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Bernard Tschumi - Avant-Garde Architect
I will also refer to these for my promotional posters.
Tschumi’s Advertisements for Architecture
'Each was a manifesto of sorts, confronting the dissociation between the immediacy of spatial experience and the analytical definition of theoretical concepts.’
Bernard Tschumi is a Professor and Dean and Colombia University, he has taught at Princeton, Cooper Uni and London's Architectural Association. He is one of the worlds most foremost Architects. Firstly he was a theorist, his main thoughts comprising of the idea that there is no architecture without events, actions or activity. He argues architecture must not be dissacociated from the events and movements of the living beings that inhabit it. Architecture should break down extant social structure, by questioning it with construction.
The above Text is from Tschumi's book called Architecture and Disjunction. I am highlighting this text where Tschumi speaks about how a city can be a vehicle for unexpected or planned change ‘due to the concentration of economic power in such urban centres’
I think the emphasis on economic power, the real 'lifeblood of the city' if you will, is something I want to examine further. In my writing and in my works. The 'detournment of paris streets' is referential to the 1968 may riots in paris, where an unprecedented social and cultural change took place.
Tschumi's referring to the "misuse" of streets, the barricading and use of social halls to escape and create a zone of resistance.
Paris Détournment
The May 10-11th Night of the Barricades which saw the french state police arrest 468 students and injure 367. The protests soon spiraled into national strikes.
Covered in Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch (2021), third story 'revisions to a manifesto'
A student on a barricade in front of the School of Medicine: the last barricade to be breached by the police on May 12th. Image from Bruno Barbey/ Magnum Photo's
The French Philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre talking at the Sorbonne to a mass of students. Image from the Associated Press
From this source, and previous contextual work I think it gives me a real sense of the lengths youth will go to, just to escape the city. To be free of the clutches of this system. This kind of energy of resistance I want to imbue into my work.
Architecture Associati: No Stop City
Andrea Branzi's No stop city is a Quantitive Utopia, A model for global urbanization. The project was first published in Casabella Magazine under the title “City, assembly line of social issues, ideology and theory of the metropolis.” For me the use of mirrors, to create an infinitely similar city is scary, a prefabricated city where nothing individual can exist.
To me, it is too repetitive, an urban sprawl. Ideas like Corbousiers buildings where residents paint onto the outside seem far more individual and freeing.
This research will reflect in how I construct the idea of a labyrinth. I would like to use mirrors in my film, to experiment and disorientate the viewer, also to pay a small homage to this fascinating architectural project.
A labyrinth of mirrors is also a labyrinth that reflects the soul, as a mirror is superstitiously believed to "be ones soul"
Cristiano Mascaro
Cristiano is a Sao Paolo born Photographer who captures this sense of an Urban Sprawl within his photographs.
His Photographs, all in black and white capture aspects of the city, I like how he composes his shots they have a great resonant feel to them, almost feeling liminal when humans are removed from the pictures.
I will to compose my frames like his, with the use of light and leading lines such to the effect of this liminality in the city, forcing a visual feeling of disconnect between my protagonist and the city around him.
Marrying the words in my script with the images of the city
La Haines Opening
Bob Marley's song Burning and Looting matches the introduction to the cult classic La Haine.
Open with a Molotov Cocktail being dropped on the world. Then cutting to videos of the police preparing for riots and then riots occurring.
"This morning I woke up in a curfew" - the governments power to control the population through curfews, lockdowns and martial law.
"They were all dressed in uniforms of brutality" - the police, the pigs, boys in blue, The police is the state's arm and is used as such. Bob Marley recognises a fact that has been long established, in places like Birmingham Alabama where black civil rights protesters were Fire-hosed or in the numerous reports of police brutality here or in America, which have sparked riots. Mark Duggan being one such example.
This brutality, this state sponsored violence against the people is the most direct confrontation of Babylon.
The Police are directly reffered to as Babylon.
Bob Marley and other artist mention Babylon numerous times, in songs such as Babylon System, Roman Soldiers of Babylon by Freddie McGregor and Babylon Too Tough by Gregory Isaacs.
Bob Marley Burnin' and Lootin' La Haine.mp4La Haines Intro
Babylon System by Bob Marley, off the survival album
Waterhosing of Civil Rights protesters at Birmingham, Alabama
Babylon - A Concept and A Film
The Movie itself, Made in 1980 by Franco Rosso Babylon is the Jamaican-English Mean Streets, It follows the character of Blue, who is born into this system of Babylon, His racist boss fires him, his family rejects him, his girlfriend leaves him, he is tracked and harassed by police. His only escape is in the sound clashes, the music and gathering of Jamaican black youths.
The movie was X-rated in the Uk for its controversial message at the time, which i think speaks volumes for the real message it conveys around the system of Babylon. Racism that sees Blues Home sprayed with fascist slogans and Capitalism that has stripped these people of their lands.
The ending is where we see the police, also referred to as Babylon breaking down the walls to the dance that has been occurring.
Just prior to this scene we can see Blue taking the tube through London(pictured), looking around seeing only white people staring back at him. It epitomises the feel of the 1970’s, things my mother, grandfather and grandmother lived through.
