[print]

BRANDLIJN: The Edge Within

Finbarr McComb


Cities & Memory 5
In Maurilia, the traveller is invited to visit the city and, at the same time, to examine some old postcards that show it as it used to be: the same identical square with a hen in the place of a bus station, a bandstand in the place of the overpass, two young ladies with white parasols in the place of the munitions factory. If the traveller does not wish to disappoint the inhabitants, he must praise the postcard city and prefer it to the present one, though he must be careful to contain his regret at the changes within definite limits: admitting that the magnificence and prosperity of the metropolis Maurilia, when compared to the old, provincial Maurilia, cannot compensate for a certain loss of grace, which, however, can be appreciated only now in the old postcards, whereas before, when the provincial Maurilia was before one’s eyes, one saw absolutely nothing graceful and would see it even less today, if Maurilia had remained unchanged; and in any case the metropolis has the added attraction that, through what it has become, one can look with nostalgia at what it was.
Italo Calvino, Le città invisibili, Turin, 1972

‘We remember, don’t we?’
The Brandlijn and collective memory

One clear day, in a brute effort to subdue the Dutch into capitulation, the German Luftwaffe razed the centre of Rotterdam. The 14th of May 1940 changed the future of Rotterdam for good, as well as its past. Generally speaking, the condition of modernity seems to be incompatible with the notion of history. The city of Rotterdam provides an example where the two meet. The destruction of the city centre created a tabula rasa at a point when architectural theory pleaded for it as a conceptual model. However, the combination of ideology with necessity lifted it above purely theoretical discourse and confronted the utopian ideal with historical fact. In examining how this issue has been resolved, the concept of collective memory is important, as it presents a more dynamic model of relating to the past than a historical one.

‘A great epoch has begun.’
Le Corbusier, Vers une Architecture, Paris, 1923

At the beginning of the twentieth century there was, so to speak, an architectural revolution. The stage was set for a new beginning, for a brave new architecture. The new architecture would be built on the ruins of the old or, better still, on the pure, virginal plains of the tabula rasa. Architects found unexpected companions in the wrecking ball and the bulldozer, as Le Corbusier´s Plan Voisin demonstrates with a brutality previously unknown to such a civilized profession. What the concept of the tabula rasa stands for can be interpreted in different ways. On the one hand, it represents the ideal, platonic plane where a new beginning can truly take place. Unhindered by irregularities, this is the ideal place to give shape to architecture in its purest form. A more prosaic explanation would be to view the use of the tabula rasa as an unwillingness to participate in a place’s context and history. The tabula rasa can be a tool with which to scrape away the last remnants of history. In any case, the tabula rasa is a method of distancing oneself from history, of clearing the path towards utopia and stepping into the modern world.
Naturally, such a position is open to critique. However, this critique should not focus on its destructive aspects, but rather on the impossibility of constructing a harmonious utopia. According to Bloch, the critical function of utopia is its most essential characteristic.(1) And good architecture strives to construct the image of Arcadia. Even if his own opinions of what this meant differed greatly from those of the modernists, his notion of the critical capacity of utopia is an important issue. Any vision of utopia in fact criticizes the present condition, forming a destructive hidden agenda. In Manfredo Tafuri’s view, this destructive aspect is an imperative within both capitalistic development and avant-garde theory, but is never made explicit within its discourse.(2) That is, as far as it was not political. Even architectural utopias presuppose a dimension outside their domain, namely the distribution of capital, labour and production within society, which stripped architecture of its relevance; modern architecture itself has become alienated from the city and is no longer capable of shaping it, surrendering it to the imperatives of a continuously expanding consumer society at the cost of identity.

