1998_1 |
Dieter Hassenpflug
Atopias - The challenge of imagineering
1When
sociologists attempt to describe the present societal situation, which is, after all,
their occupation, they are inevitably confronted with the phenomenon of the disappearance
of places. They are destroyed, eliminated, abandoned, ignored or reshaped. What is this
thing being handled with so much disrespect? What is this thing we call a place?
2Places
are spaces that give the people who inhabit, visit and use them an identity. They
are perceived by these people as a part of themselves. Places are spaces that keep our
memories of history alive, making the present visible and thereby open for the future.
Places are spaces with atmosphere. They touch us, we enter into an emotional relationship
with them, we even identify with them. They can evoke approval or criticism, bring joy or
pain. But they never leave us indifferent. We live with places as with our own bodies.
When we are healthy or when things are going well, we're not aware of them. Places can
provide a stage for the great, the sublime, the dignified, the spectacular, but they can
also be the scene of the small, the transparent, the simple, the every day, in other
words, spaces of the 'middle-range.' Small is beautiful. They are, however, always
characterized by a stable stock of signs and symbols which make each place unique. Places
accompany the people who have something to do with them through shorter or longer spans of
their lives and contribute in part to the meaning of these lives. In this respect, places
are spaces of closeness, security and belonging. In the German language there is a word
for this (although it has been terribly abused in recent German history) - the word
'Heimat.'
3Against
this background no one would argue that for example the city of Weimar (where I work and
where the Goethe-Institute recently opened an institute for international cultural
exchange) depicts a space which possesses the qualities of a place. This small city has
character, atmosphere, individuality and significance. One's senses must really be dulled
if one is not taken in by its physical-structural charm. It is less works of great
architecture that impresses one, it is more the ensemble of houses, alleyways, squares,
vistas and parks. Weimar is unmistakable. At the same time, this small city constitutes a
coherent, legible space. This legibility has its basis in part in what is called the
Old-European city.
4This
model, which at some times more, at other times less has shaped the cityscapes of Europe,
was in the ideal case characterized by a mix of functions and differentiations between
private and public spaces; by dense, unified buildings in small parcels and organic floor
plans that conform to the typography; by an accentuation of sacred and profane buildings;
and by an articulated separation from the surrounding countryside, once symbolized by
clearly defined town walls. The texture of the old bourgeois city, supplemented by
additions and extensions made during the succeeding stylistic epochs (from the Renaissance
to the Gründerzeit, the years of rapid industrial expansion in Germany), lend these
places an urban flair, the likes of which we find nowhere else. The public spaces are
filled with life, provide images, surprises, possibilities for encounters in abundance,
give the urban virtues of curiosity, openness, tolerance and individuality every thinkable
chance.
5As I
said at the beginning, however, places today are a highly endangered species. With their
mazes of narrow spaces and alleys, their variety and intractability, their sensibility and
unmistakability, their corporate and bourgeois self-portrayal, the old cities are only a
nuisance in today's turbo-society. They are simply too slow. Thus they are accelerated,
straightened, standardized, cleared out. Their structures are freed from one another and
separated according to their function, completely dismantled and then assembled anew. The
previously integrated uses such as living, working, relaxing and consuming, are separated
from one another and each assigned to their own territory. Under this fordistic treatment,
streets are transformed into mono-functional traffic routes, squares into parking lots,
the lively organized house fronts into smooth, sterile and cold facades. Cities become
machines. The public places once populated by the young and old, the poor and rich, the
bohemian and conventional, the locals and strangers mutate into efficient functional
spaces. They can no longer serve as places of regional, republican and cosmopolitan
civility. The city as polls ceases to exist.
6The
old idea of space as characterized by city and country, intensity and extensity also
disappears. The city falls apart and pours into the surrounding countryside. Business
parks, single-family housing developments, traffic routes, shopping centers and
recreational facilities push their way into the environs. Extenuated, confused, torn
borders arise, chaotic structures of space, collage-like landscapes spoiled by
development. The places once identifiable as either urban or rural forfeit their
singularity. They lose their local color and their regional fund of memories, their habits
and customs, their rites and styles. A semiotically empty, indecipherable
city-country-continuum is formed - a space without qualities.
7The
loss of qualities of place describes, however, only one side of fordistic modernization.
