Peer Reviewed

Title:
Section 1: Wasted and Reclaimed Landscapes - Rethinking and Redesigning the Urban
Landscape

Journal Issue:
Places, 19(1)
Author:
Secchi, Bernardo

Publication Date:
2007

Publication Info:
Places

Permalink:
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/15q4w442

Acknowledgements:
This article was originally produced in Places Journal. To subscribe, visit www.places-journal.org.
For reprint information, contact places@berkeley.edu.

Keywords:
places, placemaking, architecture, environment, landscape, urban design, public realm, planning,
design, Bernardo Secchi, rethinking, redesigning, urban, landscapes, wasted, reclaimed

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Rethinking and Redesigning
the Urban Landscape
Bernardo Secchi

Across Europe a new urban form is arising. Since the early rise of new countries was creating a global market, creating
1960s European cities have experienced a shrinkage in ruptures with Europe’s urban and social past.
population and a rapid increase in wasteland and contami- Descriptions of new urban conditions have focused on
nated land. As human activities have spread over territo- the daily experiences of urban residents. Researchers have
ries of unusual dimension, huge industrial zones, former used narrative strategies ranging from the catalogue to the
military installations, and outdated infrastructure—the micro-story, from sampling to the mise en abîme, to portray
sites of nineteenth- and twentieth-century modernity— the character of the contemporary city, its fragmentation
are suddenly empty. and dispersion, its porosity and instability.
The change has been particularly acute with regard Description is an attempt to order a fragment visible
to sites of industry. Many small factories within old areas within the framework of nonsystematic knowledge. It is
of dense urban fabric have been abandoned, their activi- an attempt to order a broad spectrum of experiences.1
ties spread to more peripheral areas or relocated outside Conscious of the impossibility of producing a true copy
Europe. Today many quarries, harbors, railways and of reality, and resisting the linearity of causal explications,
canals—much of the infrastructural network accumulated theorists of the declining European city have focused their
over more than two centuries—have fallen into disuse. descriptions only on the details that make up the city and
Such abandonment has had important impacts on employ- its territory.2
ment, demographic growth, and the social, functional and An overly close focus on details without an examination
symbolic geography of the city. of the context, however, brings Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s
This story is not new. Again and again through history, critique to mind. Goethe, perhaps one of the last synthetic
European cities have been partially abandoned by their spirits in Europe’s intellectual history, was suspicious of
inhabitants and their activities. But each time a rebuild- the microscope and the detailed views it allowed, fearing
ing has taken place that has made selective use of the old. these would become an obstacle to a comprehensive under-
Indeed, the European city and its countryside embody standing of the world. Similarly, the French author Erik
a palimpsest upon which different generations have left Orsenna recently presented the dystopian story of an island
epochal traces, layers of their life and culture. city where a dictator forbids his people to climb the sur-
We are at a turning point in the history of the European rounding hills, fearing this view will reveal relations among
city. Consistent with this historic perspective, the indus- objects and subjects that will give them an ability to judge
trial city of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is now for themselves.3
becoming another layer. What is disappearing will not A somewhat similar concern might be noted today.
come back, and the discussion of what will replace it has During the 1980s European planning practices changed
reached a decisive moment. radically, as social critics questioned the ability of planners
to provide a comprehensive approach and an affirmation
The Disappearing Industrial City of general principles about the city. The planning prac-
The phenomenon of urban shrinkage in Europe has tices that have emerged since—misinterpreted by some as
emerged over the last forty years. During the 1970s, when pitting architecture against urbanism—can be compared
researchers first started to examine the importance of to the sixteenth-century renovatio urbis. This involved the
abandoned industrial and infrastructural land, they initially reshaping of the cities of that time in visual, functional,
pointed to labor-related causes, such as increases in urban social and economic terms through a few strategic inter-
income and the cost of living. With the decrease in assis- ventions related to then-recent innovations in art, technol-
tance from the welfare state, city living was becoming too ogy, navigation, and associated colonial exploitations.4
difficult: it meant rising housing costs, time lost to conges- During the 1980s many European cities started to react
tion, and huge physical effort to access such sites of every- to their decline and look for answers to the social and eco-
day life as schools, hospitals, offices and shops. nomic problems caused by the growing wastelands they
The interpretations given focused on the obvious trend contained. In particular, they began to compete against
toward decentralization and “deterritorialization.” Busi- each other to employ newly vacant land to attract substi-
nesses could cut costs by moving to less expensive labor tutes for lost functions. Museums, theaters and exhibition
markets. At the same time, the technology base and the halls; office buildings and sports facilities; congress halls,
geopolitical framework of the European metropolis were airports and shopping malls were proposed as ways to fill
changing. The world economy was restructuring, and the these urban voids. But their construction has frequently

