Capita Selecta: STREETWORKS
Capita 1
Date:10-09-2009
Speaker: Professor Henk Hartzema. Urbanist and Urban Planner / Professor Design in Urbanism, Amsterdam Academy of Architecture (introduction by Aart Oxenaar, director of the Academy of Architecture Amsterdam)
Title: 'StreetWorks' (inaugural lecture)
Capita Selecta no.1 (part 1 of 3), Inaugural lecture by Professor Henk Hartzema from Academie van Bouwkunst on Vimeo.
Capita Selecta no.1 (part 2 of 3), Inaugural lecture by Professor Henk Hartzema from Academie van Bouwkunst on Vimeo.
Capita selecta no.1 (part 3 of 3), Inaugural lecture by Professor Henk Hartzema from Academie van Bouwkunst on Vimeo.
Milestones - changes & continuity in the city
If the home lies at the origins of architecture, the street marks the start of the city. Patterns of streets lead directly to the nature of the city, just as the home tells the story of its occupants. The street orients us in the city and directs our perception of urban reality.
The city streets and the pattern that they form are both as hard as rock and as soft as butter. This pattern grows and changes, but is often preserved in essentials where buildings are demolished and rebuilt. On the other hand, this system is fragile and vulnerable, and the subtle equilibrium in which it is maintained can easily be disrupted.
The city develops along lines. The public or collective domain is located in these capillaries of the city. This structure of streets and roads exposes society as such. These structures, and the way in which opposing interests find expression, are staged, and are played out here, are the result of society and social relations. The streets of the city are regarded as the linear areas in which the conflict of interests is fought out and crystallised.
In this game of great interests, the urban planner can only build somebody else’s ideas. He can only shape the representation of these ideas. The urbanist is humble to the powers, be it the Bishop, the King or the People. He is only the organ grinder of the city.
Yet sometimes a city takes a decisive turn. When did that happen? Which intervention defined the face of the city as it has entrenched itself in our collective memory? What were the driving forces behind these transformations? And what was the role of the urban planner or architect? Capita Selecta in the autumn of 2009 focuses on Milestones in the City: the big intervention in the city as a cultural expression and as a trace that has been left behind.