Expect the Unexpected: PREVI-Lima and the customization of

home

Ana Catarino & Martin Bakker

1559710

1264877

AR1Ad040 Architectonische Reflecties

(2012-2013 Q4)

Tutor: Nelson Mota

27 June 2013

Expect the Unexpected: PREVI-Lima and the customization of home

PREVI-Lima, Proyecto Experimental de Vivenda (1968-75), was presented as, among other intentions, a proposal to discuss a possible new generation of unidades vecinales (neighborhood units) in a city of rapid growth and with consequent housing problems. By the time the project started to take form, many slums had already occupied parts of vacant lots in Lima and its suburbs. At the same time a contesting discourse on the modernistic proposals for housing and cities was already prevailing. One can argue, and this will be one of the axes of this essay, to which extent PREVI-Lima can be fostered as a place to experiment with new urban principles that would translate not only to a critique on modernist principles but that would express current concerns and discourses on the urban scale.

The project was first presented in 1966 by Peter Land, with John Turner, a known advocate for self-build strategies applied to architecture practice, as a mentor. Ten years passed between the presentation and the first house to be inhabited, a political change on Peru’s power occurred, and from the initial 1500 housing units proposed only 500 saw the daylight. From the 26 teams chosen 13 were local and the other 13 were international, fostering thus the possibility for the desired final heterogeneity, or mosaic. All the teams, before presenting their final proposals, were invited to spend time in Lima to connect with future inhabitants and better understand the local materials and uses. Assuming the impossibility to address all the parts of the project, we have decided to approach it the following way: first, as primary source, we look to the program established by principal architect Peter Land and map it on the ground; to understand the later proposals of the 26 architects invited, and cumulatively, understand the later engagement or struggles with the inhabitants. Secondly, we critically assess two different answers to the program (by Aldo van Eyck and James Stirling) and question to what extent they were able to fulfill the program demands and expectations.

Starting with a theoretical exposure of our main sources and an exposure of PREVI-Lima’s program and its historical context, for on a second moment, a close read both the program, specifically the proposed answers presented by two architects, Aldo van Eyck and James Stirling, the inhabitants’ engagement with the houses questioning the success of such proposals bearing in mind the dichotomy between mass production and customization. While doing so we also wish to bear in mind Paul Ricoeur’s main theme 1 , with the opposition between universal versus national, and Kenneth Frampton’s2, with his call for a critical regionalism, but more importantly the confrontation of those ideas with the architects own standing points towards their discipline; and finally, while concluding,

1 . Paul Ricoeur: “Universal Civilization and National Cultures”, in Architectural Regionalism, Collected Writings on Place, Identity, Modernity and Tradition, ed. Vincent B. Canizaro (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), p. 42-53

2 . Kenneth Frampton, “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance,” in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, ed. Hal Foster (Port Townsend (WA): Bay Press, 1983), 16–30.

open the field by putting PREVI-Lima in today’s context of a city that has immensely grown since the 1970s, and the context of architectural debates on the need for “experimental” approaches to the practice and the need to engage in the broader debate on participatory strategies and practices.

PART 1: Theoretical Framework

In 1961, in the midst of the French colonial war in Algeria, Paul Ricoeur writes the text “Universal Civilization and National Cultures” questioning the paradox between these two, apparently opposite, instances: the Universal and the National. And the paradox is thus, “(...) how to become modern and to return to sources; how to revive an old, dormant civilization and take part in universal civilization.” (p. 47) “But appearing to be more interested in the national than in the universal, the author also states, “The problem is not simply to repeat the past, but rather to take root in it in order to ceaselessly invent.” (p.51). So, although becoming modern, and by that becoming universal, is an unmistakable reality, the national, local or regional, has not simply disappeared and needs to be part of the equation, Ricoeur argues: become modern but do not abandon your roots. The question is what is understood by roots, or the national, or also as the author mentions, “the past”. If the proposal is not to simply repeat it, in a mimetic gesture, then it is also not simply a question of taking root in it, but to question this root and transposing it to the present time.