6 Secchi / Rethinking and Redesigning the Urban Landscape

 The Future Metropolitan Landscape: Wasted and Reclaimed Landscapes

led only to further fragmentation of urban territories. Such ture of the egalitarian welfare society of the mid-twentieth
urban restructuring has also given rise to a redistribution of century. By the same logic, museums, congress halls, air-
monetary and symbolic value. ports, and shopping malls, situated in a fragmented urban
Every renovatio urbis faces the problem of its legitimacy. realm, are seen as the key infrastructure for our present
Why this intervention and not another? Why there and competitive and less egalitarian society.
not elsewhere? Why now and not at a different time, or Architecture and environmental design remain essen-
within a different sequence? Why this architecture and tial tools in any process of urban renovation. However,
image and not a different one? Since the 1980s the answer because the amount of wasted and decommissioned land
to these questions has been to let the market drive these in European cities is so extensive, it is unlikely any new
decisions. Such a pragmatic approach is perfectly consis- building program will be able to fill the present void. Few
tent with the contemporary emphasis on uncertainty; on activities can compare with the industries of the past in
a belief in a communication society5; and on the “laws” of terms of direct and indirect land consumption. And of the
demand, where supply is directed by concepts like “Form proposed new uses, commercial activities and transporta-
follows Fiction” and “Fear, Finesse and Finance.”6
In the nineteenth century, opera houses and railway
stations were the symbols of a society inspired by the posi- Left: Map of Antwerp and its regional area highlighting the dense fabric of small
tivistic ideology of progress. Likewise, schools, hospitals, villages surrounding the city’s historic core.
parks, and playgrounds were seen as the basic infrastruc- Right: The profusion of empty and vacant industrial buildings in Antwerp.

Places 19.1 7
tion infrastructure, including parking lots, are the most Its port is second in Europe only to Rotterdam’s, and it
land intensive. remains the center of the Flemish diamond industry. Yet
The absence of a clear and comprehensive vision of it is clearly a city in decline, a place where many industrial
the urban future has also led to incoherent choices about areas and residential buildings lie abandoned. It is also a
the location, dimensions and aesthetics of new building divided city, where different social and interest groups
projects. And today these choices are largely dictated by keep distance from one another and hold different visions
specific interests and expressive of the old conflict between of the future.
public and private value. Albeit poorer and less attractive than in the past,
Antwerp does still occupy a fundamental place in the heart
The Case of Antwerp of Europe. It still has connections to a river, even if it does
Recently, as a way to address more general issues related not profit from them, and it remains a world city, thanks
to postindustrial European urbanism, Paola Viganò and to its multicultural character. But its leaders, until several
I have been developing a new vision and specific design years ago, had no clear vision or policies to prevent further
proposals for the city of Antwerp. The importance of disintegration.
Antwerp to the history of Western urbanization has been Until the end of the twentieth century, Antwerp had
largely ignored. During the sixteenth century, like Venice, been attempting to deal with its growing social and eco-
Genoa, Amsterdam, Lisbon and London, it was a “hub” of nomic complexity through policies of separation and
trade, facilitating connections between different parts of fragmentation. The harbor was moved to solve the con-
the globe. flict between the port and the city. Conflicts between old
Today, Antwerp is a wonderful but very harsh place. residents and new immigrants were solved by letting the

8 Secchi / Rethinking and Redesigning the Urban Landscape

 The Future Metropolitan Landscape: Wasted and Reclaimed Landscapes

former leave the city, while restricting access by the latter. pean ports—Rotterdam and Antwerp; important regional
A similar strategy was pursued to resolve the conflict capitals like Amsterdam, Maastricht and Köln; and his-
between industry and housing, as many industrial activities toric cities such as Delft, Haarlem, Aachen, Breda, Gent,
were pushed out to the suburbs, some very distant, leaving Leyden, Leuven and Utrecht. It also provides the head-
only empty spaces bordered by ghettos. quarters for important national and international compa-
Such policies have now reached their limit. The port has nies, universities, and institutions.
reached the national border to the north, and is now plan- The region also boasts an extraordinary infrastructural
ning to reoccupy space nearer the city (obviously in a dif- density. As such, it constitutes a new form of city, differ-
ferent form and under different circumstances than in the ent from traditional megacities like Paris and London, and
past). And though the cost of land prevents most people from Peter Hall’s description of new global cities.8 The
from owning the isolated homes of their dreams, social spatial character of this new megacity should be an impor-
separation has now divided the city into noninteracting tant opportunity for the formulation of a new type of urban
enclaves. Most important, fragmentation and separation design practice.
cannot support an ecologically sound urban system.7 Starting from the perspective of renovatio urbis, Viganò
Despite these problems, Antwerp is undergoing mod- and I have developed a series of hypothetical scenarios
ernization, as the city and its territory are evolving rapidly
and radically into a metropolis within a large megalopolis
known as the Northwest Metropolitan Area (NWMA). Opposite: A dense network of streams, rivers and canals make Antwerp a “water city.”
This emerging megacity includes two national capi- Above left: Antwerp, the “porous city.”
tals—Brussels and The Hague; two of the largest Euro- Above right: A map showing the system of strategic sites for a future renovatio urbis.

