New York geologics: retrospective readings from the Anthropocene of late 20th century Manhattanism - Woods / Koolhaas / Tschumi
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Date
24/01/2023Item status
Restricted AccessEmbargo end date
24/01/2024Author
Torres-Campos, Tiago
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Abstract
Conventional representations of Manhattan often reinforce
its reading as an urban condition resulting from neoliberal forms of
capitalism. These forces have expanded the city along an orthogonal
grid and continuously extrude its architectures. Stemming from a close
examination of the ontological and epistemological shifts caused by the
Anthropocene theory and the debates it has sparked over the last two
decades, the thesis challenges some of these conventions and experiments
with more nuanced understandings of Manhattan as a coalescence of
island-territories sustained by conditions of relationality, reciprocity and
connectivity with the geologic context in which they exist.
With a focus on representation as a form of synthesis and
construction of knowledge, the research investigates Manhattan as a
conceptual laboratory of ideas to explore how notions of ground, scale, or
frame may affect and disrupt readings of temporal and material contexts
in the city. The investigation supports the development and application
of design operations that unsettle representation and conventional city
epistemologies.
Methodologically, the study focuses on three seminal speculative
architectural works – often recognised as manifestos – developed in the
last three decades of the 20th century: Delirious New York (Rem Koolhaas,
1978); The Manhattan Transcripts (Bernard Tschumi, 1981); and Lower
Manhattan (Lebbeus Woods, 1999). These pieces become conceptual
probes to produce a series of interrelated experimentations curated as
physical and virtual installations and proposed as alternative fragments
of an imagined Manhattan in the exhibition space. They provide central
support for critical and creative explorations that offer a retrospective
contextualisation and repositioning of the architectural manifestos from
the contemporary perspectives offered by the Anthropocene.
The design processes in the thesis articulate an idea of practice
as a way of thinking and crafting for noticing, bearing witness, and
revealing alternative possibilities in the city. They aim to sustain the thesis’
theoretical contribution to the already established Anthropocene debate
around supposed divisions between nature and culture, or the proposed
collision between human and earth temporalities.