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Current Issue What Makes a Work Canonical? Number 14, Summer 2001 print
version (pdf) Letters Space and Society
The New Metropolitanism There is so much to admire in Thomas Bender’s “The New Metropolitanism and the Pluralized Public” [Winter/Spring 2001] that I do not want to be understood simply as a critic. Bender is right to emphasize the need to think in metropolitan rather than in city center or city/suburban terms, right to stress the importance of public deliberation as well as public space when we plan metropolitan areas, and right again when he urges people to focus on creating political institutions that might promote both forms of public life. Where we differ is only at the end of his important piece: there he suggests that public authorities and special districts—institutions organized along functional rather than spatial lines—are promising vehicles for accomplishing his agenda. There are now more special districts and public authorities than there are cities in the United States, and many of them have jurisdictions that transcend city boundaries in order to deal with problems such as transportation, water supply, and the protection of natural resources. If these authorities and districts could be refashioned as vehicles for democratic decision making, Bender argues, they could enable the wide variety of people who live in American metropolitan areas to work together on issues that affect them all.Making current public authorities and special districts more democratic would no doubt be a step in the right direction: it would enable metropolitan residents to realize that they now live not just within city boundaries but also within legally established jurisdictions defined in terms of transportation networks and environmental impact. But Bender underestimates the privatized nature of America’s functionally defined special purpose governments. Public authorities are established because their sponsors believe that problems such as transportation and the environment have to be solved by experts rather than by politicians. Their corporate form is no accident: they are run by appointed boards of directors, exempted from a multitude of laws restricting city power, and freed from direct political control to enable their leaders to make decisions on “the merits” rather than politically. Special districts, unlike most public authorities, are often run by elected officials. But the electorate is usually limited to property owners rather than extended to citizens generally. The Supreme Court of the United States has upheld this form of property-owner government on the grounds that functionally defined special districts are properly responsive to those “most interested” in their decisions rather than to the public at large. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently extended this reasoning when it ruled that the business improvement districts now spreading throughout Manhattan (along with the rest of the country) can also be run by officials elected by property owners rather than by residents. By exempting these districts from the Constitutional requirement of one-person/one-vote, these decisions treat special districts, along with public authorities, as more like businesses than like governments. Of course—as famously demonstrated by the career of Robert Moses—the decisions made by public authorities and special districts remain political. But the fact that special purpose governments operate functionally defined programs and rely on expertise to do so makes it hard to know what democratizing these institutions would mean. Even if those running public authorities and special districts were popularly elected (as they occasionally now are, the Bay Area Rapid Transit District being an example), special purpose governments would not be ideal vehicles to promote regionalism. In practice, they have contributed more to fracturing American metropolitan areas than to uniting them. The allocation of urban problems to institutions organized along functional lines has created boundaries that, like city boundaries, have undermined our ability to think about the region as a whole. Currently, each functional task is assigned to a special purpose government organized to focus only on its assigned mission, and no mechanism now exists to coordinate transportation policy with housing policy, or environmental policy with the fostering of economic growth. Worse still, by confronting issues that everyone agrees have to be run regionally—like the airport—they have helped make it seem plausible that other, more contentious, issues can legitimately be left to individual city governments. Special purpose governments run airports but do not make zoning decisions; they deal with the water supply but do not allocate regional tax revenues; they run public housing projects but do not ensure that affordable housing exists throughout the metropolitan region. When special districts do take on the kind of hot-button issue that feeds metropolitan fragmentation and local parochialism (such as education), district lines, like city boundaries, tend to fracture the metropolitan area rather than treat the issue as a matter of regional concern. The key problem, of course, is
figuring out what kind of regional institution would be better than special
purpose governments. Like Bender, I do not favor the creation of a centralized
regional government: empowered, small-scale, local decision-making is
too important to democratic self-government to be eliminated. I also agree
that uniting people around concrete issues is the best way to create enough
political momentum to get the regionalism project started; his list of
transportation, the environment, and infrastructure might well be a good
initial agenda. We even agree on the reasons we need a regional institution:
to begin the task of making progress on important regional issues; to
