Reading Socio-Spatial Interplay - Arkitektur- og designhøgskolen i ...

R E A D I N G S O C I O - S P A T I A L I N T E R P L A Y P A R T 2residents: 275 People were now to be rescued from the dark, dirty andunhealthy backyards. 276This entailed a focus on more air (natural ventilation) and daylight indomestic units, and public access to recreational activities in sports arenasand greenery, but also on establishing a better system of institutions for massculture and general education. Speed, mobility and efficient transportation,and a focus on environmental disadvantages related to mixing housing andpolluting activities, entailed architectural solutions with functional zoning,and a more hierarchical traffic system.As described in Hals’ 1929 general plan, 277 the functionally specialized zoneswere based on an idea of the city as an organic entity, in which differentfunctions were connected and set to complement each other to form a totality:An urban organism that was concentrically organized around the city center –in contrast to later polycentric ideas developed after 1950. 278 This impliedthat the new urban areas not only were planned to serve its new inhabitants,but also to comprise a repertoire of collective modern institutions andstructures serving the whole urban society: The functionalistic growth beltsupplied the urban landscape with a range of new public and semi-publicinstitutions for popular culture, health and general education: cinemas, sportsarenas, museums, public baths and swimming pools, public seaside resorts(outside the growth belt), large folk parks, health centres, and libraries, inaddition to a hospital and a new university campus (at Blindern). Theincreased focus on recreational arenas was of course also related to the factthat people had more spare time; what was an average of 12 hours workingdays in 1900 was reduced to an average of 8 hours working day after 1918-1919. 279 Since the new popular, public institutions were built to serve the275 Knut Kjelstadlie 1990: Den delte byen. Fra 1900 til 1948. Vol. 4 in Oslo bys historie, Oslo, Cappelensforlag, p. 371.276 The sanitary problems were related to three characteristics of the 19th century urban blocks that effectedepidemic situations and gave short life time expectancy in working class areas: 1) cholera – related to the jointuse of pit privies and lack of private bathrooms; 2) tuberculosis and other infectious air-born diseases – relatedto overcrowded apartments and lack of natural ventilation and disinfecting sunlight that could have preventeddroplet infection; and 3) general health weakness, high infant mortality and immunity problems among thepopulace – related to polluted air, long working days and lack of easy access to spaces for recreational play,sports and exercise in fresh air/greenery. In addition, social problems related to class-related segregation of thecity’s housing areas, and lack of easy access to collective spaces for recreation and general education, wereconsidered as problems that were related to urban form. As such the problems might be possible to remedy –even if not solved completely – by new architectural solutions.277 Harald Hals 1929: Fra Christiania til Stor-Oslo, Oslo.278 Hals’ use of metaphors in his 1929-general plan is analyzed in Jonny Aspen 2003: Byplanlegging somrepresentasjon – en analyse av Harald Hals’ generalplan for Oslo av 1929, PhD thesis, AHO, Oslo, pp 286-95. Hals’ extensive use of physiological metaphors, as when he describes the city as a “living body” (Hals1929: p. 48), claims that the parts of the city are connected like “molecules in a body” (p. 96), discusses the“urban organism” (p. 201, 211) and describes the network of streets as “the skeleton of the urban plan” (p.122), can however also be read as illustrations emphasizing the idea that the development of the new urbanareas not only were supposed to provide the inhabitants with better housing conditions, but also solve lacksand problems in the existing working class areas by providing the whole city with a structure of spaces formodern collective recreational activities: mass culture, sports, etc.279 Kjelstadlie 1990: p.424153