Migrations and Visual Art
Shelleen Greene
Due 3-19-2010
Practical City Planning
Yona Friedman’s work transcends ideas of conventional architecture. His work is constantly attempting to fulfill the ever-changing needs of humanity. In reaction to World War II, Friedman became inspired by housing shortages and issues of reconstruction to build in ways other than mainstream architecture. His ideas strive to solve problems of economics, space, comfort, practicality, and convenience. His work redefines space and idealizes architecture, making buildings more adaptive and efficient for inhabitants. Friedman’s concepts of space break rules of orthodoxy. He plans into the sky, over water, and utilizes other previously unthought of spaces for building sites. Most importantly, his work strives to create citizen participation in planning the buildings they will use and inhabit.
Friedman’s work has been called “ethereal” and utopian”. His intention has always been to create a better society and environment. He created designs for many ways this could be achieved in some way.
All his work is pervaded with a strong yearning for social transformation,for a society in which the single individual rather than the average human being becomes the focus in a habitable world respectful of the environment.
(Lebesque and van Vlissingen 9)
While Friedman is concerned with the flexibility of structures and creating serviceability for their inhabitants, he is constantly aware of the environment. He does not wish to change the environment, but work along with it.
Yona Friedman feels that there are always alternatives to traditional city planning. He sees the importance of citizen participation in their environment over structures built without taking the inhabitant into consideration. He says “In order to satisfy the people who live in a building you built, you have to let them conceive the building.” (Friedman, Intelligence 22) In Friedman’s opinion, elasticity is an important component in control in decision making to the user. Friedman acknowledges the uncertainty and changeability of humanity and the need for practicality in architecture that reflects those factors and has the ability to adapt to fit new needs as they develop. “A town has to be adapted to the behaviour of its inhabitants.” (Friedman, It is Your Town 12) A town and its inhabitants are undeniably and inarguably related. As citizens’ needs change, the town must accommodate them just as when a town changes, the citizens will be affected and change with it.
Friedman created a manual for the Council of Europe in order to present the problems of historical architecture, help people to understand these problems, and also as a way to provide some solutions. The introduction of his manual states Friedman’s reasons for its creation:
Understanding the urban structure and the interaction of its elements is the first step towards the active participation of the citizen in decisions affecting the future of his town, towards self-planning. (Friedman, It is Your Town 2)
Throughout the manual, Friedman investigates the town of Whatborough. He observes citizen itineraries and how they change drastically with the adaptation of different buildings. According to Friedman, an entire city can be affected by one small change such as what a specific building is used for.
Friedman sees buildings as obstacles. To get to the other side of a building, you either need to go through it or around it. To get from the top of one building to the top of another, you almost always have to go downstairs, outside, and then upstairs again. Friedman suggests solutions such as corridors running from one skyscraper to another. This would solve problems in everyday life as well as in the case of an emergency. Friedman says his goal is “to make the city less of an obstacle, less on an enemy.” (Friedman, Intelligence 22) The way to do this is to create buildings and cities that are more flexible.
We cannot improve the actual situation (social and environmental) by technological progress alone. Such progress, at best, only leads us back to some situation which existed before and which could be implemented as well without technological progress. We cannot improve our society and our environment except under the condition that all improvements are decided on by all of us. (Friedman, Scientific Architecture 169)
According to Friedman, community activity is the most plausible solution to the problems he sees in mainstream architecture and traditional city planning.
Most of Friedman’s designs have remained just that. Although there is a great need for many of Friedman’s ideas in today’s world, most of them have not yet been realized. Limited space, affordable housing, and flexible architecture are all relevant issues. These are needs that humans have and eventually we will need to find a way to fill them. Fortunately, Friedman has developed and drawn out an immense number of extraordinary ideas. Eventually these ideas will achieve actuality.
Sources Cited
Friedman, Yona. “Intelligence Starts with Improvisation”.
Friedman, Yona. It is Your Town: Know How to Protect it. Strasbourg, France: Council of Europe, 1975.
Friedman, Yona. Toward a Scientific Architecture. Trans. Cynthia Lang. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1975
Lebesque, Sabine and Helene Fentener van Vlissingen. “A Kaleidoscopic Mind”.
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