“You’re dreaming,” the reader might protest. “The suburbs won’t agree to the creation of a regional institution with real power.” In response, I want to point out that it’s not up to them. The kind of institution I’ve just described could be created by the state legislature tomorrow if a majority of representatives from across the state agreed to do so. No suburb has a veto over the creation of regional institutions. A majority vote by the state legislature is, after all, how public authorities and special purpose governments are now created. The Georgia Regional Transportation Authority is simply the latest example of a regional body created by a state legislative majority without asking for the consent of suburban jurisdictions. Of course, GRTA’s board of directors is appointed by the governor and does not even purport to represent the will of the Atlanta region. Why is it that bureaucratic agencies dealing with regional problems are multiplying, while democratically organized bodies dealing with the same issues hardly exist? One possible answer is that, despite rhetoric to the contrary, legislators trust bureaucrats more than they trust local democracy. Perhaps, however, the speed and ease with which a public authority or special district can be created help explain their popularity. If so, an entity like GRTA could be a starting point for the kind of regional institution I have in mind. But it could fulfill this task only if there is sufficient political will to transform it into a democratically organized institution and to expand its jurisdiction rather than limit it to one functionally defined area. It would not be enough to elect a five- or ten-person board of directors; one needs a large-scale, representative, regional institution. If the transportation problem cannot be solved without dealing with the availability of affordable housing, it would not then be adequate to assign the housing issue to another functionally defined agency. Instead, the regional institution should foster residents’ ability to see the connection between transportation and housing, and between both of them and education, the environment, and infrastructure. (One might also introduce, as Bender does, a form of participatory democracy like the one now in place in Porto Alegre, Brazil; but its innovations, one should note, have been integrated into a form of government defined not functionally but geographically.) Admittedly, my vision of a new
regional institution is simply an idea—a rough sketch that fails
even to mention, let alone resolve, countless difficulties. The reason
I write is to promote debate about the design of such an institution—and
the design of a strategy to sell it to the legislature. If there are regional
problems crying out for solution—is there any doubt that there are?—we
need to figure out how to address them. Enough wailing that nothing can
ever happen! Like Thomas Bender, I want to provoke readers into thinking
about regional institutions that might be both possible and desirable.
I hope this letter will inspire Bender himself to add his considerable
insight and wisdom to this task. Thomas Bender Responds His most extended criticism is
directed at my mention of special districts and public authorities. That
does not surprise me. When I presented an earlier version of the essay
at a seminar in New York, the political scientist John Mollenkopf made
the same points. Forewarned, I nonetheless proceeded. In so doing, I did
not embrace these structures, particularly in their present form, as a
solution. Indeed, I explicitly noted that they needed to be transformed
into democratic political institutions. But I hoped that their familiar
presence might provide a starting point for impressing upon local citizens
and governments the existing fact of metropolitan interdependence and
of translocal I did not offer an example of what they might become in democratic form or how to move them there, though I did mention Porto Alegre. In his critique of functional bodies, with which I largely agree, Frug notes that the participatory politics of Porto Alegre is geographically based, not functional in character. Actually, it is both, and both geographical and functional approaches need to be combined. My approach is gradualist, and it begins with perception, even imagination—not structure. I assumed that a focus on familiar and fairly popular translocal issues—transportation, infrastructure, and environment—might promote a wider, more metropolitan structure of urban perception and promote greater comfort with translocal political institutions. In time, I hope, such experience might facilitate more comprehensive approaches, overcoming the limits of functional organization. I hope, too, that such success on relatively easy issues might enable citizens to address the more provocatively redistributive issues of education, health, and housing. My focus on function is paired with a symbolic use of architecture, making reference to both the classical example of Greek sanctuaries and the modern example of an infrastructural approach to architecture as seen in the work of William Moorish and Catherine Brown. Each example points toward the creation of a greater sense of metropolitan extension, independence, and political obligation. Frug, by contrast, begins with institutions rather than consciousness. His proposal of a regional legislature—unfortunately with its sources of funding and its powers unclear—is certainly more dramatic. But such a state-imposed political structure is perhaps a bit heavy-handed. Strategy, not objective, seems
to divide us. Yet insofar as Frug concludes by citing the Georgia Regional
Transportation Authority as a possible starting point, we may even be
close in regard to strategy. He rightly says that we need a large conversation
about institutional forms at the regional level; and in that work we will
depend on his deep knowledge and rich scholarship in the field of local
government. But my larger point is that we also need to devise ways of
creating a more constructive structure of metropolitan perception. For
that symbolic work, the making of a metropolitan political imaginary,
we must look to artists and architects.