The other concerns the overcoming of space (and time) itself. Through high-speed traffic
systems, distances shrink and the availability of physical space increases. New media
technologies open placeless, virtual communication spaces, rendering the existing, built
arenas of public life superfluous. Under the pressure of economic globalization and
mechanization, of growing mobility and permanent acceleration, places transform themselves
- to borrow a term from Marc Augé - into non-places. What is meant here are efficient,
fast spaces with a high turnover of people and goods, lacking however any sense of
character and meaning. We meanwhile encounter these characterless spaces of power and
efficiency all over the world. They transform every place into a 'global place'. In the
global world, places become more and more similar to one another, until they can no longer
be distinguished from one another. As a consequence, the ties that bond people to places
dissolve.
8This
development, however, can be seen from another viewpoint: What has been diagnosed as the
'disappearance of places' is in reality only a form of a new invention of space.
Basically, we are dealing with two opposing processes: places disappear, and they
reappear! They return in an altered form and function. Apparently, the loss of the
qualities of place is experienced as a lack of something. A need for places develops. This
need is translated into a demand, which is answered with a corresponding supply. A market
for places - and with this an accompanying 'place industry' comes into being.
9What
type of places are these? What do they look like? How are they equipped? In the attempt to
answer these questions, one comes across a particular type of place, which in and through
itself represents the suggested contradiction between place and non-place. Places are
produced which deny themselves as places, placeless places.
10But
what is a placeless place? Well, it is a fiction or fantasy of a place, a kind of fata
morgana. Placeless places are spaces that visually reproduce, anywhere in the world,
qualities from arbitrary, imaginary or real worlds. They are physical, constructed,
three-dimensional fictions.
11The
most important raw material for the manufacture of these placeless places is ideal nature:
it is mined from those deposits of the imagination which we know as fairy tales, novels,
comics, painting, photographs, films and television programs. Just look at Disney World
for an example of this. It is important to note here, especially in light of the future of
our cities, that 'place industry' also makes use of images and pictures from real places,
prominent buildings, streets and squares for example, the canals of Amsterdam, Saint
Mark's Square in Venice. Even entire city ensembles or parts of landscapes are prospected
for this raw material. Think about Disney World again, for example the 'Main Street'
concept. A type of cultural mining industry develops, which instead of iron and coal,
exploits pictures of spectacular nature scenes and attractive cultural details. The
products of this branch are non-places which clothe themselves in the garments of place. I
refer to these places as atopias, in order to highlight their close but complicated
relationship to utopias.
12The
distinction between atopias and utopias refers to the difference between reality and
possibility. Utopias are places which exist nowhere (only in the imagination). They are
pure possibility and therefore a force for changing reality. They represent the eros of
the political. Atopias, in contrast, are realized non-places with fictional qualities.
They are simultaneously real and placeless. They are everywhere and nowhere at the same
time. Whereas utopias, the stuff of which dreams are made, produce images of a better life
in an imaginary world, atopias unfold themselves in the here and now. They are available
and materially present and at the same time without any connection to place, location and
region. They are the topological expression of the fact that in today's world, everything
is everywhere at the same time. They are the socio-spatial harbingers of a very powerful
but superficial society that is enslaved by pictures.
13With
this term, sociology is reacting to a transition that is already in its advanced stages -
the transition from the 'reason dominated' to the 'emotion dominated' modern age.
According to this theory, people's actions today are no longer determined predominantly by
reason, rather more decidedly by feeling. The 'homo oeconomicus' has transformed himself
into a 'homo eventicus' and the rationalistic, fordistic consumer society has become a
mood-governed affluent society. Whereas instrumental-technical aspects such as efficiency,
productivity, functionality, objectivity, etc. have dominated until now, emotional factors
like atmosphere, ambience, aura, flair and other dimensions aimed at the senses and
sensibility are gaining influence. An object must not only function. It must also be
appealing to the senses, even exciting or fascinating them. The head, whispers the
postmodern 'Zeitgeist,' cannot be left to do all the thinking. The stomach thinks along.
