collage city - colin rowe

Collage City enduring ideas for the 21st century?

Essay for

Theory II Module

March 2007by

Philip Kassanis

1Collage City - enduring ideas for the 21C ? - Philip Kassanis Theory II Essay Mar 07

In 1977 the great taxonomist, Charles Jencks, in The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, put

a name to a face that had been putting its head around the door of the built environment for

about a decade (fig 1). The term “Post-Modernism” was thereafter used to refer to manifestations

of the paradigm shift away from the ideologies of the Modern Movement. This essay examines

whether Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter’s Collage City (1975 and 1978), produced at that time, and

which was critically acknowledged to have influenced the body of thinking and practice, was

mere midwife to the birth of a new era or also mother to the subsequent outworking of the new

era some 30 years later. This is done by distilling the themes from the writing and seeing if they

have any relevance in critically appraising the author’s submission for the Issues II module of

the JCUD MA course in Urban Design (Kassanis, 2006) as an example of a contemporary effort to

address to current urban design issues.

Figure 1

Genealogy from an article by Charles Jencks in Architectural Design , 1977 (vol.47 no.4) pp. 269-71, heralding the publication of his book The Language of Post-Modernism (1977). This shows that the seeds of the era change from Modern to Post-Modern had been around for a decade or so: Jacobs, Venturi, Ungers etc. It also acknowledges the influence of the 1975 Collage City article in The Architectural Review.


Apart from its acknowledged seminal influence, Collage City is also chosen because of several

specific links to the Issues II project. Firstly, the author’s submission drew heavily on Grahame

Shane’s Recombinant Urbanism (2005) and in particular the concept of “heterotopias”, derived

from Foucault’s founding work (1964, cited by Shane). Collage City is pivotal in the development

of Shane’s argument and recurs throughout the book including a whole section devoted to it (pp.

128-33). Rowe is further acknowledged in Shane’s introductory pages (Fig. 2). What strategies for

the Issues II project could, perhaps, come straight from Collage City or are they only relevant

through Shane’s lens? Secondly, the Issues II project was grounded in Stratford City, arguably,

potentially London’s third generation business centre following the City as the first and Canary

Wharf, the second. The design guidelines for Canary Wharf were drawn up by Fred Koetter and

Susie Kim working alongside Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in 1988-89 - does this mean that the

Collage City travelled as far as Canary Wharf and no further?

A main theme of Collage City is to expose the triple irony of the Modern Movement. It paraded

as a coolly rational and scientific endeavour but in reality was anything but, as it dogmatically

pursued “truth” with messianic fervour, intent on “delivering the city” but achieving quite the

reverse - an unloved and impoverished environment; and then because of its very expediency it

is guaranteed “unadulterated and all-devouring growth.” (p. 6). The philosophical cause for this

Figure 2

Ilustration from Collage City, p114, titled: Grahame Shane: field analysis of central London, 1971.

Shane was a student of Rowe at Cornell further strengthening the link and moreover Rowe uses Shane’s morphological study of the great London Estates separated by river beds as one of his examples of Collage City in practice

�Collage City - enduring ideas for the 21C ? - Philip Kassanis Theory II Essay Mar 07

position is extensively set out by tracing a stream of influence from classical utopia, through the

Enlightenment, to the 19th century active utopia (Saint Simon) animated by the determinism

of the Hegelian “world spirit”. The critical position adopted is further buttressed by fulsome

reference to Karl Popper’s ideas.

In the situation where “modern architecture had certainly arrived but the New Jerusalem was not

exactly a going concern” (c. late 1940’s) the authors detect two critiques of the “ville radiuse”

concept concluding that neither can provide the real substance of a way forward. On the one hand

the townscape movement is identified as influential, acting as a reference point for a number

of related arguments - Jane Jacobs sociological and economic ideas; Kevin Lynch’s scientific

notational systems; Robert Venturi’s Pop-inspired appraisals of the Strip at Las Vegas; Archigram’s

work as a sort of futuristic townscape; and most popularly the Disney World phenomenon. On the

other hand the utopian images of Superstudio’s work are put forward as the “more of the same”

prescription for a failing modern movement utopia.

