Throughout her career, social activist and urban writer Jane Jacobs (May 4, 1916 – April 25, 2006) fought against corporate globalization and urged post-war urban planners and developers to remember the importance of community and the human scale. Despite having no formal training, she radically changed urban planning policy through the power of observation and personal experience. Her theories on how design can affect community and creativity continue to hold relevance today—influencing everything from the design of mega-cities to tiny office spaces.
In The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), her most well-known publication, Jacobs critiqued the short-sightedness of urban planners in the 1950s and argued that their assumptions about what makes a good city are actually detrimental to the human experience. For example, she contended that the creation of automobile infrastructure results in the unnatural division of pre-existing neighborhoods, creating unsafe environments and thereby severing community connections. In the years leading up to her death, she discussed ways in which communities could recover what they lost as a result of poor foresight in earlier city planning efforts.
Besides her written works, Jacobs is known for her urban activism, in particular her criticisms of New York‘s masterplanner Robert Moses, who at the time was engaged in a wholesale modernization of the city with car-led infrastructure, slum clearances and Le Corbusier-inspired housing blocks—the feud between these two arch-rivals is dramatic enough that there is now an opera based on the story.
Perhaps the most high-profile part of this battle was Jacobs’ campaign to save her own neighborhood of Greenwich Village, which was designated by Moses for slum clearance and a new expressway. After a popular campaign of social activism—which included Jacobs’ arrest—Moses’ plans were largely abandoned, signaling a victory for Jacobs’ ideals, if not exactly a personal victory; following her arrest, she left Greenwich Village and moved to Toronto.
Greenwich village is in many ways an effective case study not just of Jacobs’ ideals at the time, but of the results of her theories. Many have criticized her ideas for apparently ignoring—even incubating—the processes of gentrification which in the intervening years have become one of the central challenges for cities. However, others have countered that when she made her arguments, in the era of modernization and suburban expansion, it was inconceivable that preservation of old neighborhoods would eventually lead to an increase in desirability and value.
After her first book, Jacobs broadened her scope and began to look at topics such as economics, morals, and social relations to create an oeuvre that approached a complete theory of what makes a city. Here is a complete list of her publications:
Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava has been chosen to create the United Arab Emirates’ national pavilion at the Dubai Expo 2020, with a design modelled on bird’s wings (+ slideshow). (more…)
Perhaps the most enduring appeal of Star Wars for its fans is not simply its compelling storyline or its dramatic space battles – it is instead that this universe is, in fact, a universe, with all the complexity and depth that entails. One of the best ways to reveal that depth is through architecture, which offers the most visually striking combination of history, culture and technology available. As a result, the Star Wars universe is littered with a huge variety of fascinating architecture, from ancient temples to futuristic floating cities.
Today is the most holy day in the Star Wars fanatic’s calendar, and thanks to pages like Star Wars Architecture on Facebook and Wookieepedia, we’re celebrating the event with seven of the most interesting, astonishing and iconic architectural structures from the franchise. Enjoy, and May the 4th be with you.
The Great Temple, commonly referred to as the Massassi Temple, was built on Yavin 4 by the Massassi to worship Naga Sadow, a Sith Lord who had enslaved and mutated the Massassi using Sith alchemy. The Temple later housed the Rebel Alliance base, known as Massassi Base, and the Jedi Praxeum.
Internally, the Great Temple was divided into four levels, each representing a step of the ziggurat—each level was thus larger in floor plan than the one above, but all were outfitted on broadly similar plans with small cells, chambers and corridors around a large central space.
The Plasma Refinery Complex was a large, triple-domed structure erected on the cliff face next to the Royal Palace of Naboo, in the city of Theed. Built as a way to draw vast quantities of rare plasma out of the planet’s core, the refinery complex included the Theed Hangar and the city’s main power generator, as well as the headquarters of the Royal Naboo Security Forces.
Within the first of the three domed structures closest to the hangar was the seemingly-bottomless extracting shaft. A hemispherical chamber with black paneled walls which constantly monitored and compensated for pressure changes, the shaft was crisscrossed by several rings of catwalks. A series of twelve evenly-spaced acceleration shafts soared from the bottom of the pit and into the ceiling.
The Jedi Temple (also known as the Palace of the Jedi) was the headquarters of the Jedi Order from the conclusion of the Great Sith War to the Great Jedi Purge and during that time was home to its major training, bureaucratic and dormitory facilities. A massive structure which soared over a kilometer above the surrounding rooftops, the Jedi Temple had the appearance of a fortress but was really a place of meditation and gentle reflection.
