Arc 5701r:

POST GENERIC CITYDoreen Heng LIUSchool of Architecture | CUHK

1. introduction: identity vs. generic2. Statistics3. General 4. Airport5. Population6. Urbanism

the great originality …is simply to abandon what doesn’t work – what has outlived its use – to break up the blacktop of idealism with the jackhammers of realism and to accept whatever grows in place…all GCs issue from the tabula rasa; if there is nothing, now they are there; if there was something, they have replaced it. They must, otherwise they would be historic.

7. Politics8. Sociology9. Quarters

in spite of its absence, history is the major preoccupation, even industry, of the GC.

10.Program11.Architecture12.Geography

it is on its way to the south…13. Identity14.History15. Infrastructure16.Culture17.End: the city is no longer.. We can leave the theater now.

1961: Jane Jacobs: critique of modenism1956: Harvard Urban Design 1968-70s: Utopia Projects: groups & books1980s: urban experiments - design competitions 90s-2000s: rapid urbanization & new urban concepts:

S/M/L/XLgeneric city & what happens to urbanism, & etc.

Now: Post-Generic City: regional study & scenarios

Without a comprehensive vision the reality will appear as a mass of unrelated phenomena and meaningless facts, in other words, chaotic. …There are three basic levels of comprehending physical phenomena: first, the exploration of pure physical facts; second, the psychological impact on our inner-self; and third, the imaginative discovery and reconstruction of phenomena in order to conceptualize them.

O. M. Ungers, “City Mataphors”

Communicating with clarity…clarity of priorities is at the center of the issue.

CollageDiagramPlan….

Peter Cook, “Drawing: the motive force of architecture

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