Tales of an Absent Monument During the preparation of the recent Karel Teige exhibition at the Wolfsonian-Florida International University, I found an article by J.E. Koula in Magazin dp (no.11, 1933, 6–8) on the construction of the Monument to National Liberation (Zizkov Monument) in Prague. In reading Matthew S. Witkovsky’s article [“Tales of an Absent Monument,” Winter/Spring 2001], I wondered if the two authors are talking about the same project. Witkovsky writes “[W]hat is most remarkable about the Zizkov monument is its inconspicuousness.” Really? Having lived in Prague during the 1930s and ’40s, I found it anything but inconspicuous, in fact monumental and always somewhat frightening in the context of a small nation averse to monumentality in general and the Zizkov hill in particular. Koula’s views concerning this monument are as relevant today as in 1933. Here are some excerpts from his article.1. Concerning the prominence of the hill in the cityscape of Prague, Koula wrote: “The hill is historically significant but [geographically] relatively low, thus not well suited for such a huge monumental edifice.” In fact, the architect, Jan Závorka,
in his competition entry, superimposed the building on the photograph
of the site at half scale. Evidently, this “mistake” was noticed
by Stavba (March 1926) and published to draw attention to the difficulties
that would ensue if the whole complex were built on top of that modest
hill, as stipulated by the competition program. Only during the actual
implementation phase was it noticed that there was not enough space to
place both the mausoleum and the museum on top of the hill, leading to
the decision to place 2. Koula also expressed grave reservations as to the presumed “modernity” of the project. He based his objection on the fact that the mausoleum was truly modern only during its construction, when its steel reinforcing cage provided a light—and at the same time bold—silhouette when seen either from afar or close. The massive bulk of the finished building provided the edifice with its heavy “monumental dress.” Here Koula asserted that many German and Austrian postwar monuments were more acceptable from a tectonic point of view, since their massive stones, piled on top of each other as true bearing elements, did not have to fake their stability by hiding a “monumental” skeleton. 3. Together with Karel Teige, Koula argued that any monument (if conceived along academic lines and traditional formal criteria of design) will have a somber, heavy and cumbersome character, even when rendered in a “modern style.” Gravitas becomes obligatory and any notion of release from the mood of tragic or heroic destiny becomes impossible. The presence of any “beautiful” aesthetic elements will only reinforce the sense of ponderous seriousness. Nietzsche’s call for a renunciation of this obsession with gravitas in exchange for a cathartic release becomes impossible so long as architectural dogma holds that monuments must always be realized as buildings. Koula expressed doubt that a Monument to National Liberation should take the form of a mausoleum—even a formally “modern” one—representing a tomb clothed in heavy stone. He felt that this “burying” of the past would once and for all cut the vital link of the past to the present, just as a tombstone cuts off the living from the dead. He speculated that perhaps the real significance of this monument was to prevent the heroes of the past from being resurrected and thus spooking the present. Koula believed that a true modern monument to national liberation could never be an edifice frozen in stone, but rather some other expression that would keep alive the memory of the heroes who sacrificed their lives in that noble quest. Besides, the Taboraites and Hussites were a motley crowd, fighting for that which represented frozen dogma and “monumental” ideas of a metastasized past. The details and spatial organization of the Zizkov Monument confirm this view. The formal “classical” propyleum of the museum, with its massive 90 x 90 centimeter pillars, is the very opposite of democratic modernism and resembles Hitler’s Reichskanzlei or Mussolini’s New Rome more than Czechoslovakia’s liberal democracy of the 1920s and ’30s. The facade of the administration complex is equally faux, with its “streamlined” stylistic elements and “noble” proportions. Koula calls this a “mask” of pseudo-modernism, not modernism in its original essence of frugality, utility, and lack of ostentation. The ultimate question is: What is the real “national” element in this project, since it is neither a representation of a historically vetted “national” style, nor a specimen of a truly “modern” concept of architecture, as defined by the interwar avant-gardes (which prided themselves on being international). Koula further asks whether a nation that has achieved its liberation mainly by the sheer strength of its spirit (as contrasted by its tragic defeat in battle) should be represented by a brutal reminder of arrogant force? In his concluding words, Koula expresses