José Antonio Tallón Iglesias (SOMOS.arquitectos) has presented a paper in Tabula Rasa International Symposium_ETSAUN Navarra.
ETSAUN, Navarra (Spain). 19th-20th February, 2015.
José Antonio Tallón Iglesias has presented his paper under the title "Rem Koolhaas: Tabula Rasa...or the Strategy of the Void":
The concept of tabula rasa appears in the work of Rem Koolhaas as a common territory on which he lays the foundations of a camouflaged anti-urbanism. Conceived in the city of New York, a centrifuge grid is self-imposed on Manhattan – from Lenape language “Island of Hills”- morphing into an ambitious reticulated flat territory that eliminates every trace of the landscape. Thereby the new model of exportable city that defines the metropolis of the twentieth century is definitely gestated. Rem Koolhaas’s notion of tabula rasa, taboo since the ambitious plans of Le Corbusier, has set itself as a strategy of emptiness, ensuring that the tragedy of urban planning gestated in the New World continues running in Old Europe. Large areas of terrain vague nourish a system in continuous modernization. Thus a new beginning is always possible. The ‘Tabula Rasa’ in capital letters is revisited: it is converted into an urban strategy. Rem Koolhaas points out a number of different cities under ambitious renovation plans starting from a large urban void implemented for various reasons. So apparently different territories like the cities of Singapore, Rotterdam or Paris become the new model of contemporary ‘city without attributes’ as a result of the implementation of tabula rasa. Rem Koolhaas highlights the typology of the dump as the final destination of the city based on ‘tabula rasa’. So, Rem focuses his attention on the city of Lagos as a metaphor for authentic contemporary dump result of pure accumulation. Once the tabula rasa is established, the urban mass begins to grow out of our control. Concepts like “Dirty Realism”, “Junk space”, “Light Urbanism” or “Generic City” end up in the “Big Hole”, the deepest insubstantial emptiness that inhabits the heart of the tabula rasa: a void that tries to blur all specificity in order to accommodate a mere accumulation of ideologies…
ETSAUN, Navarra (Spain). 19th-20th February, 2015.
José Antonio Tallón Iglesias has presented his paper under the title "Rem Koolhaas: Tabula Rasa...or the Strategy of the Void":
The concept of tabula rasa appears in the work of Rem Koolhaas as a common territory on which he lays the foundations of a camouflaged anti-urbanism. Conceived in the city of New York, a centrifuge grid is self-imposed on Manhattan – from Lenape language “Island of Hills”- morphing into an ambitious reticulated flat territory that eliminates every trace of the landscape. Thereby the new model of exportable city that defines the metropolis of the twentieth century is definitely gestated. Rem Koolhaas’s notion of tabula rasa, taboo since the ambitious plans of Le Corbusier, has set itself as a strategy of emptiness, ensuring that the tragedy of urban planning gestated in the New World continues running in Old Europe. Large areas of terrain vague nourish a system in continuous modernization. Thus a new beginning is always possible. The ‘Tabula Rasa’ in capital letters is revisited: it is converted into an urban strategy. Rem Koolhaas points out a number of different cities under ambitious renovation plans starting from a large urban void implemented for various reasons. So apparently different territories like the cities of Singapore, Rotterdam or Paris become the new model of contemporary ‘city without attributes’ as a result of the implementation of tabula rasa. Rem Koolhaas highlights the typology of the dump as the final destination of the city based on ‘tabula rasa’. So, Rem focuses his attention on the city of Lagos as a metaphor for authentic contemporary dump result of pure accumulation. Once the tabula rasa is established, the urban mass begins to grow out of our control. Concepts like “Dirty Realism”, “Junk space”, “Light Urbanism” or “Generic City” end up in the “Big Hole”, the deepest insubstantial emptiness that inhabits the heart of the tabula rasa: a void that tries to blur all specificity in order to accommodate a mere accumulation of ideologies…
