Failed Architecture

Mecca is the holiest city in the Islamic religion and the birthplace of the prophet Mohamed. Located just off Saudi Arabia’s western coast, all Muslims are required to visit at least once in their life if they are physically able to. With air travel becoming easier, the number of pilgrims has been rising rapidly over the last few decades, with a record number of 3 million people visiting Mecca simultaneously during the 2012 Hajj. More recently, visa regulations have been made more strict to keep the situation under control.

In this episode, we discuss with various experts how this rising number of pilgrims is fueling a radical makeover of the city. While Mecca has always been changing and under construction, the current developments are of an unprecedented scale. What does Mecca’s radical makeover look like? Who is profiting from these developments and what does it mean for the city’s spiritual character? What does the current building craze mean for older buildings, and what will happen to the hundreds of thousands of people who live in the city’s informal settlements?

– Ameneh Solati is an architect and urban researcher based in London, until recently working with Rotterdam’s Het Nieuwe Instituut

This episode was directed by René Boer/the Failed Architecture team.

Contemporary urban discourse relies overwhelmingly on visual representation. While it may be more effective both in conveying the actual appearance of a particular urban space and in communicating the intentions of the architect and the planner, this kind of representation leaves little room for individual interpretation and cannot possibly capture the full range of feelings and emotions that people attach to particular places. For this, we must also turn to the more immediate sensations of touch, smell, taste and sound. This episode explores the last of these sensations, considering what it means to represent cities and architecture through sound.

Unlike the visual, sound cannot be so easily contained, it flows freely, stimulating memories, helping to create a collective urban experience and bridging gaps across space and time. As such, recording and discussing the built environment through the medium of sound offers a vital means through which to challenge the dominant ways in which architecture and cities are represented. The main part of this episode comprises a conversation between hosts Mark, Rene and Charlie, unpacking the work involved in producing a podcast about architecture and discussing what it means to represent architecture through sound and how music, in particular, can convey certain urban moods. But in the breaks, we will also introduce a series of other sounds found on Aporee, an online map tool on which people can post geo-located sounds.

This episode was directed by Charlie Clemoes/the Failed Architecture team.

Contemporary urban discourse relies overwhelmingly on visual representation. While it may be more effective both in conveying the actual appearance of a particular urban space and in communicating the intentions of the architect and the planner, this kind of representation leaves little room for individual interpretation and cannot possibly capture the full range of feelings and emotions that people attach to particular places. For this, we must also turn to the more immediate sensations of touch, smell, taste and sound. This episode explores the last of these sensations, considering what it means to represent cities and architecture through sound.

Unlike the visual, sound cannot be so easily contained, it flows freely, stimulating memories, helping to create a collective urban experience and bridging gaps across space and time. As such, recording and discussing the built environment through the medium of sound offers a vital means through which to challenge the dominant ways in which architecture and cities are represented. The main part of this episode comprises a conversation between hosts Mark, Rene and Charlie, unpacking the work involved in producing a podcast about architecture and discussing what it means to represent architecture through sound and how music, in particular, can convey certain urban moods. But in the breaks, we will also introduce a series of other sounds found on Aporee, an online map tool on which people can post geo-located sounds.

This episode was directed by Charlie Clemoes/the Failed Architecture team.

Albert Speer is one of the most infamous architects in history. During his time working for the Nazi Party he was responsible for designing the Reich Chancellery and the Zeppelinfeld Stadium in which the Nuremberg rallies took place, as well as being in charge of Germany’s war production during the Second World War and having responsibility for the plan to reconstruct Berlin as Germania. Yet by emphasising his detachment from the general conditions in which he was working, he was able to avoid the death sentence after the war.

While his is an extreme example, it offers a compelling jumping off point to explore the wider issue of an architect’s responsibility for the wider system that they work in. Moving from mid-20th Century Germany to the present day, this episode explores the specific role certain architects have played in developing the stadiums and infrastructure for the 2022 Qatar World Cup. Here, gross violations of human rights and international labour law throw up serious questions about the moral ramifications of designing projects in such a country. How can architects balance the benefit of bringing a smooth, shiny new project against the human cost required to produce it?

— Thomas Rogers works as a freelance journalist, editor and translator in Berlin, often for SPIEGEL International.

This episode was directed by Charlie Clemoes/the Failed Architecture team.

Albert Speer is one of the most infamous architects in history. During his time working for the Nazi Party he was responsible for designing the Reich Chancellery and the Zeppelinfeld Stadium in which the Nuremberg rallies took place, as well as being in charge of Germany’s war production during the Second World War and having responsibility for the plan to reconstruct Berlin as Germania. Yet by emphasising his detachment from the general conditions in which he was working, he was able to avoid the death sentence after the war.

While his is an extreme example, it offers a compelling jumping off point to explore the wider issue of an architect’s responsibility for the wider system that they work in. Moving from mid-20th Century Germany to the present day, this episode explores the specific role certain architects have played in developing the stadiums and infrastructure for the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

Here, gross violations of human rights and international labour law throw up serious questions about the moral ramifications of designing projects in such a country. How can architects balance the benefit of bringing a smooth, shiny new project against the human cost required to produce it?

— Thomas Rogers works as a freelance journalist, editor and translator in Berlin, often for SPIEGEL International.

— Nicholas McGeehan is a Gulf researcher who has worked at Human Rights Watch as the Bahrain, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates researcher and at Mafiwasta, an organisation for workers’ rights in the United Arab Emirate, where he was also director.

