Cam ce ar fi aceste colisiuni- Definitii concepte si exemple.

Coliziunile urbane – acolo unde doua sau mai multe entitati produc o anumita tensiune care fie poate si privita ca ceva potentator in lectura orasului sau poate genera conflicte. Aceste zone care pot varia de la latimea unei strazi intinderi in teritoriu pot fi sociale sau morfo-tipologice precum si variante hibride, un tip generandu-l pe al 2-lea. COLIZIÚNE, coliziuni, s. f. 1. Ciocnire violentă între două corpuri care se mișcă unul spre altul; izbire, lovire. 2. Ciocnire de forțe, tendințe, interese contrare în domeniul relațiilor omenești; conflict, ceartă, dispută. ♦ (Rar) Încăierare, bătaie, luptă. 3. (În sintagma)Coliziune omonimică = fenomen lingvistic prin care două sau mai multe cuvinte diferite ajung omonime. [Pr.: -zi-u-. — Var.: (înv.)colízie s. f.] — Din fr. collision, lat. collisio, -onis. Sursa: DEX '09 (2009)

Inafara de anumite cazuri aparte coliziunile urbane fac parte din viata noastra de zi cu zi prezente in orasele vechi ce au avut dintotdeauna o anumita atractivitate si pontential de dezvoltare. Atat de prezente sunt aceste situatie incat fie ca traim in zonele de conflict fie ca le traversam au inceput sa nu fie percepute de creier, trec anonimat in rutina, ies din sfera de interes perpetuand dupa caz comportamente socio-psihologice si forme urbane benefice sau nu vecinatatii si orasului.

E dificil de spus unde se termina colajul in acceptiunea lui Rowe si incepem coliziunea. Ce trebuie sa privim ca conflict si ce trebuie sa privim ca diversitate precum manierismul ce promova o arhitura a dialogului a discrepantelor si schimbarii de situatie.

Dar noi vom discuta despre colisiuni de morfologie urbane care au o serie de factori si de scari. Lista mai jos tot ce stim

----discontinuitati in tesut

----fragmentarea oraselor – spatii goale imediat langa spatii intens constr dense ---ABANDONATE

----suprapunere de trame prost tesute

----demolari – calamitati/politice ---URBAN VOIDS

----salturi de scara si dominare/subjugare

----conflicte intre tesut nou si vechi

FRAGMENTARI

Looking to the literature, the phenomenon appears multilayered and rich of complexities. In the following lines a brief (and inevitably incomplete) overview of the main positions on the argument consents to identify at least some key perspectives to enter in the analysis of the phenomenon. Five main domains of the question are identifiable:

the spatial one, where the city is thought as a ensemble of fragments with different socio-spatial characteristics and different uses of urban spaces (Balbo and Navez-Bouchanine, 1995) or where the attention lies on the “fragmented” occupation of the land by the built-up areas (Sobreira and Gomez, 2001);

the social one, where fragmentation is referred to splintering in social-technological networking, with the presence of different levels of intensity in the relational flows (Graham and Marvin, 2001), to the break-up in services provision (Jaglin, 2005), relational geographies (Coutard,

2008) and social ties between parts/fragments of the city (Harrison et al., 2003; Vranken, 2001);

the economic one, where fragmentation refers to a kind of economic polarization connected to the disparity in the access to the labour market (Van Kempen, 1994; Sassen, 2002) or consists in inequalities in resources and investments in different parts of the city (Morgan and Marechal, 1999);

the cultural one, where fragmentation can refer to the co-presence of different and conflictive identities in the city (Harrison et al., 2003), to the development of distinct and unavoidable residential patterns, with consequent phenomena of segregation and ghettoisation (Coy, 2006; Powell and Graham, 2002), or to the relationships between behaviours and fear appearing from segregated urban contexts (Low, 2006);

• the political one, where fragmentation is connected to exclusion dynamics and preservation of inequalities (Hardy, 2003), discontinuity and un-contiguity in urban policies (Navez-Bouchanine, 2002) or political-administrative divisions (and overlapping in competences) in the urban territory (Chevalier, 2002).