14Event-orientation
is a worldwide effective disposition of post-materialistic space production. If one asks
how the eventistic society realizes itself in a spatial sense, then one comes up with the
previously mentioned atopias. We refer to them also as 'event parks.' Hardly anything is
produced today which doesn't legitimize itself through a more or less large experience
value. Event parks are appearing everywhere. At first they are scattered islands, then
archipelagos. At some point they will develop into mainland. It will no longer be possible
to differentiate between world and event park.
15But
just what is an event park? How can we picture this in our minds? Here is an example from
the leisure-time industry, a typical European example, in my opinion: Until recently, the
administrators of German municipalities were proud if they could provide their citizens
with a public indoor or outdoor swimming pool. Such an offer was considered the expression
of a social state concerned for the welfare of its people. If one carefully looks at these
facilities from an aesthetic viewpoint, one is struck by the cold, clinic-like
rationalistic design: the water basins are rectangular, inviting one to partake in
athletic activity, if not even competitive sport. The other facilities make a hardly less
rationalistic, sober impression: the changing cubicles are strung together by kafkaesque
corridors, spartan benches flank the edge of the pool, and the grassy areas somehow remind
one of a soccer field. Because pleasure is obviously dependent upon the relationship
between the available and the feasible, we as children had our fun in these simple and not
so expensive pools of the first generation.
16For
several years now in Europe, the pools, or water parks, of the third generation (we've
skipped over the second one) have been springing out of the ground like mushrooms. They
are mainly found near major highways, easy to reach, located between several larger cities
or centers of population. The core of these spacious facilities are huge domes made of
steel or glass, underneath which tropical beach landscapes are reproduced. Water ripples
over blue tiles, palm trees sway to and fro in the airstreams created by wind generators,
the sound of birds chirping and other jungle noises resound from hidden speakers conjure
up images of the equator. Carefully regulated air temperatures (29 degrees Celsius/84
degrees Fahrenheit) and an artificial climate deliver one from the moods of nature and the
smells produced by the agrarian and industrial high-performance landscapes outside.
Grouped around these South Pacific islands are service facilities of every imaginable
kind, such as hairdressers, out-patient clinics, saunas and solariums, health clubs,
recreational and sports facilities. Added to that are holiday bungalows, hotels, shopping
malls with everything that goes with it, from the drugstore to the supermarket and of
course any number of boutiques and restaurants - and sometimes even a church.
17If
you believe the advertisement literature from these places, a virtual paradise awaits you.
Violence, obtrusive poverty, losers must remain outside. The entrance fees, the house
rules, the family-oriented profile (for instance the absence of accommodation for groups)
and not least the private security forces ensure this. The water, walkways and other areas
are always absolutely clean, and environmental problems are also left standing at the
entrance door. As one guest commented: 'One comes here because it's just like in the
tropics, only without the bugs, the foreigners and the dirt.' Everything is worked out to
the last detail, finished, without wrinkles, perfect, smoothly-running, without any
demands or risks, but enriched with carefully measured doses of sensation. The original
was the dream of an island in the South Pacific. Now it is a three-dimensional picture in
which one can walk and play, a manufactured fiction, a fake. In this designer world, dream
and reality seem to be as indistinguishable as public and private. And concepts such as
democracy and participation seem to be out of place here. Acts of individual
self-expression don't take place. And why should they? Everything is already here! The
water park is a fast-food landscape, waiting to be devoured in event-sized portions.
18Following
the example of Holland and Belgium, numerous such pleasure-reserves are currently being
planned, built and operated on Germany's North Sea coast. This shouldn't come as a
surprise. One look at the dirty water and the blobs of oil on the beach is enough to put a
damper on anyone's pleasure. Even the sun can't be enjoyed without harm - too little ozone
in the upper atmosphere, too much in the lower! How can one not take delight in swimming
in a synthetic water park with the sun setting over the North Sea in the background?
19Let's
take a look at another example from the world of trade. The department stores of the old
industrial society get their appeal from their clear organization, their wide selection of
goods, their expediency and the convincing relationship of price to service. The decor is
sober and reserved, in order to leave room for signs, advertising and other information.
