Scaping Capital

11 1 Deconstructing the Constructive Professions

11.1 Deconstructing the Constructive Professions
Contents list

In cities, there is a concealed power struggle between the partisans of transport, social justice, gracious housing, religion, commerce, fine building,
spacious parks and a healthy environment. Wishing to attain all these ends, society employs a range of experts to bring them about: engineers, lawyers,
architects, priests, teachers, industrialists, environmentalists and others. Each professional group dedicates itself to constructing a specialized aspect
of the public welfare, which contributes to its private welfare. Like the objectives they serve, these experts find themselves in conflict. Each
comes to believe, fervently, in its "own department of the public welfare. Doctors, claiming that nothing matters if one lacks health, suggest that more
money should be spent on hospital beds. Gardeners want the money spent on flower beds. Highway engineers want it spent on roads, architects on better buildings,
religious leaders on churches, park managers on parks. To obtain resources, it becomes necessary to gain power and influence.

When the professions distort the truth, society suffers. Experts develop specialized discourse comprising words, metaphors, a narrative, work practices,
visual images, artefacts and, where possible, laws. Specialized discourse becomes a means to power, just as man-centred discourse was a means to male dominance
in past millennia. A discourse constructs a version of reality that emphasizes particular social structures. Teachers, for example, think and speak as
though compulsory education were a necessary precondition for health, wealth and justice. Furthermore, they argue that "qualified teachers alone can provide
education. Doctors argue that only doctors should be allowed to prescribe drugs. Structural engineers wish every structure to be certified before it is
constructed. Architects incline to a law that permits only qualified architects to design buildings.

The group of professionals that specializes in the built environment finds itself in a unique position to build the versions of reality that were first
constructed in professional discourse. They use language to survey, analyse and control the built form of cities. Abstruse measures of accessibility, legibility
and spatial structure become preludes to expensive proposals. Alternative theories emphasize wide streets and narrow streets; some prefer defensible cul-de-sacs,
others see them as anathema. On different occasions, both policies can improve cities. Yet urban designers have very little influence on road design. Vis-à-vis
engineers, their position has always been one of institutionalized inequality. The discourse of engineering, emphasizing health, safety and economic growth
has, in most "modern countries, secured the enactment of laws that give highway designers control over human settlements. Power generates form.

11.2 Deconstructing Maps
Contents list

Fig 11.1 The 1830 plan of Dunbar tells much of the Earl of Lauderdale’s place in society. He lived in the great house at the north of the high street and
controlled much of the town’s life.

Reading the built form of ancient cities, one can discover which groups of experts have held power in past periods. The church and the military have inscribed
their glorious subtexts on many towns, with the military having been notably prolific. Every general wants more men, weapons, city walls, roads -- and
maps. Their interest in maps is especially interesting. A 1992 book on Writing Worlds, by a group of geographers, considers the relationship between maps
and power (Barnes et al., 1992). The view is advanced that "representations of landscape - the city, the countryside or wilderness - are not mimetic, but
rather a product of the nature of the discourse in which they are written. Medieval maps say as much about "the contours of feudalism and "the shape
of a religious hierarchy as they do about topography. If a map of Dunbar was the only surviving record of the town in 1830 (Figure 11.1), we could read
much about the Earl of Lauderdales power and influence. Maps cost money and reveal social structures. They are instruments in the struggle for urban power.
Instinctively, designers and planners know this, but because of the high value placed on objectivity in the twentieth century, we try not to see the maps
subjectivity.

Reading maps of modern cities, or the cities themselves, tells us about the power relationships between experts. Journalists and others quip that planners
caused more damage to British cities in the 1960s than did military action during the 1940s. Here is an account of what happened to a small village in
Scotland:

The second half of the 20th century has not been as kind to Ardrishaig as it was to its most famous son, John Smith. The architects of a planned society
began to drag Ardrishaig into the modern age in 1960. They started with the demolition and reconstruction of most of the houses on the landward side of
Chalmers Street. The village began to grow, almost unnaturally, up the brae beyond the school with Swedish-style wood-fronted council houses. The blows
to the old-established structure of village life were deep and irreversible. The planners moved in on the south, seaward side of the street, knocking down
the decrepit but charming Fisher Row and then the entire street except the church hall. There were plans for a pedestrian precinct that came to nothing.
(Sunday Times Scotland, 1994)

This obituary for John Smith, a Labour Party leader, is also an obituary for the village. What caused the damage to Ardrishaig? Judging from the above account,
the trouble resulted from:
a plan marking old dwellings as slums requiring clearance [this idea probably originated from Ministry of Health thinking in the 1920s];
a plan for non-contextual Swedish-style houses [this idea is likely to have come from architects who admired Scandinavian style in the 1950s];
a plan that zoned the hillside, or brae, for housing [this idea could well have come from the Ministry of Agriculture, which aimed to protect farmland from
development];
a plan for a pedestrian precinct, which was not implemented [this idea will have come from an engineers report on Traffic in Towns (Ministry of Transport,
1963)].

