Aspiration

Erick van Egeraat designs artificlial islands in the shape of Russia in the Black Sea

I want to say this is sick but I know I AM WRONG. If it can be made and lived in a sustainable way, why not? Architecture has always been the expression of patron's fantasy of the world. Emperor Hadrian has done that with his villa in Tivoli; Japanese have built a Holland Village in Nagasaki... Aspiration drives us; sometimes it is not creative, not tasteful, and not intelligent. But hopefully responsible.

Our cities and architecture manifest how human species relates to its environment. Ultimately our cities and architecture manifest whether our species is worthy of existence. ‘You don’t shit where you eat’. It is basic, it is self-respect, and it is our responsibility.

* Joburg story: Failing to plan is planning to fail

Premise

13 years after abolition of Apartheid, places like Diepsloot continues to 滋生 on South African landscape. Why are the symptoms of Apartheid planning continuing in Post-Apartheid era?
There is no other story about Johannesburg more urgent than examining the cause of continuation of spatial apartheid in the Post-Apartheid era.

Personal narratives are not interesting. Most Johannesburgers are lost anyway- lost in greed, lost in complacency; lost in apathy. Few have the ability to see above and beyond; even fewer are trying to make changes. Lives take place in many parallel places and spaces, as scattered, dispersed experiences (notion of parallel cities).

Architects and urban planners have not taken the opportunity or the responsibility to overcome spatial apartheid. There is no other discourse more poignant than counteracting the consequence of apartheid on an engineered landscape. What are the strategies?

Architecture is caught on as an instrument of urban and social warfare. Yet architecture and urbanism’s ultimate task is provide better and critical alternatives to existing spatial, programmatic, aesthetic and management setups. Can architecture, as a discipline, survive in Johannesburg?

Actors and Agents

1) What are the remaining planning regulations from Apartheid era which perpetuate spatial segregation and programmatic segregation?

2) What is the governmental urban planning departments doing?
How ‘planned’ is Johannesburg in Poat-Apartheid era? What are the underlying planning principles? Programmatic, density, plot size, building height, comprehensive infrastructure, transport-related facilities, public facilities, green ratio guidelines?
What does urban renewal mean in Joburg? Making more precincts. Compartmentalizing areas and concentrate activities. What are the advantage and disadvantage? Does it work? How does it work? Research area: New Town and inner city. New Town cleaned up, money comes in, gentrification.
How is Sandton and Midrand planned? Why are the developments unchecked?

3) What are practicing architects and urban planners doing?
Eg. MMA’s 2010 FIFA masterplan can manage the crowd? The plan is truly catalyst for urban re-generation? Can Joburg be saved by FIFA?
Eg. San Souci project illustrate how top-down and bottom-up have no intersection.) (Individual architectural efforts and moments do not add up; ad hoc; no substantial or accumulative output. This refers to governmental planning strategy.
4) What is the architectural and planning education doing?

5) What are the developers doing?

6) What are the community leaders doing?
Eg. Kliptown, Bolo talking about project here, project here. All the projects are in phase 0.1; nice fantasy and imagination. There is no method or framework to channel governmental planning process , ie. Community participation without comprehensive framework or structure.

7) What are people doing?
Who are the residents of Diepsloot? Why do they settle in Diepsloot? Where do they work? Where are they from? How do they live (salary R1000 per month)? How do they build? How do they move around the city? What does local government do about this settlement?
Who are the residents of Dainfern? How is the property acquired? How do they relate to Diepsloot and its residents?
(interview and analysis in scale)

Radical Intervention

Zoning concept, such as using terminologies like precinct, is outdated. It is the old cliché of modernism, garden city planning principles, which fundamentally rendered spatial apartheid. What are the strategies?

1) Abolish zoning plans: need radical planning strategy which maximize mixture of programmes, density, users, 24hour programme, time share, building heights, mobility devices etc.