The rooms are clearly organized, with orthogonal passageways cutting through them. The
sobering aesthetic of the rational dominates. This is especially well-documented by the
so-called discount stores. Starting with the warehouse architecture, everything is
oriented toward utility, efficiency and the minimization of costs. The spartanly decorated
shelves with the opened cartons of goods, the primitive neon lighting and the chalk-white
walls, the absence of personnel and a limited, never changing, reasonably-priced selection
of goods add up to an ascetic ambience designed to serve mass consumption. The relentless
charm of the assembly line, the series and the principles of scientific management have
found their application here in the field of trade. Cash-and-carry markets are well-oiled,
smoothly-running, fordistic machines designed to satisfy our needs. And based on the
principles of the division of labor, they satisfy the demand accordingly: goods neatly and
tidily divided into foodstuffs and consumer items: electronics, linens, books, music,
fast-food restaurants, etc. No show takes place, because it could be seen as an attempt to
hide something.
20How
different in comparison are the department stores of the third generation! The mega-malls,
as they are called, appeal not to reason but rather to emotion. They are aimed at the
vanities and sensitivities of their customers, at their desire for fun and entertainment.
The satisfaction of needs is in this case only a concomitant of the event. Accordingly,
the mega-malls present themselves as highly-integrated arrangements which blend art,
theater, music, food and drink, fitness and fun, diversion and an overwhelming selection
of goods and services into a hyper-real cosmos of event and adventure. The 'cold,'
economically-driven motives of organization disappear behind a scenery woven out of
variety and spectacle, confusion and improvisation, moods and images. Form follows
sensation!
21The
organizers have studied their clientele they know for example about the dangers of
overstimulation. Therefore the rooms are made rhythmic, in that zones of peacefulness and
reflection follow areas of acceleration, cleverly playing off the buried or suppressed
psychic disposition of the visitors. In the confusion of the hyperspace, spheres of
familiarity are created, which through their design fulfill the wish for closeness and
warmness. Imitated village, staged neighborhood, simulated pastorals and Mediterranean
flair take up the latent desires of the visitors from suburbia and satisfy them for a
moment. Images and memories from a long-lost rural life or from a repressed childhood are
consciously used as a medium for moods. Form follows emotion!
22Recreated
vacation dreams, visions from films, scenes from comics, etc. are found everywhere today.
Alpine wild-water rides or climbing tours in the lowlands of Northern Germany are just as
possible as a visit to a tropical rainforest near New York or a trip to the Caribbean at
the polar circle. In Japan you can visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Hofbrauhaus of
Munich, and in Florida or California you will find the neo-romantic castle Neuschwanstein.
It's not difficult to imagine that the Eiffel Tower would lend itself just as well to
imitation as the Römer in Frankfurt or the Campo in Siena. And yet the fairy tale castle
of Ludwig the Second of Bavaria is itself only the fiction of a castle of the French Duke
of Berry, as portrayed in a miniature in his book of hours by the Brothers Limburg. The
Römer in Frankfurt is disputedly a postmodern fiction of itself. After the fall of the
iron curtain, it's only a matter of time until the Wartburg, the baroque Elbe-silhouette
of Dresden, the Krämerbrucke (merchants' bridge) in Erfurt or the Goethehaus on the
Frauenplan can be visited in the Far East or in America as fake versions of the originals.
Michael Sorkin quotes from an advertising leaflet for an American theme park: 'If you want
to see Europe, take a vacation in Virginia ... It's all the fun of old Europe ... but a
lot closer!' And when one poses the question, where is Hollywood located, the correct
answer is: Hollywood is everywhere! In Germany, one can now greet Batman personally, and
the same is possible near Paris with Mickey Mouse. The Wild West with its cowboy heroes
and outlaws first visited us in the cinema, then they appeared on television. Today one
can experience Texas, Colorado and Oklahoma live almost anywhere - as three-dimensional
pictures, to enter into and touch. Even the European Middle Ages have announced their
resurrection: on an area approximately 120 hectares (that's about 300 acres) near Berlin,
a 'medieval cultural and amusement park' has been planned, complete with fortress, village
and allmende (common land) from the 5th century, including jousting knights. A patent has
already been applied for. Copyright landscapes and cities have been, since the Disney
corporation invented them, a booming business.
23With
Celebration (near Orlando, Florida), this same corporation has just put the first private
city on the market. This city is entirely a product of imagineering. Whoever buys here
acquires not only a house, but also a lifestyle. It arises from the old American
middle-class dream of a clean and tidy house in the country with a garden, dog and family.