The theories that inspired the policies, guessed at in brackets, come from various professions and government departments, not from planners or planning
theory. Planners may have tried to conduct the orchestra, but they did not compose the music or select the tunes. Attribution of blame to "the architects
of a planned society is deserved only to the extent that changes to Ardrishaig were shown on plans before being built. In rural areas, the plans probably
indicated towns as black, and thus important, while agricultural land was left white, to show its unimportance. Mapping policy influences planning policy,
surreptitiously and insidiously.

Government agencies produce maps and plans -- to reinforce their interests. Departments of Agriculture map agricultural quality -- because they wish to
protect farmers. Departments of Nature Conservation map ecological value -- to protect habitats. Hydrologists map aquifers -- to protect water resources
from pollution. An aspect of the environment matters only if a government department, or profession, has a responsibility. This puts town and country planners
in a curious position. Is their job, acting as mere bureaucrats, to implement other peoples policies, as happened in Ardrishaig? Or is it to develop a
meta-discourse in which conflicts between subsidiary experts can be resolved? Some theories of planning have been mainly about power: "You give us power;
we will give you good cities has been the implicit offer. Systems planning, in the 1960s, was like this. Planners saw themselves as "conductors of the
orchestra. Politicians, who peddle a similar brew, were not very susceptible to this line of argument. They preferred specific urban design proposals,
such as "slum clearance, "more sewers, "more roads, "more pedestrianization or "more parks. When persuaded, they employed designers to implement their
projects, as happened at Ardrishaig.

Designers, unlike cartographers, have always known that plans are drawn to influence events. That is their raison dêtre. With Karl Marx, they see that
"the point is not to understand the world, the point is to change it. Plan-makers remuneration used to come from private individuals. This made it easy
to discover what sorts of changes should be made: you asked your client. For architecture, Wotton described the conditions as "commodity, firmness and
delight (Wotton, 1624). The clientele he had in mind were Noble Men and Noble Minds (Figure 11.2). They were the people who commissioned architects. When
public agencies and public companies came to the fore as clients, things became difficult. Geddes asserted that the aim of planning is to make "good places.
It was an admirable idea, but, in this life, a place cannot be good from every point of view. Lynch defined seven clusters of performance dimensions criteria
for good cities: Vitality, Sense, Fit, Access, Control, Efficiency and Justice (Lynch, 1981). Others have ducked the problem and stated, reasonably, that
it is the job of democratic bodies to take decisions. As Mrs Thatcher put it, advisers advise and ministers decide. Although this principle is easily accepted,
ministers decisions have to be based on "facts, which are constituted by the technical vocabularies and maps that advisers have drawn up for particular
purposes. When agricultural land was mapped, but not nature reserves, politicians protected agricultural land, but not nature reserves.

11.3 Deconstructing Planning Theory
Contents list

  
  
  

How then does one judge a planning theory and decide what action to take? If you say the world is round, and I say it is flat, there are ways of settling
our dispute. Likewise, if we differ on the dimensions of a brick pier to support a concrete beam, both can be built and we can discover whose design theory
withstands the load. Planning theories are more problematical. Cities take generations to build and have many clients who judge their surroundings in different
ways at different points in history, at different stages of their lives, and in different ways when engaged in different activities (work, leisure, shopping
etc.).

Any one approach to planning is doomed to failure. Single-topic theories cannot deal with multi-everything cities. This failure is illustrated by the history
of British housing layout from 1840 to 1990 (Turner, 1987a). The story forms a sequence of "problems followed by "panaceas. Each panacea was based on
a planning theory. Each became a "problem in its turn (Figure 3). Warren Housing, reviled by Engles, was succeeded by Byelaw Housing. Unwin and his friends
attacked Byelaw Housing, arguing the case for Housing on Garden City Lines. Reformers, from Clough Williams Ellis to Ian Nairn, slammed the sprawling uniformity
of suburbia and sub-topia. Corbusian planners argued for the superficially attractive solution of stacking the dwellings and allowing the "landscape to
flow underneath. Mixed Development was the next solution, to be followed by Design Guide Housing. Each theory had value but each caused a new problem,
because it was overemphasized.