Places 19.1 9
 system. Similarly, the abandoned industrial sites and build-
ings within the urban fabric have turned Antwerp into a
porous city. This porosity offers the opportunity to create
a new constructed landscape within the urban region.9
Finally, the extremely high density of infrastructure, espe-
cially of rail and tram lines, has already transformed the
region between Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Leuven into
a rail city, where residents can live and work without being
overly dependent on the automobile.
These images guided our team in a planning process for
the whole city, whose outcome was meant both to inspire
and legitimize specific urban design projects. Using these
images to create scenarios for the future, we asked repre-
sentatives of the city a variety of provocative questions.

• What would happen if we let nature grow and expand?

• What would happen if an alternative mobility network
were improved instead of a highway network?
• What if we link together the existing green areas along
the rivers using the abandoned industrial sites?
• What if the main attraction is a new river landscape that
could accommodate ecology-supporting activities?
• What if we linked each one of the previous images to
some specific design projects and used the scenarios as a
tool to check their feasibility?

It is important in an era dominated by the rhetoric of

uncertainty to pay attention to visions that help people
reflect on different possibilities and opportunities. Discuss-
ing these hypothetical scenarios with the public seemed the
only valuable strategy to us.

A New Metropolitan Form

Our work in Antwerp has allowed us to generalize about
some of the opportunities facing the European city. At
least until the 1980s, planners thought it possible to fill
urban voids created by disappearing industries with tra-
ditional and new functions. But our work has shown that
these strategies are ultimately ineffective.
rooted in the collective imagination of Antwerp residents. Today the urbanized region of Antwerp consists of
For instance, it is clear that Antwerp is a water city. The porous, fragmented, discontinuous and dispersed vil-
water of the river Schelde—its tributaries and canals that lages where a heterogeneous mix of people, activities and
cut across the territory—dominates its landscape. Conceiv- projects coexist. Yet Antwerp is also a city where the bar-
ing Antwerp in this way offers an opportunity for struc- riers between indoor and outdoor space are vanishing;
tural transformation, using water as part of the ecological where environmental sensitivity is growing; where policy
is guided by concern for sustainability; and where public
transport is being promoted as an alternative to depen-
Above: Proposal for a new park and urban redevelopment in the Spoornord area. dence on the private automobile.
Opposite: Example of contemporary renovatio urbis: plan for Theaterplein square. Antwerp also shows how nineteenth- and twentieth-

10 Secchi / Rethinking and Redesigning the Urban Landscape

 The Future Metropolitan Landscape: Wasted and Reclaimed Landscapes

century modernity invaded the physical, social and insti- concept of “right distance,” a distance at which people and
tutional concept of city and territory with great might, activities are willing to connect.
using up enormous amounts of land. Today’s modernity, The new concepts of ecological compatibility, porosity,
if managed well, puts less stress on the urban fabric. and right distance compel us to rethink the contemporary
Being malleable, it can also percolate into existing spaces city, and imagine a city design where form follows biodi-
through transformation. versity, social diversity, social practices, and natural pro-
While today’s modernity is economically and socially cesses, rather than “Fiction, Fear, Finesse and Finance.”
aggressive, it doesn’t appear to present the radical spatial
demands of the first industrial revolution. Thus, today’s Notes
modernity can be made more attentive to environmental 1. M. Foucault, L’archéologie du Savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1969).
sustainability than the modernity of the past. However, 2. P. Viganò, La Città Elementare (Milano: Skira, 1999).
from a renovatio urbis perspective, there remains a need to 3. E. Orsenna, Les Chevaliers du Subjonctif (Paris: Stock, 2004).
articulate a comprehensive vision of metropolitan form so 4. A. Foscari and M. Tafuri, L’armonia e i Conflitti (Torino: Einaudi, 1983).
that designers can legitimize their work strategically and 5. M. Perniola, Contro la Comunicazione (Torino: Einaudi, 2004).
thematically. 6. N. Ellin, Postmodern Urbanism (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996).
As the case of Antwerp shows, it is not the European city 7. B. Secchi and P. Viganò, “Antwerp, Territory for a New Modernity: Strategisch
that is disappearing, but certain concepts of urbanity and Ruimtelijk Structuurplan Antwerpen,” Antwerp, 2005.
their traditional interpretations. The social and functional 8. P. Hall, “The Changing European Urban System,” in Politicas Urbanas: Tendencias,
mix visible in contemporary European cities is different Estrategias e Oportunitdades (Lisboa: Fondaçao Calouste Gulbenkian, 2003).
from traditional functions. In the allocation of new func- 9. Porosity is used here according to the interpretation given by Walter Benjamin
tions, an evaluation now has to be made that introduces and E. Bloch. See W. Benjamin (1925), “Napoli, Ora,” in Opere Complete, vol. II
the concept of environmental compatibility. The same can (Torino: Einaudi, 2001); and E. Bloch, “Verfremdungen II (Geographica),” in
be said of the traditional concepts of zoning and land use Literarische Aufsätze, Gesamtausgabe Band 9 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1965).
hierarchies. Little by little these concepts must be replaced
until a true porosity of uses and activities emerges. All images are courtesy of the author.
Likewise, terms like the dispersion of density and prox-
imity are disappearing. They are being replaced by the

Places 19.1 11