| Christina Lanzl All architectural archetypes contain the DNA of memory and are based on basic shapes or derivatives of circle, square, rectangle, triangle with their sheer limitless geometric potential. Vitruvius conceived the evolution of form beginning with the primitive hut in his multi-volume work, De architectura, an understanding shared the Enlightenment and published by Marc Antoine Laugier in his Essays sur l’Architecture in 1753. Providing basic shelter, the primitive hut contains the rectangle and the triangle in its ground plane and section. The lineage of typologies continues to be explored by architectural historians. Siegfried Gideon, for instance, considered the evolution of the circle: “The circular structure […] moved from the primitive round hut through several intermediary stages to the cylindrical rotunda of the tholos: a form that had an unusual vitality and acquired many different meanings. The shape originally was related to chthonic forces. In the Roman era, it became linked with the cosmos through the development of the radiating form of the cupola dome.” (Gideon, p. 79) Considered more globally, the round building appears among the earliest structures in many cultures: as Neolithic mounds in various regions around the world, in the African kraal or boma villages, the Native American hogan and the teepee, the Aboriginal humpy and the igloo of the Eskimos, the structures of the Hakka or of the Ashoka dynasty found at Sanchi and elsewhere in Asia. Cultural Memory Architects, commissioning agencies, clients or builders determine form, function and program of architecture. Based on (historic) context and/or aesthetic decisions, architecture contains vernacular or monumental, sacred or secular, traditional or avantgarde design principles. Over millennia, architects and builders have continuously drawn inspiration from the past to inform the the present and future. To do so, memory has been a consistent building block in developing form. Memory connects us humans to our individual and collective pasts, whether they are of a pleasant nature or conjure up sadness and loss. In examining the concept of cultural memory, renowned literary theory scholar, Aleida Assmann, recognizes two basic configurations: metaphors of space and metaphors of time, concluding that “the media of writing, photography, and electronic forms of storage provide consecutive metaphors and models for the internal mechanisms and dynamics of memory.” (Assmann, p. 137) Indeed, the physical manifestations of our collective memory largely consist of art and architecture starting with the Paleolithic, 400,000 years ago. Some of these harbingers of the past are still standing while others have disappeared. Similarly, Marc Streib notes that “buildings and their remains suggest stories of human fate, both real and imaginary.” (Streib, p. 21) The vast archive of our cultural memory continues to be extant because residues of our past have been (re)discovered, recorded, analyzed, (re)visited and documented through the ages. | Buildings are storage houses and museums of time and silence. Architectural structures have the capacity of transforming, speeding up, slowing down, and halting time. Marc Streib. Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape, p. 18 Architecture History Project: Typology, Memory & Place A project of Dr. Christina Lanzl and her Architecture History 01 seminar students in the Department of Architecture at Wentworth Institute of Technology, fall 2019. Course coordinator: Prof. Anne-Catrin Schultz. Architecture History and Theory 01 students: Zahra Ali, Spencer Asselin, Lenny Bamberg, Jordan Bembe, Sofia Bertine, Mary Bowman, Braeden Chan, Skylar Chardon, Carvens Charles, Coleman Conner, Reece Cortez, Emily Current, Dante Egizi, Ryan Estremera, Patrick Gould, Maegan Herd, Christopher Hudson, Calvin Johnson, Isabelle Morris, Royce Pease, Emilia Polanco, Ben Procter, Emily Quach, Casey Remillard, Paul Rudolph, Jona Sulaj, Gillian Valanzola, Amber Vuong, Anna Wason and Lexi Winston Project focus was to investigate the dialogue on memory of place. Recognizing and analyzing architectural typologies, i.e. classifications according to general type, was an important aspect of the learning outcomes. Working on this objective, students selected a historic building for analysis. A corresponding, modern or contemporary building was chosen by each student that shares a typology or organizational scheme with the historic antecedent. Students explored the layer of memory in sites ranging from antiquity to contemporary architecture. The task was to briefly lay out relationships concerning space, program, design or activity. Inquiries focused on various topics, including materiality, construction, scale, organization and hierarchy. Bibliography Assmann, Aleida. Cultural Memory and Western Civilization: Functions, Media, Archives. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Gideon, Siegfried. Architecture and the Phenomenon of Transition: The Three Space Conceptions in Architecture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971. Streib, Marc (ed.). Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape. New York: Routledge, 2009. |
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Christina Lanzl Receives Recognition of Service Award from Boston Society of Architects/AIA1/31/2020  Christina Lanzl received a Recognition of Service award from the Boston Society of Architects/AIA for "work, time, creativity and knowledge as Committee Chair for the Placemaking Network", which she initiated as a platform for cross-disciplinary dialogue and exchange in 2007. The explicit vision of the Placemaking Network is to “investigate ways to enrich the public realm through dialogue among urban planning, landscape design, architecture, and public art/design professionals” as well as engaged citizens.