‘Only the name of the airport changes.’
Italo Calvino, Le città invisibili, Turin, 1972

Its utopian drives uncovered and sedated, modern architecture has become more clearly aligned with the intentions of capitalist society, as Tafuri, Bloch, Benjamin and Adorno stated. Architecture had to find a new way to clear the road, one which was less brutal. While the pure tabula rasa may have been relegated to the history books, it has resurfaced in the new conceptual guise of the generic. In ‘The Generic City’,(3) Rem Koolhaas describes the contemporary city from a global point of view and uncovers the bankruptcy of identity in the modern city. History as the source of identity is exhausted by exponential human growth; also history itself is abused and becomes less significant. The Generic City is the hypothetical outcome of an acceptance of this situation, an exploration into the possibilities of liberation from identity.(4) On the other hand, it can also be read as a description of the current state of the city, a situation which is emerging on a global scale. In theorizing the city, the Generic City plays an ambiguous role; it is utopian and dystopian at the same time. It presents the almost inevitable demise of the city, and its relationship with history, and the emergence of a post-urban condition. However, its ambiguity does not stem from this simple dichotomy, a repetition of the post-modernist architectural discourse. Compared to previous visions of utopia, Koolhaas is remarkably frank in pointing out its shortcomings; in effect accepting the critique his forerunners encountered.
Even the name itself rules out the notion that it represents a better future; instead there will be more of the same. By simply extrapolating current developments, a certain continuity is guaranteed, until a certain point is reached when the city is no longer. Under the strain of modernization the city’s identity is in danger of being stretched and distorted beyond recognition. But if the city becomes generic, the problems of dealing with history are irrelevant; the potential of the city can be exploited without being burdened by its history. The position is both cynical and naive, opening the door to new, uncertain developments. The generic is tabula rasa without the ballast of utopian ideals, utilizing economic pragmatism in combination with a cynical depreciation of identity. It is architecture’s final surrender to capitalism, to modernization. It is an architecture with a ‘best-before’ date attached to its side.

‘One could not learn history from architecture any more than one could learn it from books.’
George Orwell, 1984, London, 1949

Modernity, the tabula rasa, and the generic are at odds with the particularities of a city’s history. Our cities are riddled with leftovers from a bygone era, and strongly influence our sense of identity. One school of thought that attempted to establish a continuous relationship between the contemporary city and history was Tendenza. Tendenza’s effort to return within the borders of architecture started with the publication of two influential texts, ‘L’architettura della città’, by Aldo Rossi and ‘La construzione logica dell’architettura’ by Giorgio Grassi, in 1966 and 1967, respectively.(5) Whereas Grassi attempted to formulate the intrinsic logic of architecture itself, Rossi’s endeavour placed architecture in a less autonomous position. His work was based on an analysis of the structures that had shaped the city in its development. Central to Rossi’s theory are a number of hypotheses: regarding the city as an artefact, typological continuity and the permanence of urban elements.
By analyzing the city on a typological level we come to a closer understanding of the true dynamics which shape the city through time. This presumes an analysis of the physical substance of the city, regarding the city not as predetermined by function, but embedding it: the city as an artefact.
Within the city, there are fixed points that survive the sometimes destructive flow of urban dynamics, that contain a certain permanence. However, it is important to note the difference between the elements that constitute a past that we can still experience, and those which are pathological. The pathological form of permanence stalls the actual development of the city; it is like an embalmed corpse, unable to create a meaningful connection between past and present.(6) Koolhaas’s primary assumption in ‘The Generic City’ can be seen as a diagnosis; the city has become completely pathological, ‘history has an invidious half-life – as it is more abused, it becomes less significant – to the point where its diminishing hand-outs become insulting’.(7) Rossi argues, however, that a link with history is viable, as far as it is conceived as collective memory; it allows us to understand the structure of the city, its individuality and the architecture of the city that is the form of this individuality. This notion is strongly indebted to Maurice Halbwachs’s writings.
The French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs’s main work remains unfinished, leaving only four chapters of a manuscript before his death in Buchenwald in 1945. These were first published posthumously in 1950 under the title ‘La mémoire collective’.(8) Memory as a collective activity is a theme which runs through the entire book, discussing several topics, such as the individual memory, historical memory and aspects of time and space, by juxtaposing them against the concept of collective memory.(9) Of main interest here is the way in which the collective memory of a group interacts with its surroundings. Quite literally, our memories are inscribed in the stones of the city itself, as they form a constant frame of reference for our experiences. Our relationship with the city is one of constantly reading and writing memories. The city itself is testament to our past, bygone generations leaving their mark on its streets and buildings. Halbwachs makes a clear distinction between events and objects – in this case buildings. While the collective memory of events may only last a generation or so, buildings contain a permanence which transcends this time-span, a thought also present in the writings of Rossi. At this point it is important to note the distinction between collective memory and history.(10)
Collective memory fades as time proceeds, to the point where it can no longer be remembered by the group; the only way a memory can evade oblivion is by eventually passing into the annals of history. By then, it can no longer be seen as a part of the identity of a group, as it has become something external to it. When we look at the spatial frame of collective memory, i.e. the city, a slightly different picture emerges. Our surroundings outlast the life-span of memories of events, and reinstate the memories that are presented within it. ‘The group encloses itself within the frame that it has constructed,’ Halbwachs wrote.(11) The buildings that accommodate this process do not pass into history, except by demolition; they endure or, in the words of Rossi, they reveal a certain permanence. The discrepancy between history and collective memory is related to the two kinds of permanence Rossi describes. If the permanence is described as alive, one could say that the object or building represents an important and living aspect of collective memory; if it is pathological, all links with memory have been lost or are only of historical interest.