A shocking feature of the progression is the fervour with which each group of reformers, seeking new powers and new uniformities, decried the work of its
predecessors. When we look back, each of the panaceas has real merit and continues to suit certain social groups. Warren housing, where it survives in
old villages, is treasured. Garden suburbs have always been loved by residents. Stefan Muthesius, Oscar Newman, and many young couples, have sung the praises
of the English terraced house. Others love the cell-like isolation and superb views from tower blocks. The most serious criticism of the theories that
generated these schemes is that each has been too dominant, and has ruled exclusively in those dreaded ghettos: the housing estate and residential tract.
Despite Jane Jacobs, estates continue to be single-purpose places. If any one theory had reigned for the 150-year period, our towns would be immeasurably
poorer. Town planning is not like building brick piers.

11.4 Deconstructing Urban Design Theory
Contents list

Fig 11.4 Frederick Gibberd wrote a book on Town Design and thought towns could be designed much like buildings with rooms (‘neighbourhoods’) and corridors
(‘roads’). This is his plan for Harlow New Town, where he lived and worked.

The advent of "urban design signifies a welcome retreat from unitarism, which could discourage people from thinking of "planning as a unitary professional
discipline. When Frederick Gibberd wrote a book on "town design, it was pretty clear what he meant: architecture writ large (Gibberd, 1967). Just as architects
planned rooms and corridors, so, it appeared to Gibberds generation, they could plan land uses and roads (Figure 11.4). Architect means "head technician,
and architect-planners aimed to control all the subsidiary specialists. In "urban design, the substitution of the adjective "urban for the adjectival
noun "town implies a less-than-holistic activity, just as "aerodynamic design and "structural design" describe aspects of aircraft or building design.
But many popular theories of urban design still tend to unitarism. The theories of Bacon, Hillier and McHarg can illustrate the point.

11.5 Bacon believed that great cities have a
design structure

Edmund Bacon wrote an exhilarating book on the Design of Cities (Bacon, 1967). The illustrations, especially, lead one to believe that a great city requires
a "design structure linked to a "movement system, like the corridors in a building (Figure 5). Though it is easy to be swept along by the historical
analysis, the argument and the drawings, one should grip the handrail. Not all good urban open space has been, should be, or can be designed in this way.
Bacons approach focuses on urban set-pieces, of the kind loved by priests, kings and generals. Democratic societies, having deposed their former masters,
should think twice before giving similar powers to municipal planning departments. Bacon proposes "shafts of space, which are in danger of becoming processional
routes without processions. Dictators plan avenues, put a presidential palace at the head of the avenue and then organize processions to celebrate their
glory. It is an approach that privileges abstract visual space over useful social space. It does not produce spaces with other qualities for other activities:
recreation space, entertainment space, ecological space, healthy space, sheltered space, market space, spiritual space or defensible space.

Fig 11.6 The ‘space syntax’ theory predicts use intensity from spatial geometry. In this example, the darker lines are predicted to be the most used – because
they are the most central.

The theory of Space Syntax, as propounded by Hillier and Hanson, is also based on geometry (Hillier et al., 1984). The main idea is that central spaces,
with good links and good views, will receive more use than peripheral spaces without good linkage. Centrality is computed from a range of geometrical measures,
including relative asymmetry, convexity and axiality. Relative asymmetry is a measure of the depth of a place within the circulation system. Central places
have low relative asymmetry. It is claimed that when these values are right, the spaces will be more central and more used (Figure 6). One can hardly dispute
the fact that the centre of a network will be more intensively used than the periphery, but is intensive use always good? Oscar Newman, in a book on Defensible
Space, argues that if strangers are always walking past your door, the space will not be defensible and crime rates will be high (Newman, 1973). The two
theories met head on in the cul-de-sac. Space Syntax theorists are against them, because they discourage pedestrian access. Defensible space theorists
are in favour of them, because they discourage pedestrian access. Both theories are correct, but err in striving for unitarism.

Ecologists and environmentalists tend to another type of unitarism, which seeks to privilege the natural environment over the human environment. Ian McHarg,
in Design with Nature (McHarg, 1971), used a set of drawings (Figure 11.7) that are quite as seductive as Bacons to argue that planning should begin from
a consideration of natural environment characteristics (earth, water, air, vegetation, wildlife). As a counterweight to normal practice, it was an excellent
book. But there is a serious contradiction in the meaning of "nature in this context. If man is part of nature, as just another animal, then the theories
have no meaning. If man is a separate force, accused of damaging nature in his own interest, then these theories are opposed to human life and can hardly
be expected to help in creating a home for man.

11.7 McHarg argued that we should design with nature

A feature common to most theories of urban design, which explains their unitarism, is their genesis in the constructive professions. As discussed above,
engineers, architects and landscape designers are trained and paid to recommend particular courses of action for particular purposes. Their habit is deeply
ingrained, and there are hierarchical relationships between the professions. Planners, at least in planning theory, are the "conductors of the orchestra.
Road engineers take precedence over architects. This has been a deadly constraint on housing layout. Architects hold sway over landscape designers. This
has been a deadly constraint on "the space outside buildings. Landscape designers aim to rule over horticulturalists, which has led to drearily uniform
planting.

