Department of Architecture

City and the Festival: Architecture at Play in New Orleans Mardi Gras

In Truth and Method Hans Georg Gadamer shows that the being of architecture is play. (Play is constitutive of both art and architecture as it forms the structure of release from and return to self which for him is the opening of the artwork to the world.) This is Gadamer's counter to "subjectivist attitudes of modern aesthetics," and his attempt is to establish an aesthetics of play, which Gadamer terms the "event of art." For this, he appeals to the festival to understand the nature of the transcended subjectivity required to sustain this event, because the festival, like theater, relies on enactment to come into being. This continuous enactment resists subjective consciousness by shifting from an abstract, sequential, repetitive temporality to what Gadamer calls "festival time." This essay begins with a review of these developments in Gadamer's writing as well as his arrival at the special role of architecture and his re-definition of ornament and decoration as something which opens out onto its context. The paper continues with further meditation on these topics through the example of one well-known festival, New Orleans Mardi Gras.
Mardi Gras, the annual pre-Lenten street festival celebrated in New Orleans displays all the characteristics that Gadamer appeals to in his formulation of art as play. Mardi Gras, furthermore, shows itself as an architectural phenomenon in Gadamer's terms through the parade floats, temporary structures, portable structures, ornamentation, social roles, call and response rituals, costuming, and the interiorization of the street. And, while these specific rituals of Mardi Gras, will also evoke and actualize the sense of "givenness" of the phenomenon promoted by Jean Luc Marion, it is with a final return to Gadamer's concept of "festival time" that the phenomenon of the city and its architecture will be shown to transcend aesthetic subjectivity while remaining in the work. It is thus through the mobile and transient architectures of the Mardi Gras that we will arrive at the firm account of the architectural phenomenon (event); its working; and the experience of both.
This essay concludes with a proposal for interpreting New Orleans' Mardi Gras as a further decoration of the city—a doubling of the decoration performed by architecture.

""“Love is [the] arena of the presentation of the two.”—Alain Badiou

Following Alberto Perez-Gomez’s counter-assertion to Late Modernism in architecture that “architecture has been and must continue to be built upon love,” architectural production takes on an ethical importance. To address the primary ethical question—what should one do?—relative to architecture and aesthetics, it is possible to approach from an oblique angle. To this end, “categorical aesthetics” and “consequentialist aesthetics” can be defined in order to suggest further possible modes of aesthetic reasoning, one of which is the psychoanalytic category of love. Such a strategy illustrates the social apparatuses made manifest in architectural form as well as indicates the potential for introducing notions such as human rights and social justice into architectural thinking.
A critical reading of Descartes’ notion of res extensa reveals how architecture and urbanism are in fact, bound to their socio-epistemelogical conditions. Further to this, Bentham’s panopticon is as a well-known example of the socio-ideological dimension of the built environment. These observations serve as levers to pry open the relationship between architectural form and the dispositif as discussed by Michel Foucault and further defined by Giorgio Agamben. What we see is that it is precisely the spectre of Unity (God, Society, Man, Nature, Science,etc.) or the formulation of centralized authority and power, which has served predominantly as the truth procedure for architectural design.
Finally architecture will be cast into the figure of the two and the structure of love as discussed by Alain Badiou. As such, Badiou’s words can be paraphrased as the central aim of this paper: “The point here is that, as I also believe, [architecture] does not compensate for anything.  [Architecture] can only consist in failure (ratage) on the fallacious assumption that it is a relationship.  But it is not.  It is a production of truth.  The truth of what? The truth that the Two, not only the One, proceeds in the situation.” Any ethical architecture must first and foremost acknowledge the full and fully multiple subjectivity of the participants. This work suggests the theoretical framework from within which to begin.""

Works of architecture posses a definite orientation. They also provide orientation. This orientation towards and away takes the form of an accommodation. This paper will explore the possibility for accommodation as a principle concern of the work performed by architecture.

Architecture is created for someone or something else. As such it has a definite orientation "towards." David Leatherbarrow has commented on the possible "orientation" of architecture, suggesting that this orientation is communicative, muli-valent and, with regard to public space, subsumes the act of privation within the inevitability of sharing. Sharing, in these terms then should describe the basic ethical positioning of architecture, for what is ethical in architecture must first be shared and common: an ambition, an exchange, or at least an idea.

Likewise, Bruno Latour has commented on the possible "orientation" of democracy towards objects, which–not entirely without intent or content–become things "of consideration." His metaphor for this is assembly. Specifically, that the orientation of bodies that represent people and things must rhetorically be bodies of disagreement. The space of the assembly hall, for Latour, is one for the consideration of those things that are not "indisputable," but in fact, extensively disputable.

Architecture must also be distinguished from the work that architects do. Architecture in the world is, in fact, a dispositif par excellence. Work that architects do, however, is,by itself, "oriented" towards something or someone. There is an orientation towards the financial mechanisms that make modern construction possible. There is an orientation towards the tens, sometimes thousands of workers who construct. And finally, there is an orientation towards a recipient.

These observations suggest different, or multiple, orientations of architecture. It is "accommodation," as such, that describes this multiplicity of orientation along with the inevitability of sharing. Is accommodation, then, a conceptual lever to strip away the socio/political orientation of architecture and the work of architects, providing an orientation towards the ontological and ethical?

In the parable "Before the Law" Franz Kafka tells the story of a man from the countryside–an outsider–who seeks to gain entry to "the Law" through a sole gate where a gatekeeper stands on duty. The gatekeeper, more through persuasion than force, prevents the man from entering. In the end, the man, "disappearing" from the world learns that this sole gate is intended solely for him. It's a paradoxical structure where the gate symbolizes access and inclusion for the man, but in reality expresses denial and exclusion. The doorway, thus, is an accommodation, albeit a paradoxical one.