Sitting in the town hall of this atopian city are employees of the Disney Corporation, who
enforce design regulations and keep watch over the cutting of the lawns and hedges of the
inhabitants, the inventory of the flower beds, and the condition of the house facades.
There's no room for self-expression. Disney also has control over the hiring of teachers
for the school. Even the streets are spaces of Disney's grace: private spaces which
pretend to be public.
24The
question is whether this trend is homogenous throughout the world. Is it the same in one
place as in the other? Or will there be cultural, regional differences? Maybe the example
of Euro-Disney near Paris is an indication. This project had enormous difficulty in
getting off the ground in Europe and had to be massively subsidized by the French
government in the form of land and infrastructure. What were the causes of these
difficulties?
25There
are probably several answers to this question. One answer could be that the Disney concept
has a lot to do with the way Americans, whether rich or poor, black or white, dream the
American dream. Disney World doesn't exactly fit in with the way Europeans see themselves.
In America, the differences between lowbrow and highbrow culture are not as pronounced as
in Europe. Theme parks à la Disney are viewed as culturally trivial. They are associated
with the simple, unsophisticated working class masses, which already pose a problem for
the middle class and are completely unacceptable for the elites. They obviously don't
correspond to the way in which Europeans live out their legitimate need for personal and
social distinction.
26Interesting
insights into this are provided for example by the fierce debate on the participation of
prominent architects as imagineers in American and European Disney projects. It was not
just a few European architects who refused to take part in corresponding internal
competitions - apparently because they feared damaging their image. Other European
architects who did participate had problems getting their way, because they didn't meet
American tastes. They just didn't have the right postmodern eros of imagineering. And
others, like for example Aldo Rossi, Jean Nouvel or Rem Kohlhaas, were criticized of
having sold themselves out to the trivial culture of the Mickey Mouse world.
27A
very interesting (postmodern) question is whether this documented world-wide
event-orientation will take on national or even regional forms. Will a European style of
production and fictionalization develop? Will there be a Europe-specific imagineering,
which differs from the Japanese, Latin, (South African) and possibly Oriental
imagineering? It cannot be denied that imagineering à la Disney is a challenge to Europe.
The need to legitimize such fakes is obviously larger on that side of the Atlantic. This
expresses itself in the following way. When event parks are built in Germany, the regional
ties of their thematization strategies are carefully examined. In a feasibility study
conducted on a theme park with the name 'Faszinatura' near Dresden, great value was placed
on the observation that the success of the proposed event strategy was also dependent on
its 'credibility in the context of its location.'
28A
European - maybe even a specific German - answer to the challenge of imagineering is
possible and should be strived for. If the present traditions, carefully preserved since
the Second World War, are taken into account, this could mean a careful and intelligent
social-ecological regulation of private event parks. The state, which often performs a
great deal of the preliminary site development work, has without question the possibility
to exert its influence on the concept of theme parks. A modern, ethical, well-founded form
of 'public-private-partnership' should also be pursued.
29In
this way, the often insular character of theme parks could perhaps be averted in favor of
a partial and theme-supported opening. This could be an opening to reality to existing
landscapes and cities, to nature and cultural events, to the event qualities with which
Europe has been so richly provided. An opening also to the dark side of reality in which
we live. Why can't the art of imagineering be put into the service of making existing
reality visible? Why only 'indoor-imagineering' and not 'outdoor-imagineering?'
30This
thought brings me in conclusion back to the old European city, which, as we already noted,
is too slow to fit into our fast times. But we can use our postmodern view, sharpened by
our exposure to events, to discover a natural, pre-existing event potential. There we can
find hundreds of non-private Main Streets and Celebrations, with public streets and
squares, but nevertheless with such a big event value that Japanese and Americans are
putting a lot of time, energy and money into copying them. We should not simply dismiss
this trend toward event parks, toward spectacular productions, as postmodern nonsense.
Rather, we should see it as a challenge to understand the urban and rural world in which
we live as a world that can and should be designed according to an aesthetic point of
view. Taking the postmodern challenge of imagineering seriously means in the end to again
grant aesthetics (the sensory realization) its proper place. For a time, it almost
entirely forfeited this place to reason and function. Imagineering cannot only be left to
the bourgeois; it is also a concern of the 'citoyen.' |