| |
|
Ignatius_J: Well, it seemed to me that we were jumping the gun a bit.
'We'?
Ignatius_J: You stated that western architects take no account of local architecture.
I said nothing of the kind.
Ignatius_J: Who says Iraqis don't want their office buildings the same? As for brutalist houses, oppressive churches and barren malls (on the inside where the people are) built anywhere recently, show me.
I didn't say anything about brutalism, oppressive churches, or barren malls. The discussion was 'tower blocks'. However, the notion that building lush interiors for malls somehow makes them natural and homely is idiotic. A few potted plants and a waterfeature do not make a livable space. In fact, I'm not convinced that a mall per se can ever be a positive environment for living - its function is commerce, not society, and though the two are not mutually exclusive, commerce as it is arranged at the moment does not acknowledge the need for balance. As for 'show me', I don't know where you are, but I'm sure you're capable of noticing oblong buildings with more than six floors and regimented windows. Do your own homework.
Ignatius_J: I just can't see how building militarist, pseudo-conservationist (you can not generate electricity with a solar panel woven out of hemp -- you need industrially-produced metals and other chemicals) piles will help anyone right now.
Will you stop hanging on to this 'militarist' idea because I mentioned forts? The whole region, way back before colonialism, has a traditional of fortified towns. It was an image, and a throwaway at that. If you don't like it, fine - although there might be some psychological benefit in having a hometown which feels secure in the aftermath of twentyfive years of Saddam Hussein and two US-led invasions. It's also possible, of course, that that effect would be negative and isolationist. It was an idea, not a commandment.
As to 'pseudo-conservationist', must I repeat that I was not proposing this as a conservation measure? That this was primarily about decentralised energy, entailing freedom from government at a practical level? And yes, I know, solar panels are hi-tech, so perhaps wind power might be better - though it's not all that difficult to imagine that solar might be imported or that an indigenous industry is possible. Iraqis are not incapable, they just haven't had a lot of breaks.
And what does 'right now' mean? 'Right now' they need a police force and food and water. They need medicine and healing and peace - but this is a forum about design and a thread about Rebuilding. There's no point discussing 'right now' because architecture of any kind is not what they need immediately. But later - in six months, maybe more, Iraqi society will need a place to exist in, and it will need spaces of its own. And those spaces will be definitive. If they're constructed thoughtlessly, or without regard for the local identity, they will create problems. On the other hand, a little imagination brought to bear could offer possibilities for new ways of living neither despotic nor quasi-Western. Muslim societies have a tradition of scholarship and debate - every Muslim is duty-bound to serve the Ummah; society is a religious obligation; hence my specification for communal spaces. I was blue-sky dreaming, but I wasn't doing so trivially or without a bit of practical thinking.
Ignatius_J: I stomped it because you were letting your hate of the "yankee war" get in the way of your considered, researched judgement. No offence meant.
I didn't let my opposition to the war cloud my judgement, I let my imagination play a little with a few basic shapes. You came down hard on something you still either refuse to engage with (hence your insistence on 'pseudo-conservationism') or simply can't get your head round. And you were very rude about it. So 'no offence meant' is a pathetic response. You want to avoid giving offence? Look at the idea. It wasn't and isn't supposed to be perfect, but if you're seriously thinking about this, and you ignore the factors I'm proposing, anything you come up with is going to be fatuous and ill-fitted to the task. What's the use of providing short-term shelter (which Iraqis obviously need, but which isn't all that much in the way of design) and then doing nothing in the direction of a new society? Nation Building (which we have spectacularly failed in elsewhere) is a long, hard, involved effort. At the end of it, they need something which will work in the long term, socially, economically, internationally, sustainably - otherwise we're going to be back in there doing the whole thing again. We cannot afford to bequeath our mistakes to them.
Think, for God's sake. |
|
|
