Multi≥Culture Equally Different
Weeks ago, the proposal for Bjarke Ingels Group’s (BIG) development on King Street West was announced. It looks like everyone’s already critiqued it. I think it’s absolutely beautiful, and an amazing proposal for living in that city. That’s all I will say about the project. A quote from Mr. Ingels that I saw in an article in the Globe & Mail news site >link< about the project really stuck with me.
“Commerical real estate suffers from the self-fulfilling prophecy: You can only point to what’s already out there and say, ‘This is what people want,’ ” he says. “It’s true anywhere that people are different, and so places to live and neighbourhoods should be different – and I think this is especially true in Toronto. It would be sad if the most diverse city in the world had the most homogenous real estate.”
The statement regarding commercial real estate a nod to the distinction between his proposal and the new-traditional architectural typology of podium/tower development. The brunt of the argument, however, discusses multiculturalism and its relationship to architecture. About the same week as I read the statement above, I attended a lecture by German architecture and urban design firm COBE. Vanessa Miriam Carlow, a principal of the firm, brought up the topic of multiculturalism, notably in 21st century Europe. As cultural and religious globalization expands, should they be moving away from traditional urban morphology and architectural style, and instead create a place that depicts equally all represented cultural groups? Here is my answer.
No.
Toronto is special. The multi-culture of Toronto is unmatched on the planet, and highly successful. But Toronto never developed a deep root of identifiable culture, before globalization came to town. This Canadian metropolis has an image of being everyone’s identities. Bjarke Ingel’s critique was, I think, a subtle attack on the complacency towards both its architecture, and by extension, its urban form. The idea that everything should be the same is more offensive in a place like this.
A city like Berlin is quite the opposite, though. With a long history of culture, to remove that for the sake of multicultural comfort would, ironically, destroy multi-culture. Bringing homogeneity to the world, either by going back to the idea of an International Style of architecture, or creating small versions of foreign cultures in each urban centre, would detract from that place. It’s nice to feel comfort and familiarity in daily life, but the purpose of combining cultures in one place is to learn about others, and to be challenged.
I understand that migration is not always by choice, that sometimes political or civil issues force relocation of individuals or groups, who are not always looking towards a new place and a new culture while looking back at what they are escaping. I understand that being Canadian, it’s much simpler to claim that wherever I would choose to place myself, I’d be given the luxury of being able to choose a culture about which I would like to learn. However, if Berlin lost itself into a sea of cultural differences, the German culture developed there would be lost. The same can be said for Rome, Prague, Baghdad, Cairo, Beijing… Finally, I understand that Western Colonialism, and previous empirical and cultural expansions before that period, often changed local cities and architectural styles, by bringing something new, sometimes highly conflicting. This discussion could easily move away from architecture into philosophy, anthropology, and ethical considerations. My focus is always architectural. Architecture in almost every culture, and probably until “modernism”, developed as an expression of everything about the culture and often, the religion at the center of that culture. Here, culture is more than the people, more than human biology, emotion and tradition. Environment, geology, local materials all intertwine. Architecture is a reflection of a people and their connection to their planet.
Toronto doesn’t work if its architecture doesn’t equal the diversity and quality of its people, who all came together in one place. Because it is a microcosm of difference. To do that everywhere would not show differences, because cities with distinct cultures and architectures are already part of a global multi-culture. This is to say, Chinatowns (along Spadina Avenue in Toronto, Somerset Street West in my hometown of Ottawa, the lower-east side in Manhattan, etc.) do not make sense unless there is a distinctive China that they evoke. Multiculturalism can easily move into an ideology of all-cultures, but works better when we think of each-culture. It’s the differences that have been developed that make the world interesting and beautiful, and maintaining distinctions, notably in architectural and urban forms will bring success to multiculturalism, not hinder it.