Despre colisiuni de texturi

Texture to Re-Organize Cities. David Flecha

http://www.arcduecitta.it/world/texture-to-re-organize-cities-david-flecha/

GEOMETRICS is a theoretical research project that investigates how we can deal with the complexity of contemporary cities, characterized by leftover spaces and frictional areas, and creates a solution which is able to layer structures that involve infrastructural, textural and landscape components which are part of our urbanized territories. Recording and analyzing “frictional effects” in specific sensitive areas, helps us to understand and decode urban texture/structures as anthropogeographic element, which are the foci of this thesis.

How do we define a texture in general?  Many can define it as what we feel when we use our sense of touch. It is the quality of the surface of a given object that we are able to experience and understand.

How can we use this architecturally to describe the structure of our cities? The urban texture is understood as the way our system of movement and connectivity affects our cities (the urban grid).  The grid system of the city is a texture that helps in our understanding of the urban scale, its growth and inner relationships, the way we organize ourselves and how the city runs.  We begin historically with the organic grid from our primitive ancestors that eventually evolved to the geometric grid, and led to the way we mobilize in the city.

Organic textures are studied to understand the ruling of organization created based on the restrictions of nature.  Civilization began around a natural resource and become the main element for a group’s survival.  Infrastructure made our way of living easier by being able to reach a destination in the most quick and efficient way.  When it come to the organic grid, it appears to follow its geographical surroundings.

Our cities are developed and transformed through their interaction between different social, political, economical, and environmental forces.  Our predecessors were able to create a functional organic texture that served the individual and weren’t initially created by great, urban master planners.

The pre-Classical and Classical periods saw a number of cities laid out according to fixed plans, many tended to develop organically.  The city growth began by addressing what people needed and taking advantage of their resources in the best way possible.  The constant walking eventually created an indentation of land and formed a primitive organic grid form.  These movements were influenced by their surroundings, since their environment only allowed them certain space to travel. In the plan of Cordes, Greece, the organic grid is in relation to the contours of the hill.  It creates moments of pause and due to the drastic change in contours these areas are used for open space instead of a method of residency.

A contemporary example would be the hills in Valparaiso- Chile,  where due to the Andes Mountains, the residents had to build along the hills. This created a more zigzag-like motion grid until it reaches the valley and port which conforms to a geometric grid.

Geometrical textures are studied in order to understand some of the ruling of organization that are created by human restrictions of local government.  Hippodamus has been dubbed the “Father of City Planning” for his design of Miletus, Greece.  Commissioned by Alexander, he laid out the new city of Alexandria, an example of idealized urban planning of the ancient Mediterranean world.  The city’s regularity was facilitated by its level site near a mouth of the Nile.  The Hoppodamian, or grid plan, was the basis for subsequent Greek and Roman cities.

By 2600 B.C.E., major cities of the Indus Valley Civilization were built with blocks divided by a grid of straight streets, running north-south and east-west.  Each block was subdivided by small lanes.  In  Egypt, a worker’s village housed a rotating labor force and was laid out in blocks of long galleries separated by streets in a formal grid.  Many pyramid cities used a common system of grid makings.  These early methods of making a city allowed an organized hierarchy of people, functions, and life.

The grid plan was a common tool of Roman city planning, based originally on its use in military camps known as castra.  One of the most striking Roman grid patterns can be found in the ruins of Timgad, in modern day Algeria.  The Roman grid is characterized by a nearly perfect orthogonal layout of streets, all crossing each other at right angles, and by the presence of two main streets, set at right angles from each other called the cardo and the decumanus.  A more contemporary look would be the Manhattan grid in New York City, arguably the most famous grid plan in history, formulated in the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811.

Anthropogeographic is the connection of city textures with their specific social and programmatic definition, and landscape/environmental contents.  Anthropogeography was first coined by geographer Ratzel who believed that the struggle for existence in the plant and animal world always centers on the matter of space.  Geographic conditions influence the economic and social development of the people by: the abundance, paucity, or general character of the natural resources; the local ease or difficulty of securing the necessaries of life; and by the possibility of industry and commerce afforded by the environment.  More varied and important are the physical effects of geographic environment.