These two quotes serve us to frame the discussion we intend to make in the coming pages. How, while not completely abandoning the “modern”, and by this meaning the universal, can the design also reflect the local where it will take form. What to use from one and from the other.Twenty two years after Ricoeur’s text, in 1983, Kenneth Frampton takes the same paradox and confronts it with the discourse and practice of his own discipline - architecture. Now, the Universal Civilization is substituted by the modern ideal of a worldwide, generic architecture while National Culture will refer to regional or traditional architecture. If the first part of the equation is more or less understood, or so Frampton assumes as he does not specify much, the second part reveals to be much more complex. Regionalism, that is the exact term that in Frampton’s text is used to substitute to the National of Ricoeur’s. But what exactly ought to be understood by regionalism is a cause for controversy. By putting the word “critical”3 before the term the author tries to circumvent some of the possible misinterpretations. Counter-posing with the modernist critical practice ideal expressed by avant-garde, Frampton proposes the arriere-garde “one which distances itself equally from the Enlightenment myth of progress and from a reactionary, unrealistic impulse to return to the architectonic forms of the pre-industrial past.”4 (p.22) This is the Critical Regionalism, the critical practice capable to “mediate the impact of universal civilization with elements derived indirectly from the peculiarities of a particular place.” (p. 23) The stress in the word “indirectly” seems to serve the purpose to deny any possibility to, in a fetishist way, seek the vernacular in its picturesque form. To embrace the practice of critical regionalism is to assume the constant negotiation between two poles, never fully resumed.

3 . The original use of the term “critical regionalism” was first used in text of Alex Tzonis and Liliane Lefaivre titled “The Grid and the Pathway”, 1981

4 . Frampton, “Towards a Critical Regionalism” 16–30.

This paradox and the reflections of both authors are important to us when trying to critically assess PREVI-Lima. As an example of a project opposing the modern ideals of a planned, mono-functional and generic urban planning, PREVI-Lima, is also presented as a project where the contradictions and conflicts expressed in the paradox, Universal Civilization versus National Culture, can be discussed.In other words, the design of a generic structure that, contrary to the modernistic ideal of perpetuating an image created, wished for it to be changed over time. Opposing Modernist urban planning and their definition of home, PREVI-Lima seems to argue for a combination of different ideas of home. The experiment, although only partly built, was not only a way to realize cheap housing, but also an attempt to propose several possible types of houses via the idea of collage (or mosaic), adaptable not only to the inhabitants’ needs over time, but to the architects interpretation of those ideals. By natural growth and bottom up planning, the dwelling becomes a personal and customized place.

PART 2:2.1: PREVI-Lima: The ProgramWhen in 1968 Peter Land sent the invitations for the international competition for PREVI, the program established was very clear and was composed by of six points to which the entrees should answer: firstly, the goal was to establish high-density, low-rise urban housing as an urban principle; secondly, the neighborhood should be organized based on the concept of ‘cluster’ around a plaza to generate a sense of community; thirdly, the architect should interpret the notion of casa-que-crece (expandable house), with a garden or patio to allow growth and change; fourthly, the proposal should include a landscape plan with lighting and street furniture; fifthly, the use of prefabricated low-cost materials for mass production was demanded; and finally, entrees should envision an entirely human-scale pedestrian environment with traffic separation.

The principle that will play a central role in our essay will be the “casa-que-crece”, or the expandable house. For being the most experimental point of PREVI-Lima as well as one of the more interesting in the discussion taking place in architecture in the 1960s, a time of critical views on Modernism and its ideas on housing and urbanism. To establish a link between the new views on Modernism in the broader context of PREVI experiments, we will use two case studies that appear to represent two different views on the issue of housing. PREVI’s unique situation can also be discussed through the proposals of influential architects who worked on the same competition, and that is our proposal. As several of the points Peter Land formulated focus on the urban and neighbourhood scale, thus dictating a certain approach, the focus in the case study is the ‘expandable house concept’, which takes place on the dwelling scale that was freely interpreted by the 26 entrees. Both the role of the architect and the inhabitants is changed by this notion, as the architect will have to decide in which way and to what extent the design will be permeable to changes; and the user that will be called to decide how to customise it, within or outside these given limits. To discuss the possible tension between these two different gestures - design and use - we have chosen the projects of two of the internationally acclaimed architects participating in PREVI-Lima – James Stirling and Aldo van Eyck. The first due to his affiliation with the theory of Regionalism and his, although engagement at the same point, critical view on post-war Modernism. The latter, due to his roots in Modernism, as a member of Team X, and the potential influence, we speculate, of his background, namely the influence of anthropology or ethnography, might have had on his design proposal for PREVI-Lima.