Superstudio - the imaginary utopia, is contrasted with Disney World - the real utopia, to set up

the dialectical position, already posited in the introduction of the book as the “despotism of

‘science’” (representing the modern movement) and the “tyranny of the ‘majority’” (representing

the world as mass humanity wants it - useful, real and densely familiar) from which Collage City

then derives its positive constructs. These constructs can be summarised as follows.

Morphological:

A Legibililty In terms of “optical mechanics” put limits on free open space (integral to the

modern movement ideal) by field definition to avoid perceptual disorientation (p.65). This by

another name is the concept of legibility now well engrained in urban design methodology.

B Public/private realms From the model of the city as a collection of objects in hygienic, free

space (which is exposed as untenable using examples of Le Corbusier’s St Dié and Harlow as

attempts at town centre) abandon the proposition that all outdoor space should be in public

ownership and accessible to all (p.66) and reinstate a public and private realm relishing the

variety of possible interpretation of “the hidden” this can engender.


C Contextualise object However don’t abandon the object altogether but allow it to perform in

a context. In doing so the its iconic status can still be read but so also can the meaning of the

context - the duality of building “as object and its reinterpretation as texture” (p.77).

D Space between buildings Transform any tendency to freestanding figure (object) by inverting it

with ground (space). This is strikingly illustrated by comparing Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation

as an object of approximately the same size and proportion as the space (void) within Vasari’s

Uffizi in Florence (p.68) (Fig 3). The contrast is again illustrated by the difference between

acropolis and forum (p.83).

E Typology Use typology as a set of heuristics to replace the functionalist approach of “logical

induction from concrete facts” (every building derived from first principles), allowing iconic

significance as a concrete fact in itself (p.77).

Figure 3

Ilustrations from Collage City, p69,

comparing Uffizi with Unité d’Habitiation


F Embedded plans Understand that a free plan doesn’t have to result in a skin that wraps the

plan thereby expressing its shape to the outside world - the modernist tendency; but can be

fitted into the residual space left within the structure of the city as illustrated by Hotel de

Beauvais in Paris (p.78). The concept is extended further by identifying a particular building

type: “ambiguous and composite buildings” which “quietly collaborate” with their locale at

the same time as “strenuously asserting themselves” (pp.168-9) and very much seem to also

include strategies G,H and I ahead.

G Perimeter blocks Recover and overhaul the notion of poché in which the buildings act as poché

at a city scale - somewhat akin to the current perimeter block orthodoxy. The “habitable

poché” mediates by providing the appropriate reference in relation to the public realm at

the same time as providing the necessary conditions for the whatever is desired in the private

court (p.79).

H Heterotopia 1 Embrace the possibilities for public access to some block interiors (the courtyard

of the Palais Royale, Paris is cited - p.83) which could considered as “urban rooms”. This is

suggestive of a morphology that can house heterotopia.

I Character and visual richness In addition to poché as a matrix of “figure” defining “ground”

allow it also carry different objects, say towers of whatever specification, because the

characteristic of poché is that it acts as a “stabiliser” - “an instrument of field recognition

and means of collective orientation” - and thus visually can accommodate plurality without

disintegrating into anarchy (p.82).

Enactment:

J Multifaceted approach Recognise and adopt the temperamental qualities of fox in preference

to hedgehog - “the fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing”, (Rowe citing

Berlin, 1953) (p92).

K Benefits of pluralism 1 Criticise “total design” by using the analogy of “total politics”- the pursuit

of a single vision, which is demonstrably less liberating than a collection of smaller multiple


“fraternities”, in which the strength and identity gained from such cantons has empowered

each to negotiate its own freedoms (pp.115-7). Versailles (total control) is compared with

Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli (accumulation of disparate ideal fragments) (p.109).

L Benefits of pluralism 2 Let the city reflect the collision of interest - a “permanently maintained

debate of opposites” and from this dialectical position can flow negotiated “interstitial

debris”. Rome, London, Los Angeles and Houston are cited as examples albeit at different

scales (p.107).