Vittorio Gregotti used this term to express architecture within the geographic world and create a co-existence.  Territory was humorously defined as the violent delineation of the surface by

primitive cultures, or in a more general sense, to the cultural, social and political delimitation of surroundings.  Anthopogeography in the architectural theory is the understanding of the territory layers and interrelationships (in different scales, patterns, structures, surfaces, domain, region, landscape) which results in how the space should be/has been retranslated architecturally.

After the formation of organic and geometric structures, cities had examples of systems to help further their development.  The growth of cities never tends to follow the predecessor existing texture and attempts to create an alteration based on need and context, on ideologies and evolution of tools.  More specifically, when two grid systems meet, they create an anomaly that is known as a collision.  Collisions are an isolated event in which two or more bodies (colliding bodies, textures, etc) exert relatively strong forces on each other, creating a neutral event or area. In terms of urban texture, we see collisions as the moment when two dominant urban elements (geography, infrastructure, texture) meet.  These anomalies, at times, in cities are used effectively but have not been successful.

The anomaly created by a collision can be best explained and synthesized in four main types: collision of city-landscape, city-infrastructure, city-city, and infrastructure-landscape.  The city-landscape collision creates a zone from a meeting of landscape and city texture.  The city-infrastructure collision creates a zone from the meeting of the city texture and major infrastructures (highways, bridges, and major roads).  The city-city collision creates a zone from the meeting of different oriented or sized grid textures.  The landscape-infrastructure collision creates a zone from the meeting of landscape with major infrastructures within the landscape.  All these types of collisions create impact zones which can variously extend.  What can be built in these impact zones?  There have been many different examples of these collisions at different scales of the city, which create a series of potentialities for the urban system with successful programs and proper integration to the site.

In “Il Territorio dell’ Architectura,” Vittorio Gregotti states that territory  is a set of languages that describes specific elements and different societies through elements of transformation.  This ranges from different climates, colonization, political, and economical means.  This is the level where landscape is the most influence force of design, where it rules but is little by little becoming fragile by the development of technology.  A lack of nature is becoming evident throughout the development of our history.  This scale becomes the transformational shift from the true nature to cultural landscape (man-made nature).  Agriculture becomes the first way in which landscapes are structured, due to the intention of Man controlling nature.  The anomaly that creates collision in the territorial scale is considered to characterize the extra large scale.  This scale deals with a project of collision outside of the city yet still affects it in some way.  It usually works with a chain of cities perhaps or even transition from rural to the urban context.

The metropolitan (regional) scale needs to be understood based on its own existing conditions and not just importing systems from other cities where these seems to work.  In the end, ones moved to other areas, these will not react at the same way. Through the metropolitan environment, we can create spread out node centers in which infrastructural and landscape

approaches can work with the city.  A network of cities is created through an image and structure that bring together hybrid spaces.  These spaces create a relationship between the layout and network with its urbanites and territory.  The anomalies that create collision in the metropolitan scale are considered to be understood at large scale.  This scale deals with the whole city and with times fragments of other cities.  It tends to work with a series of nodes that creates zones within the city (neighborhood, commercial, etc).

Elements that make a city are typologies, quality, density, grain (morphology), organization, and distribution.  Cities always have to attempt to create a balanced relationship from its geographical cultural to its historic social fragments.  Cities allow us to witness how the evolution throughout history comes about. The urban scale is an analogous archetype which allows us to design and excite the viewer with images, ideas, and the creation of a symbol.  Through this symbol we create an image which physically communicates while also protecting the essentials to create the order of the city landmarks. These are examples of the visual and physical symbols that transport the people to another dimension.  Who lives in the city, has the capability to connect dynamically with other spaces.  Every dimensional scale constitutes a moment of understanding while also increasing through scales. This results in an urban pattern consisting of nodes and of infrastructural networks, which can also be considered anomalies created by collisions at the medium scale.  This scale deals with the nodes within the metropolitan scale.  It tends to work with a series of architecture forms or one mega structure to create a special program (civic center, event space, etc).