2.2: Two Case StudiesJames Stirling, a Scottish architect known as one of the main architects of the post-war movement criticising the directions of Modernism, was an important propagator of a certain vision on Regionalism. According to Giedion one can surprisingly root this term back to Modernist masters as Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto5. The introduction of this term in architecture meant no only the search for methods and gestures on the vernacular, but also the consideration of, what we can call, local tradition and attention to the surroundings of the design location. Stirling followed this movement, already proposing in 1957, as a possible way for the future after Modernism, becoming in later years an influential architect in the critique to this movement. Regionalism, to him, is more than an aesthetic orientation, is a way for architecture to find a path to the economic, political and practical impact in design, inspired, as are the aesthetics, by traditional building and planning. This opposes the early Modernist ideals on separating functions with what one may call a more organic planning6. This is expressed in the design proposal for PREVI-Lima in both the urban scale, which includes the social use of public space and mix of functions, as in the dwelling scale, where Stirling proposes the possibility to include commercial spaces on the ground floor. In his competition entry the first stage of the single dwelling is a four person L-shaped house sharing service walls with clusters of four houses. The inner courtyard in the centre of the plot is defined by four columns. Due to the large plot with its initially small house, the inhabitants were given a lot of freedom for expansion in several possible ways. The ground floor can be finished around the patio to allow more bedrooms and a larger living space, after which the construction allows an extra floor to be added. In the original design proposal

5 . Siegfried Giedion, “The New Regionalism” in Architectural Regionalism, Collected Writings on Place, Identity, Modernity and Tradition, ed. Vincent B. Canizaro, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), p. 310-319. Important to note that the reference to Alvar Aalto will only appear much latter for Giedion, and not on the first versions of his famous account on the modern movement Space, Time and Architecture.

6 . James Stirling, “Regionalism and Modern Architecture”, in Architectural Regionalism, Collected Writings on Place, Identity, Modernity and Tradition, ed. Vincent B. Canizaro, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), p. 327-330

Figure 1 – the basic dwelling as designed by James Stirling (1.-3.) and the possible extensions (4.-6.) were even exceeded by the Zamora family. Already larger in its original form (a.-b.) it was extended thrice by adding a shop (c.), moving the living space to the first floor (d.) and adding a service floor on the second floor (e.)

Stirling suggested several different possibilities to explain the flexibility of his design, including adding commercial spaces and adding a separate house the owner could rent to another family, thereby creating economic security7. The freedom the architect gave to the home owners to develop their desired living space is clearly visible looking at the result of three decades of development. A striking example is the Zamora family house, which started as a 81m2 dwelling, in the form Stirling already meant as an eight person extended house, to which a small shop was added before moving the whole home to the first floor, making room for office space, a shop and a kindergarten. In its current state the house consists of three stories, covering 240m2 of floor space and a roof garden8. The freedom Stirling created to develop his design over time is a good example of the possibilities a growing home concept can offer and even the importance of offering such influence to the owner, whose wishes even exceeded the possibilities James Stirling proposed.

7 . Proyecto Experimental de Viviende [PREVI] low cost housing project international competition, Lima: Winning designs, international section: Atelier 5 (Switzerland) H. Ohl (Germany) and Kikutaki, Maki & Furokawa (Japan), in: Architectural Design, 1970 Apr., p. 203.

8 . García-Huidobro, Torriti, Diego Torres and Tugas, Nicolás, El Tiempo Constrye, Time Builds, Editorial Gustavo Gili, (2008) The Zamora family is one of the interviewed.

