This post contains an essay submitted as part of student course work for the Planning 100 "Introduction to Planning" course taught by me this year at Planning School, University of Auckland. The topic for the essay is: Argue a case, either for, or against, the value of using utopianism as a method in planning the future of a modern city of your choice. The essay is about Paris and utopian approaches there and is by Julia Barker, who has kindly given permission for it to be published here.
This essay analyses the value of the utopian imagination in the theory of planning. It many ways I will remain highly critical of utopian planners whose ideal cities were enabled to be constructed only by deconstructing existing hubs of social activity. I will discuss some examples that demonstrate the negative implications of utopian projects but I will also emphasise their effectiveness at enabling or encouraging a planner to engage critically with the positive and/or negative social dimensions of a street or area. Both a utopian mindscape and a dystopian mindscape recognise that the physical form of streets and spaces effects or produces particular sets of social interactions. Rather than using utopian spatial designs to mass prescribe particular forms of relations, I will discuss how a utopian imagination can be utilised to challenge planning projects which can potentially undermine the present (and therefore the potential of future possibilities based on this present) sociability and character of the street.
In a poem titled ‘The Swan’, Charles Baudelaire laments the destruction of ‘Old (medieval) Paris’ during the mid-nineteenth century in the name of “progress” when he writes:
“Old Paris is no more (the form of a city
Changes more quickly, alas! than the human heart)”
In this poem not only does Baudelaire highlight the public street as a contested social and political space, he also refers to the rich connection that exists between social actors and their physical environment. As Pinder (2010) asserts “Streets have become prominent battlegrounds in modern urbanism” (Pinder, 2010:203). One therefore finds that “Utopian projects to remake cities have long targeted streets” (Pinder, 2010:204). Reconstructing the city entails a sort of surgery upon the street and simultaneously reconfigures the kind of human interactions that will be made possible on the street. Baudelaire’s poem refers to the radical restructuring of medieval (old) Paris, under the prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann’s, redevelopment plan which entailed blasting ruthlessly through the overcrowded working class quarters. Haussmann put a positive spin on this surgery by emphasising the project as one which would enable the improved circulation of air, traffic, capital and people (both inhabitants and troops) (Girouard, 1985). An urban utopianist recognises that the street orders different forms of public and private urban life and the street therefore becomes a stage upon which they can enact, or envision, new possibilities for social life (Harvey, 1997). Pinder (2010) however points out the problematic aspects of utopian planners who, like Haussmann, insisted upon a blank slate as a prerequisite for realising their vision. Highly critical of the way in which the utopian project “either through clearing the existing city or through turning to a fresh site; [constitutes] a break with the past and the announcement of a new beginning in time” (Pinder, 2010:209), Pindar criticised this utopian ‘new beginning in time’ when it is one which ruthlessly erases vibrantly complex social spaces. In ‘The Swan’ Baudelaire equates the loss of Medieval Paris to Andromache’s loss of her husband, the great and noble Trojan prince and warrior Hector. Andromache, who was forced to become the concubine of a Greek captor, serves as a striking metaphor for the placelessness and soullessness that Baudelaire associates with Haussmann’s Paris (my interpretation of the poem).
Pinder (2010) warns of the utopian ideal of a ‘new beginning in time’, and he describes it as: “enacted by the demolition of differences accumulated in space; and a perceptual shock or defamiliarisation sought by imposing a new space on an old urban fabric” (Pinder, 2010:209). Like Harvey (1997) emphasises, a planner must have a deep understanding of the socio-economic politics of planning. He urges utopian planners to persevere against planning designs which produce inequality and which prioritise in serving capital interests (Harvey, 2007). Elke Hauck's 2011 film ‘Der Preis’ (‘the Prize’) touches well upon the extent to which political ideologies can construct, re-construct or destroy live social spaces. The film revolves around an architect, Alexander, who wins a ‘prize’ to re-design or ‘modernise’ a German Democratic Republic (GDR/DDR) housing block which he grew up in but hasn’t returned to for 20 years. His return to the housing block brings to the surface the bygone social and political era of which the housing block was a product. The collapse of the GDR entailed with it a social and political restructuring which shook the comfortable and familiar parameters of social reality. It constituted an overturning of forms and arrangements of living, which until then had provided a stable normalized environment. When Baudelaire exclaims:
“Paris changes! but naught in my melancholy
Has stirred! New palaces, scaffolding, blocks of stone,
Old quarters, all become for me an allegory,
And my dear memories are heavier than rocks”
he is alluding to the human experience of disclosure and confusion that is felt upon the demolition or ‘renewal’ of live interactive public spaces. Charged with the task of demolishing or radically ‘modernising’ the space in which his personhood is so entwined proves a difficult task for Alexander. Rather than reductively exaggerating the housing block as a repressive and undesirable public space, Hauck emphasises the complexity of the level of engagement that individuals experience in social spaces.4 Both the film, and Baudelaire’s poem highlight individuals as they struggle to come to terms with the social and political implications of the reconstruction of social spaces to which they are, consciously or unconsciously, intimately attuned (the same theme is arguably made clearer in the James Cameron’s 2010 film ‘Avatar’: somehow it is easier to understand or comprehend ‘native’ or indigenous populations as intimately attuned with their environment).
