LITMIR.BIZ

      First published by Verso 2020

      © Pablo Sendra and Richard Sennett 2020

      All rights reserved

      The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

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       Verso

      UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG

      US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201

      versobooks.com

      Verso is the imprint of New Left Books

      ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-780-7

      ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-781-4 (UK EBK)

      ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-782-1 (US EBK)

       British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Sendra, Pablo, author. | Sennett, Richard, 1943- author. | Hollis, Leo, interviewer.

      Title: Designing disorder : experiments and disruptions in the city / Pablo Sendra and Richard Sennett.

      Description: London ; New York : Verso, 2020. | Includes index. | Summary:

      “In 1970, Richard Sennett published the groundbreaking The Uses of Disorder, arguing that the ideal of a planned and ordered city was flawed. Fifty years later, Sennett returns to these still fertile ideas and, alongside campaigner and architect Pablo Sendra, sets out an agenda for the design and ethics of the Open City. The public spaces of our cities are under siege from planners, privatisation and increased surveillance. Our streets are becoming ever more lifeless and ordered. What is to be done? Can disorder be designed? In this provocative essay Sendra and Sennett propose a reorganisation of how we think and plan the social life of our cities. ‘Infrastructures of disorder’ combine architecture, politics, urban planning and activism in order to develop places that nurture rather than stifle, bring together rather than divide up, remain open to change rather than closed off”— Provided by publisher.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2019052099 (print) | LCCN 2019052100 (ebook) | ISBN 9781788737807 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781788737821 (ebook)

      Subjects: LCSH: Public spaces—Social aspects. | City planning—Social aspects. | City and town life.

      Classification: LCC HT185 .S55 2020 (print) | LCC HT185 (ebook) | DDC 307.1/216—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052099

      LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052100

      Typeset in Sabon by MJ & N Gavan, Truro, Cornwall

      Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

      Contents

Introduction

PART I. CIVIL SOCIETY

1. The Politics of the Hidden City

2. Open Forms

PART II. INFRASTRUCTURES FOR DISORDER

3. From the Paper to the Plan

       4. Below

       5. Above

       6. Disorder in Section

       7. Process and Flux

       PART III. UNMAKING AND MAKING

       Acknowledgements

      Notes

Introduction

       Pablo Sendra and Richard Sennett

      Rigid, overdetermined forms are smothering the modern city. These unyielding environments suppress people’s freedom to act, stifle informal social relations, and inhibit the city’s power to grow. In this book, we propose an alternative, underdetermined form of city-making, one which disrupts rigid forms, putting in their place more life-enhancing designs.

      Evidence of overdetermined form now dominates Manhattan’s skyline. Located at the north end of the High Line, Hudson Yards represents the commercially driven urbanism that has transformed cities like New York and London. Hudson Yards is an assemblage of luxury condominiums and rentals, a hotel, offices, restaurants and a shopping mall offering the most expensive brands. In its centre is the Vessel, a sculptural staircase designed less for use than as a picture frame for commercial promotions.¹ The square is delimited in its south part by the ‘Shed’, a gigantic movable structure that aims to become a flexible arts venue for big-ticket performances. This enormous development neither encourages local activities by ordinary citizens, nor can its fixed forms evolve; it can only degrade.

      In contrast, Hudson Yards is bordered on its east side by the Garment District, a vibrant, diverse community with small as well as large businesses, mixing relatively recent Korean immigrants with other established immigrant communities, combining housing for working- and middle-class people with schools and churches. This complex, often noisy and unruly community has been able to evolve and prosper over the last century and a half.