2) Radical re-zoning: conceptually and physically perpendicular to Apartheid divisions.
Existing city is compartmentalized into enclaves of sameness. Ie. Each sub-city, such as Midand, Sandton or CBD, has the same ingredients within itself , but each sub-city is zoned for different purposes. This is essentially the spirit of spatial apartheid. The old zones or compartments have to be completely subverted and re-divided for maximum mixture of ingredients. So that municipalities have to deal with all realities of a city- rich, poor, density, centre, periphery, main roads, commerce, social facilities, etc.

New Civic Life

What are the new forms of public/civic life?
New civic space is open or limited? New rules of inclusion and exclusion?
Measure and map the physical, visual and tangible
Evaluate spatial typology, location: Constitutional Hills (civil), Braamfontein (street), Zoo Lake (park), Walter Sisulu Square (monument), etc.
Management mechanism behind the spaces and events (research)
How social lives take places in new civic spaces (observation)
Commercial porgrammes: casino, shopping mall are where all races go for entertainment and consumerism, but this does not provide basis to formulate a community. After leaving commercial enclaves, people no longer communicate; lives deviate. (illusions of Post-Modern life)

Limited Access

Road closure map

Ladder diagram: omnipresence of cul-de-sac

Privatization: schools, sports, security, road (how can these civil rights be private!!!?)
Access = civil rights. One can access places and spaces by freedom, under the protection of laws.
Making things public = making life public

2010 FIFA opening the City?

Opening and securing the city for once 2010 FIFA for all time afterwards
What should be the positive input of FIFA for Joburg?
How does FIFA Johannesburg master plan work?
How will visitors be moved around the city?
Crowd management before and after a game
Celebration, drinking, hangout
Security measurement, policing, patrol route, barrier fence
The effort to guarantee an open city is to confine small areas of openness?
How open is this openness and to whom? Outside this open zone is less open than before FIFA? (more open inside = less open outside, because unpleasant things will be excluded to the outside?)
How to measure inside and outside?
How will inner city react to FIFA effect? Ground level programmes and activities will be squeezed upwards into vertical setup? Is this an opportunity to formalize different ‘tribes’ in vertical compartments?

Need research source:

1) Government road plans and road closure maps
2) Johannesburg Metropolitan Region master planning blue prints
3) 2010 FIFA master plan

Architect- a Public Intellectual

The new architect is a public Intellectual. Being public is as important is being intellectual. The days of working in one’s nice little studio on nice little projects are over.

This role is to bring the agenda of architecture forward to the public and to call for involvement of the discipline in the public realm.

As an intellectual, he/she stands for and is the guardian of certain nonnegotiable values.

As a public figure, he/she communicates the message and moderate the debate, with the purpose to realize certain vision.

As an instructor, he/she identifies the collection of issues and concerns, and translates his/her response through design and strategy and finally intervenes with real matters. He/she directs the design team members to represent the proposal with appropriate medium.

As an organizer, he/she arranges the collection of representation and relationships to achieve an intended and calculated effect.

* From Banham to Joburg

Reyner Banham is definitely one of the most influential architectural/urban theorist for me. The book on 4 ecologies of LA is particularly brilliant.

The starting point is to see the city as systems, for him, ecologies. He sees how landscape (nature) sets the datum for the city, and how artificial interventions (man-made) interpret and explore that landscape. From the urban systems, architecture is not singular incidents but a part of that ecology. It’s quite simple really.

What is important is this way of thinking ‘city as ecologies’ makes situations and mechanisms of the city ‘mappable’ and identifiable. Seemingly dispersed incidents start to connect visually, physically or conceptually. This method is particularly significant in its time. In 1971, Paris still taught beaux-arts and London AA students were drawings timetables for revolutions. Koolhaas’ AA graduation project ‘Exodus’ was made the year after (1972). Exodus was one of the few architectural projects at the time which wanted to address architecture and the world through design and scenario. Banham’s take on LA was comparatively way more advanced and liberated from European’s old schools. Above all, the entry of ‘ecology’ is the entry of urban discourse in architecture discipline. Banham’s 4 ecologies were ‘still’ the guidelines when I researched in LA in 1998 with Stan Allen (now dean in Princeton). I guess after Banham there have not been better didactic methods in understanding urban systems of LA.

