Andrès Duany Responds To Critics In Vancouver

I actually don’t view avant-gardes and new urbanists as necessarily being so at odds with one another. They both serve different functions and needs. One is primarily artistic and the other primarily functional. Both are necessary aspects of great urbanism. Hence they both can appropriately work in their respective places. Avante-Garde buildings work well as civic structures for the most part. Meanwhile traditional urbanistic ideas work well for our everyday buildings. Together they can produce and even greater, non-competing, outcome. The key is context and moderation. I would never make the argument for every building to be a Frank Gehry, yet at the same time I would also not argue for everything looking like the Kentlands (MD), Propect (CO), or New Town (MO).

I think the cover of the New Civic Art illustrates this concept best. On the cover, the Gerhy building in Balboa is shown terminating the end of a vista. The building breaks every urbanistic rule as it strives for artistic expression. The key in this instance however, is that the view of the building is framed by silent, repetitive, functional, high quality urbanism.

Essentially the Zaha Hadid and Gerhry buildlings have become the "Cathedrals" of our time. They are meant to break every rule, and should! They convey the artistic ideas, aspirations, and technical prowess of our civilization. The cathedrals of Europe were at one time "avante-garde" and they also broke conventional urbanistic rules of their time, in a search for artistic expression. The key is that high quality, responsible, repetitive urbanism should serve as a canvass from which these "Cathedrals" should sing out. 98% of our buildings should be responsible urbanistic buildings, built upon a tradition of acquired knowledge a sort of "best practices" as you will. The other remaining 2% should be our most important buildings, churches, city halls, museums, etc., in which architects can fully explore artistic expression.

In conclusion, if every building were a Gehry, nothing would stand out and we would live in a form of chaos. On the other hand, if everything were Kentlands life would be sort of boring and uninspiring. It is the marriage of these two movements (Avant-Garde/New Urbanism), along with environmentalism, which is setting the stage for the greatest achievements in urbanism, awaiting in the 21st Century!

ps. I really wish the Disney concert hall in Los Angeles could have somehow been set in the middle of a plaza surrounded by refined high quality urbanism. This plaza could have become an even greater high quality civic space than already exists in the northern downtown.

Notice that Duany criticizes old-line environmentalists who just focus on more greenery in the city, and he says he is a new type of environmentalist:

"They want less lot coverage. They want more permeable surface. They want naturalistic landscaping that is as close to looking like nature as possible. ... [But] urbanism is environmentalism by other means. The environmentalism of urbanism is not about more green -- it's about having people willingly living in high density. It's about willingly walking rather than driving, and willingly taking transit."

I think he doesn't realize how much environmentalists have been influenced by his work. A decade or two ago, I was on the committee that developed an urban growth policy for the Sierra Club SF Bay Chapter, and much of work was inspired by Duany.

By now, I think most environmentalists realize that building pedestrian and transit-oriented development is vital, and so they favor higher density.

Duany has led the way in developing principles for building walkable neighborhoods, and these principles have made modernist auto-oriented urban design obsolete. That is obviously an immense accomplishment.

Charles Siegel