Through the proper designs and layouts in the larger scales, the local (architectural) scale becomes the outcome.  It is the theoretical biography created reacting with a conception, which has as result an environment with clusters of interactive space (reactions and renewal gestures). These are communicative pieces capable of interacting with urbanites, places, and earth (back to territory). These spaces allow us to understand the changes in human society through our scale and structure.  The anomalies created by a collision in the local scale are considered to be at the small scale.  This scale deals with the architecture piece within the urban scale.  It tends to deal with the space that they occupy creating architectural languages and poetics.  It is the scale in which we can see the power of void spaces as well.

Architects imply palimpsest as a ghost of the existing, an image of what it once was or could be.  Whenever our environment is changed their shadows remain.  It can be anything from removed stairs that leave a mark where the painted wall surface stopped, to dust lines from existing furniture.  Ancient ruins speak volumes of their former wholeness.  Palimpsest can inform us, archeologically, of the realities of the past.  Palimpsests can also mean figurative accumulation and reinforcement of design ideas over time.  Palimpsests have shown attempts of a new connection that currently divides and creates a conflict with the old and the new architectural forms.  By considering the concept of palimpsest, one can create a system of coding and communicating rules for production of new values and rules.  This method of cross connectivity between different fragmented collisions creates a new way for designers to re-engage proactively past and present in connection with a possible future.

The state of being placed closer, side-by-side, allows comparison or contrast (a collision of sorts in terms of position), but it can also be in terms of program, materials, or formal expression.  In this way, position doesn’t have to work as juxtaposition or contrast, but as essence which holds each of these fragments together.

Red Hook, a neighborhood in Brooklyn- New York, was been considered a productive area of study to test the research related to the concept of “GEOmetrics” and “Anthropogeography”.  Red Hook is geographically isolated from the rest of Brooklyn and the local subway infrastructure.  It is surrounded by water on three of its sides making it a peninsula with its main land connection being the only link to Brooklyn.  The interruption of the Gowanus Expressway makes it difficult to create a visible connection with the rest of the city inland, and the largest public housing development project in Brooklyn dated 1938. The introduction of the Red Hook port in the 1800s created a thriving industrial growing neighborhood, but this process halted by the 1950’s when business moved to New Jersey because of the use of shipping containerization.  Many industrial businesses abandoned the area, determining its economy rapidly declined by 1970.  Red Hook is currently going through a transformation to the eclectic mix of living artist and industrial business.  By 2008, “Residustrial” was the new coined neighborhood identity term with the establishment of an IKEA shopping center that helped boost the economy of the area and flourished new potential to the way we see the Red Hook Waterfront.

The result of the Gowanus Expressway has rendered Red Hook isolated and produced the total decrease of public spaces after the departure of major industrial companies.  The unappealing space around the expressway allowed for smaller scale industries to grow around the North border of the neighborhood.  This left only the center area of Red Hook to grow for commercial and residential use, turning the neighborhood into a visual island, while its water edges are still uninhabited, even though they have consistent potentials.

As a result, Red Hook is experiencing a low level of public and commercial activity and lack of connection with its neighborhood and to the rest of Brooklyn, leaving clusters of abandoned space.  While these clusters are effects of programmatic textures collisions, these are not the only textures that exist in Red Hook.

This proposal deals not only with the effects of the Gowanus Expressway on the existing contexts and post-industrial areas, but tries to analyze and rethink about collisions within the existing small scale infrastructural texture, typologies, and geographical elements as the harbor and Red Hook waterfront.  These frictional areas will function as locations for new programmatic and structural interventions, which will help to create new nodes as catalyst to reconnect segregated areas within Red Hook as well as to reconnect it to the larger Brooklyn area.

Once the understanding and identifying of the main node areas is established, the creation of a spine and of a network branching to secondary nodes will be designed.  These nodes (both main and secondary) along with the network, create areas for progressive implementations within Red Hook.  It will determine a self growth system which begins as introduction of small programs needed in each of the intervention areas.

