Does postmodern mean capitalist? This article aims at providing an answer to this question by comparing postmodernism in two socialist contexts: the People’s Republic of Poland, where in the 1980s ...the planned economy was progressively eroding and postmodern architecture was mostly sponsored by non-state clients (private individuals, small housing cooperatives and the Catholic Church), and the German Democratic Republic, where throughout the 1980s the institutions of the state-planned economy remained in power while commissioning prominent postmodern projects. The article argues that while the difference in economic regimes did not lead to prominent stylistic discrepancies, they strongly influenced the significance and perception of these projects in their specific national contexts.
The famous historic Old Town of Elbląg in northern Poland was comprehensively destroyed in the Second World War, neglected for several decades in the post-war period, and beginning in 1979, rebuilt ...from scratch in a postmodern style. The new, flamboyant, historically inspired buildings were promoted by the local head conservationist, Maria Lubocka-Hoffmann, and financed by the fledgling market economy. Developing against the background of an international trend towards old‑town regeneration, these buildings grew from different roots than postmodernism in the West. They derived from an expanded concept of historic conservation and the goal to reconcile contradictory desires. These included a contested past in a town that had been German until 1945, a longing for local identity and visible historicity despite historical ruptures, and the establishment of traditional planning principles, such as small scale and mixed use, in a modern environment.
The Hut on the Garden Plot Florian Urban
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians,
06/2013, Letnik:
72, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
In Berlin, self-built huts and sheds were a part of the urban fabric for much of the twentieth century. They started to proliferate after World War I and were particularly common after the Second ...World War, when many Berliners had lost their homes in the bombings. These unplanned buildings were, ironically, connected to one of the icons of German orderliness: the allotment. Often depicted as gnomeadorned strongholds of petty bourgeois virtues, garden plots were also the site of mostly unauthorized architecture and gave rise to debates about public health and civic order. InThe Hut on the Garden Plot: Informal Architecture in Twentieth-Century Berlin, Florian Urbanargues that the evolution and subsequent eradication of informal architecture was an inherent factor in the formation of the modern, functionally separated city. Modern Berlin evolved from a struggle between formal and informal, regulation and unruliness, modernization and lifestyles that appeared to be premodern. In this context, the ambivalent figure of the allotment dweller, who was simultaneously construed as a dutiful holder of rooted-to-the-soil values and as a potential threat to the well-ordered urban environment, evidences the ambiguity of many conceptual foundations on which the modern city was built.
Abstract
Epithelial and endothelial barrier function is typically studied
in vitro
by growing the cells of interest on permeable supports that are sandwiched between two fluid compartments. This ...setup mimics the physiological situation with the cell layer as the diffusion barrier at the interface between two chemically distinct fluids. Routinely, the barrier function is quantitatively described by two key parameters: (i) the transepithelial or transendothelial electrical resistance (TER) as a measure of the permeability for small inorganic ions and (ii) the permeability coefficient (P
E
) as a descriptor of the permeability for molecular tracers. So far the two parameters have been determined in separate experiments. This study introduces a device that allows for simultaneous detection of P
E
and TER of the very same cell monolayer in one single experiment (P
E
TER-assay). The novel approach is entirely based on AC impedance measurements in two different modes, so that TER and P
E
become available in real time. The new approach is demonstrated for three epithelial cell lines derived from the kidney (MDCK-I, MDCK-II, NRK) with very different barrier properties under stationary conditions and when challenged by barrier-breaking fungal toxin cytochalasin D. P
E
TER provides an excellent time-resolution and completely automated data collection.
This article will present Copenhagen’s tortuous path from industrial decline to regeneration city, centering on the rebuilding of large waterfront areas in the Copenhagen Harbor such as Islands ...Brygge, Sluseholmen, and Frihavn, as well as on select developments in the central neighborhoods Nørrebro, Vesterbro, and Christianshavn. Focusing on architecture, it will show that Copenhagen’s “return to the inner city” was guided by the mutual influence of discourse, policy, and architectural design. This is evidenced by government documents and press clippings. The article will also show that in contrast to regeneration projects elsewhere, Copenhagen’s redevelopment yielded a comparatively socially mixed city with appealing public spaces and inventive architecture. This was facilitated by strong public authorities and by local and national politicians who upheld welfare state values and only to a small extent gave in to the market-oriented ideologies that influenced policy in other European countries at the time.
In the 1970s and 1980 architects and planners in socialist Poland increasingly attempted to defy the inflexible structure of the state-operated construction industry and modify the by-now ubiquitous ...system-built mass housing blocks. These efforts generated housing complexes that took up postmodern principles-visually harmonic, legible, and at the same time meaningful urban spaces modelled after historical typologies. On the basis of archival documents, contemporaneous publications, and interviews with the protagonists this article analyses three examples: Radogoszcz-East in Łódź (1979-1989, designed by Jakub Wujek, Zdzisław Lipski, and Andrzej Owczarek), Różany Potok in Poznań (1978-2010s, designed by Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski) and the Na Skarpie Scheme in Kraków-Nowa Huta (1987-95, designed by Romuald Loegler, Wojciech Dobrzański, Ewa Fitzke, and Michał Szymanowski). The article argues that these housing complexes first evolved from late modernist ideas, in particular structuralist currents, and only at a later stage absorbed postmodern theory from both domestic and international sources. It also points to individual architects and planners as the driving forces in the struggle between artistic innovation and systemic inertia, who were able to take advantage of unexpected latitude within the declining socialist regime to carry out their proposals.
The Ascension Church, built in the tower block district of Warsaw-Ursynów (1980-1985) to a design by Marek Budzyński and Piotr Wicha, reveals the mechanisms of architectural change under the ...declining socialist regime in Poland. Based on archival documents, interviews, and press reviews, this article traces the process of form finding and construction of what became one of Poland's best-known postmodern buildings. I argue that in the context of the building, postmodern design occupied and widened the cracks that had appeared in the authoritarian socialist regime since the 1970s. This is evident in the 'speaking' architectural forms that communicated nonconformist ideas, at the level of decision making and resourcing 'outside the plan', and in relation to post-functionalist city planning around the building. I also argue that the impact of the Ascension Church, and by extension of similar postmodern buildings in Poland, was based on a reception of postmodernism different to that in Western Europe and North America. Rather than being related to capitalist exuberance and ironic criticism of the architectural discipline, postmodern architecture became connected to a search for lasting values that transcended the mundane socialist everyday life in Poland. At the same time, it served as a vehicle for national/patriotic narratives that are influential in Poland to date.
An essay is presented that discusses the Crown Street redevelopment in the New Gorbals in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2000. The master plan by Piers Gough was completed on contested grounds once occupied ...by the Gorbals tenements then high-rise flats. This essay discusses the neo-traditional redevelopment's bringing the past into urban Glasgow. The site represents the pacification the "underbelly" of the city through architectural redesign. It also considers the strategy for economic revival and changes through modernism.
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