On Bigness and the Problem of Urban Form

Authors

  • Armando Rabaça Department of Architecture, University of Coimbra
  • Carlos Moura Martins Department of Architecture, University of Coimbra

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7480/footprint.12.1.1776

Abstract

The term ‘bigness’ refers to large-scale, mixed-use buildings and was introduced into the architectural vocabulary by Rem Koolhaas. Contrary to Koolhaas’s focus on the ‘generic city’ and the Asian context, this essay explores the role that large-scale buildings may play in establishing a dialogue between new areas of urban expansion and the formal and typological characteristics of European cities. By looking at three designs by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron in the light of the early twentieth-century debate on urban design and the skyscraper in Europe, the problem of bigness will be seen as a continuation of a discussion on urban form and type spanning more than one hundred years. Bigness will thus be seen as a tool capable of reworking and even continuing existing urban formal types, even if devoid of ideological and symbolic meaning.

Author Biographies

Armando Rabaça, Department of Architecture, University of Coimbra

Armando Rabaça is an architect and Assistant Professor of Design Studio and Architectural Theory at the Department of Architecture of the University of Coimbra, where he has taught since 1998. He holds a PhD in Architecture from the University of Coimbra with a thesis about Le Corbusier’s formative years. He is the author of Entre o Espaço e a Paisagem (Coimbra: darq, 2011), editor of Le Corbusier, History and Tradition (Coimbra: Coimbra University Press, 2017), and has contributed to a number of architectural periodicals. His main research interests are nineteenth- and twentieth-century architectural theory and urban design.

Carlos Moura Martins, Department of Architecture, University of Coimbra

Carlos Moura Martins is an architect and Assistant Professor of Design Studio and Urbanism at the Department of Architecture of the University of Coimbra, where he has taught since 1999. He holds a PhD in Architecture from the University of Coimbra with a thesis on public works in Portugal in late eighteenth century, awarded with the Pina Manique International Research Prize (Academia Portuguesa da História). He has been developing studies on the technical and scientific activity and teaching and research institutions of the enlightenment. His main research interests are the processes of transformation of the territory and urban space in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

References

Alan Colquhoun, ‘The Superblock’ (1971), in Essays in Architectural Criticism. Modern Architecture and Historical Change (Cambridge, Mass. and London, England: MIT Press, 1985), 96-97.

Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City (Cambridge, Mass. and London, England: MIT Press, 1982.

Alejandro Zaera, ‘Continuities. Interview with Herzog and de Meuron,’ El Croquis XII, no. 60 (1993): 6-23.

Anthony Sutcliffe, Towards the Planned City (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981).

Anthony Sutcliffe, ed., Metropolis 1890-1940 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1984).

Auguste Perret, ‘Une maison de dix étages. Terrasse fleurie. L’Hotel des Sportsmen’, La Patrie (21 June 1905): 3.

Barry Bergdoll, ‘Paris: Le Corbusier and the Nineteenth-Century City’, in Jean-Louis Cohen, ed., Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes (London: Thames & Hudson, 2013), 246–49.

Christoph Schnoor, Le Corbusier, La Construction Des Villes, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret’s Erstes Städtebauliches Traktat von 1910/1911 (Zurich: Gta Verlag, 2008).

Collin Rowe, ‘Chicago Frame’ (1956) repr. in The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays (Cambridge, Mass. and London, England: MIT Press, 1987), 89-117.

Domus Dossier 3, Berlin (1995).

El Croquis, no. 129-130 (2006).

El Croquis, no. 152-153 (2010).

Erich Mendelsohn, Amerika (Berlin: Rudolf Mosse, 1926).

Eugène Hénard, Études sur l’architecture et les transformations de Paris, et autres écrits sur l’architecture et l’urbanisme (Paris: Éditions de la Villette, 2012).

Francesco Dal Co, Figures of Architecture and Thought. German Architecture Culture 1880-1920 (New York: Rizzoli, 1990).

Francesco Passanti, ‘The Skyscrapers of the Ville Contemporaine,’ Assemblage, no. 4 (Oct. 1987): 52-65.

Francesco Passanti, ‘Le Corbusier et le gratte-ciel, aux origines du plan Voisin’, in Jean-Louis Cohen and Hubert Damisch, eds., Américanisme et modernité. L’Idéal américain dans l’architecture (Paris: Flammarion, École des Hautes Études et Sciences Sociales, 1993), 171-190.

Francesco Passanti, ‘The Aesthetic Dimension in Le Corbusier’s Urban Planning’, in Josep Lluís Sert: The Architect of Urban Design, 1953-1969, ed. Eric Munford, Hashim Sarkis, and Neyran Turan (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2008), 25–37.

