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COLLECTIVE SYNTHESIS T h e
F o r m
O f
D e n s i t y
GSAPP Advanced Studio Instructor : Umberto Napolitano 2017 spring
The Angelus Novus by Paul Klee, in Walter Benjamin’s essay, he interprets
it this way: “The drawing shows an angel looking back the history. Where
we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage. But the storm irresistibly propels him into the future. This storm is what we call progress.” It depicts the
Inevitability of being drawn into the flow of history. In “the Architecture
of the City” Aldo Rossi notes the city itself is the collective memory of its people. So, How individual become part of the history, or say, part of the city?
The housing and church defined medieval Paris. Through the Haussmann’s renovation, the lines cut through the old urban fabric, and the landmarks
pinned at the end of the avenues as the control points. All the housings become the volumes of anonymous to achieve wholeness of the city. It seems
consistent at the front, but the trace of the era’s conflicts still exist
inside the block. The people were merely a tool for authority to shape their power. Now, the individuals should be the one to synthesis with the history, collective and the city. The housing blends with the existing context and creates three new avenues, which gather in the center becoming a plaza for all, and then the people will be the landmark of the city.