The crisis of urban contextualism

Abstract

The second half of the 20th century was marked by the review,criticism, and bringing down of the ideals of Modernism. Anyattempts to review Modernism were replaced by an urban experiencethat was strictly based on the city/architecture model.In the 1970s, some experiences marked a shift from previous urbanpractice. The Berlin IBA, Barcelona’s Olympic Village, and thereconstruction of reunified Berlin are examples of existing areas thatbecome the main objects of study. Such experiments were generallydeemed as contextualist studies, since they were based on similarapproaches when dealing with the existing city, despite theirparticular demands and contexts. In the context of the city as ahistorical construction, importance was placed on its image andplanimetry, aspects that are seen in different ways in the threecases listed above. Also, hard criticism toward the city of modernurbanism is based on the argument that lies at the root of theseformulations.However, we see that these experiences have generated somecriticism, implying that the issue of intervention in the existing cityin the late twentieth century demanded the addition of new factorsto the limited equation of urban contextualist thought. Theconcepts established by Ignasi de Solà-Morales at the 1966International Architects Union Congress seem to have laid thefoundations on which the complexity of the contemporary city havebeen based.