I think about cities in systems, ie. ecologies. But when it goes with Joburg, suddenly one lacks nature to set the datum. In Joburg, my datum is mining belt, Apartheid and architectural/urban theoretical backbones of Apartheid’s spatial organizations (garden city, modernist functional zoning etc). This is evident in my thesis at the Berlage Institute.

It is very interesting to compare Cape Town to Joburg in ecological terms. Cape Town’s racial, social and economic divides have not changed as visibly/physically as in Joburg. My assumption is that nature (sea and Table Mt) sets too strong of a datum for Cape Town’s urbanization to mutate substantially. Whereas in Joburg, datum is artificial; rules can be bent and re-interpreted. It’s very interesting.

So in the way, from this way of reading the ecologies of these 2 cities, I am assuming this: Joburg has more potential to overcome spatial apartheid than Cape Town. And the next hypothesis is: so if Joburg’s datum is Apartheid’s design tactics (garden city, zoning etc), in order to undermine spatial apartheid, these datum’s have to be intervened or destroyed. This hypothesis is in my Joburg text to you. This is a thesis, which can take at least 4 years to pursue, and for a city, definitely will take more than decade(s) to overcome. I hope for an open Joburg, but if the enemy is not identified, it will be hard to propose the right strategy, especially for a city of such a scale.

Now think again, who will be able to make a difference in such a big scale? Politicians. Not architects. Those who have the instruments do not have the knowledge and courage; those who have the vision do not have the power. What’s new? If architectural proposals are too implicit and indirect, maybe other medium could be more expressive and efficient. This is why architects have to be public intellectuals. Being ‘public’ is as important as being ‘intellectual’. The days of making nice little projects in one’s little studio is over. Architects have to have public voices especially when the scale of problem is urban.

Johannesburg: Inner city and migration

The migration of Chinese has immense impact on local economies. We saw how cheap Chinese goods shaking South African informal trade sector. We also witness how Chinese informal (and formal) economy and people trafficking rendering European cities. I am thinking about Paris, Rotterdam, London, Belgrade... And Joburg, downtown's main language is now Portuguese. It is cosmopolitan African. But the entire inner city is territorialized. Zimbabweans are swamping into South Africa and eventually into Joburg downtown, 1000 people a day, meanwhile 2010 FIFA is under preparation. Rumor says Mozambican women are sold for 500Rand per head.

Where do we go from here?

Hillbrow, looking from Ponte Tower

Fashion Precinct near Jogubert Park, looking from a flat inhabited by Zimbabwean immigrants

Modernist flat inhabited by new users

Mothballed 'Johannesburg Sun Hotel' for sale

Ethopian restaurant on 7th floor in a inner city flat. The entire building is occupied by Ethiopian traders

Photographs taken on 17 August 2007 by SW Chu

Johannesburg: Panoramas

Kliptown, Soweto

Dainfern, Midrand

Photographs taken in August 2007 by SW Chu

Johannesburg: Limited access

Northcliff: road, fence, barbed wire and cactus

Northcliff: road, palisade fence, barbed wire and bush

New Town: old Potato Shed behind Museum Africa

Dainfern: surveillance camera

Dainfern: entry and exit security codes

Dainfern: gatehouse and security check point

Dainfern: patrol route map

Dainfern: gatekeeper taking down visitor's name, vehicle registration number, time of entry and exit

Dainfern: secutiry check point and servant

Dainfern: high security outside secluded lifestyle

Photographes taken on 18 August 2007 by SW Chu

Johannesburg: Trash and Sewage

Photographes taken on 19 August 2007 by SW Chu

Johannesburg: Trash and Sewage 2

Beijing before Olympics 2008

Bird nest and swimming pool

Bird nest from 4th ring road
Steven Holl's MOMA

CCTV trouser pipes

CCTV's first curtain walls

Photographs taken on 09 September 2007 by Ruurd Gietema

So Said Uncle George #1

'Heads are for spinning.'