The initial Boston Society of Architects newsletter announcement started with the premise: “The topics of placemaking and quality of life have entered architecture and planning conversations as they have entered creative arts conversations.” Rather than simply functioning as a standing committee, the Placemaking Network had a mission to build a network of like-minded people who would introduce placemaking principles to their work and communities. By now, the network has grown to include engaged citizens and professionals of many backgrounds and disciplines. Since the beginning, concepts and case studies have been shared at monthly seminars where invited speakers present topics that are then discussed in a moderated roundtable format. The foundation of our work is that placemaking offers interdisciplinary dialogue on a successful public realm that engages communities and enriches lives. Initially, the spark of successful public places that are actively used or programmed by communities was ignited by proactive urbanists, whose publications honed in on the placemaking tenets. After ten years of experience and conversations, the Placemaking Manifesto took form. Christina Lanzl invited co-chair Robert Tullis and architectural historian Anne-Catrin Schultz to co-write a one-page policy that lists the core placemaking principles in six points. Using the equation symbol to summarize each value the document reads like a poem. Our draft was reviewed and confirmed by our network’s interdisciplinary ad hoc working group. Succinctly, we concluded that placemaking is about sense of place. Everybody––people of all backgrounds, ages and abilities––can participate in creating successful public places. Everyone can serve the agenda of excellence in design, healthy communities and thriving neighborhoods. We see our built environment as a common good that comes alive through an understanding of how humans instinctively relate to space, design leadership that leverages it, and activity programming that capitalizes on it. Over the years, my ongoing work in the field of public art and with the Placemaking Network has been a cross-fertilizer on how to best mark place, history and time through integrative, community-based public art and culture that furthers identity, local storytelling as well as learning. This story includes an excerpt from the essay "Toward a New Paradigm: Public Art and Placemaking in the 21st Century" by Christina Lanzl, published in Extraordinary Partnerships: How the Arts and Humanities are Transforming Society, edited by Christine Henseler (Lever Press, 2020). Congratulations to Agustina Woodgate who is featured in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Agustina was a team member of the Kulturpark Berlin team just a couple of years ago. Kudos also go to Anthony Spinello of Spinello Projects in Miami, the master mind behind our outreach and grassroots fundraising campaign. We overcame great challenges along the way but prevailed thanks to the incredible support of an amazing community of creatives on both sides of the Atlantic.
