2. American Space – The Geography of
Nowhere
Taster Video
James Howard Kunstler
3. “Eighty percent of everything
ever built in America has been
built in the last fifty years, and
most of it is depressing, brutal,
ugly, unhealthy and spiritually
degrading” (Kunstler, p 10).
5. • “The identification of this extreme
individualism of property ownership with all
that is sacred in American life has been the
source of many of the problems I shall
describe in the pages that follow. Above all, it
tends to degrade the idea of the public
realm….” (Kunstler, pp 26-7)
7. • “The grid was primarily concerned with the
squares of private property that lay within the
gradient, not with gradients themselves, or
how the two related with one another. This
dictated a way of thinking about the
community in which private property was
everything….” (Kunstler, p 30)
8. Aerial view of Philadelphia
Aerial view of Queens, NY
Aerial view of suburban Washington, DC
14. • “There was a reason that suburbs like
Riverside didn’t develop proper civic centres:
they were not properly speaking civic places.
That is, they were not towns. They were real
estate ventures lent an aura of permanence by
way of historical architecture and picturesque
landscaping. They had not developed
organically over time….” (Kunstler, p 51)
15. • “The result of Modernism, especially in
America, is a crisis of the human habitat: cities
ruined by corporate gigantism and abstract
renewal schemes, public buildings and public
spaces unworthy of human affection….”
(Kunstler, p 59)
The new Boston
Municipal Court Building
17. “The cities, of course, when completely to hell. The superhighways
not only drained them of their few remaining taxpaying residents,
but in many ways the new beltways became physical barriers,
‘Chinese walls’ sealing off the disintegrating cities from their
dynamic outlands. Those left behind the wall would develop, in
their physical isolation from the suburban economy, a pathological
ghetto culture.” (p 107)
18. POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Do you think that Kunstler is overly
pessimistic and negative in his view of the lived
(especially urban/suburban) environment in the
US? Is it really a place so ugly and dispiriting that
it is not worth caring about?
19. POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
2. Kunstler is eager to point out the
‘degradation’ of civic space by architectural and
technological development; what, in your
opinion, could help to ‘revitalise’ and give new,
social and civic meaning to public spaces in a
city environment? Consider your experience
both in your home city and in Dublin.
20. POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
3. Do you think that Kunstler is too subjective,
too emotional, too nostalgic, in his preference
for an idealized ‘town’ environment?
21. POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
4. Having read / listened to just a few short
excerpts from Kunstler’s book, what adjective
would you give to describe the tone of his
writing? Do you find his tone engaging?
Offputting? Balanced? Persuasive? We’ll look in
more detail at this issue in part two of the
class…..
Editor's Notes
KUNSTLER CLAIMS THAT THE METASTASIS OF GENERIC, SOULESS ARCHITECTURE IN THE US HAS CREATED AN UNHEALTHY SENSE OF PLACELESSNESS. HE CHARTS THE ORIGINS OF THIS PROCESS IN THE EXTREME INDIVIDUALISM OF US PROPERTY LAW, WHICH, HE CLAIMS, VALUES THE PRINCIPLE OF OWNERSHIP OVER COMMUNITY CONCERNS
THE GRIDIRON REFERS TO REGULAR, MONOTONOUS PATTERNS OF ‘STRUCTURED’ LIVING, PARTICULARLY IN THE CITIES AND SUBURBS. HOW DOES THIS AFFECT THE WAY PEOPLE LIVE IN, RELATE TO, IDENTIFY WITH (OR NOT) AND FEEL ABOUT THEIR LIVED ENVIRONMENT??
‘SUBURBIA’ FINDS ITS BEGINNINGS IN THE ROMANTIC ATTEMPT TO CREAT AN ‘EDENIC’ RETREAT FORM THE CITY IN A PERFECT ‘COUNTRY’ ENVIRONMENT. KUNSTLER ARGUES THAT SUCH COMMUNITIES WRERE ESSENTIALLY SIMULATIONS OF COMMUNITY AND LACKED THE SPIRITUAL AND SOCIAL COHESION THAT TAKES YEARS (AND REAL ‘’ORGANIC’ STRUCTURE AND INTERACTION) TO DEVELOP.
KUNSTLER IS A FIERCE CRITIC OF MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE, CLAIMING THAT, IN ITS MOST EXTREME MANIFESTATIONS, AS EXEMPLIFIED BY LE CORBUSIER AND MIES VAN DER ROHE, “DID TREMENDOUS DAMAGE TO THE PHYSICAL SETTING FOR CIVILISATION” (P 84).
In contrast to ‘romantic’ constructions such as Llewelyn Park, much of modern suburbia is, Kunstler claims, bland, unlovable and repellent in its ugliness. How can people, he asks, identify with or have respect for, such constructed ‘communities’?
ANOTHER OF THE MAJOR FACTORS WHICH HAS LED TO THIS SITUATION IS THE ALMOST INCALCULABLE EFFECT THE RISE OF CAR USAGE HAD ON THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE. ACCORDING TO KUNSTLER, THE ‘CULT OF THE AUTOMOBILE’ HAS DEGRADED THE LANSCAPE, ALIENTAED PEOPLE FROM THEIR PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT, AND INTENSIFIED THE SENSE OF ‘PLACELESSNESS.’
FINAL QUESTION… DO YOU THINK KUNSTLER IS TOO NEGATIVE AND DYSTOPIAN WHEN IT COMES TO THE US BUILT ENVIRONMENT??
FINAL QUESTION… DO YOU THINK KUNSTLER IS TOO NEGATIVE AND DYSTOPIAN WHEN IT COMES TO THE US BUILT ENVIRONMENT??
FINAL QUESTION… DO YOU THINK KUNSTLER IS TOO NEGATIVE AND DYSTOPIAN WHEN IT COMES TO THE US BUILT ENVIRONMENT??
FINAL QUESTION… DO YOU THINK KUNSTLER IS TOO NEGATIVE AND DYSTOPIAN WHEN IT COMES TO THE US BUILT ENVIRONMENT??
