One of the biggest questions I take away from the Koolhaas reading regards the determination of blandness or Genericness. The process of a once-historic city becoming Generic is well documented (he gives the example of Barcelona… especially interesting because in the next article they use Barcelona as an example of a city with unique features), but he states that the reverse is never true; that a city which has started its life as Generic never becomes a place of identity and history. But I find myself wondering; is this always the case? Does a place’s Genericness not constitute an identity in and of itself? He makes clear, and I agree, that history and its relics cannot sustain identity making into the future. When, though, does the switch flip between history and the present? In a place like a Generic city, which actively is re-defining time, compressing into the span of a few years that which once took centuries (the creation of a city), does the line between history and the present, between character and characterlessness, not become a bit blurred?
While Koolhaas uses obvious hyperbole and cynicism in discussing generic cities, it seems a strangely fitting manner for this phenomenon to be discussed. It is so easy to throw up one’s hands and declare against such cancerous growth and heedlessness for the specific identity of place taking off around the world, as is done constantly by anti-globilizationists and, often, me. However, in the flippant way in which Koolhaas discusses these issues of the Generic, I would argue, is rooted in anything but flippancy. I read this piece as a more cynical and more self-consciously cool version of the arm waving taking place in other quarters. While he’s certainly not advocating for the development of cities that try to be like
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It was difficult for me to dicern the connections between these two articles while reading them. But after further inquiry it seems that that they are both taking oppostie stances on a method of design. Rem is provacative and controversial on his stance of the contemporary city. What some may see as a glorification of homogenization he describes as efficiency and a reality. His premise is that if something is so prevelant then there should be an attempt to understand it. He continues to say that it could even hold value. "What if we are witnessing a global liberation movement: "down with character!" What is left after identity is stripped? The generic?" Important to this conversation is identity. His critque of present urban planning is its attempt to give identity and difference to cities by conceiving of history as a generator of that identity, resulting in "insulting" propositions. In contrast to this method the Generic City has ability the to adapt. "The great orginality of the Generic City is simply to abandon what deoesn't work - what has outlived its use - to break up the blacktop of idealism witht he jasckhammers of realism and to accept whatever grows in its place." In terms of planning he states "The Generic City presents the final death of planning...But its (the Genric City) most denegerous and most exhilarating discovery is that planning makes no difference whatsoever...expectations change with the biological intelligence of the most alert animal" In this sense, there is no reason to plan because life is too complicated to plan for. The intense network of systems that the world is composed of is too difficult to try to domesticate, but perhaps study of those systems is more important.
In "The Public Domain as Pespective" Maarten and Arnold, take the opposite position. The question that they seek to answer unlike Rem is how can the profession be capable of creating public spaces. The inquiry is one of trying to understand/define the systemic logic (if there really is one) in order to implement it and create spaces of cultural exchange. In order to answer our pivotal question about the role of design and strategy in the development of public domain, we must first seek out what constitutes publicness now. Do the large public spaces in the city actually function as public domain? We I find problematic about such statements is that this premise does not take time into consideration. What this view doesn't take into account is that places that may seem horrible public domains right now may in the future be the centers of cultural gathering? They say they consider the "flux" of design but the farther future is not present in their thinking.
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