Located in a strategically isolated area of Coruscant which neighbored the Senate District, the Temple rested on a large city block in the Temple Precinct. Concealed within the heart of the Temple ziggurat was the upper reaches of the Sacred spire, a towering mountain that jutted from the crust of the planet deep below. The uppermost summit of the mountain erupted from the top of the Temple’s base and formed the foundations of its central tower, Tranquility Spire. Surrounding the tallest tower’s finned peak were four shorter towers located on the ordinal-oriented sides of the complex. Each contained an austere Council Chamber at its summit and served as the meeting rooms of the four Jedi Councils. The ziggurat shape of the edifice, coupled with the five spires, was designed to symbolize a Jedi’s climb to enlightenment through the Force.
Seen in: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
The Royal Palace of Theed was a massive complex of sandstone-like blocks formed into towers and rotundas with cupolas covered in green tile. The largest structure in the city, it was the home of the planetary government and the destination of foreign diplomats and ambassadors. A central drum-shaped structure took up the majority of the complex, with a taller, narrower tower being the tallest point. Erected on a cliff face, the palace had several watch towers on the rocky face, placed to detect a rear attack from the valley below. Additions to the palace during each new administration was traditional and a way for the new monarch to curry favor with their constituents.
The palace was surrounded by a vast garden complex. A pool in the garden was capable of being drained; it had a control for a nearby bridge. A security gate required a passcode for entrance and exit into the garden. A secret passage led through the garden to the Theed Hangar. Filled with vast, cavernous corridors crafted by Naboo’s own artisans, the Royal Palace was a showcase of the great sculptors and craftsmen of the planet.
Seen in: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Cloud City was an outpost and a tibanna gas mining colony on the planet Bespin, named as such because it was perpetually surrounded by giant clouds. The main saucer-shaped city structure was 16.2 kilometers in diameter, and 17.3 kilometers tall. The city floated 60,000 kilometers above the core of the planet, which was an uninhabitable gas giant. Cloud City consisted of 392 levels, in addition to level zero, a top-side surface-level plaza concourse. The level-arrangements were as follows:
Level 1–50: The Tourist District, consisting of luxury hotels and casinos which made the city famous throughout parts of the Outer Rim.
Level 51–100: Upscale housing areas.
Level 101–120: Administrative offices.
Level 121–160: Privately owned industrial areas with an infamous reputation, known as Port Town.
Level 161–220: General housing of the facility’s workers.
Level 221–280: Factories.
Level 281–370: Gas refineries and miners’ quarters.
Level 371–392: Contained the 36,000 repulsorlift engines and tractor beam generators that kept the city afloat and in position.
Seen in: Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
The Grand Convocation Chamber, also referred to as the Senate Rotunda, Senate Arena, Senate Chamber, Great Rotunda, was the largest room in the Senate Building, in the Senate District on Coruscant and the heart of the Galactic Senate. The room was over 100 meters tall and consisted of 1,024 repulsorpods for delegations from all over the galaxy. Ringed by the canyon-like Grand Concourse, the interior of the chamber was bathed in lavender; ancient designers of the room selected the color as it was the only shade that had not been historically associated with mourning, anger, or war in the Republic.
The center of the vast chamber was dominated by a podium used by the Supreme Chancellor, the Vice Chair and the Senior Administrative Aide to coordinate the sessions. When a Senator or representative wished to address the body they were able to detach their pod from its magnetic berth and move out into the open space of the chamber on an automated path. From there, their address would echo throughout the room, translated into hundreds of different languages instantaneously and piped into the other pods for ease of understanding.
Seen in: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
The DS-1 Orbital Battle Station, known unofficially, but more commonly as the Death Star or Death Star I, and known to the public as the Imperial Planetary Ore Extractor by the propaganda department, was a massive Imperial battlestation/superweapon with a diameter of 120 kilometers designed to enforce law and order throughout the Empire with the threat of planetary destruction. The basic structure of the station was a sphere the size of a small class-IV moon, with a kilometer-wide trench containing docking bays running around its equator. It was the very incarnation of the Tarkin Doctrine. Because of its size and shape, it was sometimes mistaken for a small moon.