11.5 Deconstructing the Construction Professions
Contents list

In the urban environment, deconstruction has the potential to be a great force for good or ill. It could be the critical generator of a new approach to
urbanism, or it could be a new Parisian terror. The latter prospect is raised before us by the deconstructionist slogan Il ny a pas de hors-texte. The
architectural cousin of this obscure principle, phrased in English to make horror plain, would be: "There is nothing outside the building or "The context
does not exist. In architecture, deconstructionist ideas are being misused as an excuse for the design of buildings in isolation, divorced alike from
internal planning and external context.

In origin, deconstruction was a way of reading philosophical texts, not a design or planning theory. But new ways of thinking and seeing inevitably lead
to new ways of designing, as did Renaissance perspective. Jacques Derrida started from the Lévi-Strauss argument that, in language as in geology, deep
structures lie beneath surface structures. He then challenged, or deconstructed, the relationship between structural elements. Feminists have taken a special
interest in deconstruction because it offers a way of examining, and then upsetting, the traditional relationship of dominance in the Man:Woman structural
pair. A deconstructive reading of the environment can be deployed, with parallel intent, to examine and upset the hierarchical relationships between land
use activities and between the constructive professions. This may require, as in Bernard Tschumis project at
Parc de la Villette,
deconstruction of the tradition by which the form of a building is subordinated to the function. Despite the modernist design theory that forms should be
derived from functions, there are a great many successful buildings where the present function came long after the present form. Georgian houses have become
offices and Victorian warehouses have become residential lofts. Geoffrey Broadbent maintains that 70% of building functions can be housed in 70% of building
forms (Broadbent, 1988). If true, this is an excellent reason for deconstructing the traditional relationship between form and function. As a contrary
policy, one could design buildings according to environmental criteria and worry about functions later on.

In the built environment, deep structures and their hierarchical relationships have been brought to the surface, as a crude artificial language. Instead
of the easy transitions that characterize the natural environment, we have demarcated the most ridiculous strips and parcels of land for Road, River, Housing,
Open Space, Industry, Shopping, Recreation, Forestry, Nature Reserve. In the following structural pairs, the first member is normally dominant:

Road
:
Housing
River
:
Housing
Housing
:
Open Space
Industry
:
Marsh
Recreation
:
Nature Reserve
Forestry
;
Recreation

Technical, legal and linguistic devices are used to subjugate the second party. Everywhere one looks, there are supposed deep structures that have been
raised to the surface and translated into a crude artificial language, more suited to computers than humans. Land uses are put into parcels. Everything
must be A or not-A, B or not-B. Boundaries are made into binary divides. The fantastic workings of the living organism are severed by the butchers knife,
as in Tunnards montage (Figure 11.8). Smooth transitions are forced into culturally imposed formal structures. Happy is the river that is not a property
line and not an engineers "watercourse. Sad is the river that becomes a municipal boundary, neglected by adjoining authorities. Tragic is the river that
is
buried by the constructive discourse of engineering .

Fig 11.8 Landscapes should not be severed with the butchers knife (from Tunnards Gardens in the Modern Landscape)

The constructive professions must be fluent speakers in the languages of the environment. An ability to say "road or "river in a dozen ways is good, but
it is not enough. Professionals must be able to use languages, comprising words, drawings and numbers, which can embrace roads, rivers, forests and buildings
in a myriad of ways, according to contexts and according to clients. They must have views on what to say and how to say it. Traditional planning moves
down the hierarchy from engineering to architecture to planting design. Deconstructed approaches to urban design proceed in different ways. One could move
from ecology to forestry to river design to architecture to highway engineering. Or one could move in another sequence, starting with the hydrological
cycle. It is not a question of asserting new hierarchies. Women should not have the legal or moral right to dominate men, but they should enjoy equality
of opportunity. Control should not be taken from engineers or planners merely to place farmers, ecologists or architects at the top of a new professional
hierarchy. Instead, different hierarchies should be allowed to achieve different objectives in different places. Traditional relationships should be deconstructed.
Those imagined deep structures, which currently disfigure the built environment, are human constructs.

Planners and designers should encourage as much diversity in human habitats as they find in animal habitats. It is not possible to resolve all conflicts
or to gain all ends. Choices have to be made. Different aspects of the public good should be stressed in different places. To achieve variety in land use
patterns, there should also be a variety of relationships between the professions, not an institutionalized decision-making tree. Relationships between
the constructive professions should, therefore, be deconstructed.