Aldo van Eyck, Dutch architect and member of Team 10, approached the design assignment for an expandable house quite differently. Team 10 consisted of young architects who were invited to rejuvenate the post-war editions of the Congrès Internationaux d’ Architecture Moderne (CIAM), the international platform for Modernism. Instead of simply rejuvenating CIAM by involving the younger generation as previously planned, these new members assumed a more critical position towards CIAM’s principles, in both architecture and urban planning and, as Team 10, started their own movement. Though hard to define, some of their key principles concerned the context, or site, of each concrete project and the possibility for the user to interfere or challenge, individually and collectively, with the project. This means abandoning the generic solutions of CIAM Modernism and replacing them with a proposal for a more socially and culturally rooted architecture, while continuing to use modern materials and techniques9. To understand Aldo van Eyck, and to better understand his design proposal, another important concept needs to be brought in - the “threshold” or “in-between” space. According to Teyssot10 his thinking of the in-between space comes from both Martin Buber and several anthropology readings, by Levi-Strauss and the works of Montserrat Palau Marti on the Dogon community. The latter has been particularly important to his approach to housing design and its internal disposition. Very briefly we can say the in-between space, or threshold, refers to that bit that allows the interference of the outside in the inside and vice-versa. This is particularly important if one remembers that one of Aldo’s claims is that the city and the house only differ in scale. Both should be ruled in the image of man and space can only aspire to be a place by the interference of man. Ultimately, the design of a place, one can argue, is the goal Aldo van Eyck

9 . M. Risselada and D. van den Heuvel, introduction to Team 10, 1953-1981, by M. Risselada and D. van den Heuvel, (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2005), p. 11-13.

10 . Teyssot, Georges, Aldo van Eyck’s Threshold: The Story of an Idea, in: Log, No. 11, New York, (2008), p. 34, 37

Figure 2 – The original dwelling as designed by Aldo van Eyck (1.-3.) consisting of two volumes with the central kitchen in between, could be extended by adding two rooms on the ground floor (4.) and a second floor, made of two volumes as well (5.). Ignoring the original design, the Villegas family closed the kitchen (c.) of their already large house (b.) and later closed off the courtyards (e.) and completing the first (d.) and second (f.) floor.

advocated for architecture. That, as Teyssot mentions “(...) buildings are brought to life by their inhabitants”.11

Contrary to Stirling, both Van Eyck’s urban plan and design of individual dwellings are more reluctant to the interference of the owner. The area is densely filled with hexagonal plots, disclosed by as few roads as possible, designed for optimal entrance of daylight and fresh air, while at the same time a minimum of public space is left. Recognisable in his plan, we believe, is the idea that a house should be like a city to be called a house, and vice-versa. Idea that was later incorporated in his famous metaphor “Tree is leaf and leaf is tree”12. The square houses on the hexagonal plots were designed to make sure the expansions did not limit the available outside space or daylight. This way, Van Eyck made sure the only way to expand was by adding an extra floor and customisation was mainly made possible by rearranging internal walls to accommodate the specific family needs13. Another strong, and important, design principle Van Eyck used was the central role of the kitchen as the heart of the dwelling14 located in the outside space between living room and bedrooms, covered by the roof. Both these requirements - leaving the courtyards open and keeping the kitchen at the heart of the dwelling - were later ignored by the Villegas family, whose house is studied in Time Builds. Next to a first and second floor extension, both courtyards were closed over time to facilitate the space required by the inhabitants growing needs. The house in its final state was expanded to 232 m2, almost three times its original size.15

The reluctant stance of Van Eyck, and possibly other participating architects, though meant to establish the best possible living conditions, backfired, as it seems, because his strict rules were not followed. In general, one might say, the influence of the architect authority in proposing and “forcing” a relation between the inhabitants and the project is only valid if rules impair the owner to alter their dwelling. Such a principle was not compatible with PREVI-Lima’s changeable nature, and for that matter, not compatible with inhabitants’ participation unless strict rules are enforced by local government. And here we could open another debate of what it means to prohibit changes, what is being protected or defended, what relation is collectively established with such object. Comparing the results of these two cases, where we have to take into account that the houses in the built version of the neighbourhood were both already larger than the plans in the competition, the results are quite similar. Though both architects had very different approaches to the design commission, the owners of the compared cases have used them quite similarly by – as was one of the objectives of the PREVI experiment - expanding their homes to the maximum and adding value by including commercial

11 . ibid.

12 . Teyssot, Aldo van Eyck’s Threshold, p. 47

13 . Proyecto Experimental de Viviende PREVI: Winning designs, p. 205.

14 . This principle can be linked back to his ethnographic references, namely his exploring’s with the dogon people.

15 . García-Huidobro et al., Time Builds, p. 86-89.

spaces and extra dwellings they could rent. Therefore we can conclude that however the architectural execution of the project did not go as planned, the project was successful in at least some of its social premises namely in contributing to an improvement on often uncontrollable situations of slums.