This episode was directed by Charlie Clemoes / the Failed Architecture team

Italy’s landscape is dotted with unfinished structures. For a myriad of reasons, the construction of these buildings and pieces of infrastructure stopped half-way, leaving the often concrete and often striking remains of hitherto incomplete plans. The ‘Incompiuto Siciliano’ (Unfinished Sicilian) project has been mapping and researching these many structures, on Sicily as well as in the rest of the country. And, to draw attention to the phenomenon, started to refer to them as “Italy’s Most Prominent Architectural Style”.

In this episode, we join Incompiuto on a trip to one of the largest unfinished objects, ‘La Diga di Blufi’, 130km south of Palermo. Construction of this impressive water engineering project, which was supposed to supply southern Sicily with drinking water, was abruptly halted in the 1990s and has since become a 260-hectare contemporary ruin. Together with architects and artists involved in the project, we discuss the many implications of the ‘Incompiuti’, from their poetic qualities to the planning failures, from ruin porn to the need for spiritual structures, all the while contemplating architecture’s illusion of completion.

– Veronica Caprino is an architect based in Milan and part of Fosbury Architecture

This episode was directed by Mark Minkjan en René Boer/the Failed Architecture team.

Italy’s landscape is dotted with unfinished structures. For a myriad of reasons, the construction of these buildings and pieces of infrastructure stopped half-way, leaving the often concrete and often striking remains of hitherto incomplete plans. The ‘Incompiuto Siciliano’ (Unfinished Sicilian) project has been mapping and researching these many structures, on Sicily as well as in the rest of the country. And, to draw attention to the phenomenon, started to refer to them as “Italy’s Most Prominent Architectural Style”.

In this episode, we join Incompiuto on a trip to one of the largest unfinished objects, ‘La Diga di Blufi’, 130km south of Palermo. Construction of this impressive water engineering project, which was supposed to supply southern Sicily with drinking water, was abruptly halted in the 1990s and has since become a 260-hectare contemporary ruin. Together with architects and artists involved in the project, we discuss the many implications of the ‘Incompiuti’, from their poetic qualities to the planning failures, from ruin porn to the need for spiritual structures, all the while contemplating architecture’s illusion of completion.

– Veronica Caprino is an architect based in Milan and part of Fosbury Architecture

This episode was directed by Mark Minkjan en René Boer/the Failed Architecture team.

The area around Calais, a town in northern France, has for many years been a major transit point for refugees on their way to the United Kingdom. During the recent peak in the number of refugees, the French and British authorities increasingly fortified this border landscape, forcing those on the move to build increasingly permanent shelters for themselves. As this self-built city, also sometimes referred to as ‘the jungle’, continued to grow the response of the authorities became increasingly violent. Now, the self-built city has been demolished and its inhabitants displaced.

The media hype following these events prompted a large number of aid workers, activists, volunteers, but also architects to make their way to Calais. For this episode, we talk to a few of them to find out what in particular triggered them to go, what they encountered and what they did. How should architects relate to these large, self-built areas? Is it possible to make a positive contribution in such a complex environment? Should ‘architecture’ be the focus of these violent border systems? And is there a need to document or archive such self-built cities?

– Grainne Hassett is a Dublin-based architect, who initiated various construction projects in Calais as well as worked on an extensive documentation project.

This episode was directed by René Boer/the Failed Architecture team.

In this episode, we use the work of London-based rapper Gaika to explore the subject of London, talking to both Gaika and Ash Sarkar, a senior editor at Novara Media who has previously collaborated with Gaika, about the city’s near future and its recent past. Gaika’s work covers a lot of themes, but his ‘Security’ and ‘Spectacular Empire’ projects are among the most incisive articulations of the mood that has pervaded London in the past decade. Produced in 2016 and 2017 respectively, these two projects cover a diverse array of themes: ranging from race, the built environment and the housing market, to technology, space, and security… all the while employing the time-honoured medium of speculative fiction to diagnose the present historical moment.

Casting a long shadow over this subject, as well as Gaika’s own work, the 2011 London Riots occupy a significant part of the initial discussion. Both Ash and Gaika speculate on the conditions which caused the riots and consider their implications for the future of the city, as well as society more generally. From there, we move on to discuss London’s relative stability and the value of insurrectionary moments to a progressive urban politics, along the way making references to, among other things, defensible space, One Hyde Park, gnostic fantasies, that Redrow advert, and the ironic lightness of a possible communism that is not definable in any way.

This episode was directed by Charlie Clemoes/the Failed Architecture team.

In this episode, we use the work of London-based rapper Gaika to explore the subject of London, talking to both Gaika and Ash Sarkar, a senior editor at Novara Media who has previously collaborated with Gaika, about the city’s near future and its recent past.

Gaika’s work covers a lot of themes, but his “Security” and “Spectacular Empire” projects are among the most incisive articulations of the mood that has pervaded London in the past decade. Produced in 2016 and 2017 respectively, these two projects cover a diverse array of themes: ranging from race, the built environment and the housing market, to technology, space, and security… all the while employing the time-honoured medium of speculative fiction to diagnose the present historical moment.

Casting a long shadow over this subject, as well as Gaika’s own work, the 2011 London Riots occupy a significant part of the initial discussion. Both Ash and Gaika speculate on the conditions which caused the riots and consider their implications for the future of the city, as well as society more generally.

From there, we move on to discuss London’s relative stability and the value of insurrectionary moments to a progressive urban politics, along the way making references to, among other things, defensible space, One Hyde Park, gnostic fantasies, that Redrow advert, and the ironic lightness of a possible communism that is not definable in any way.

References (in order of appearance):

7.31

9.26

20:21

28.21

30.02

34.42

36.49

40.04

44.13

51.16

53.40

59.11

1.03.32