I chose this piece because I want to focus in on what Babylon really is, as a concept not just the film. The film does justice to the concept and in itself.
Yet something I often hear mentioned is that we live ‘inna babylon’. So I decided to look on wikipedia at Iyaric - a rastafarian language at what babylon is. Stemming from the idea of the Tower of Babel, It is now used to refer to ‘The powers that be, any system that oppresses or discriminates against any peoples.’
My personal interpretation of the word before looking it up was a system of oppressive institutions, lacking real substance and spiritual depth.
Today, Babylon is still referred to, it has never left the collective consciousness of the people, the underground. I have seen it written across many walls in London.
Above, the words "Babylon" faintly scrawled across a skyline map of London
Below, The artwork 'Babylon Rongé Par Rasta (Rasta Consumed by Babylon)
Context
The Tower of Babel was the world's first skyscraper, as well as a symbol of the might and hubris of the ancient city of Babylon. The enormous building, mentioned in the Bible, has fascinated generation upon generation.
Contextually, now it represents a symbol of the controlling and oppressive systems that have been build around us. It has been used as such from as early as Fritz Lang's masterpiece Metropolis.
The original tower of Babel: from Fritz Lang's Metropolis - 1:08 use of fade. I like this editing technique because it builds atmosphere with how the edit is placed. Below we see the metropolis. The new tower signifies how the tower of babel has almost been recreated in this future. Symbolically this would either mean man surpasses god or tries to reach the equivalent,
Gladiator - Rome
Rome was the largest western empire, it is but one in many replications of Babylon to date.
Recently I went on a trip to Dundee and stopped to change over at Edinburgh. When I got off I saw this image. 'Rome' scrawled over a map of Edinburgh On the train back home I watched Gladiator and the lines below caught my attention with the description of Rome as a city.
"I think he (Commodus) knows what Rome is, Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted."
"Take away their freedom and still they'll roar."
"The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it's the sand of the coliseum."
"He will bring them death, and they will love him for it."
When watching I was picking up on the "beating heart" and also Rome as a system of control, similar to how Babylon was an ancient empire and referred to as such. See the song Roman Soldiers of Babylon which draws on the image of heavily armoured Roman soldiers as policemen in riot gear. Riot Police often adopt roman tactics such as the Testudo to combat youth uprisings. I find it funny.
Thousands of years but some things do not change.
The two senators who say these lines.
Short text that explains well the systems of control, Babylon is that, it always has been that. We as people are more aware of this than ever. US arms deals and Soviet Arms deals, they all sell the same weapons to kill people. This image is a "meme" but contextually its pretty relevant.
Good Years Gone
This short film by NYU Grad Andrew Kovacs is a story about two friends in their hometown, one who has stayed and one who has left.
The Stand out writing for me was
“Mural on a dead building, let’s put makeup on this corpse.” I like this comparison of abandoned or empty building to corpses. It’s poetic when talking about how the murals and art can hide this decay.
“It doesn't feel like a city”
“What is a city to you”
“I wanna see a place that feels alive, people are going to work and shit”
This exchange of dialogue is interesting because it goes with my idea that cities can feel alive, like an organism but only when people are moving throughout its veins.
Below are some of my favourite shots from the film.
Robocop - Dystopia Done Right
This short video displays the fake commercials of robocop, this is an effective technique to communicate worldbuilding. It not only pastiches commercials from the time of the films making, it also communicates the type of world the inhabitains live in. For a society innundated by advertising it effectivley communicates how this visual universe differs from our own by using the systems tools as a critical satire.
Summary
The city research started with watching metropolis and seeing the Bernard Tschumi posters on Pinterest. This as-well as often hearing Babylon mentioned when creating this film began the fleshing out of the city page.
The city page is helpful in reinforcing and world-building a picture of the city described in my film, not necessarily London but an abstracted idea of the city. A city of oppressive state forces, dystopian adverts and skyscrapers that stretch to the sky like the Tower of Babel itself.
Looking at Babylon helped form the system that my character is living in. How his mindset is being awake and gazing straight into the beast itself.
Bibliography
design manifestos. n.d. Bernard Tschumi: Advertisements for Architecture. [online] Available at: <https://designmanifestos.org/bernard-tschumi-advertisements-for-architecture/>.
Branzi, A., 1969. No Stop City. [Scale Model].
Garcia, C., 2019. Building Stories: The architectural photographs of Cristiano Mascaro | Newcity Brazil. [online] Newcity Brasil. Available at: <https://www.newcitybrazil.com/2019/04/16/building-stories-the-architectural-photographs-of-cristiano-mascaro/> [Accessed 10 April 2022].
J. Rubin, A., 2018. May 1968: A Month of Revolution Pushed France Into the Modern World (Published 2018). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/world/europe/france-may-1968-revolution.html> [Accessed 13 April 2022].
Marley, B., 1973. Burnin' and Lootin'. [CD] UMG.
Tschumi, B., 2001. Architecture and disjunction. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Encyclopedia Britannica. 2022. Tower of Babel, the world's first skyscraper. [online] Available at: <https://www.britannica.com/video/180010/Overview-Tower-of-Babel> [Accessed 16 May 2022].
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