M Enlightened pragmatism Accepting that “scientific city planning” is as doomed as “scientific

politics” evidently is, then the architect-urbanist should not jettison his science altogether but

combine it with a role as “bricoleur” - a way of working set out by Lévi-Strauss (1966, cited

by Rowe) that uses the tools “of whatever is at hand” and materials that are contingent on

previous experience and solutions - perhaps referential pragmatism - “addressing himself to a

collection of oddments left over from human endeavours” (p.102).

N Heterotopia 2 Recognise the place of “the garden as criticism of the city” - a laboratory for

urban models (p.88 and 175-7). A number instances including Versailles are cited and this

concept seems to parallel Foucault’s thinking, developed by Shane (2005), on the role of

heterotopias.

Time: breaking its linearity

O Embedded memory Recognise that cities are a didactic instrument (p.124) in which the built

environment cannot help but be iconic and therefore carry meanings from history as well as

utopian meanings. Cities therefore act as both a “theatre of prophecy” and a “theatre of

memory”, this latter idea following Yates’ (1966, cited by Rowe) notion of Gothic cathedrals as

mnemonic devices (p.49)

P Museum City If the unlikely circumstances permit, use the city as a literal museum. Von Klenze’s

Munich and Napoleon I’s plans for Paris are cited as large scale examples but with other more

localised instances of memorial intention (pp.126-32).


Q Structure and content More helpfully, consider the “city as a scaffold for exhibition

demonstration”, which sets up a dialectic of: scaffold vs. exhibited object; necessity vs.

freedom; utopia vs. tradition. Thus modernism delivered “an all-pervasive scaffold which

largely exhibited itself, a scaffold which pre-empted and controlled any incidentals”; and

Disney World presents “the opposite condition in which the exhibits take over, even to the

degree of the scaffold being driven underground” (p.136).

R Collage Solve this predicament by adopting the technique and state of mind of “collage”, the

meaning and usefulness of which, as a technique, is brilliantly encapsulated by using Picasso’s

commentary on his piece: Bulls Head of 1944 (Fig. 4) and then illustrating his actual collage

Still life with chair caning of 1911-12 (Fig 5), which has four levels of reading (pp.138-9).

Figure 4

Ilustration from Collage City, p.138, titled: Picasso: Bull’s Head 1944

You remember the bull’s head I exhibited recently? out of the handlebars and the bicycle seat I made a bull’s head which everybody recognised as a bull’s head. Thus a metamorphosis was completed: and now I would like to see another metamorphosis take place in the opposite direction. Suppose my bull’s head is thrown on the scrap heap. Perhaps some day a fellow will come along and say: ‘Why there’s something that would come in very handy for the handlebars of my bicycle...’ and so a double metamorphosis would have been achieved.

Rowe citing Alfred Barr, 1946, citing Picasso.

Figure 5

Ilustration from Collage City, p.139, titled: Picasso: Still life with chair caning, 1911-12


The significance of “collage” as a state of mind is exposed by reference to a quotation from

Samuel Johnson 1 (p.148). Collage avoids either utopia or tradition becoming the only zeitgeist by

accommodating them all in fragments without having to support them in toto (p.149).

Turning now to the main themes of the author’s submission for Issues II project. The purpose was

to devise five block types capable of delivering very high density; see how they could populate

part of a masterplan set in Stratford City; and then evaluate how they would interact with

one another. An ambition was to incorporate as much potential heterotopic space as possible,

following Shane’s view that it is an increasing phenomenon of the so called informational city,

the latest transformation of the post- modern city. A complex solution was offered combining

the five blocks with nine networks (Fig 6) to generate a whole series of different intersections

1 Wit, you know, is the unexpected copulation of ideas, the discovery of some occult relation between images in appearance remote from each other; and an effusion of wit, therefore, presupposes accumulation of knowledge; a memory stored with notions, which the imagination may cull out to compose new assemblages. Whatever may be the native vigour of the mind, she can never form many combinations from few ideas, as many changes can never be rung on a few bells. Accident may indeed sometimes produce a luck parallel or a striking contrast; but these gifts of chance are not frequent, and he that has nothing of his own, and yet condemns himself to needless expenses must live upon loans or theft. (Rowe, 1978 citing Johnson, 1752)

blocks and networks

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Figure 6

Page 10 from author’s Issues II submission (2006) showing the masterplan framework, the 5 block types and the 9 networks


and interfaces with the intention of cataloguing a typology of intersections, noting the variables

that give rise to the differences and finally assessing how far this sort of solution conformed to or

challenged the Responsive Environments (Bentley et Al, 1985) orthodoxies.

