In de buurt, ik ben the same, nog steeds met alle OG’s
Linear blocks, corridors, towers, low-density buildings, zonification...are not abstract terms coined by modernists but realities embodied in concrete walls all over Europe. If collective and social housing was, during the last century, the flagship of a revolutionary architectural project, violently imposed over different political, social and geographical conditions, 50 years later we are able to glimpse the fissure and cracks, mistakes and successes of its postulates.
The bodies, attitudes and movements on the screens render the spatial and material conditions of four different but common approaches to collective housing in the 60s and 70s in Europe, and the passage of time. The cases of London and Amsterdam were (at that time) radical architecture and urban planning initiatives promoted by public administrations and aimed at the middle classes. The Parisian case, also public but with social aim, is another innovative spatial example for the time, part of the Grands Ensembles housing models. In Madrid, the UVA of Hortaleza emerged as temporary housing for those affected by the expropriations to build the M-40 ring road. All as public initiatives, all four, however, approach in radically opposite ways to the problem of density in an age marked by the European urban reconstruction, developmentalism and the fall-from-grace of brutalism.
Being so different, we can find, however, urban failure as a common theme behind the visual testimony that the passage of time reveals. The modernist approach to the city represented by the Bijlmer, the absolute city, high-rise buildings, hygienism, suburban density, mixed-used units and complex buildings, failed at the same time as the emergence of low-density suburbs as a preferred option for the wealthy classes. The modern high-rise building suffered a process of social segregation (or ghettoisation), the result of the dependency on private transportations and the absence of public infrastructure, facilities and services. The Tours Aillaud and the Alexandra Road Estate represent the incompatibilities of organicism and singular models with the passage of time and the survival and adaptation in time of affordable and accessible housing models. The conversion of the peripheries into mid-peripheries and urban centers, real estate pressure, and public irresponsibility lead us to models of privatisation, transformation and an (in)avoidable gentrification. Finally, the Spanish case shows us the perpetuity of precariousness. The passage of time corrodes the steel railings of the houses, the terraces are occupied by constructions due to the obsolescence of the spatial standards of precarious and temporary housing. The inhabitants, however, cling to them as the only accessible housing solution, on an ‘island’ in the middle of an urban center that was once a suburb.
Behind these four projects there are internationally recognised projects and architecture offices. Each one emulates, in a more or less trustworthy way, canonical proposals of modernism. And yet, they are all traversed by the project of ruin and its malfunction, approached from contemporaneity from different perspectives. This same discussion is transferable to countless other blocks and neighborhoods, where it has been the residents themselves who, from the anonymity of modern homogeneity, have managed to place its name on the map. Serve this as a messy and non-linear prologue to a journey made by millions of people from their computer screens, through the successes and failures of many models, heroic, radical or complicities, of European cities, to the rhythm of hi-hats and 808.
‘José Manuel recounts that when Esperanza Aguirre (President of the Community of Madrid) decided to appear in 2007 to take a photo at the inauguration of the brand new Hortaleza Metro station, she did so in a somewhat irritating way. She was placed in a studied spot, in such a way that the UVA neighborhood could not be seen behind her. Probably so that she wouldn't smudge the snapshot. “Look how stupid people are. They believed that we were not going to realize it. You have to be…”. He bites his tongue.’
Eduardo Ortega on the Hortaleza UVA in Público
‘At that time the drug trade at the metro stations was booming and the chance of robbery in the neighborhood was at one point four times higher than in the rest of the city. Parts of the Bijlmermeer became known as the Netherlands' most famous no-go area. At that time, Gortzak, chairman of the PvdA faction in the Amsterdam Southeast district, moved into the neighborhood. He noticed that Surinamese, referring to their colonial background, responded with suspicion to initiatives by white administrators. "What makes Southeast so fascinating is that great concentration of Afrocarai - to use that modern word. Before you get a little insight into that, before people trust you, before you know their backgrounds, their parents and grandparents, before you know how their behavior is partly influenced by their history ... you must first gain confidence. And listen. One of the frequently heard complaints from black people is that whites listen far too little. They say to me, "You listen." That's because I'm a journalist. I can talk a lot, but I can also listen very carefully." (Braam, 1996)’
Extract from Jaap Vogel’s Cultuur en migratie in Nederland. Nabije vreemden. Een eeuw wonen in samenwonen
‘In the best-known, also most infamous concentration district of Surinamese in the Netherlands , the Bijlmermeer, determined discrimination in the day-to-day business. (...) The post-war neighborhood was designed as an ideal place to live for wealthy Dutch from the middle class, who, however, soon opted for the new dormitory towns of Lelystad and Almere. As a result, space became available in the Bijlmer flats for the poorer part of Surinamese migrants, consisting of many single-parent families - in fact single-mother families - and many single people. Added to this was the shockingly high unemployment rate in the 1980s and 1990s; in 1998 an estimated 40 percent in the Bijlmer.’
Extract from Jaap Vogel’s Cultuur en migratie in Nederland. Nabije vreemden. Een eeuw wonen in samenwonen
‘From the beginning, many Surinamese also looked for a home in the post-war neighborhoods, the Amsterdam Bijlmermeer being the best-known national example. To keep costs down, they often shared that flat with others. Incidentally, the figures also show that Surinamese used the housing benefit scheme relatively frequently in the 1980s.’
Extract from Jaap Vogel’s Cultuur en migratie in Nederland. Nabije vreemden. Een eeuw wonen in samenwonen
‘Quelle horreur! (How awful!)’
This is what President Valéry Giscard d´Estaing would have said in 1976 when he saw the famous Tours Aillaud for the first time.
‘Stick ‘em in concrete boxes and give them some concrete to play on, and then paint it all bright colours because that’s what the kiddies like, and if the kiddies don’t like it, they can write to the minister!’
Robert Hughes on Tours Aillaud in his BBC documentary series The Shock of the New (1980)
‘When we moved here, this was even nice. Then, with all the pots that people put on the terraces, even more so. And now, look…’
Neighbour on the Hortaleza UVA, Eduardo Ortega in Público