Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1073

I somehow stumbled upon this transcript from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), covering a talk that architect Rem Koolhaas did at the school back in, I think, 2014. 

The title: “Preservation is overtaking us.” It’s all about how his firm OMA thinks about and approaches preservation. 

The overarching theme is that preservation, for them, has become a kind of refuge from the market forces – which they call the “The ¥€$ Regime” – that currently drive architecture and demand constant novelty. It is refuge from “starchitecture.”

Here is an excerpt:

At some point, I don’t know who was responsible, the word, “starchitect” was invented. And we all know what it is: a term of derision. And at some point, it becomes very hard to avoid. I would say that preservation is, for us, a type of refuge from this term. What we are hoping to do is propose a number of strategies in which we are working to undo, or escape, from this label.

And here is a summary of “OMA’s Preservation Manifesto” taken from the GSAPP transcript:

1. Starchitecture is dead
   

2. New forms are no longer relevant
   

3. Preservation is architecture’s saving retreat
   

4. Preservation creates relevance without new forms
   

5. Preservation is architecture’s formless substitution
   

It’s a substantial read , but a fascinating one. In case you don’t get to it (understandable), I would like to leave you with this final excerpt:

What we started to do was look at preservation in general and look a little bit at the history of preservation. Now, the first law of preservation ever defined was in 1790, just a few years after the French Revolution. That is already an interesting idea, that at the moment in France when the past was basically being prepared for the rubbish dump, the issue of preserving monuments was raised for the first time. Another equally important moment was in 1877, when, in Victorian England, in the most intense moment of civilization, there was the second preservation proposition. If you look at inventions that were taking place between these two moments—cement, the spinning frame, the stethoscope, anesthesia, photography, blueprints, etc.— you suddenly realize that preservation is not the enemy of modernity but actually one of its inventions . That makes perfect sense because clearly the whole idea of modernization raises, whether latently or overtly, the issue of what to keep.

I like the notion that preservation is one of the inventions of modernity, rather than an enemy of it.

Photo by Reginar on Unsplash

Houston doesn’t often get a lot of love in urbanist circles.

Though since Ed Glaeser published Triumph of the City and declared Houston’s unfettered sprawl the secret sauce for housing affordability, it is now frequently held up as the shining example of why housing supply matters.

But this is a hotly debated topic. 

Ed Glaeser would argue that increased supply is the key to housing affordability. But Richard Florida would likely be quick to point out that Houston is also one of the most unequal and segregated cities in America. It is not the model we should be following.

But let’s be positive today on the blog.

At the bottom of this post is a great talk by Stephen Klineberg called: Houston, The Global City . Klineberg is a Professor of Sociology at Rice University and the founder of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research.

In this hour long talk, he outlines, among other things, the remarkable transformation of Houston from a one-industry town (oil) comprised predominantly of white people to a mixed economy where every major ethnicity is now a minority.

He also argues that Houston is at the forefront of the demographic shifts happening all across the country and that, without this inflow of immigrants over the past couple of decades, Houston today would probably look a lot like a decaying rustbelt city.

It’s a good watch.

If you can’t see the video below, click here .

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJdWYXIr_qE?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

One of the small things that I liked about living in Philadelphia was the rational way in which street addresses tended to work.

Here’s an example. 

Let’s say you wanted to go to Brooks Brothers in Center City and you discovered that the address was 1513 Walnut Street (which it is). 

By looking at the first two numbers, you would immediately know that the store sits between 15th Street and 16th Street on Walnut.

If the address you were given was 1601 Walnut Street, you would know that your destination is now between 16th Street and 17th Street, but probably right at 16th.

You would also know that the numbered streets run north-south and the streets named after trees run east-west. (Of course, not all of the east-west streets are named after trees.)

No need to pull up the Google machine.

All of this stems from William Penn’s incredibly rational  17th century grid plan  for the city – one of the first examples in North America.

If you’re interested in grids, you may also enjoy this post from last year: The spatiotemporal hierarchy of urban form .

Photo by Jay Dantinne on Unsplash