‘I intoxicate you with new things, and the advantage with the new is that it never stays new for long.’
Frédéric Beigbeder, 99 Francs, Paris, 2000

The city of Rotterdam presents an interesting test case to examine the theories of collective memory and modernity. The unexpected tabula rasa created by the bombing at the beginning of the Second World War was the ideal setting for an urban utopia to be realized, while at the same time raising the question of the role of collective memory in reconstruction. Even before the war, the city centre was threatened by demolition, as it became increasingly impoverished. This even led the authors of the reconstruction plan, the Basisplan, to describe the bombing as a ‘blessing in disguise’.(12) The sheer scale of the destruction furthered the opinion that reconstruction of the old city was not viable, and a plan was drafted that would propel the ruined city well into the twentieth century.(13) A utopian vision of the city was projected onto the wastelands of Rotterdam, but unlike the theoretical examples, such as Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin, the planners were not able to develop the scheme according to its own internal logic. Whilst Le Corbusier’s paper utopia could present itself as demarked by perfectly straight lines at right angles, in Rotterdam the facts of reality obliged idealism to be mixed with pragmatism. The project for the city centre was a critique of past conditions, the cramped streets were replaced by light, air and space, but also had to take these conditions into consideration.
The place where these conditions met is called the Brandlijn – the Fireline, the trace demarking the extent of destruction caused by the fires ensuing from the May 14th bombing. The Basisplan, neutral in character, allowing for the freest possible development, did not address the issue of how the old and the new city would connect. The issue was resolved by pragmatism; reconstruction started from the edges of the Brandlijn inward, as investors were reluctant to start construction in the middle of a wasteland.(14) In effect, this meant that old shopping streets were extended back into the city centre as carriers of redevelopment, corroborating Rossi’s theory of permanence in the street pattern.(15) As developments continued, however, this trend was broken, especially when major infrastructural breakthroughs were made; the modern city would be modelled for optimal transportation. Aspects of history and collective memory were pushed to the background as the dynamic grew and Rotterdam presented itself as increasingly modern. As the gleam of the initial modernistic projects started to fade, the area within the Brandlijn could be exploited as a tabula rasa yet again when Rotterdam redefined its modern image with a proliferation of skyscrapers; conflicts with context could be easily avoided if it were argued that there was no context to begin with. On a large scale, the Brandlijn forms the transition between the old and new city, between a utopian project and the remainder of what this utopia criticized. It does not merely represent a historical discontinuity in the sense of a shift in style from traditional to modern, but in a completely different way of thinking about the city. This could put it in a precarious situation; the modern city expanding ever outwards, in a reversal of its own birth, versus the impossibility of regenerating the historical surroundings – a confrontation that only has a single possible outcome. Seen from this perspective, the complete evaporation of the Brandlijn is inevitable; attempts at preservation are doomed to fail at best, bluntly frustrating the growth of the modern city at worst. However, this overall scenario is based on a simplistic interpretation of the structure of the city and essence of the Brandlijn, reducing its significance to a simple divide between old and new. However, the Brandlijn is no longer a physical border, circumscribing the void that used to lie in the city, but represents the location where a position had to be taken on the city, forcing a resolution of disparate forces. Naturally, such a resolution is not always possible, allowing for a variety of situations to emerge, ranging from negation to conflict to postponement, executed in varying degrees of resolve and clarity. Each instance reveals the intentions and expectations present during its conception.
The role the Brandlijn plays in the city is an ambiguous one. On the one hand, it represents an event that is part of history. But attempting to maintain its representation of the bombing in its entirety is a losing proposition in the long run. The unclear identity of the Brandlijn as a whole only adds to this; it is heterogeneous in nature, the treatment it underwent causing displacements, erasing parts completely and only leaving the occasional legible fragment. On the other hand, the effects of that same event continue to exert their influence on the shape of the city, as well as the society that inhabits it. The shape of the current city cannot be understood without taking the destruction of the city centre into account, the confrontation between the modern city and the remnants of the old city being the clearest sign of this, however problematic the status of this border may be. In fact, perhaps the fragile condition of the Brandlijn is its strongest virtue. As opposed to monuments that are a clear and finished representation of a certain memory, the Brandlijn does not posses a fixed and resolved quality. The essence of this questionable part of the city is not that it provides a direct insight into its identity as part of the city, but that it raises the question in the first place.