The first Death Star, like its successor, was divided into two hemispheres, each subdivided into 12 bridge-controlled zones. The northern hemisphere held the main armament of the station, a fearsome superlaser. This weapon had the external appearance of a bowl several kilometers wide. The Death Star was said to comprise eighty-four separate internal levels, stacked south to north. Each level was separated into 257 sub-levels. A nominal number of sub-levels were then to be stacked around the surface of the sphere, encompassing the inner stacked levels. A number of the Death Star’s docking bays were reserved as executive docking bays for high-ranking personnel, featuring larger facilities and more significant defenses.
Seen in: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
With its conception and its internal organisation, the reconstruction of the Froelicher high school in Sissonne (France) fits into in a sustainable approach and takes account of the new urbanisation of the site. The project forms urbanizes and builts a coherent educational ensemble, dense and dynamic, suitable for studying and give flourishing students as required the last educational directions.
The project optimizes the site potentialities, like the orientation or the functioning. The choice to built it at the limits of the city with a special architectural parti, accentuates the role and the image of the public and sustainable equipment in Sissonne. The new high school offers to the students and the professors a spacious setting for work in a green context.
The conception is conceived integrating the technical, functionals and susbtainables constraints. It had been conducted considering the financial viability and economics saving without penalize the good working of the high school.
The projet’s influence in the environnement, coming out with obviousness or subtlety, is studied in order to give answers at the following demands :
•impose a public educational equipment
•merge harmoniously the project in the landscape and limited the impact of the buiding masses
The project size and its waves are melting in the landscape adopting the site natural form, the thermic and vegetal covering, protective canopy, are spreading out and wrapring the wood fronts like a forest mimetism. The gentleness of the curves, the masses expression without orthogonality, the chromatic range and the used of natural materials merge perfectely the project in the landscape and integrate in it environment.
The Jane Jacobs Documentary – a feature length film focusing on the life and work of celebrated author and urban activist, Jane Jacobs – is set to be released Fall 2016. Coinciding with the author’s 100th birthday, Robert Hammond, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Friends of the High Line, and Matt Tyrnauer, producer/director of Valentino: The Last Emperor, plan to have the film tour festivals near the end of this year.
Jane Jacobs, who died in 2006, was a major force for “bottom-up” urban renewal, being one of the first to suggest that cities required delicate “urban acupuncture” to remedy their ills. Her groundbreaking 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, spoke out against the top-down, authoritarian urbanism of her time. She and the legendary master-planner of New York, Robert Moses would battle for years, her activism along with others preventing the destruction of Greenwich Village, SoHo, Chinatown and Little Italy.
“This is a film about our urban past and our urban future,” said Tyrnauer. “Jacobs’s ideas about healthy, just, and vibrant cities being planned and empowered from the bottom up are very important today, when discredited top-down planning is still destroying cities and lives all around the world.”
Find more information the film’s official website here.
French-Brazilian studio Triptyque has revamped a 85-metre-high office block in Rio de Janeiro with zigzagging glazing and solar panels so it can generate its own electricity (+ movie). (more…)
An installation by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama originally created for the 1966 Venice Biennale has been reconstructed near Philip Johnson‘s iconic Glass House in Connecticut (+ slideshow). (more…)
Suite Blue, part of Hotel La Piantata, is a project designed by La Cabane Perchée. This treehouse is located in Arlena di Castro, Italy. Suite Blue by La Cabane Perchée: “La Cabane Perchée was started by Alain Laurens, with Daniel Dufour, cabin designer, and Guislain Andre, master guild joiner, who directs the workshop. Premier builder of Tree Houses in France, La Cabane Perchée has made in the last fifteen years..
Ennead Architects have unveiled their proposed design for the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts campus expansion, master planning and architectural design competition. “This campus expansion and re-envisioning positions Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts—one of China’s top schools of fine art—as an Academy in the Park,” inspired by nature and an oasis destination within the dense urban fabric of Tianjin, write the architects.
The design includes the addition of an identifiable core to the Academy’s historic quad, so as to integrate the institution with the adjacent neighborhood and strengthen its influence as a creative and cultural hub for the city and region.
The massing, scale, and proportions of the new academic core building draw inspiration from the historic campus buildings, which utilize simple structural bays to regulate their façades.
The project additionally includes a museum, which as an “art container,” is designed to be art in itself. The design also includes an art park, which features the campus’ figural studio buildings — playful pavilions with courtyards themed around different approaches to making art.
The core and professional studio buildings will be connected by a continuous ground-level podium and concourse, unifying the community through spaces for social connections.