ConclusionIn a concluding mode we would like to, again, try to open the debate. As said in the beginning of this essay, part of our inspiration to critically assess PREVI-Lima was built from Ricoeur’s and Frampton’s arguments on the dichotomy between universal and local: how to belong to one without implying the destruction of the other, or how to incorporate the latter on the first. Frampton proposes the use of a critical display called “critical regionalism”, that is, to add the local into the equation without simply vanishing the modernist principles, be it the use of local material, the attention to the topography or simply the acknowledgement of local principles of understanding a relation with the space/place. The two architects we have chosen to analyse seem to have subtle differences when confronted with these questions. James Stirling seems to argue for the plasticity as a design feature designing something, as generic as possible, a “skeleton” later completed by its inhabitants. This adaptability, or plasticity, implies the identification of the differences between the architect and the “users”, but also a position in the debate between universal and local, we speculate, trying to find a path between them. The generic is a non-imposing vocabulary open to the local to impose its pattern. A different position seems to have been adopted by Aldo van Eyck, firmly arguing for an idea of what a house should be, and how it should be internally organised, for example the role of the kitchen as central element. His ideas, although built from local expressions, presents the character of the universal when imposed with such force that it almost prevents any possible physical change. Nevertheless, both clearly travel between the two universes trying to propose a possible path for an unfinished dialogue.

On a final note, and trying to bring PREVI-Lima to our time, the project can be seen as an important example of participatory building. This aspect of PREVI might explain the inhabitants’ engagement with their houses beyond the actual physical changes. The attachment to that piece of land, the possibility to call it yours, to customize and express yourself in the facade, the exterior element by excellence. The intentions of the architects, not only in the two projects we highlighted but also in the other designs, are partly ignored or exceeded, but exactly this result of the project strengthens the “regional” or “local” character. strengthens the projects “regional” or “local” character. The collaboration between architects and the inhabitants, the consequent customization of the houses is, we speculate, what leads to the transformation of a space into a place. In a word, understand the “participatory practices” as an extension of what Frampton called “critical” in the regionalism.

BibliographyDigital Architectural Papers, issue 9 PREVI revisited, in http://www.architecturalpapers.ch/index.php?P=104 (last modified 25.06.2013)

Frampton, Kenneth, “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance,” in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, ed. Hal Foster. Port Townsend (WA): Bay Press, 1983, p. 16–30.

García-Huidobro, F., Torres Torriti, D. and Tugas, N. (2011), The Experimental Housing Project (PREVI), Lima: The Making of a Neighbourhood. Archit Design, 81: 26–31. doi: 10.1002/ad.1234

García-Huidobro, Torriti, Diego Torres and Tugas, Nicolás, El Tiempo Constrye, Time Builds, Editorial Gustavo Gili, 2008

Giedion, Siegfried, “The New Regionalism” in Architectural Regionalism, Collected Writings on Place, Identity, Modernity and Tradition, ed. Vincent B. Canizaro, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), p. 310-319. Important to note that the reference to Alvar Aalto will only appear much latter for Giedion, and not on the first versions of his famous account on the modern movement Space, Time and Architecture.

James Stirling, “Regionalism and Modern Architecture”, in Architectural Regionalism, Collected Writings on Place, Identity, Modernity and Tradition, ed. Vincent B. Canizaro, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), p. 327-330

Kahatt, S. S. (2011), PREVI-Lima’s Time: Positioning Proyecto Experimental de Vivienda in Peru’s Modern Project. Archit Design, 81: 22–25. doi: 10.1002/ad.1233

Proyecto Experimental de Viviende [PREVI] low cost housing project international competition, Lima: Winning designs, international section: Atelier 5 (Switzerland) H. Ohl (Germany) and Kikutaki, Maki & Furokawa (Japan), in: Architectural Design, 1970 Apr., p. 203.

Ricoeur, Paul: “Universal Civilization and National Cultures”, in Architectural Regionalism, Collected Writings on Place, Identity, Modernity and Tradition, ed. Vincent B. Canizaro. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007, p. 42-53

Risselada, M. and D. van den Heuvel, introduction to Team 10, 1953-1981, by M. Risselada and D. van den Heuvel. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2005, p. 11-13.

Teyssot, Georges, Aldo van Eyck’s Threshold: The Story of an Idea, in: Log, No. 11, New York, 2008, p. 34, 37