‘There is no final result, only a succession of stages.’
Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City, Cambridge, MA, 1960


Endnotes:

1. Ernst Bloch, The Utopian Function of Art and Literature. Selected Essays (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1988), pp. 1-17.
2. Manfredo Tafuri, Progetto e utopia (Rome/Bari: Laterza, 1973), Dutch transl.: Ontwerp en Utopie. Architectuur en de ontwikkeling van het kapitalisme (Nijmegen: SUN, 1978), pp. 62-63.
3. Rem Koolhaas, ‘The Generic City’, in: Rem Koolhaas/O.M.A. & Bruce Mau, SMLXL (New York: The Monacelli Press, 1995).
4. Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture. A critical history, 3rd rev. ed. (London: Thames & Hudson, 1992), Dutch transl.: Moderne architectuur: een kritische geschiedenis, transl. Geert Hovingh, et al. (Nijmegen: SUN, 1995), p. 13.
5. See: Frampton, op. cit., pp. 357-366.
6. Aldo Rossi, L’archittetura della cittá (Padua: Marsilio Editori, 1966), Dutch transl.: De architectuur van de stad, 2nd Italian ed. 1970, trans. Ernest Kurpershoek & Henk Hoeks (Nijmegen: SUN, 2002), p. 57.
7. Koolhaas, ‘The Generic City’, op. cit., p. 1248.
8. Maurice Halbwachs, La mémoire collective (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1950), Dutch transl.: Het collectief geheugen, 2nd French ed. 1968, trans. Mark Elchardus (ed.) (Leuven/Amersfoort: Acco, 1991). There are a number of important differences between the original and the translation, which is much shorter, page references indicate the location in the translation.
9. Halbwachs’s idea that individual memory is strongly shaped by interactions with the group is a notion that has been corroborated by years of psychological research, see: Douglas J. Herrmann (ed., et al.), Basic and Applied Memory Research: Theory in Context (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996).
10. For a full discussion of the subject, see: Halbwachs, op. cit., chapter 2.
11. Halbwachs, op. cit., p. 58.
12. Han Meyer, De stad en de haven. Stedebouw als Culturele Opgave in Londen, Barcelona, New York en Rotterdam: veranderende relaties tussen stedelijke openbare ruimte en grootschalige infrastructuur (Utrecht: Jan van Arkel, 1996), English trans.: City and Port. Urban Planning As a Cultural Venture in London, Barcelona, New York, and Rotterdam: Changing Relations Between Public Urban Space and Large-Scale Infrastructure, trans. D’Liane Camp & Donna de Vries-Hermansader (Utrecht: International Books, 1999), p. 316.
13. For a description and analysis of the Basisplan and further developments, see: S. Umberto Barbieri (et al), Stedebouw in Rotterdam, Plannen en opstellen 1940-1981 (Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 1981).
14. C. van Traa (et al.), Rotterdam, De geschiedenis van tien jaar wederopbouw (Rotterdam: Donker, 1955).
15. Rossi, op. cit., p. 55.