The scheme is first assessed using Collage City principles at the same time comparing both with

a notional conventional urban design approach.

A number of Collage City’s precepts, grouped around challenging the modern movement’s notion

of pavilions in free flowing space, have found their way into conventional urban design practice

(A legibility, B public/private realm, D space between buildings, E typology, F embedded plans, G

perimeter blocks) and thus would expect to be seen in the Issue II project. Interestingly, because

the Issues II project was itself potentially challenging conventional urban design practice, several

of these (B, F and G) are closer to Collage City’s original (looser) formulation than urban design’s

subsequent (narrower) derivative. For example Collage City allows more interaction between

block centres and the public realm, a trait found in Issues II but not in strict urban design.

Similarly several of Collage City’s constructs (F embedded plans, H hetertopia 1, N hetertopia 2)

are the direct stuff of Issues II, which was attempting via work such as Shane (2005) to press strict

urban design into facing contemporary issues.

Another cluster of Collage City’s preoccupations is the translocation of the modernist’s building

as an isolated object into the urban fabric (C contextualise the object, I character and visual

richness, Q structure and content). There is a fair degree of coincidence here with urban design’s

main interest in buildings for legibility and placemaking but Issue II is weak in this area probably

because it stopped at a framework stage where this would be the next layer of thought to be

woven into the masterplan.

For Collage City, meaning (including memory or prophecy) conveyed by buildings and urban fabric

is vitally important (M enlightened pragmatism, O embedded memory, and R collage). Apart

from Butina-Watson and Bentley (2007) the author has not yet found this to be a major part of

urban design thinking and, admittedly, neither is there a trace in Issues II; again probably for the


reasons stated in the previous paragraph.

The same conclusion is true for the Collage City theme of temporal juxtaposition through the

form of collage and the act of bricolage (M enlightened pragmatism, and R collage).

However in respect of its twin theme of collisive spatial juxtaposition (K and L benefits of pluralism

1 and 2, M enlightened pragmatism, P museum city, R collage), although urban design does not

appear to have much to say about this, Issues II is deliberately full of it at the scale of the block (a

laboratory for juxtaposing five block types); the intersections with networks; and at the scale of

the masterplan area where it is also a patch having to negotiate its edges with its neighbours.

In conclusion, this brief excursion with an admittedly limited frame of reference, into Collage

City territory seems to have shown there is good reason for it being enduringly regarded as one

of the iconoclastic works of its time. The rigour of its arguments and originality of its propositions

must have made it one of the main sources for the current make up of urban design practice.

That same rigour and originality seem to have given it the ability to outlast its offspring concepts,

which through urban design practice have tended to become narrower and less able than its

parent to embrace some of the current changes in the urban organism.

The Issues II project could well have been stimulated to achieve much of its submitted form by a

direct reading of Collage City but probably would not have got as far without the contemporary

reinterpretation supplied by Shane (2005). Having said that, the Issues II scheme has still a long

way to go before it can be said to have the depth and richness that a full use of all Collage City’s

precepts would give it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BUTINA-WATSON, G., AND BENTLEY, I. 2007. Identity by Design. Oxford : Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann.

BENTLEY, I. ET AL, 1985. Responsive Environments : a Manual for Designers London: Architectural Press

JENCKS, C., 1977. The Language of Post-modern Architecture 6th ed. London : Academy Editions.

ROWE, C. AND KOETTER, F., 1975. Collage City. The Architectural Review, Aug. 66-91.

ROWE, C. AND KOETTER, F., 1978. Collage City 7th ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

SHANE, G., 2005. Recombinant Urbanism. Great Britain: Wiley-Academy.

collage city - colin rowe

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