Pinder (2010) draws focus on a distinct kind of utopianism which “renounces an ordering perspective from on high” and introduces one which is “concerned explicitly with everyday life and space” (Pinder, 2010: 205). He points out that the radical transformation of social spaces impacts enormously on the way in which people live their everyday life. Ultimately, it is for control of social space that radically different utopian visions of urbanism compete. Utopian visions which validate themselves on the pedestal, or in the guise, of ‘modernity’ must be understood as projects which seek to change the way in which social actors interact with one another in the city environment (Jacobs, 1961). Themes around the perceived ‘disorder’ of urban environments have been a major driving force in the development of utopian projects which have sought to address these issues. Jane Jacobs (1961) highlighted the inadequacy of utopian projects which are advocated from ‘on high’ and which disregard or play down the vitality and the richness inherent in perceived ‘disorder’. According to Jacobs, the utopian focus on ‘Disorder’ undermines the multitude of positive social interactions which might take place within these spaces, and more importantly, the future possibilities for positive social interaction within these spaces (Jacobs, 1961). Pinder (2010) points out that although Jacob’s stance could be described as ‘anti-utopian’ it needs to be understood in a 1950s and 60s context by which the classification of streets and cities as ‘disorderly’, and the legitimation of utopian projects under the guise of ‘urban renewal’, was effectively working towards endangering existing social interactions and forcibly engendering new ones.
Pinder (2010) implores the use and practice of “everyday utopianism” in the planning of cities. Unlike traditional utopian traditions ‘everyday utopianism’ “emphasises the potentialities in the present situation rather than projecting them into another time or space”. It is concerned with how “the ordinary can become extraordinary not by eclipsing the everyday, or imagining we can leap beyond it arbitrarily to some ‘higher’ level of cognition, knowledge or action, but by fully appropriating and activating the possibilities that lie hidden, typically repressed, within it” (Pinder, 2010:210). Rather than depending upon the destruction of social networks, an ‘everyday utopian’ is slightly more nostalgic, in the sense that he or she seeks to recognise new forms of social interaction possible by way of retaining, rather than destroying so determined disorderly or undesirable social arrangements (Pinder, 2010). As Carey (1999) points out, ‘Utopia’ is identifiable as an ideal form or representation of human desire whilst dystopia can be summarised as a representation of human fears or anxieties. To be fixated upon, or possess, an overly dystopian imagination demonstrates an inability to perceive that positive outcomes will or can be forged from the present condition of the public space (Harvey, 1997). Rather than fix this dilemma with the destruction of this space in order to create a tabula rasa, or blank slate, ‘everyday utopianism’ emphasises the possibilities and potentialities for a different way of living and interacting within the sphere of this disorderly space (Pinder, 2010) because, as Jacob’s identified, disordered spaces can be hotbeds for the emergence of new possibilities.
Baudelaire mournfully reminisces about Old Paris’s town squares teeming with a disordered array of bric-a-brac. His past, utopian version of Paris is one where confusion, hussle, bussle, and random encounters created a lively ambience for those who occupied the space. As an outcome of the changes, Baudelaire mentions the plight of orphans who are akin to withering flowers. Large numbers of inhabitants in Medieval Paris were uprooted without being re-located to other accommodation or being reimbursed for their losses (Girouard, 1985). Harvey (1997) insists that modern day planners enlisting the concept of utopia must have a strong sense of a ‘social conscience’ in order to ensure that streets and spaces are ‘socially just’ and see to it that they at the very least possess the potential for positive and meaningful forms of social interaction. When Harvey (1997) points out that “The logic of capital accumulation and class privilege, though hegemonic, can never control every nuance of urbanisation” (Harvey, 1997:3) he emphasises the possibility for emancipatory and liberatory human interactions within even the most seemingly limiting of spaces and he also highlights the incompatibility between the logic of capital accumulation to the logic of healthy, social living spaces.
Utopian urban planning entails with it a sort of how-to guide for re-imagining the functionality of space. If we consider a dystopian view as an expression of human fears and anxieties, then the value of utopianism becomes all the more important. To lose sight of utopia gives way to a dystopian tradition, or mind-set, that we cannot change urban spaces, or rather, that a project cannot be positively developed within an existing space. In this essay I have argued against an example of utopianism in Paris, but I have suggested that the value of utopianism as a means for re-imagining space is no less important, especially when it can access positive social possibilities in the present form of the street, rather than rely on the destruction of the street. In conclusion, a planner should be practical and realistic, but never play down the potential social possibilities of any spatial arrangement.
References
Baudelaire, C. Le Cygne. Accessed at http://fleursdumal.org/poem/220 on 29/05/12. (English translation by Aggeler, W (1954). The Swan. In The Flowers of Evil. Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild.
Carey, J (1999). The Faber Book of Utopias. London: Faber.
Girouard, M (1985). Paris and the Boulevards. In Girouard, M (ed), Cities and People: a social and architectural history (pp. 285-300). Yale University Press.
Harvey, D (1997). The New Urbanism and the Communitarian Trap. In Harvard Design Magazine. Winter/Spring pp.1-3
Hauck, E (2011). Der Preis (The Prize). Germany: Schiwago Film. (http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/2011/02_programm_2011/02_Filmdaten blatt_2011_20112309.php Sypnopsis accessed 29/05/12)
Jacobs, J (1961). The Life and Death of Great American Cities. New York: Random House.
Pinder, D (2010). The Street in Modernist Urbanism. In Gordon et al, Utopia/Dystopia (pp. 203-223). Princeton University Press.
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