Cities & Memory 5
In Maurilia, the traveller is invited to visit the city and, at the same time, to examine some old postcards that show it as it used to be: the same identical square with a hen in the place of a bus station, a bandstand in the place of the overpass, two young ladies with white parasols in the place of the munitions factory. If the traveller does not wish to disappoint the inhabitants, he must praise the postcard city and prefer it to the present one, though he must be careful to contain his regret at the changes within definite limits: admitting that the magnificence and prosperity of the metropolis Maurilia, when compared to the old, provincial Maurilia, cannot compensate for a certain loss of grace, which, however, can be appreciated only now in the old postcards, whereas before, when the provincial Maurilia was before one’s eyes, one saw absolutely nothing graceful and would see it even less today, if Maurilia had remained unchanged; and in any case the metropolis has the added attraction that, through what it has become, one can look with nostalgia at what it was.
Italo Calvino, Le città invisibili, Turin, 1972

‘We remember, don’t we?’
The Brandlijn and collective memory

One clear day, in a brute effort to subdue the Dutch into capitulation, the German Luftwaffe razed the centre of Rotterdam. The 14th of May 1940 changed the future of Rotterdam for good, as well as its past. Generally speaking, the condition of modernity seems to be incompatible with the notion of history. The city of Rotterdam provides an example where the two meet. The destruction of the city centre created a tabula rasa at a point when architectural theory pleaded for it as a conceptual model. However, the combination of ideology with necessity lifted it above purely theoretical discourse and confronted the utopian ideal with historical fact. In examining how this issue has been resolved, the concept of collective memory is important, as it presents a more dynamic model of relating to the past than a historical one.

‘A great epoch has begun.’
Le Corbusier, Vers une Architecture, Paris, 1923

At the beginning of the twentieth century there was, so to speak, an architectural revolution. The stage was set for a new beginning, for a brave new architecture. The new architecture would be built on the ruins of the old or, better still, on the pure, virginal plains of the tabula rasa. Architects found unexpected companions in the wrecking ball and the bulldozer, as Le Corbusier´s Plan Voisin demonstrates with a brutality previously unknown to such a civilized profession. What the concept of the tabula rasa stands for can be interpreted in different ways. On the one hand, it represents the ideal, platonic plane where a new beginning can truly take place. Unhindered by irregularities, this is the ideal place to give shape to architecture in its purest form. A more prosaic explanation would be to view the use of the tabula rasa as an unwillingness to participate in a place’s context and history. The tabula rasa can be a tool with which to scrape away the last remnants of history. In any case, the tabula rasa is a method of distancing oneself from history, of clearing the path towards utopia and stepping into the modern world.
Naturally, such a position is open to critique. However, this critique should not focus on its destructive aspects, but rather on the impossibility of constructing a harmonious utopia. According to Bloch, the critical function of utopia is its most essential characteristic.(1) And good architecture strives to construct the image of Arcadia. Even if his own opinions of what this meant differed greatly from those of the modernists, his notion of the critical capacity of utopia is an important issue. Any vision of utopia in fact criticizes the present condition, forming a destructive hidden agenda. In Manfredo Tafuri’s view, this destructive aspect is an imperative within both capitalistic development and avant-garde theory, but is never made explicit within its discourse.(2) That is, as far as it was not political. Even architectural utopias presuppose a dimension outside their domain, namely the distribution of capital, labour and production within society, which stripped architecture of its relevance; modern architecture itself has become alienated from the city and is no longer capable of shaping it, surrendering it to the imperatives of a continuously expanding consumer society at the cost of identity.