The biggest node area and main focus is located around the Gowanus Expressway dealing with a collision between city and infrastructure.  It has unusable space underneath the expressway and surrounding abandoned industrial program. It is the main frictional area and using the analysis on its palimpsest and infrastructural texture, it’s possible to think about a functional connection with new programmatic and public spaces.  New spaces organize a system of residential, services and commercial spaces integrated to green areas which allow for a counteraction against the pollution created by the expressway.  An agricultural space for Red Hook is created as an update to its existing urban farming at local scale. This concept envisions a new understanding on balanced coexistence between the scale of major infrastructural systems and the smaller local scale of the neighborhood, whit its structure and its relationships with the natural element of the water.

ACTIUALITATEA PROBLEMEI???

Colisiunile in raport cu viitorul oraselor – Tendinte generale de viitor si punerea la scara a problemei. --- URBAN TRENDS

In ce directie se indreapta orasele noastre --- fragmentare/autosuficienta --- polinuclear --- disparitia orasului --- progresism/culturalism/broad acre city. Ce valuare va avea spatiu public si exteriorul cu totul intr-o era in care distantele nu vor mai exista.... Pentru ca forma oraselor pe care le traim azi maine ar putea fi abolite am putea ajunge sa traim in cutii de cartiere la mii de km distanta si sa nu ne dam seama.... am putea experimenta un exterior creat artificial sub un dom biosintetic. Iar atunci tot ce vorbim astazi este o particula de praf de pe domul de sticla care se va duce in doua ore cand porneste programul de autocuratare.....

Pe cat de nihilist pare uneori viitorul pe care ne chinuim sa il impiedicam... Se oberserva in ulimile decenii o trecere extraordinat de la Utopiile contemplative/active la constante reprezentari de lumi distopice --- nu mai privim spre viitor ca la o promisiune si ca la un pericol iminent.

Mai multe despre astea din carti;......

Trebuie discutata relatia problemei cu viuziunile despre oras... comparata scara de actiune.

Se mai pune problema (re)medierii???? Si daca da in ce sens

-----Atitudini extreme

New Urbanism

Contextualism/Collage city

Fuck context

Despre Collgae city

In this text, the author’soutlined a ‘democratic’ urban design strategy that was structured to enable competinginterests to cooperate in a comprehensive restoration (or recontextualization) of thefragmented state of American cities. Using Karl Popper’s neoliberal conception of ‘the OpenSociety’ as a guide, Rowe and Koetter endorsed a retreat from any modern architecturaldiscourse that emulated the historical determinisms of Marxist and Hegelian utopian models.In their estimation, the deterministic tendencies of these models were too rigid toaccommodate the piecemeal nature of a city’s natural development. What this amounted topolitically was a retreat from the reform politics that were an essential ideological componentof utopian modernisms of the 1920s and 30s.

Despre Fragmentare si Berlin1Berlin – Fragmented CityI. Fragmented urban landscapeWe think of cities as dense places, characterised by their fullness in built form and functions. We thinkof cities as places filled with life and urbanity; an artificial world, a contrast to the openness of thesurrounding nature. However, this fullness of cities is contrasted by an empty, or negative, zone(Studio E.U. 2006). Global processes and structural changes in the economy have changed the cities.Old industries have disappeared, new technologies have been developed and the production is beingdecentralised, and as a result “former industrial premises, disused railways and rail-freight yards (…)are spreading throughout the inner cities.” (Overmeyer 2007). These empty buildings and vacantspaces lie like vacuums within the fullness of the city and wait for new use. Essentially, this contrastbetween fullness and emptiness, between the built and the voids, is what characterises thefragmented urban landscape.Moreover, as these premises within the city lie disused, nature slowly starts to reoccupy them. Awilderness starts growing, and gradually the fragmentation is accentuated further so that we no longercan talk about a clear division between city and nature. If certain memories and images of fullnessoccur in us when we think about the city, a lack of correspondence appears between our expectationsand our perception of the fragmented “urban landscape”. “This mental construction is consequentlylikely to have very little to do with the reality that we experience every day.” (Kniess and Lagos 2006)II. Crashes of realitiesBerlin is a city where such a fragmentation can be clearly read. Not only through the inner-cityemptiness, but also because of the many crashes of different realities which can be observed all overthe city. Compared to other Western cities, Berlin has a special story to tell, and signs of its history canbe read in its physical structure. With the bombings of World War II, the following partition of the city

