Slaves to the cult of de-clutter

This is an eagle-eyed view of a new square in the town of Castleford, England:

And this is what it was like five years ago:

An earlier age of crud:

Has given way to something brighter, more elegant and de-cluttered:

But my favorite image of the project is this one:

 

Why?

Because it makes me think about clutter - or more to the point, tidiness.

I was involved in the early stages of design development of the new main square in Castleford.

The selection and management of the design was devolved to a steering group made up of representatives of the local community - and by and large, people got what they wanted. 

The town is proud of the design. I am proud of the design. And there is little doubt that it has contributed to the $400m plus new investment that is now flowing in to the town.

But what gets me thinking is that for many years, the model for successful urban life has been the noise, disorderliness and messy mix of people and traffic of SoHo, New York.

Alongside, creativity has escaped linearity and order: be it ironic, awkward Britart, whimsy, casual Goldfrapp, the popularity of feature-length social documentary film-making, the chaos of social networking and exotic packaging of securitised debt.

And yet we're choosing to scrape the surface of our towns and cities and turn it in to clean, clear and crisp pavement.

In its wake has come outdoor food courts, not street markets and a sweep of control orders that segregate access to the streets.

An irony is that all of this has been done in the name of winning back public space.

Another is the derision that once greeted minimalist, conceptual art in '70s and '80s.

Why is the new public realm so out of sync with the grind, mess, whim and float of popular culture - and of our lives?

And how and why did the cult of de-clutter take hold?

Here's a quick list of some of the things that might have got us here:

• The cult of Copenhagen, Danish urban design guru Jan Gehl and the pedestrianisation of the city
• The stream of sparse, ambient Sigur Ros running through the veins of the design profession
• The massive, hidden influence of chic interiors by John Pawson
• The apolitical lure of an empty stage
• The rise of de-clutter and home cleaning TV shows
• Our un-ending anticipation - and expectation - that something big's about to happen

The problem is that quite often in these places, nothing big does happen.

It's as if city developers skipped the chapter in Jan Gehl, William Whyte or Jane Jacobs that said that "designed" public spaces will be empty of people most of the time if a user population doesn't live near by.

Is it time for the script to move on?

Time for urban designers and their clients to take all of that brilliant new energy and enthusiasm for public space, look at the popularity of artists like Peter Doig and realise something simple?

That what we like and what often works is not just tidy stuff but experiences and images that are colorful, casual and awkward?

Comments

[Dan Hill]

Great stuff. I've written something about Gehl's plans for Sydney (forthcoming in Architectural Review, Australia) and this point didn't really make the cut. I'll try to bring it out on my site, but it's also what Jonathan Glancey was saying about Gehl in Building Design. Glancey said:

"Such designs are soulless and uncalled for. I’m sure Gehl and his ilk must be great professional talents, yet I’d prefer to be sitting in the most modest square in any Italian town or ambling through the most Dickensian back alley in Soho or Spitalfields rather than sentenced to one of these international urban archipelagos."

"Smoothing over, or flattening out, public space is neither clever nor humane. For all its flaws, Parliament Square should be a very different place from Sienna’s grand and much loved Piazza del Campo or Copenhagen’s car-free Strøget zone, the world’s longest pedestrian shopping area designed by Gehl. What’s more, many of the best loved public spaces throughout the world are far from being chaste, shiny and free from historical association, traffic and clutter. Indeed, many thrive on enjoyable clutter and sweet-smelling chaos."

So maybe the importance of clutter - or chaos, or stuff - is in demarcating places from one another? And that's vitally important.

[Tessy Britton]

Speaking as a garden designer for a moment I would probably read 'clutter' as anything living and growing. People and plants and trees often look beautiful against minimalist hard elements. The Italian heritage is so revered because their landscapes and towns are not disrupted by the appearance of a person, but instead enhanced by the human and plant element.

I think your Castleford town centre is brilliant... I may have popped in a few more huge trees to soften it a bit, but I love the uplighting under the benches and sense of openness and space.

[Ian Milliss]

My natural taste is minimalist but I can't help thinking that tidiness is what people do when they have no creativity and clutter and chaos are essential because they maximise interactions necessary to the ferment of ideas. Lacaton and Vassel have the right approach, I think, which seems to be to remove the things which limit the possible chaos in a space, in other words declutter to the degree necessary to enable the maximum chaos.