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Introduction and Editorial

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2022): Landscapes of Care: the emergency of landscapes of care in extreme territories

About “Landscapes of Care” and how contemporary photography can help to heal a broken planet

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Abstract

“Architecture in its broadest sense provides shelter indispensable to the continuation
of human life and survival. This is evidently a form of care. Yet historically, architecture
has not been considered a form of caring labor. Despite this fundamental function
of architecture to provide protection for humans from sun, wind, snow or rain, and
to give the support necessary for maintaining the vital functions of everyday living,
the idea of the architect is linked to autonomy and independent genius rather than
connectedness, dependency, social reproduction and care giving.”
Elke Krasny1


“(...) architects have no time to lose to work on alternative models that offer paths to
reach social equity within the continued intense metropolitanization of settlement
structures. Given the changing nature of societies, more differentiated forms of cohabitation;
greater demand for closer spatial relations of work-living-recreation;
the renewal of urban farming; decentralized forms of harvesting renewable energy;
leaner and smaller production facilities; all these transformations should lead
to a change in the conventional zoning of uses; to a search for building and urban
typologies that may be grafted on as much as possible to existing fabric and that will
yet liberate future generations from the burden of the suburban era.”
Wilfried Wang2

 

With this 7th Volume of Sophia Journal we initiate our third thematic cycle “Landscapes of Care”, addressing contemporary photography and visual practices that focus on how architecture understood in a wide sense can help to heal a broken planet3. The concept of landscapes of care has increasingly been adopted by diverse areas of study, from health geography to the arts and architecture4. It allows us to understand architecture, city and territory as living and inclusive organisms5, constituted by multifaceted landscapes with complex social and organisational spatialities6, as well as exploring the concepts of space and place for care within a transdisciplinary research environment7.

Significant changes are taking place in diverse physical spaces all around the world and the world is growing in complexity as Daniel Innerarity8 points out. For this complex world of post-politics ideals, we need ambitious visions for the future and at the same time to trigger operational paths that are able to reform society, in a creative and collaborative manner, towards a better world.

(...)