and the uncertain economic situation afterwards, its stories have been told, erased and retold. In May1945, 70 percent of the city lay in ruins, 80000 houses were destroyed and one and a half millionpeople were homeless (Oswalt 2000). The physical structure of the city was more or less completelydestroyed. Furthermore, the rebuilding of the city in the post-war period was hindered by the divisionof the city and later by the building of the Wall. After the reunification the city was left with a long "scar"running along the former Wall area and “vast areas of derelict land soon became a hallmark of thisfragmented city.” (Bisky 2006)The urban landscape of today’s Berlin is not dense, but still very fragmented. Rather than one clearlydefined city centre, the city has many smaller centres. What is more, the urban morphology isexceedingly heterogeneous; the city is pieced together of fragments from several historical layers. Asearly as in the 1920s the Dadaists were inspired by Berlin when they started developing the techniqueof photo collaging (Oswalt 2000). Today, real collages can be observed all over the city. A fragmentedurban landscape has developed where colonial gardens can be found next to traditional Berlinerblocks, end walls bear signs of disappeared neighbour buildings, large inner-city railway areas are leftobsolete and overgrown, and the new main station is surrounded by voids without programme.Throughout history different ideologies have left their marks on the city web. The Berlin basedarchitect Phillip Oswalt describes Berlin as a conglomerate of influences from a variety of ideologiesand concepts, none of which were influential or long-lasting enough to establish a homogenousstructure (Oswalt 2000). All of these are traces which tell stories about the city as a dynamic, “livingorganism”, stories about the “active processes of transformation, shrinking and development one findsin the city today." (Studio E.U)“Many of the things that have happened here in Berlin over the last 15 years generally takes much longer – say 50 years ormore – elsewhere.” (Ferguson 2006)2III. Paradoxical expectationsAfter the fall of the Wall, large inner city areas lay empty, and a heated public debate arose onpossible future developments and strategies; hence how the future stories of the city could be told.The disjointed history of Berlin had apparently left the politicians longing for homogeneity andcontinuity, and in order to achieve this, the voids needed to be filled in a soon as possible. Thus, the“Planwerk Innenstadt” was developed, based on the ideal that “the “historical city” should berecovered” (Bisky 2006). The plans for the inner parts of the city had an image of “the European City”and “Critical Reconstruction” 1 as starting points. Basically, the strategy put forth to rebuild a dense city

centre, primarily based on a block structure scheme. Today, physical manifestations of this strategycan be seen for instance in the reconstructed Potsdamer Platz and in the current plans for rebuildingthe historical castle on the site of the former East German parliament.The fragmented cityscape called forth an urge to use an image of built space with the intention tocreate a traditional identity for Berlin (Huyssen 2005). However, at the same time, Berlin had recentlyregained its status as capital, and both inhabitants and politicians had great expectations of the“metropolis of the future” (Bisky 2006). Expectations ran high of how the capital would soon be homeof six million people and become a “hub” connecting East and West (ibid.) The building of Berlin’s newmain station in the middle of “no man’s” land reveals this optimistic belief in progress and growth.However, the voids surrounding it also show how the expectations of the 1990s regarding populationgrowth and development have not come true. Instead, the population has declined and in addition anextensive suburbanisation has taken place.Phillip Oswalt has been one of the critics of the “Planwerk Innenstadt”. Among other things, he arguesthat the reconstruction strategy is based on nothing else than a construction of an image of ahomogeneous city history which Berlin never had. Thus, the existing city is being rejected in thesearch of a new identity (Oswalt 2000). Oswalt continues to claim that what is missing can never bereplaced by something which simulates history, and that these buildings do therefore not create thedesired homogeneous image. Rather, they add yet another dimension to the conglomerate city.”Die Simulation können das Fehlende nicht ersetzen, sondern nur auf das Vermisste verweisen. So wird in Berlin dieHeterogenität der Stadt, die eigentlich kaschiert werden soll, um eine weitere Dimension bereichert" (Oswalt)It has also been argued that these politics have not led to the desired strengthening of a clear citycentre. The new government buildings, the new main railway station and the redeveloped PotsdamerPlatz formed an attempt to connect the existing centres. However, the projects have rather underlinedthe polycentrality by adding another centre to the existing ones (Oswalt 2000). Moreover, critics haveargued that these new projects have “failed to project an image that Berliners could recognise” (Bisky2006). In a paper for the Urban Age summit in Berlin in 2006, Bisky claims that these newdevelopments have contributed further to the fragmentation of the city because the new representativecentre does not intersect with the living space of the inhabitants.“More than ever, Berlin is a conglomeration of parallel worlds, a hotchpotch of stages on which long-established residents,newcomers and tourists make their respective entrances." (Bisky)IV. The value of the voidsThe many critical voices in the debate indicate that many of the urban development projects initiatedby the planning authorities in Berlin after the reunification do not correspond with people’s perceptionof the realities of the city. Along these lines, it may be argued that the fragmented cityscape holds