* Illegal Chinese Immigrant

Outline
Illegal Chinese immigrants are everywhere. They are the food we eat; they are the clothes we wear. They walk the same streets we walk and inhabit the same city we live. They do not live in the prison, but they are imprisoned. They are not a slave class, but they are exploited. Illegal Chinese immigrants live in a parallel world to ours. Sometimes they are our infrastructure. The aim of the research is as follows:
To reveal the parallel world of illegal Chinese immigrants in our local context.
To understand when/where these two parallel worlds meet.
To understand the spatial implication of human (Chinese) trafficking.
To map the use of city by illegal Chinese immigrants in urban context.
To map the spatial configuration of legal-illegal networks.
To document the use of space by illegal Chinese immigrants.

Relevance
To raise awareness. Even if we cannot know whether what we wear and what we eat comes out of a Chinese sweatshop, we should not pretend that it is not possible.
Not knowing is a form of self-imprisonment.
To be the architect-witness for people of no face and no voice.

Key Words
Globalisation and sweatshop
Forced economic exploitation (EE)
Modern slavery
Voluntary or forced
Underground ethnic economy
Invisible and visible
Fear
Parallel worlds

Related Words
Xenophobia
Ethnocentrism
Eurocentrism
Aspiration

Locations
Paris, Brussels, Belgrade, Rotterdam

Research Chapters:

A. General Research on Chinese Emigration in historic and contemporary conditions

01 History:
Chinese movement towards west started with Zhangqian. First exploration in 139BC; second exploration in 119 BC.
02 Recent History:
Why do Chinese people leave China? China is modernising and getting wealthier, but why are so many people leaving China? The reasons are complicated. For example, difficulty in domestic economic restructuring in China. Most immigrants come from Wenzhou City in Zhejiang Province and Fuqing City in Fujian Province.
Fujian provinces, being the home of many illegal immigrants, is actually not the poorest regions in China. However, youngsters still hope to find better jobs with handsome income elsewhere. So their family’s living conditions can be improved. They are driven by complex economic and social motive.
Starting 10 to 15 years ago, most immigrants are from rural areas from Fujian or Zhejiang Provinces (RMB 200,000 to immigrate).
In recent years many immigrants are from areas in serious recession in north-east of China/Manchuria, where the restructuring of local industry, such as Tieling, led to drastic unemployment (under RMB 100,000 to immigrate).
Immigrants with little education, former farmers or small vendors.
03 How Chinese society and network is transplanted overseas?
How do these networks mutate in legal and illegal spheres?
How is this tight and non-penetrable network constructed?
Legal networks vs. illegal networks (underground ethnic economy)


B. E/Im-migration Policies in EU and China
01 Immigration policy in EU (for example, France or the Netherlands)
Rules of inclusion and exclusion
NL’s foreign policy in relation to China
Official estimation of legal and illegal Chinese (e.g. in Rotterdam or Paris)
Recently, the first destination for Chinese immigrants has shifted to Europe from the US, simply because the cost of smuggling Chinese immigrants to the US is twice higher than that to Europe. Additional, it is believed that applicants for refuge-seeking will receive more generous treatment in European countries.
The most popular destination in EU is France and England.
France: 50,000 people (70% in Paris, the remaining in the eastern and northern France), according to International Labour Organisation study.
30,000 to 50,000 people according to Ministry of Internal Affairs in France.
6,000 people Arriving in Paris and surrounding region each year.
02 China’s policy towards emigration
03 Detention facilities in EU (architectural device)
Merwehaven in Rotterdam
Steenokkerzeel near Brussels
De Gaulle Airport in Paris


C. Research on People Smuggling and Trafficking
01 Trafficking of human being across trans-national borders as enterprise. (Scale: China to EU)
Snakeheads (illegal immigration organisations including criminal gangsters) exploit tourism, conference or study as channel to traffic people in disguise of tourists or students.
02 Study of trafficking routes through sea-way. Case study: Dover case. On 20 June 2000, 58 Chinese stowaways suffocated to death in an airtight truck of tomatoes AT Dover, England.
03 Study of trafficking routes through air-way. Case study.
04 Study of trafficking routes by train, car and by foot. Case study: cross China-Russia border, via Eastern Europe and arrive in France. Interview: people walked from Russia to France across mountains. During the journey they were abandoned by snakeheads. People got ill and died in the mountains. Women got raped…
05 comparison of various routes: fast one month, slow one year.


