007. A Pavilion, a House, a City

In one of her lectures Caroline Bos said that concept of a house is not central any more in the contemporary architectural discourse.

Reportedly, dwelling was an architectural issue a couple of decades ago when Europe and the world was rebuilding itself after the WWII. Many new housing concepts had to surface out to cover the increasing demand for square meters. On the one hand new housing typologies had to meet the prescribed requirements of planned economies of walfare states and uniformistic cultures. On the other gradually in the chain of cause and effect they conditioned the rise of todays neoliberal diverse and atomized societies. Now, according to Bos, it's time to bring back people together, to restore the feeling of a community. The best typology to serve us here is a temporary pavillion.

I remained incited by Bos's words for long. I am not suspicious about the pavilion itself. I have a profound feeling though that as a typology pavilion and a house should be a system that would work together for the good cause. The process of restoring an abstract community should be started by putting emphasis on the smallest of all communities but very concrete one - the family. The moment when it just seems that there is nothing left of an ideal at all is also the one when the swing starts coming back. Will people soon again readily organize their lives with family being in the focus? If you try to numerate the trend the data would show that the age when young adults leave their family household rises, the age of women when giving birth to first child is stable in countries and the number stable relationships (marriage or not) is also rising.

As dealing with statistical numbers may be sleek there is a number of architectural issues which concern dwelling that are fascinating on their own. First of all there is a house itself. A Modern Vernacular House, a house with a view, a house in a landscape, a theoretical and practical house a reflection on the mundane, an infinity by repetition. Then there is the issue of re-populating or re-colonizing the city centers which suddenly became empty without real inhabitants being only service areas for everybody else. How would then look an experimental Single Family House in a Dense Urban Context and could it become an agent in the process of re-populating? Then there is an issue of Urban Villages small entities within larger metropolis being created by people who perceive and understand their urban neighborhood as a fully natural environment. Like pidgeons. Could here to this formula a pavilion be applied?

Sou Fujimoto, Tokyo House, Dezeen

Somehow as I am writing this text I am starting also finally understand the idea of a city in a proper way. A city which is not a political idea but which is a simple home to people. Not a theory of life but practice. And if one would like to numerate it the only factor that counts is density. Let's be specific, let's not generalize. Let's get to work.