesound.org/people/Aiwha/sounds/415939/) licensed under CCBY 3.0

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IMAGES FOR COLLAGED PERSPECTIVE VIGNETTES TAKE FROM:

Credits and attributions are listed below for any work shown in the thesis project that is not exclusively my own. Andy Warhol, “Coca Cola.” (https://www.beautifullife.info/art-works/andy-warholartworks-life-and-paintings-of-pop-art-icon/) Beatriz Ales Atelier, “Casa Witiza.” (https://archello.com/project/casa-witiza) “Kong Chow” Temple & Bulletin of Latest News & Reading the Bulletin Boards, Chinatown, San Francisco, California. (https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/hb1b69n4jh/) Lim Khim Ka Ty, “Rest Well.” (http://cthomasgallery.com/authour/lim-khim-ka-ty/) Nguyen Tuan Dung, “Daisy Flowers Season” & “Streets of Spring.” (http://cthomasgallery.com/authour/nguyen-tuan-dung/)

CREDITS & ATTRIBUTIONS

Thuan Van Nguyen, “Vietnam Life in Saigon alleys – Ton Dan Alleys | Ho Chi Minh City” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq69FqQbRM4)

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Werner Schulze, “Nguoi Nam quây quan bên gia dình o làng hoa Nghi Tàm.” 1973. (https://36hn.wordpress.com/2016/07/08/nhung-bucanh-hiem-ve-ha-noi-1973/)

CITATIONS

LABOR ATTRIBUTION:

Hyphen Section Fragment Model Render Residential Complex & Strip Mall: Kyat Chin Interior Perspective Vignettes Render Lighting Settings: Kyat Chin Seattle Site Photos Eric Liu & Kathy Pham

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