Frank Russell, ed., Mies van der Rohe, European Works (London; New York: Academy Editions; St. Martin’s Press, 1986).

Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word. Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art, trans. Mark Jarzombek (Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1991).

George R. Collins and Christiane Crasemann Collins, Camillo Sitte: The Birth of Modern City Planning (New York: Dover Publications, 1986).

H. Matzerath, ‘Berlin, 1890-1940,’ in Anthony Sutcliffe, ed., Metropolis 1890-1940 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1984), 289-318.

Helmut Geisert, Doris Haneberg, and Carola Hein, Hauptstadt Berlin. Internationaler Städtbaulicher Ideenwettbewerb 1957/58 (Berlin: Gebrüder Mann Verlag, 1999).

Jean-Louis Cohen, ‘In the Cause of Landscape,’ in Cohen, ed., Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes (London: Thames & Hudson, 2013), 35-36.

Jean-Louis Cohen, ed., Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes (London: Thames & Hudson, 2013).

Jean-Louis Cohen, ‘German Desires of America: Mies’s Urban Visions,’ in Terence Riley and Barry Bergdoll, eds., Mies in Berlin (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2001), 362-371.

Jean-Louis Cohen, Scenes of the World to Come: European Architecture and the American Challenge 1893-1960 (Paris; Montreal: Flammarion; Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1995).

Jean-Louis Cohen and Hubert Damisch, eds., Américanisme et modernité. L’Idéal américain dans l’architecture (Paris: Flammarion, École des Hautes Études et Sciences Sociales, 1993).

Karl Scheffler, Die Architektur der Groβstadt (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer Verlag, 1913).

Karl Scheffler, ‘Der Kampf um Bismarck,’ in Kunst und Künstler, vol. 10 (1911-1912).

Katharina Borsi, ‘Drawing the Region: Hermann Jansen’s Vision of Greater Berlin in 1910,’ The Journal of Architecture 20, no. 1: 47-72.

Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City (Cambridge, Mass.: The Technology Press, Harvard University Press, 1960).

Le Corbusier, ‘La leçon de la machine,’ L’Esprit Nouveau, no. 25 (1924), n.p.

Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret, Œuvre Complète 1929-1934, vol. 2 (Zurich: Girsberger, 1934).

Le Corbusier, ‘Trois rappels à MM. les architectes : le plan,’ L’Esprit Nouveau, no. 4 (January 1921), 465-466.

Le Corbusier, Urbanisme (1925, repr. Paris : Éditions Vincent, Fréal & Cie, 1966).

Mitchell Schwarzer, German Architectural Theory and the Search for Modern Identity (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Nobuyuki Yoshida, ‘Herzog & de Meuron: Project Triangle in Paris by Herzog & de Meuron,’ Architecture and Urbanism. Sustainable Architecture in Germany, no. 459 (December 2008).

Norma Evenson, Paris. A Century of Change, 1878-1978 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979).

Norma Evenson, ‘Paris, 1890-1940,’ in Anthony Sutcliffe, ed., Metropolis 1890-1940 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1984), 259-288.

O.M.A., Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S,M,L,XL, 2nd ed. (Köln: Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, 1997).

Rafael Moneo, ‘On Typology’, Oppositions 13 (Summer 1978): 22-45.

Regina Stephan, ed., Eric Mendelsohn. Architect 1887-1953 (New York: The Monacelli Press, 1999).

Rem Koolhaas, ‘Bigness, or the Problem of Large. Manifesto, 1994,’ in O.M.A., Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S,M,L,XL, 2nd ed. (Köln: Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, 1997), 495-516.

Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York: A Retrospective Manifesto for Manhattan (1978, repr. New York: The Monacelli Press: 1997).

Reynar Banham, Megastructure: Urban Future of the Recent Past (New York: Harper & Row, Icon Editions, 1976).

Rosemarie Haag Bletter, ‘Paul Scheerbart’s Architectural Fantasies,’ Journal of the Society of architectural Historians 34, no. 2 (May 1975): 83-97.

Rosemarie Haag Bletter, ‘The Interpretation of the Glass Dream – Expressionist Architecture and the History of the Crystal Metaphor’, Journal of the Society of architectural Historians 40, no. 1 (Mar 1981): 20-43.

Terence Riley and Barry Bergdoll, eds., Mies in Berlin (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2001).

Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, ‘Berlin Modernism and the Architecture of the Metropolis,’ in Terence Riley and Barry Bergdoll, eds., Mies in Berlin (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2001), 34-65.

Wolfgang Sonne, Representing the State. Capital City Planning in the Early Twentieth Century (Munich, Berlin, London, New York: Prestel, 2003).

Downloads

Published

2018-04-30

Issue

Issue # 22 | Spring / Summer 2018 | Exploring Architectural Form: A Configurative Triad

Section

Article

License

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.