possibilities of its own, and that it is exactly the excitement in Berlin’s “crashes of realities” whichmakes the city unique.Indeed, the many disused buildings and empty spaces after the reunification have provided a breedingground for subcultures and a rapidly emerging art scene. In no other place in Europe are such anamount of art galleries, around 400 in total, gathered in one city. Berlin is home to more than 300independent fashion labels and several film- and television production companies. (Beier 2007).Considering the fact that many of these activities arose out of informal use of wasteland or temporary1 The ”Planwerk Innenstadt was rewarded with the ”Deutscher Städtebaupreis” in 2006.(http://www.dasl.de/staedtebaupreis/?p=252)3events in vacant buildings imply that the fragmented city has been one of the factors which havetriggered this creative development. Due to the low cost of living and surplus of space, the city hasbecome “a magnet internationally for young people with creative potential” (Overmeyer 2007). Thus,“this phenomenon – creative people with time on their hands, who innovatively develop the potential ofsurplus space – can be observed all over Berlin.” (ibid.); Beach volley ball courts and flea markets popup at vacant sites, empty shop windows are filled with small independent design shops, and oldindustrial buildings become hosts for parties and events.The last years, the politicians too have started to recognise how this creative potential can betransformed into economic growth, and moreover that the creativity actually inherit a possible imagebuilding factor when it comes to attracting tourists as well as more “creatives” to the city. With theglobalisation of the world the factors which make cities attractive have to some extent changed, and ithas been set forth that “innovative entrepreneurial practices now operate as trademarks of cities`creativity, dynamism and innovative ability” (Bittner 2006). According to Regina Bittner, a researcherand cultural theorist teaching at the Bauhaus in Dessau, the “creatives” are attracted first and foremostby “cities` cultural heterogeneity, their ability to innovate and be tolerant.” Thus, promoting the creativedevelopment could be an opportunity to reach a high-profile location in the cities`global competition.(Overmeyer 2007)"Vacant sites and disused premises are not a constraint but a prerequisite of restructuring. They are the spaces of the future: atraining ground and experimental zone for the future city." Ingeborg Junge-Reyer, senator for Urban Development, BerlinIt seems the fragmentation which the authorities originally wanted to sweep away, and the emptyspaces which had to be filled in, have proved to be of great value not only as an image building factor.Temporary use has even turned out to be “an important component of urban planning in Berlin”(Overmeyer 2007). Recent initiatives of the authorities to make the planning regulations more flexible

