Topos N. 115

TOPOS E-PAPER: AVAILABLE FOR YOUR DESKTOP Dear readers, the famous French sociologist and urban researcher Henri Lefèbvre was born on 16 June 120 years ago. And it’s precisely on June 16 that the new issue of topos, Right to the City, will be published. This is not entirely coincidental, however, because the main theme is more topical than ever. But let’s start with a brief look back: Lefèbvre’s book Le droit à la ville (The Right to the City) was published in 1968, during a time of upheaval and increasing industrialisation in the post-war period, and also during a time when the urban was being increasingly commercialised. Lefèbvre identified what he considered “urbanisation without urbanity” and saw both its causes and consequences in the construction of mass housing, the emergence…

MICHAEL NGUYEN Further information on the photo-grapher’s work is available on https://nguyensminiaturen.de…

In 1961 historian Lewis Mumford, in his monumental work History of the City, speaks of the transformation and reorganization of the “metropolitan complex”, which evolves from the “de-materialization, or etherialization, of existing institutions” to an “invisible city” responding to invisible waves, radiations, and forces beyond the visible horizon. Media theorist Marshall McLuhan will later disseminate this image into popular culture through the slogan of the “global village”. Mumford writes that urban functions that previously required the physical presence of all participants will be transformed into dissociated mobile forms through global production chains, automated transportation, data transmission, and automated reproduction. The consequences of these technological changes go far beyond the mere control of infrastructural and communicative processes via data. A side effect of the coronavirus pandemic is that it has swept…

Scott Streeb is an Associate Principal and a key member of the Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA) creative team. His interest lies in creating inclusive spaces that children of all ages, cultures and personality types can find comfort in while also encouraging caretaker interaction. He assumes a central role in MVVA’s approach to play spaces and the firm’s research on the role of play in park design. 1 INFLUENCED BY? Mother nature. I grew up among the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Exploring these monumental landforms influenced my spatial and material instincts. It taught me to read landscapes as three-dimensional and sculptural. 2 INSPIRED BY? People who use the parks we design are a great inspiration. Play spaces are my favorite environments to design, so I am inspired by watching children…

Michael Van Valkenburgh is founder and partner of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA). His lifelong dedication to the medium of landscape and its robust material expression is evident in MVVA’s diverse body of work, including gardens, museums, parks of all sizes, campuses, and urban design. Regardless of size, Michael strives to bring out the potential for every project to move people and make the world a better place. 1 INFLUENCED BY? Going back to the beginning – at least, to the summer after I graduated from Cornell, in 1973 – I drove across the US, visiting projects I admired by the offices of Dan Kiley and Lawrence Halprin. When I think of Kiley’s Miller Garden, I still can feel the grace in the geometric transitions; Halprin’s Embarcadero Plaza in San…

Le Corbusier would soon learn that it was not quite right to say “the meeting of the pampa and the ocean”. That “majestic line” he spoke about was in fact the meeting of the pampa and the river. Usually held to be the estuary of the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers, the Río de la Plata receives waters draining from the basin of these two rivers, covering a total area of 3.2 million square kilometers, and stretches 220 kilometers where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, is located on the southwestern shore of the estuary. The city was (and is today) physically, culturally and emotionally shaped by this river whose opposing riverbank can never be seen nor made out. The idea of an infinite silvered plane…