D. Working and Living Condition in Local Context
01 Economic Chain of Illegal Immigration
The journey to Europe: people smugglers charging 14,500 to 24,000 US dollars for the journey and the immigrants need to spend 2 to 10 years to pay it off. (According to ILO study 75 per cent of Chinese migrants who have illegally entered France owe debts ranging from 12,000 to 20,000 euros to their traffickers.)
Sweatshop: cloth-manufacturing, restaurants and construction.
Salary: 300 to 500 euros a month for 15 to 18 hours a day, 40% is confiscated by employer (ILO study). Some employers continue to exploit the workers (by blackmail) even after the debt is paid off. To avoid the exposure to the French inspectors, employers divide the workers into hundreds of home-based units, separating them from the outside world.
People-smugglers take the ID cards away from the illegal immigrants at the beginning of the voyage and hand them to their employers in Paris. The traffickers will take part of immigrants’ salary as their rewards.
‘Home-made’ food workshops for restaurants employers to avoid police inspection and social and fiscal obligations- Chinese ravioli, fish kebab, Japanese sushi are produced in small room and large quantity. One piece of ravioli is bought by restaurant at 50 eurocent and sold for at least 3 euro.
It is exploitation every step of the way.
02 After journey paid off: minimum wedge
Cleaning EUR 8/hour (Rotterdam)
Prostitution EUR 7 to 10/hour (Paris)
03 Social Aspects
Consequence of lack of language
Isolation and poverty
Fear of being caught by police
Abuse without complaint
(ILO study: The migrants have little recourse to the assistance provided by the destination society, the study notes. Labour inspectors find that, unlike other nationalities, they hardly ever receive complaints from the Chinese regarding working conditions. In addition to the language barrier, there is also the fear of questioning and being forced to return to China.)
04 How illegal immigrants work and live in local context? (Urban scale: Rotterdam or Paris)
Ecology if life
Underground networks
Service sector inhabiting in inner city and reply on public infrastructure.
Sweatshop and restaurants
Daily route (front door and back doors)
Mapping the trajectories and urban signifiers
05 Working and living environment
Mapping the space (Architectural scale)
For example, 10m2 (family Li, outskirt Paris) for work and living of 3 people (sewing clothes).


Sources:
‘International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. Invisible prisoners: The trafficking and exploitation of Chinese immigrants in France’, Internet source: International Labour Organisation http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/features/05/chinese_immigrants.htm, last update 18 Aug. 2005, last visited 12 December. 2006

‘50,000 illegal Chinese immigrants miserable in Paris’, Internet source: People's Daily Online, http://english.people.com.cn/200506/24/eng20050624_192189.htm, last update 24 June 2005, last visited 12 December 2006

F. Wang王芳, ‘中国非法移民在法现状:已为人母大嫂街头卖身’, Internet source: www.people.com.cn, last update 20 Feb 2004, last visited 02 May 2006

SW's new start at Rotterdam Biennale

On 1 September 2007, SW officially starts her new job at the International Architectural Biennale Rotterdam. She will be working closely with biennale director George Brugmans on conceptualizing and realizing the next biennale in 2009.

In order to give her full attention and energy to this new position and direction, SW will temporarily put her involvement in teaching, writing and practice to hibernation. SW believes that through this new position her talents will converge. And the biennale is the best platform to pursue her ultimate goal as a public intellectual.

See http://www.iabr.nl for the Third International Architectural Biennale Rotterdam.