Agustina ran the Kulturpark radio station during our Kulturpark project at the Spreepark, the abandoned theme park in Berlin's east. The newly developed master plan for the park envisions the first culture park in Europe––a vision we initially developed. She has been continuing to broadcast worldwide via her radioee.net. Download the 2019 Whitney Biennial Press Release. Save the Harbor / Save the Bay bestowed its annual Boston Harbor Heroes awards at a gala evening held in the grand ballroom of the Seaport Hotel on March 29, 2018. Among others, the South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition was honored for its "vision, tenacity and commitment to connecting Boston's neighborhoods to Boston Harbor and each other." Under the leadership of coalition founder, Michael Tyrrell, the team of David Giangrande, Christina Lanzl, Ann McQueen, Tom Parks, the late Bill Pressley and his wife Marion, Candelaria Silva and Bob Wells envisioned the South Bay Harbor Trail (SBHT) as part of a larger trail network that connects the Southwest Corridor Park from Jamaica Plain to the Boston Harborwalk downtown and in South Boston. Buoys salvaged and reconditioned by the US Coast Guard serve as markers and a playful reminder of Boston's rich maritime history. Main goal is to reconnect communities divided by major traffic arteries via an easily accessible, multi-use bicycle and pedestrian path. The first of a series of SBHT Buoys was dedicated along the Harborwalk in Fort Point Channel in November 2008. Funding for public art planning along the trail was provided by the Edward Ingersoll Browne Trust Fund of the City of Boston. Other funders include the ISTEA program, MassDOT, the New England Foundation for the Arts as well as private donors. Overall construction of the SBHT is underway as of spring 2018.
About the South Bay Harbor Trail The South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition, in partnership with Save the Harbor / Save the Bay, municipal and state agencies, partnered to plan and build the 3.5 mile-long, multi-use South Bay Harbor Trail which, when completed, will connect Roxbury, the South End, Chinatown, Fort Point Channel and South Boston to each other and to Boston Harbor. The South Bay Harbor Trail is one of the most important and exciting initiatives in the city connecting our inland neighborhoods to Boston Harbor. The Trail will link people to the recreational resources of a revitalized Boston Harbor and to the economic opportunities of a prospering waterfront. Residents from Boston’s diverse neighborhoods will have the opportunity to share in a cultural exchange. The South Bay Harbor Trail will provide an important link in the larger transportation network by connecting with existing streets and trails such as the Southwest Corridor and Melnea Cass Boulevard. It will also serve as a critical link in a citywide greenway, connecting trails from Fenway, the Southwest Corridor, Charles River Park, Broadway Bridge, Fort Point Channel and the Rose Kennedy Greenway. The South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition includes community groups, environmental organizations, the City of Boston, property owners, developers, and residents. It is governed by a steering committee which is comprised of coalition members representing every neighborhood through which the Trail will pass. The Coalition receives organizational, fundraising, and technical assistance from Save the Harbor/Save the Bay. The Coalition worked together with Pressley Associates, a Cambridge-based landscape architecture firm, and Design Consultants Inc., a Somerville-based engineering firm, to develop the engineering and design master plans that will link various completed segments of the trail into a contiguous, single trail system/experience. Christina Lanzl and Anne-Catrin Schultz presented a faculty lecture on placemaking, which introduced the Placemaking Manifesto, which they co-authored and issued together with Robert Tullis and members of the Boston Society of Architects/AIA Placemaking Network in fall 2017. Lanzl and Schultz highlighted placemaking principles outlined in the Manifesto by discussing a series of case studies from their professional practice.
The Lunchtime Conversation faculty lecture series is coordinated by Associate Professor Antonio Furgiuele, Department of Architecture within the College of Architecture, Design & Construction Management at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts. Placemaking is about sense of place. Everybody – people of all backgrounds, ages and abilities – can participate in creating successful public places. Everyone can serve the agenda of excellence in design, healthy communities and thriving neighborhoods. Our built environment is a common good that comes alive through an understanding of how humans instinctively relate to space, design leadership that leverages it, and activity programming that capitalizes on it. The BSA Placemaking Network celebrates its 10-year anniversary with the release of the Placemaking Manifesto. To solicit community input the Manifesto was launched at a public writers' workshop with the co-authors, Christina Lanzl, Robert Tullis and Anne-Catrin Schultz at BSA Space in Boston on October 23, 2017.
