COUNCIL OF URBAN CULTURE: Project Description
COUNCIL OF URBAN CULTURE
Project Description
Brief
The project of the 'Council of Urban Culture' responds to the brief of designing ''Disciplinary Cities and Visionary Institutes'' with an emphasis on the diagram.
The project started with a case study of the two disciplinary projects of Constant Nieuwenhuys' New Babylon (1959-74) and of Archizoom Associati's No-Stop City (1969), all whilst keeping in mind the division between the disciplinary project and the formal project in architecture.
The visionary ideas of the precedents were reunderstood in the contemporary context. Especially the homogeneous living diagrams of Andrea Branzi's No-Stop City, caricaturising 'the anatomy of space as organised by economy', seemed to lend themselves for a critique of the European Post-City. The questioning of culture in a hyper-modernised society lead to the new proposal for a cultural institute in the case of Luxembourg. In this sense the project remained on the side of a disciplinary or even social project, yet fulfilled certain formal criteria.
Disciplinary Context
Architecture generally seeks to establish relations and transpose equivalences within a matrix of operations, both physically and culturally. Within the disciplinary project, architecture shifts towards a cultural practice. From the modernist to the postmodernist project, architects tried to address issues of mass production (economies of scale), consumerist models (economies of scope) and entrepreneurial relationships, and simultaneously reevaluated the disciplinary project with regards to wider historical discourses. But today few architects manage to think beyond the 'social utopias' of the 60s and 70s visionary architects and simply risk repeating existing historical projects. In this project New Babylon and No-Stop City serve to imagine new cultural narratives for architecture and urbanism.
Role of Culture
Culture (latin. cultura) refers to the notion of cultivation and entails the idea of the settlement. The city is considered the cultural nexus of art, architecture and urbanism; where culture is used as an agricultural metaphor for 'the cultivation of the soul'. This project tries to define the notion of culture by taking into account popular and high cultures and subcultures, architectural theory and practice, technological innovations, and more. Today the disciplinary project of architecture must again be understood in an expanded field of institutional exchanges and practical experiments.
A New Institute
The project proposes the ''Council of Urban Culture'' (CUC) in order to define the trans-institutional and interdisciplinary framework which defines what culture really is or could be. Thus this Council for Urban Culture acts as a platform for provocation. It helps to transform the entire city into a culture factory. It does not just activate selected parts of the city but floods the city with culture for 1 year, where local agencies are mobilized and anything is possible.
Luxembourg 2022
In a 'fictional' approach, the understanding of the disciplinary cities informs the design of the institute as a framework of programmatic departments constantly adapting to different contexts.
In an 'realistic' approach, the precedent study of Luxembourg and the Greater Region European Capital of Culture 2007 delivered more specific parameters to implement urban strategies within the city.
Eventually both approaches lead to propose the 'Council of Urban Culture' for the next title year of Luxembourg European Capital of Culture 2022!