doubt about having any effect on the completion of the Zizkov monument: “. . . [I]t was futile some years ago to criticize the very idea of the competition for a Monument to National Liberation and later its results by pointing out that we have no need for such a stone fetish and that other, less pompous but culturally more useful edifices would represent a more legitimate memorial to our liberty in the moral sense. What I am really saying is that any such monument-mania ought to be considered once and for all passé.” As to the suggestion that the monument should be considered a potential tourist attraction, perhaps the Disney organization might be able to suggest the proper inducements for its conversion to a “liberation” theme park, unless—of course—one recognizes that one can truly find modernist “monuments” of the ’20s and ’30s all around Prague and the Czech lands, not to mention the “heroic” monuments of Stalinism and its less heroic panelaky (prefabricated reinforced concrete panel housing) on the periphery. To try to identify the history
of these complicated times in a single building, however grandiose, must
necessarily end in failure, since neither the ordinary citizenry of Prague
nor the new intellectual elite will ever be able to agree on the true
significance of this misshapen architectural trope. Perhaps the only function
of the Zizkov Monument is to leave the dead in peace and let old Zizka
keep eternal vigil over their graves. Perhaps the best strategy would
be to avoid any further intrusions by monument-loving architects and designate
it as a “modern” ruin? Matthew
Witkovsky Responds I do not take issue with Koula’s/Dluhosch’s contention that the Monument is badly sited, nor that it bends modernist ideas to a totalitarian concept of national identity. I would argue, however, that such a concept is not as foreign to Czech thinking as Professor Dluhosch suggests when he describes his native country as “a small nation averse to monumentality.” To say this is to brand as “un-Czech” the project itself, which was supported enthusiastically by many politicians and private citizens of Czechoslovakia throughout the interwar period. Indeed, such a view willfully overlooks the fervor of Czech nationalism and its attendant architectural excesses during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most important, Professor Dluhosch repeats the oft-rehearsed argument that modernism opposes monumentalism and totalitarianism, without addressing the merits of my argument that a large constellation of forces links these currents in the interwar period, via the axis of commemoration. My contentions rest in part on research into Hussitism and mausolea, two themes mentioned in Koula’s article. His concern to define a “truly modern” monument, which Dluhosch rightly emphasizes, echoes a Czech obsession with truth that provides a point of convergence between nationalism and modern identity in this period. The adoption of the Hussite phrase “Truth prevails” as the Czechoslovak national motto is one highly prominent example of this trend; the promotion of cremation as a form of “truly modern” commemoration during these years is another. An examination of Hussite studies and the cremation movement during the 1920s and ’30s suggests that truth was a paradox of absolutes—a paradox forcefully embodied in the Monument to National Liberation, with its colossal Hussite mascot and hundreds of columbarium niches. There are lessons to be learned by studying a paradox within a given historical context, by considering how it arises and what might be done to transcend it in the future. Such lessons do involve a certain degree of failure, as Dluhosch suggests. But this does not justify dismissing outright the project of coming to terms with this building, no matter how one judges its aesthetic merit. The matter is not merely academic. Late last year in Prague, I saw an exhibition of proposals to adapt the Monument for contemporary public use, administered by the National Museum. Both the Museum’s own proposal and the one to which it gave first prize involved major alterations to the building. The Museum plan featured the removal of most sculptures installed during the early communist period, and the introduction of other works which were rejected at the drawing stage in the 1930s. Incredibly, the first-prize proposal advocated destroying the Red Army Hall, built by the original architect in the 1950s, to facilitate access to a rooftop view! No doubt Professor Dluhosch deplores such “intrusions” at the Monument as much as I do. However, he will readily see that they stem once again from a highly self-serving quest for “truth”—meaning the erasure of that which one does not wish to confront. In the face of such delusions, indifference amounts to abandonment, which is a shame at least, if not a tragedy. A detailed account of these themes
may be found in my “Truly Blank: The Monument to National Liberation
and Interwar Modernism in Prague,” to be published in the journal
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