The gate of the parable can be employed as an allegorical structure for understanding this ethical orientation of architecture through sharing alluded to by Leatherbarrow and Latour. How does this compare with works of architecture in our world? The inclusion of exclusion in the structure of the parable mimics the turning of the hermeneutic circle. This suggests the possibility for meaning taking place on the axis of this rotation from inclusion to exclusion. This accommodation of refusal implicit in entry and assembly suggests a properly dialectical movement within architecture.

Thus, in the historical development of this dialectic we may discover some ontological and ethical orientations for architecture.

Few studies focus on the distribution of office development across the United States as an element of urban form. Joel Garreau argues that all office space found outside central-city downtowns is grouped into large, mixed-use clusters he termed "edge cities." The reality is that edge cities capture only a modest share of non-CBD office space, with a significant proportion located in what Lang referred to as "edgeless cities." This study reexamines the distribution of edge and edgeless cities using a spatial analysis of more than 3 billion square feet of office space in 13 large U.S. markets. The office patterns revealed do not fit a downtown versus edge city development model, but instead show complex and regional variation. The findings confirm the "edgeless" nature of U.S. office development. Although primarily descriptive, this paper highlights issues of urban form from a holistic and novel perspective. [Key words: urban form, office space, suburban sprawl.] 1 The authors are grateful to Eric Leinberger, University of British Columbia, for his help with the cartography.

Sustainability and eco-friendly towers have been among the most discussed topics of contemporary high-rise building design. High-rise buildings have been an important part of the modern economy with their concentration of human capital and branding value for the urban context. In addition, during the recent years, to address the problems of sprawl, environmental, and ecological concerns, sustainable high-rise building design has gained further significance and visibility in architecture and planning literature. In existing literature, sustainability of high-rises is defined mainly through ecological design and green architecture principles in individual building scale. However, sustainability in the case of high-rises remains an ill-defined term, as there is neglect of further long term effects of these buildings on the social, cultural, economic, and resiliency contexts of cities. When not integrated with the broader urban context, sustainability falls into the gap to be perceived as "greenwash", which stands for a superficially-employed concept used as a fashionable branding strategy. Within this general framework, this study will examine the emerging towers in Bayraklı, İzmir, which is designated by the local government as a high-rise development zone. The study will focus on high-rise buildings (completed and under construction) in relation to the perception of sustainability and question whether or not sustainability is used as a greenwash branding strategy or a contextual element that is well-embedded in architectural design process and urban planning decisions. The method of research will be a descriptive case study through semi-structured interviews with the design team and real estate professionals of the buildings, as well as media analysis and consideration of the local municipality reports

Being open to global processes brings up the question of social resilience in Slow Cities, which is about the ability of the system to absorb shocks without experiencing changes [1]. Since these cities are inevitably affected by global flows and ideas, how will they be able to protect their identity? In this regard, Scott (2013) [1] defines two types of resilience: equilibrium and evolutionary resilience. Equilibrium resilience is about going back to normal, whereas evolutionary resilience is about adaptability and creating long term innovative planning and policy responses to change; embracing change and utilizing it as a path forward that needs to be embedded in social networks [1]. This paper proposes that evolutionary resilience is the key for sustainable growth of Slow Cities within a progressive framework and explores possible barriers and solutions to achieve evolutionary resilience for slow cities. The paper examines Aegean Slow Cities with a specific emphasis on Seferihisar, the first Cittaslow of Turkey as a case study.

This study investigates how place management is used to render a creative city through the combination of soft factors as intangible characteristics and hard factors as tangible characteristics of the built environment. The study focuses on Izmir, Turkey; exploring its potential as an emerging creative city. The methodology is a descriptive analysis of recent urban design and planning activities of creative cities, reviews projects and strategies in Izmir. Findings provide a framework for place management tools and their strategic use for integration of art, design, creativity and knowledge in creative cities. Place management is used as a tool for image building and identity enhancement, and for quality of place to attract creative and knowledge workers. In the case of Izmir, hard factors triggered the formation process whereas soft factors have taken strengthen the initiative. However, both of them are yet not strong enough to creative public awareness and critical mass.

Being open to global processes brings up the question of social resilience in Slow Cities, which is about the ability of the system to absorb shocks without experiencing changes [1]. Since these cities are inevitably affected by global flows and ideas, how will they be able to protect their identity? In this regard, Scott (2013) [1] defines two types of resilience: equilibrium and evolutionary resilience. Equilibrium resilience is about going back to normal, whereas evolutionary resilience is about adaptability and creating long term innovative planning and policy responses to change; embracing change and utilizing it as a path forward that needs to be embedded in social networks [1]. This paper proposes that evolutionary resilience is the key for sustainable growth of Slow Cities within a progressive framework and explores possible barriers and solutions to achieve evolutionary resilience for slow cities. The paper examines Aegean Slow Cities with a specific emphasis on Seferihisar, the first Cittaslow of Turkey as a case study.

Culture-led regeneration is now a rising feature of cities as they seek to establish themselves
as competitive cities of culture. The rise of culture impacts considerably upon the quality of life in cities.
The competition takes two major strategies: mega projects and mega-events. While the main cities of the
economically advanced nations go through a wide range of experiences, their successes and failures
should be taken into consideration by those other cities that wish to imitate the ones leading in the ranking.
Cities of the developing world, however, may meet completely different problems even during the
stage of planning. This paper reviews such a case, namely Izmir, by way of stating the city’s intentions
to benefit from culture-driven strategies as seen through its indicators, and showing the evidence that
cause it to fail in reaching its goals. The final statement shall emphasize the importance of cultural policies
to be formulated on a wider perspective.