Mediating Urbanism: Questions of Architectural Identity and Agency in the Contemporary Metropolis

As architectural historian and theorist Pier Vittorio Aureli argues, the history of the city in Western civilization and specifically its conflict with the market-driven forces of urbanization, is one of fundamental contest regarding the function as well as identity of the city; are cities places characterized by a productive mix of density and diversity capable of social, political and cultural innovation and agency, alongside economic production and consumption, or are they principally a marketplace for the latter at the expense of the former?

The following proposal builds upon Aureli’s particular understanding of the city, as well as his analysis of select works by Étienne Boullée, Oswald Mathias Ungers and Rem Koolhaas, each of which serve as precedents for architecture’s potential to mitigate such forms of conflict, at once responsive to the needs of the market and the needs of a diverse array of uses by a diverse range of users.

Set within the context of New York City, this proposal builds upon such historical precedents with the ambition of developing and deploying an architectural intervention within the existing urban fabric of gentrified Manhattan, one which introduces new forms of use and identity for a new and more diverse cast of users, while simultaneously preserving its existing conditions; a model of coexistence between the forces of the polis and of urbanization.

Project Date: 2020

CASE Faculty: Chris Perry, Fleet Hower

Student Researchers: Jeremy Falls (MSArch)