and responsive to temporary use indicate that its potential energy has been noticed. In the end thismeans some kind of justification of the fragmented landscape which has “put Berlin firmly on the mapin the European imagination and proves that, here at least, everything is possible and anything goes,no matter how limited your resources” (Bisky 2006).V. Reading between the linesNevertheless, the potential of the inner-city voids of Berlin is not a recent discovery. Ever since the fallof the Berlin Wall there have been voices promoting their value and importance. Berlin tells its storiesin its scars, the voids and the absence of built form contain more stories than the built. (Huyssen2005). Already in 1992, Daniel Liebeskind suggested that the best way to deal with the void of theWall was to preserve it as it was: “I suggest a wilderness, one kilometre long, within which everythingcan stay as it is. The street simply ends in the bushes. Wonderful.” (Daniel Liebeskind quoted inHuyssen 2005). A void so filled with history and memories would lie as a reminder, telling the story ofthe city with its emptiness. The Italian Architects IaN+ follow the same line of thoughts as they arguethat the no man’s land was not only important in regard to the inhabitant’s feeling of belongingbecause it made “people more sensitive and aware of the image of their wounded, but living, city”(IaN+ 2006). What is more, it could in fact have had the capability to fulfil the longing for an identityand “become the new face of the city” (ibid.)"I had never realized so clearly before that there have to be places in cities that are not occupied, but that have to open upsuddenly, like clearings in a wood. I like the word we have in German for clearing: "Lichtung", suggesting a place with brightclear light, as does the English "clearing". If you don`t have islands of light and disorder like this the city becomes overloaded, itbecomes a closed system." Wim Wenders (Casu and Steingut 2006)With regards to open space within the city, film creator Wim Wenders has been one of thosepromoting this not only as a luxury and advantage, but as a necessity for cities. In Wim Wenders` filmHimmel über Berlin, the old man Homer walks around in the void of the Berlin Wall, searching for thePotsdamer Platz he knew when he was young, however finding nothing but wasteland. Wenderssuggests in an interview that Homer would have become even more surprised and confused if he hadreturned to the redeveloped Potsdamer Platz. Thus, in an empty space it was easier for him to recallhis memories and reconstruct the former platz in his imagination (Casu and Steingut 2006). Wenderscontinues with comparing the function of empty and open spaces in a city to reading between the linesin a text: “…the empty spaces in the cities work like that as well. They encourage us to fill them up withourselves" (ibid). Perhaps this points out the most crucial quality of empty space, that it is a space of4opportunities, of future stories. Thus, these places trigger our imagination; encourage us to add our

own stories to the city. Because where nothing exists, everything is possible.„Wo nichts ist, ist alles vorstellbar." Phillip Oswalt5VI. ReferencesBeier, L et al. (2007): Grossstadt ohne Grössenwahn in Der Spiegel 12/2007 p.22-38Bisky, J. (2006): "Berlin: A profile" in Towards an Urban Age, www.urban-age.netBittner, R. (2006): “Life`s a beach. Fields of urban gravitation” in Arch+ nr.180 Convertible Citiespp.50-55Casu A. and Steingut, I. (2006): "Wim Wenders, A sense of Place" in Arch+ nr.180 Convertible Citiespp.110-115Huyssen, A. (2005): "The Voids of Berlin" in Future city, Read, S. et al. (ed.), London and New York:Spon Press.IaN+ (2006) "Emptiness" in Talking Cities: The Micropolitics of Urban Space, Ferguseon, F.(ed),Basel, Boston and Berlin: BirkhäuserKniess, B. and Lagos, L. (2006): "The Cartography of Everyday Life" in Talking Cities: TheMicropolitics of Urban Space, Ferguseon, F.(ed), Basel, Boston and Berlin: BirkhäuserOswalt, P. (2000): Stadt ohne Form, München, London, New York: PrestelOvermeyer, K. (ed.) (2007): Urban Pioneers: Berlin: Stadtentwicklung durch Zwischennutzung, Berlin:JovisStudio E.U. et al. (2006): "Berlin Wall(k)" in Talking Cities: The Micropolitics of Urban Space,Ferguseon, F.(ed), Basel, Boston and Berlin: Birkhäuser

Aceste goluri incep sa fie umplute de oameni in lipsa unei initiative institutionalizate... Oamenii incep sa fie activi in deisgn-ul urban in vreme ce institutiile ofera modele din ce in ce mai abstracte