JOVIS Catalog 2019

48
#saopaulo #monuments
Monuments of Everyday Life
Interplays of City, Infrastructure and Architecture in São Paulo
Sarah Hartmann
Monuments have fascinated human beings and enriched cities throughout different
periods and in various forms—as repositories of history and memories, as places to spend
time, as meeting points, and as points of orientation. However, as a major component
of the discipline of architecture and urban design, the term “monument,” along with its
relationship to the city, is in crisis.
This book explores a rediscovery of the concept of monuments as essential and creative
parts of cities. The ideas in Monuments of Everyday Life are outlined by the rereading of
four powerful, multifaceted urban locations in São Paulo. It reveals the specific spatial
patterns around monuments, which are understood as alternatives to places of instability
and the commercialisation and homogenisation of urban space. It discusses the relevance
of monuments as reference points for collective life and material representatives
of collective values. Monuments of Everyday Life draws conclusions from the past—but
more than that, it addresses relevant questions and possibilities concerning urban futures.
Flexcover
13 x 19 cm
approx. 256 pages, num. col. and b/w
English
EUR (D) 29.80
ISBN 978-3-86859-555-0
2019
9 783868 595550
Fig. 6. tives in order to get used to this multiplicity” (De Solà-Morales 2008, p.26). Monuments
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Cities do need Monuments!
STATEMENT
Fig. 1. tives in order to get used to this multiplicity” (De Solà-Morales 2008, p.26). Monuments
The topic of monuments is as old as the city itself. The Pyramids in Giza, the Colosseum in
Rome, the Arc de Triumph in Paris, the Empire State Building in New York... through various
periods monuments have fascinated human beings and enriched cities as storages of
memories and histories, as places to spend time, meeting points and points of orientation.
However, as a major component of the discipline of architecture and urban design, the
term monument and its relation to the city has been in a crisis for a hundred years.
Due to intense transformations in the urban fabrics that resulted from worldwide urbanisation,
globalisation and the increasing digitalisation, the present research fathomed possibilities
for a re-interpretation of the term for the contemporary practice of architecture
and urban design. Based on the understanding that “the city has ceased to be a figure in
which the public can see its reflection as an intact whole” (D’Hooghe, p.7) the search for
a new monumentality1 still seems to remain as an “unfinished project” (ibid.). The general
shift of values and social demands goes along with the need for a fundamental renewal of
the concept of the term. Either due to its historical significance and negative connotations
as symbol of power or due to the pictorial flatness of touristy monuments, the term seems
to be currently dilapidated within the production of the contemporary city. Although it was
once considered as an architectural virtue and important component of the city. Fernando
de Mello Franco states that “The architecture of inert materialities, of objects fixed in space
and permanent in time, has proven to be inadequate to meet the changing demands that
arise from the rapid process of the construction of the contemporary city. What makes
architecture effective, more than striving for the permanence of monuments, is to activate
its capacity to adapt to changing situations” (Franco 2011 B, p.182). Against this background,
the concept of Monuments of Everyday Life provides a new perspective on the
“old” question of public space and the role of architecture, and specifically monuments,
within it. As De Solà Morales argues: “The contemporary city is not becoming uglier every
day: it grows ever richer. […] If in order to interpret the form of the contemporary city we try
to reinvent a new catalogue of spaces, the prototypes that we thought we had discovered
have disappeared by the next day […]. Thus many commentators repeat the tired old mantra
that the city is in retreat, indeed that historically it is worn out […]. On the contrary, there
are more places everyday. Extension and occupation are increasing exponentially. There
are also more contacts every day. And more activities, uses, constructions, movements,
areas, urban images. The number of urban objects is multiplying. We need new perspectives
in order to get used to this multiplicity” (De Solà-Morales 2008, p.26). Monuments of
Everyday Life provide new perspectives on the existing tissue in order to re-shape and to
consciously design the built environment and vice versa to make use of the extraordinary
1 At first, Sigfried Giedion, José Luis Sert and Fernand Láger strived with “The Need for a New Monumentality” (1944) as
a the modern voices for a new monumentality, involving architects and artist in view of the emerging social problems
after the Second World War.
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