‘Only the name of the airport changes.’
Italo Calvino, Le città invisibili, Turin, 1972

Its utopian drives uncovered and sedated, modern architecture has become more clearly aligned with the intentions of capitalist society, as Tafuri, Bloch, Benjamin and Adorno stated. Architecture had to find a new way to clear the road, one which was less brutal. While the pure tabula rasa may have been relegated to the history books, it has resurfaced in the new conceptual guise of the generic. In ‘The Generic City’,(3) Rem Koolhaas describes the contemporary city from a global point of view and uncovers the bankruptcy of identity in the modern city. History as the source of identity is exhausted by exponential human growth; also history itself is abused and becomes less significant. The Generic City is the hypothetical outcome of an acceptance of this situation, an exploration into the possibilities of liberation from identity.(4) On the other hand, it can also be read as a description of the current state of the city, a situation which is emerging on a global scale. In theorizing the city, the Generic City plays an ambiguous role; it is utopian and dystopian at the same time. It presents the almost inevitable demise of the city, and its relationship with history, and the emergence of a post-urban condition. However, its ambiguity does not stem from this simple dichotomy, a repetition of the post-modernist architectural discourse. Compared to previous visions of utopia, Koolhaas is remarkably frank in pointing out its shortcomings; in effect accepting the critique his forerunners encountered.
Even the name itself rules out the notion that it represents a better future; instead there will be more of the same. By simply extrapolating current developments, a certain continuity is guaranteed, until a certain point is reached when the city is no longer. Under the strain of modernization the city’s identity is in danger of being stretched and distorted beyond recognition. But if the city becomes generic, the problems of dealing with history are irrelevant; the potential of the city can be exploited without being burdened by its history. The position is both cynical and naive, opening the door to new, uncertain developments. The generic is tabula rasa without the ballast of utopian ideals, utilizing economic pragmatism in combination with a cynical depreciation of identity. It is architecture’s final surrender to capitalism, to modernization. It is an architecture with a ‘best-before’ date attached to its side.

‘One could not learn history from architecture any more than one could learn it from books.’
George Orwell, 1984, London, 1949

Modernity, the tabula rasa, and the generic are at odds with the particularities of a city’s history. Our cities are riddled with leftovers from a bygone era, and strongly influence our sense of identity. One school of thought that attempted to establish a continuous relationship between the contemporary city and history was Tendenza. Tendenza’s effort to return within the borders of architecture started with the publication of two influential texts, ‘L’architettura della città’, by Aldo Rossi and ‘La construzione logica dell’architettura’ by Giorgio Grassi, in 1966 and 1967, respectively.(5) Whereas Grassi attempted to formulate the intrinsic logic of architecture itself, Rossi’s endeavour placed architecture in a less autonomous position. His work was based on an analysis of the structures that had shaped the city in its development. Central to Rossi’s theory are a number of hypotheses: regarding the city as an artefact, typological continuity and the permanence of urban elements.
By analyzing the city on a typological level we come to a closer understanding of the true dynamics which shape the city through time. This presumes an analysis of the physical substance of the city, regarding the city not as predetermined by function, but embedding it: the city as an artefact.
Within the city, there are fixed points that survive the sometimes destructive flow of urban dynamics, that contain a certain permanence. However, it is important to note the difference between the elements that constitute a past that we can still experience, and those which are pathological. The pathological form of permanence stalls the actual development of the city; it is like an embalmed corpse, unable to create a meaningful connection between past and present.(6) Koolhaas’s primary assumption in ‘The Generic City’ can be seen as a diagnosis; the city has become completely pathological, ‘history has an invidious half-life – as it is more abused, it becomes less significant – to the point where its diminishing hand-outs become insulting’.(7) Rossi argues, however, that a link with history is viable, as far as it is conceived as collective memory; it allows us to understand the structure of the city, its individuality and the architecture of the city that is the form of this individuality. This notion is strongly indebted to Maurice Halbwachs’s writings.
The French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs’s main work remains unfinished, leaving only four chapters of a manuscript before his death in Buchenwald in 1945. These were first published posthumously in 1950 under the title ‘La mémoire collective’.(8) Memory as a collective activity is a theme which runs through the entire book, discussing several topics, such as the individual memory, historical memory and aspects of time and space, by juxtaposing them against the concept of collective memory.(9) Of main interest here is the way in which the collective memory of a group interacts with its surroundings. Quite literally, our memories are inscribed in the stones of the city itself, as they form a constant frame of reference for our experiences. Our relationship with the city is one of constantly reading and writing memories. The city itself is testament to our past, bygone generations leaving their mark on its streets and buildings. Halbwachs makes a clear distinction between events and objects – in this case buildings. While the collective memory of events may only last a generation or so, buildings contain a permanence which transcends this time-span, a thought also present in the writings of Rossi. At this point it is important to note the distinction between collective memory and history.(10)
Collective memory fades as time proceeds, to the point where it can no longer be remembered by the group; the only way a memory can evade oblivion is by eventually passing into the annals of history. By then, it can no longer be seen as a part of the identity of a group, as it has become something external to it. When we look at the spatial frame of collective memory, i.e. the city, a slightly different picture emerges. Our surroundings outlast the life-span of memories of events, and reinstate the memories that are presented within it. ‘The group encloses itself within the frame that it has constructed,’ Halbwachs wrote.(11) The buildings that accommodate this process do not pass into history, except by demolition; they endure or, in the words of Rossi, they reveal a certain permanence. The discrepancy between history and collective memory is related to the two kinds of permanence Rossi describes. If the permanence is described as alive, one could say that the object or building represents an important and living aspect of collective memory; if it is pathological, all links with memory have been lost or are only of historical interest.

