Invited papers of the Habitat Professionals Forum
Aydan Erim,
Director of the International Union of Architects' Work Programme
"Shelter for the homeless - the road from Istanbul"
Notes and Reflections from Architects
We are here as members of the HABITAT PROFESSIONALS FORUM. Hence, our main
interest in this respect lies with the implementation and further development of
the HABITAT AGENDA and PLAN OF ACTION which was adopted in Istanbul four years.
We are therefore also interested in other items of the current world agenda
brought to light in world conferences and summits of the 1990s and currently
reviewed and appraised in "plus five" and "plus ten" cycles
in terms of their reflection on human settlements.
Starting with the larger picture: Where do we stand? As persons and
professionals, we are more and more standing in a crowd.
- The world population has passed the 6 billion mark.
- We have entered a new millennium - dubbed as the URBAN MILLENNIUM.
- The world will have more than half of its population living in the cities very
soon, Some countries of Latin America such as Argentina (89%), Chile (85%) and
Uruguay (91%) are already almost totally urbanised, and
Thus, we have to learn to be "homo urbanus" and we have to
"like" the cities; they are here to stay, and apparently to grow. We
are standing within a world picture where poverty and the unjust and unbalanced
distribution of wealth are painted with bright red strokes and hit us in the
face. It is a picture where, in the beginning of our brand new and "urban
millennium,"
- More than half of the world's poor are living in urban areas,
- 1.2 billion people are "living" on less than $1/day
- An additional 1.6 billion people are "living" on less than $2/day
- Homelessness is still a major problem - for example Bombay has a population of
12 million and 2 million of those people are living on the pavements and at
least another 5 - 6 million are living in slums.
We are standing within a world where world leaders, particularly in the last
decade, and generally through major global conferences and summits, appear to be
involved in a process of "continuous commitment making". If these
commitments could be realized within their foreseen time frames, it could be
possible to be optimistic about the future.
However the same world leaders -- or some of them -- are also committing
themselves to a new economic world order which, by its very nature will
neutralize, nullify or deform other commitments, particularly those involving
environment, human settlements or social development. Hence, we are more and
more standing in a "globalized" world.
- Globalization - like the cities - is apparently here to stay.
- We are expected to live with it "till death do us part" - and
despite all the rhetoric about merits, for some countries and for some people it
might be accelerating that death/parting process while for some countries and
some people it presents immense opportunities and wealth.
- As architects, in terms of one of the "physical" aspects of
globalization, we are both involved in and appalled by the "Manhattanization"
of the cities of the developing world.
If we agree that sustainable development, eradification of poverty and human
rights in the broadest sense of the term are our real, shared and common goals
-- then we have to be aware of the fact that within this set of goals there also
lies a set of formidable challenges: of scale, urgency, funding, transformation,
and innovation.
In other words, needs of great magnitude have to be met as soon as possible,
and as doing things the "old way" as we know at the moment and the
"status quo" is obviously not enough (or desirable) to achieve such
targets, we have to transform ourselves as consuming persons, citizens, voters,
politicians, managers, and as professionals and have to discover innovative ways
of overcoming obstacles and finding solutions.
In the world we live in, major reports are being put on the world's agenda,
and transmitted to world leaders to be "discussed, endorsed and acted
upon". They are significant for our professional organizations as they give
clues as to how things are conceived in the politically and economically
influential circles of the world. In this context we have the Millennium Report
of the UN Secretary General "WE THE PEOPLES - THE ROLE OF THE UNITED
NATIONS IN THE 21st CENTURY". In September during the Millennium Assembly
of the United Nations, the Secretary General will be asking the Heads of State
as part of the proposals set forth in this report - to endorse and act upon the
"Cities without Slums" plan launched by the World Bank and the United
Nations. The plan targets to improve the lives of 1000 million slum dwellers by
the year 2020.
This is very good. But the particular significance of this report for our
group of professionals is the section on "Upgrading Slums" where it
says: "slums go by various names - favellas, kampungs, bidonvilles, turgios,
gecekondus - but the meaning is everywhere the same: miserable living
conditions" Now, this is an over and misleading generalization. I am sure
we can have something to say before the world leaders to put the record straight
in this respect. This report -- incidentally, immediately dubbed as "A
Bretton Woods for All" by the NGOs -- building on the global United Nations
conferences and summits of the 1990s, defines a set of development goals for the
world.
- By next June we shall have the UNCHS report on the State of the World
Cities and of course, we have the report which is the foundation of this
Conference -- indeed a significant work which builds upon an even richer
background study. But when you go through the index of this background report
you see that 3 very significant words of the current world agenda are missing:
homelessness, gender and even more important -- rights.
Hence, one of the tasks of our Forum group would be to pull together the
various "solutions" and "proposals" and to point out the
gaps and misconceptions.
We are living in a world where it is commonplace to use the term
"socio-economic", but the concept of "socio-physical" is yet
to be established and legitimized. Architecture is mainly an "urban
profession." Your services are mostly required in urbanized areas or for
"urban functions" in non-urban areas (such as tourism and leisure or
industry). Hence all the "urban challenges" directly effect the
profession. The commitments, policies and action plans at international,
national, regional and local level developed and accepted in response to them
effects what we can for practical purposes name as the "professional
cycle" starting from education of the educators, to architectural
education, continuing education, rules of practice, environment of practice, the
client, and the crosscutting issues of professional ethics and social
responsibility.
Architecture at the same time is generally conceived as an "urbane
profession" - practiced mostly at the drafting board/computer with some
time spent at the construction site. This is not a wholly true assumption but
even architects themselves may not be fully aware on an everyday basis of the
wide geography and the complex network they could affect and are effecting with
a single "design" decision - from the remotest village at home or
abroad where the inputs of your chosen material is extracted - to the village or
city household of the migrant labor - to the citizens who have to live with the
architects' products for generations - as either their users or who make them a
part of their "city image" - to the death of such products and the
process of environmental impacts they create every state -- what we might call a
comprehensive "design/construction cycle".
Architecture at times could be conceived as an "elite profession"
whose main concern is "aesthetics." This is not a true picture of our
design/construction cycle and does not do justice to our "social"
concerns. Speaking of aesthetics, I would like to bring to your attention a
Habitat Press Release dated June 17 titled "Message from Kofi Annan to the
Venice Biennale: Towards an Ethical Approach to Shelter and Urban
Development". I quote: "The Venice Biennale is one of the world's
leading cultural events. The theme of this year's architectural exhibition is
"less aesthetics, more ethics." This theme echoes the concerns of the
United Nations and its city and human settlements agency, Habitat, for cities to
deal more effectively with the plight of the urban poor."
Here we have another case of gross misconception and misrepresentation. When
we manage to make these two cycles function along the parameters of
sustainability, then terms such as 'ecological architecture' or 'green
construction' shall become redundant. Then, some members of some professions in
various countries shall not find it necessary to organize outside the mainstream
profession under the title of "… with social responsibility".
It is up to us, individually and through our professional organizations, to
educate politicians, decision makers and leaders at all levels with regard to
the function and the inherent assets of our professions and to clarify any
misconceptions. The Habitat Professionals Forum at Urban 21 gives us the first
of what I hope will be many chances to publicly take up this challenge.
On the other hand no professional community -- including the world community
of architects -- is homogeneous in terms of the interests, basic choices,
ethics, world views, expertise, economic power and status, ability and talent of
its members. Thus it is up to the professional organizations to educate, orient
and mobilize our members towards more socially and environmentally responsible
targets. This is no easy task.
The most important challenge at the beginning of the 21st century is to
re-invent our professions.
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