September 16th, 2020 President of the European Union, Ursula Von der Leyen, gave her “State of the Union” speech to the European parliament. In her speech she introduced the NextGenerationEU. A new paradigm for sustainable development in Europe.
“I want NextGenerationEU to kickstart a European renovation wave and make our Union a leader in the circular economy.
But this is not just an environmental or economic project: it needs to be a new cultural project for Europe. Every movement has its own look and feel. And we need to give our systemic change its own distinct aesthetic – to match style with sustainability.
This is why we will set up a new European Bauhaus – a co-creation space where architects, artists, students, engineers, designers work together to make that happen.”
Ursula Von der Leyen was talking about style. A new sustainable aesthetics.
Cultural historians identify aesthetic discourses in hindsight. Ursula Von der Leyen is looking ahead. Traditionally, the introduction of new cultural ism’s has been called by practitioners and academics. Isms are a product of a specific time, a set of conditions that inform a certain approach and style. Architects capture the essence of these conditions, trends, desires, and dreams in our imagery. We create images of the world which form the basis of the world we create. They represent isms. They capture a certain zeitgeist.
Today, we could call it a Bio-romanticism for lack of better words – a vision of increasing populations living in relatively low-dense communities in a harmonious balance with natural eco-systems. Buildings and infrastructure are inconspicuously concealed, camouflaged, and penetrated by organic matter. Bio-romanticism captures the utopian dreams, worries and fears of people living on a deteriorating and dying planet. Bio-romanticism is not realism – it is escape-ism.
Architects need to be realistic. In her speech, Ursula Von der Leyen addresses a realism that is also actionable: “I want to kickstart a renovation wave”. Through the 1960’s, 80’s and 90’s, a continuous tsunami of building-booms generated incredible amounts of anthropogenic materials in Europe (materials made by human beings). Today Europe is the part of the world where most area is sealed by anthropogenic surfaces, with Denmark ranking among the top in Europe. A German study from 2010 identifying all anthropogenic material in Germany (including all human produced materials) documents that materials captured in the built environment - buildings, roads, sewer systems - are 79 times higher than the material stock of all consumer goods in total, including phones, cars, clothes, toys, furniture, televisions - everything. Anthropogenic materials in our built environments are divided approximately 50/50 between buildings (15 bill tons) and infrastructure (12,5 bill tons). Much of it we have no love for. Much of it is invisible. Much of it does not contain any “cultural value” as architects would call it. This is the future cultural project of Europe.
We must learn to love the architecture and infrastructure that has no identity and no (generally accepted) “cultural value”. We must turn our attention to the indistinct, anonymous architecture and environments of our cities and the urban fringes – the pragmatic, commercial architecture, modernistic social housing, single-family houses, service buildings, roads and parking lots, much of which is facing an expiration date; or rather, a refurbishment date.
We must learn to appreciate these places and define a new ism around them, an ism that embraces the hybrid and anonymous.
Since K-hole, the New York trend forecasting group that coined the word, the interpretation of “Normcore” has been stretched in multiple directions. Looking into the original report from 2013, Youth Mode: A report on freedom, it states: “Normcore knows the real feat is harnessing the potential for connection to spring up. It’s about adaptability, not exclusivity… Normcore doesn’t want the freedom to become someone. Normcore wants the freedom to be with anyone. Normcore moves away from a coolness that relies on difference to a post-authenticity coolness that opts in to sameness. But instead of appropriating an aestheticized version of the mainstream, it just cops to the situation at hand. To be truly Normcore, you need to understand that there’s no such thing as normal.”
Generally, people tend to comfortably ignore the complex, the undefined and the ambiguous. But we must live with the reality of ambiguity being a new (amorph) normal. Escape-ism is not an option. But a post-authenticity-ism. sameness-ism. An Architectural Normcore could be.
In the periphery of Copenhagen, we find the most infrastructure per inhabitant, the most vacancies in the city, and public transit connections in place. This is the place for future sustainable developments. This is the home of the future cultural project of Copenhagen. Not the “Monocle Life style Index Award” kind of cultural project, but the NextGenerationEU kind of cultural project Ursula Von der Leyen is talking about. The periphery holds the potential for freedom. It is not frozen in one idea. It is ever evolving without the straitjacket of “good taste”. In the periphery someone will dump a washing machine in the street without anyone noticing for weeks. This is the place for innovation and trial-and-error the green transition is desperately looking for. This is the place to finally create a counterweight to the monocentric self-image of Copenhagen.
To do this we must adopt and include the complex identities of the greater Copenhagen area in a new and more diverse self-image. We must learn to accept the lesser valued identities of the periphery on equal terms as the well-established, and culturally accepted identities of “old” Copenhagen and it’s “bridge area” neighborhoods. A “post-authenticity coolness” replacing the mirage of the authentic – authentic culture, authentic nature. The cultural project is to adapt, transform, and densify the periphery on its own terms.
In the past years, the primary dialogue between my architectural colleagues circled around topics of data, calculations, and bridging the competences of engineers, manufactures, clients and politicians. This is all important and necessary. An incredible acceleration of environmental data in the building industry is informing the development of both new policies, business models, technologies and building materials, catalyzing a green transition in the construction industry.
But what about aesthetics. Aesthetics are informed by time, tendencies, social and geographical contexts, technology, events, counter reactions, politics, and fashion. Aesthetics is not facts. Aesthetics is subjective. Aesthetics inform identity. The identity of future sustainable cities should be multi-faceted, not mono-cultural.
We – the architects, crusaders of aesthetics who are molding the images, isms, visions and ideas of “good taste” – have stagnated into conformity and comfort to meet the expectations of our peers and former cultural heroes. We fear to be excluded from the cultural canon. We fear anonymity.
“In Normcore, one does not pretend to be above the indignity of belonging. Normcore moves away from a coolness that relies on difference to a post-authenticity coolness that opts in to sameness”