‘I intoxicate you with new things, and the advantage with the new is that it never stays new for long.’
Frédéric Beigbeder, 99 Francs, Paris, 2000

The city of Rotterdam presents an interesting test case to examine the theories of collective memory and modernity. The unexpected tabula rasa created by the bombing at the beginning of the Second World War was the ideal setting for an urban utopia to be realized, while at the same time raising the question of the role of collective memory in reconstruction. Even before the war, the city centre was threatened by demolition, as it became increasingly impoverished. This even led the authors of the reconstruction plan, the Basisplan, to describe the bombing as a ‘blessing in disguise’.(12) The sheer scale of the destruction furthered the opinion that reconstruction of the old city was not viable, and a plan was drafted that would propel the ruined city well into the twentieth century.(13) A utopian vision of the city was projected onto the wastelands of Rotterdam, but unlike the theoretical examples, such as Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin, the planners were not able to develop the scheme according to its own internal logic. Whilst Le Corbusier’s paper utopia could present itself as demarked by perfectly straight lines at right angles, in Rotterdam the facts of reality obliged idealism to be mixed with pragmatism. The project for the city centre was a critique of past conditions, the cramped streets were replaced by light, air and space, but also had to take these conditions into consideration.
The place where these conditions met is called the Brandlijn – the Fireline, the trace demarking the extent of destruction caused by the fires ensuing from the May 14th bombing. The Basisplan, neutral in character, allowing for the freest possible development, did not address the issue of how the old and the new city would connect. The issue was resolved by pragmatism; reconstruction started from the edges of the Brandlijn inward, as investors were reluctant to start construction in the middle of a wasteland.(14) In effect, this meant that old shopping streets were extended back into the city centre as carriers of redevelopment, corroborating Rossi’s theory of permanence in the street pattern.(15) As developments continued, however, this trend was broken, especially when major infrastructural breakthroughs were made; the modern city would be modelled for optimal transportation. Aspects of history and collective memory were pushed to the background as the dynamic grew and Rotterdam presented itself as increasingly modern. As the gleam of the initial modernistic projects started to fade, the area within the Brandlijn could be exploited as a tabula rasa yet again when Rotterdam redefined its modern image with a proliferation of skyscrapers; conflicts with context could be easily avoided if it were argued that there was no context to begin with. On a large scale, the Brandlijn forms the transition between the old and new city, between a utopian project and the remainder of what this utopia criticized. It does not merely represent a historical discontinuity in the sense of a shift in style from traditional to modern, but in a completely different way of thinking about the city. This could put it in a precarious situation; the modern city expanding ever outwards, in a reversal of its own birth, versus the impossibility of regenerating the historical surroundings – a confrontation that only has a single possible outcome. Seen from this perspective, the complete evaporation of the Brandlijn is inevitable; attempts at preservation are doomed to fail at best, bluntly frustrating the growth of the modern city at worst. However, this overall scenario is based on a simplistic interpretation of the structure of the city and essence of the Brandlijn, reducing its significance to a simple divide between old and new. However, the Brandlijn is no longer a physical border, circumscribing the void that used to lie in the city, but represents the location where a position had to be taken on the city, forcing a resolution of disparate forces. Naturally, such a resolution is not always possible, allowing for a variety of situations to emerge, ranging from negation to conflict to postponement, executed in varying degrees of resolve and clarity. Each instance reveals the intentions and expectations present during its conception.
The role the Brandlijn plays in the city is an ambiguous one. On the one hand, it represents an event that is part of history. But attempting to maintain its representation of the bombing in its entirety is a losing proposition in the long run. The unclear identity of the Brandlijn as a whole only adds to this; it is heterogeneous in nature, the treatment it underwent causing displacements, erasing parts completely and only leaving the occasional legible fragment. On the other hand, the effects of that same event continue to exert their influence on the shape of the city, as well as the society that inhabits it. The shape of the current city cannot be understood without taking the destruction of the city centre into account, the confrontation between the modern city and the remnants of the old city being the clearest sign of this, however problematic the status of this border may be. In fact, perhaps the fragile condition of the Brandlijn is its strongest virtue. As opposed to monuments that are a clear and finished representation of a certain memory, the Brandlijn does not posses a fixed and resolved quality. The essence of this questionable part of the city is not that it provides a direct insight into its identity as part of the city, but that it raises the question in the first place.

