While the readings from last week provided outlines and detailed steps to their ideas, this week’s readings are presenting questions to consider. Maki said “This article contains no answers, but seeks to ask the right questions, and to draw out further discussions” (Maki,1964) which aid in forming our base of knowledge to draw from in special situations as the Bauhaus would. However, I found the questions in “Criteria for Mass Housing” to be outdated. The idea of a traditional nuclear family is firmly emphasized to include space for children and helping housewives while men are at work. While those factors are important to consider in a fluid house design, it is an outdated idea in today’s progressive society where it is normal for a single person to own a “family” home.
Both the Charter of Athens and Fumihiko Maki both underline the importance of utilizing different topographical sites as opposed to Le Corbusier’s ideal of topula rasa. In the attempt to create the perfectly planned city, it is recommended to have it be flexible, much like the Bauhaus. Maki’s Collective approach gave an interesting way to approach urban planning. While it is a common theme to separate housing from industrial, and pedestrian traffic from vehicular traffic, Maki and those from Team 10 aimed to look further and create a specific architectural language to create links throughout the city.
The idea of how to use machines was another recurring idea from Gropius to Maki. Maki said that to create a great city that understands human links and relationships, one must “make technology our slave.” (Maki,1964) This is also a topic in my furniture design class about how humans are being aided by robots to make art. While currently, machines are being used for convenience over the aid of expanding originality with a smart tool, Wendell Castle is an example of an artist fully utilizing machines to better make creative works as opposed to allowing machines to make him mindless.
Congress Internationaux d’Architecture moderne (CIAM), La Charte d’Athenes or The Athens Charter, 1933. Trans J.Tyrwhitt. Paris, France: The Library of the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, 1946.
Le Corbusier. “A Contemporary City of Three Million Inhabitants.” Essay. In The City of To-Morrow: and Its Planning, 164–77. London: Architectural Pr., 1947.
Maki, Fumihiko. Investigations in Collective Form. St. Louis: Washington University, 1964.
Smithson, Allison, and Peter Smithson. Criteria for Mass Housing, 1957.
Wendell Castle: A Portrait. United States: American Public Television, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPB6s9jaTW8&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1gK2pV9qyhQ86YaLcMDb50kooeqv9n5Ampy3fG0uUBAf-dISHxRektHV4.