The Placemaking Network explores what it takes to further the creation of high-quality, distinctive public places. Participants of the public Placemaking Manifesto review at BSA Space on October 23, 2017 were Placemaking Manifesto co-authors Christina Lanzl, Robert Tullis and Anne-Catrin Schultz as well as Polly Carpenter/BSA Foundation, A. Vernon Woodworth/AIAMA Board of Directors, Anthony Clayton, Deborah Fennick, Kathryn Firth, Júlia Hilário, Marek Jacisin, Victoria LaGuette, Doris Martinez, Neil McCann, Stephanie Osser, Sergio Arturo Perez, Coco Raynes, Eric Reinhard, Renata von Tscharner, Sara Wermiel, Douglas Wohn and Claudia Zarazua The Placemaking Manifesto Placemaking transforms space into place. Our public realm is a common good that comes alive through an understanding of how humans instinctively relate to place, design leadership that leverages it, and active programs for and by communities as a civic benefit for everyone. Placemaking activates our built and lived environment. We acknowledge and actively work towards improving hard as well as soft quality of life factors. Placemaking = Quality of Life Placemaking engages the five senses. It is about developing and continuing identity, distinctive, specific and memorable character in our public spaces. It’s about fostering a sense of place: our body-mind’s positive kinesthetic, emotional and cognitive experience in, and in relationship to our public surroundings. It’s achieved by putting the importance of our shared, exterior spaces between buildings above that of our private, interior spaces within them. We recognize that storytelling gives meaning to our lives and is therefore an important narrative device of human civilization. Placemaking = A Sense of Place Placemaking is about the benefits that accrue to us, our neighbors, our community, and even our culture when we engage with each other in a high-quality and healthy public realm. Including public participation in its design and use helps create community identification. Active programming, public events, and public art are powerful tools that help foster community pride. Placemaking = Caring About the Community Placemaking integrates the individualized focus of disciplines such as architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, public art, and community cultural programming; and supersedes their boundaries by focusing on collaboration, communication and place instead of isolated projects, bringing together individuals of all backgrounds, interests and talents. Placemaking = Collaboration and Communication Placemaking embraces inclusivity by offering a universal platform for discourse. Everyone is a maker of place. Everyone can serve the agenda of excellence in design, supportive environments, healthy communities, and thriving neighborhoods. In a high-quality public realm, we shed our individual bubbles and participate in a life of greater civic engagement. Placemaking = Active Participation Placemaking combines an awareness of tradition with an embracing of new and emerging technologies. It respects time-tested rules of form and space, but also employs the research, development and innovation along with contemporary digital and social media tools to further community building. Placemaking = Tradition and Innovation Download the Placemaking Manifesto Download the Oct. 23, 2017 Writers' Workshop Notes Download the Authors' Biographies See the Jan. 2, 2018 article on ArchDaily Download the Letter to the Editor of ArchDaily 
Chelsea Art Walk in Chelsea, MA from June 13 to 14, 2015
Chelsea artists and friends are exhibiting their work this weekend from 12 noon to 6 pm. Ten exhibitions at ten locations include the Gallery @ Spencer Lofts, the Historic 1657 Bellingham-Carey House (a former governor's mansion) and One North (a residential building). Those who like good coffee should stop by for a well-brewed cup and see the show at The Chelsea City Cafe & Gallery, where one meets local artists and a pleasant coffee crowd. For the beer fans, Mystic Brewery offers micro-brews, food and the exhibition "Street Art". Port Park at 99 Marginal Street is a favorite spot. A curated selection of videos on jumbo screens can be viewed inside two shipping containers next to the basketball court. Filmmaker Allison Cekala's 27-minute video, Fundir, narrates the story of the giant salt pile sited adjacent to Port Park story. The film documents the mining of the road salt in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and ends with the municipal facility's routines during the seasons. Port Park is a brand new waterfront hangout with great views of the Tobin Bridge and surrounding harbor-side. The design by Landing Studio of Somerville, MA features industrial remnants unique to Chelsea's history as an industrial harbor. Old truck load racks have been turned into look-outs and giant skeletons of former oil tanks now bound an amphitheater and a water play area. More info on the Chelsea Art Walk at chelseaartwalk.com. |
Urban Culture Institute
The Urban Culture Institute Archives
June 2020
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