References

  1. Elke Krasny, “Architecture and Care,” in Critical Care: Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet, edited by Angelika Fitz, Elke Krasny and Architekturzentrum Wien, 0 (2019) The MIT Press, 33.
  2. Wilfried Wang, On the Increasing Irrelevance of Context in the Generation of Form; or, why there is no longer a difference between an urn and a chamber pot, Specificity, OASE, (2008) (76), 91–105, Retrieved from https://www.oasejournal.nl/ en/Issues/76/OnTheIncreasingIrrelevanceOfContextInTheGenerationOfForm
  3. Elke Krasny, “Introduction” in Critical Care: Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet, edited by Angelika Fitz, Elke Krasny and Architekturzentrum Wien, 0: (2019) The MIT Press.
  4. Xiaodong Lin, Daryl Martin, Bo-Wei Chen, "Towards cultural landscapes of care", Health & Place, Volume 78, 2022, 102909, ISSN 1353-8292, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2022.102909.
  5. Francesco Indovina, "Citizenship and new urban realities", City Territ Archit 9, 8 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40410- 022-00149-2
  6. Walter Nicholls, Byron Miller, Justin Beaumont, Introduction: Conceptualizing the spatialities of social movements, (2015), Routledge, 1-23, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315610191
  7. Åsa Roxberg, Kristina Tryselius, Martin Gren, Berit Lindahl, Carina Werkander Harstäde, Anastasia Silverglow, Kajsa Nolbeck, Franz James, Ing-Marie Carlsson, Sepideh Olausson, Susanna Nordin & Helle Wijk "Space and place for health and care", International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being, (2020), 15:sup1, 1750263, DOI: 10.1080/17482631.2020.1750263
  8. Following the idea of Daniel Innerarity of how we are living in complex democracies (see his latest book Democracy in Europe).
  9. Wilfried Wang, On the Increasing Irrelevance of Context in the Generation of Form; or, why there is no longer a difference between an urn and a chamber pot, Specificity, OASE, (2008) (76), 91–105, Retrieved from https://www.oasejournal.nl/ en/Issues/76/OnTheIncreasingIrrelevanceOfContextInTheGenerationOfForm
  10. Wilfried Wang, "The Future of the American Dream" CENTER 22: LATITUDES – Architecture in the Americas, (2019) Volume 3, 124-125. ISBN: 978-0-93951-33-3
  11. Inaki Bergera, "About the 4th number of Sophia, Visual Spaces of Change: Unveiling the Publicness of Urban Space through Photography and Image", Sophia Journal, 4(1), (2019) 3–4. https://doi.org/10.24840/2183-8976_2019- 0004_0001_01; Pedro Gadanho "Image-Making After Photoshop: Architecture, Public Space and their Visual Discontents" Sophia Journal, 4(1), (2019), 100–109. https://doi.org/10.24840/2183-8976_2019-0004_0001_13; Paolo Rosselli, "Photography on Architecture: Visual Spaces of Change - Unveiling the Transformation of Publicness", Sophia Journal, 4(1), (2019), 158–163. https://doi.org/10.24840/2183-8976_2019-0004_0001_17; Wilfried Wang, "Image and Conscience", Sophia Journal, 6(1), (2022), 7–9. https://doi.org/10.24840/2183-8976_2021-0006_0001_2
  12. João Leal; Mark Durden, “Photography as Heritage: Picturing Siza´s Architecture”, Work presented in International Congress on Architectural and Landscape Heritage - Malagueira, 2022. https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/364239707_CONTEMPORARY_VIEWS_ON_CITY_SPACES_AND_ARCHITECTURE_IN_OPORTO_ DOCUMENTARY_AND_ARTISTIC_PHOTOGRAPHY_MAPPING#fullTextFileContent
  13. Iñaki Bergera and Javier de Esteban, “Architecture and Contemporary Visual Culture, the Image of Realism and the Realism of Image”, (2022), Arts 11, no. 1: 26. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts11010026
  14. See Visual Spaces of Change research platform at https://www.visualspacesofchange.arq.up.pt
  15. António Choupina, “DES YEUX QUI NE VOIENT PAS”, in The Idea Of Álvaro Siza: The Museum – Serralves by Mark Durden and João Leal, edited by Pedro Leão Neto. Porto: Scopio Editions (#2 December 2020) ISBN : 978-989-54878-4-4; Nuno Grande, “In praise of light and shadows“. in The Idea of Álvaro Siza: Carlos Ramos Pavilion and Bouça Social Housing by Mark Durden and João Leal, edited by Pedro Leão Neto, Porto scopio Editions (#1 December 2020) ISBN: 978-989- 54878-4-4
  16. Donna Jeanne Haraway, The Companion Species Manifesto : Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness, Chicago, Ill. : Bristol :Prickly Paradigm ; University Presses Marketing, 2003.
  17. Marie Stenseke "Connecting ‘relational values’ and relational landscape approaches", Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 35, (2018), Pages 82-88, ISSN 1877-3435, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2018.10.025. (https:// www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187734351730249X)
  18. Alvar Aalto, (1991a) "The humanizing of architecture’"[1940], in Alvar Aalto in His Own Words , ed. Goran Schildt (1997), New York: Rizzoli, 102 – 103, “But architecture is not a science. It is still the same great synthetic process of combining thousands of definite human functions, and remains archite cture. Its purpose is still to bring the material world into harmony with human life. To make architecture more human means better architecture, and it means a functionalism much larger than the merely technical one. This goal can be accomplished only by a rchitectural methods – by the creation and combination of different technical things in such a way that they will provide for the human being the most harmonious life” 19 Most notably Kenneth Frampton, The Other Modern Movement: Architecture, 1920-1970, Yale University Press (2021); Besides others like Antigoni Katsakou, Rethinking Modernity: Between the Local and the International, RIBA Publishing (2020); Also "Reescrever o Pós-Moderno/Sete Entrevistas", Dafne Editora (2011), and Jorge Figueira, A Periferia Perfeita: Pós-Modernidade na Arquitectura Portuguesa, Anos 60-Anos 80. (2015), Caleidoscópio; On how both architects believe in the synthesis between intuition and reason enhanced by the artistic practice see Alvar Aalto "The dichotomy of culture and technology", in Alvar Aalto in his own words, ed. Goran Schildt (1997), New York: Rizzoli.