‘There is no final result, only a succession of stages.’
Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City, Cambridge, MA, 1960


Endnotes:

1. Ernst Bloch, The Utopian Function of Art and Literature. Selected Essays (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1988), pp. 1-17.
2. Manfredo Tafuri, Progetto e utopia (Rome/Bari: Laterza, 1973), Dutch transl.: Ontwerp en Utopie. Architectuur en de ontwikkeling van het kapitalisme (Nijmegen: SUN, 1978), pp. 62-63.
3. Rem Koolhaas, ‘The Generic City’, in: Rem Koolhaas/O.M.A. & Bruce Mau, SMLXL (New York: The Monacelli Press, 1995).
4. Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture. A critical history, 3rd rev. ed. (London: Thames & Hudson, 1992), Dutch transl.: Moderne architectuur: een kritische geschiedenis, transl. Geert Hovingh, et al. (Nijmegen: SUN, 1995), p. 13.
5. See: Frampton, op. cit., pp. 357-366.
6. Aldo Rossi, L’archittetura della cittá (Padua: Marsilio Editori, 1966), Dutch transl.: De architectuur van de stad, 2nd Italian ed. 1970, trans. Ernest Kurpershoek & Henk Hoeks (Nijmegen: SUN, 2002), p. 57.
7. Koolhaas, ‘The Generic City’, op. cit., p. 1248.
8. Maurice Halbwachs, La mémoire collective (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1950), Dutch transl.: Het collectief geheugen, 2nd French ed. 1968, trans. Mark Elchardus (ed.) (Leuven/Amersfoort: Acco, 1991). There are a number of important differences between the original and the translation, which is much shorter, page references indicate the location in the translation.
9. Halbwachs’s idea that individual memory is strongly shaped by interactions with the group is a notion that has been corroborated by years of psychological research, see: Douglas J. Herrmann (ed., et al.), Basic and Applied Memory Research: Theory in Context (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996).
10. For a full discussion of the subject, see: Halbwachs, op. cit., chapter 2.
11. Halbwachs, op. cit., p. 58.
12. Han Meyer, De stad en de haven. Stedebouw als Culturele Opgave in Londen, Barcelona, New York en Rotterdam: veranderende relaties tussen stedelijke openbare ruimte en grootschalige infrastructuur (Utrecht: Jan van Arkel, 1996), English trans.: City and Port. Urban Planning As a Cultural Venture in London, Barcelona, New York, and Rotterdam: Changing Relations Between Public Urban Space and Large-Scale Infrastructure, trans. D’Liane Camp & Donna de Vries-Hermansader (Utrecht: International Books, 1999), p. 316.
13. For a description and analysis of the Basisplan and further developments, see: S. Umberto Barbieri (et al), Stedebouw in Rotterdam, Plannen en opstellen 1940-1981 (Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 1981).
14. C. van Traa (et al.), Rotterdam, De geschiedenis van tien jaar wederopbouw (Rotterdam: Donker, 1955).
15. Rossi, op. cit., p. 55.