File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_1996/96-07-14.151, message 7


Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 23:23:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: Arindam Dutta <adutta-AT-phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Subject: Architecture



Please visit our WWW site at http://www.princeton.edu/~majumdar/sanjuan.html


IDENTITY POLITICS AND ARCHITECTURE: RE-ENVISIONING SAN JUAN

I- PROJECT TEAM

Prof. Susan Buck-Morss, Cornell University.
Political Theory

Prof. Lauro Cavalcanti, Director, Paco Imperial, Rio de Janeiro
Latin American Architecture and Urbanism

Prof. Briancel Chang, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Media and Postcoloniality

Arindam Dutta, Ph.D. Candidate, Princeton University.
Post-Colonial Studies

Prof. Mark Jarzombeck, Director, MIT History, Theory and Criticism
History of Architecture, History of Theory

Prof. Anthony D. King, Binghamton University
Post-Colonial Theory

Prof. Jorge Rigau, Director, School of Architecture, Polytechnic 
University of Puerto Rico Program.
Caribbean Architectural History

Prof. Lucien Taylor, Universete des Antilles, Martinique.
Visual Anthropology

Prof. Mark Wigley, Princeton University
Theory of Architecture

Project Directors:
Prof. Jorge Otero-Pailos, Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico
Prof. Vikramaditya Prakash, University of Washington


II- INTRODUCTION

Using San Juan as case study," Re-envisioning San Juan" responds to the 
pedagogical mission of the Polytechnic's new School of Architectureby 
opening a forum that will develop strategies for investigating the 
specific contracts that (can) occur between architecture and culture. The 
final goal of this project is not only to find ways of integrating such 
contracts into the pedagogical mission of the School, but to assess the 
manner in which they affect the broader profession, community, and 
region. The nature of a project that addresses identity politics is both 
complex and necessarily interdisciplinary. Intending to address pertinent 
issues in depth, "Re-envisioning San Juan" is set up as a collaborative 
effort consisting of a team of academics and professional from relevant 
fields and related interests. The project team will be convened in two 
stages -- in August and January -- first to familiarize itself with the 
city and to debate and discuss the pertinent issues, and then to conduct 
a workshop where these issues are tested in the laboratory of San Juan.

San Juan's complex colonial history and multicultural contemporary 
contexts make the city a prime laboratory for such an investigation, 
since issues of identity are ineveitably foregrounded in 
transforming/hybridized situations like Puerto Rico, where identity 
production becomes an agential practice -- politically motivated as the 
voice from the margin.

"Re-envisioning San Juan" will test the successes and failures of the 
city's architectural institutions by asking:
In what way are issues of identity politics relevant to a professional 
education in the architecture and urbanism of San Juan today? How and 
which issues of identity are registered in the architecture and urbanism 
of San Juan?

III- IDENTITY POLITICS AND THE ARCHITECTURAL PROFESSION

Identity politics is critical to the economic and ideological make-up of 
San Juan. A complex set of local and derivative groups jostle together in 
the overlaid identitarian map of the city. Testing and contesting 
identity claims is an integral part of everyday as well as official 
culture. As important institutions of culture, both the School and the 
profession are implicitly or explicitly implicated in these processes. 
However, the specific ways in which the analyses of cultural studies can 
be brought to bear upon an affirmative practice remains an open question 
-- one that is of critical importance to a profession that perceives 
itself as marginalized.

In response, the objective of "Re-envisioning San Juan" is to help 
establish a critical framework through which the institutions of 
architecture can develope a self-conscious and critical awareness of 
their role and agency in the identitarian politics of the community and 
the region. The referential focus fo the forum/workshop thus will be to 
test and contest the effectiveness of architecture professionals' 
performance as agents of social practice.

The project team consists of academics and professionals who are 
interested in investigating the built environment from particular 
perspectives typically not associated with architecture. Such 
perspectives, having no investment in upholding the traditions of the 
architectural profession (its language, canons, images, etc.), provide 
insights that at times reinforce, but more often challenge, the 
narcissistic interests of architecture. AS such, this project will not 
only be a unique test-case of interdisciplinary praxis, but will more 
importantly facilitate the affirmative transformation of the local 
architectural profession. This project thus engages the participants in a 
mutually constitutive and beneficial contract between multi-disciplinary 
perspectives and the imperatives of architectural practice.

IV- PRELIMINARY INTRODUCTION TO THE OPERATIVE FIELD OF RE-ENVISIONING 
SAN JUAN

The operative goals of the project team will be to:
*	develop and test techniques of documenting and theorizing 
	identitarian practices in relation to the architecture and urbanism of 
	San Juan.
*	produce alternative and critical analysis of the (possible) 
	interrelationships between architectural and other institutions of 
	culture, like tourism, folklore, music, film, television, etc.
*	debate, discuss and explicate the possible benefits and 
	limitations, both to the Puerto Rican architectural profession and the 
	socius it operates in, of explicitly and implicity investing the 
	institutions of architecture in the extended field of identity politics.

The following annotated list of "Identity Claims" and "Possibilities of 
Engagement" has been culled from the everyday knowledges of life in San 
Juan. It is intended to open up, rather than conclusively define, the 
field of discussion of "Re-Envisioning San Juan". At the same time, the 
list is intended to convey something of the "texture" of the discussion 
that is envisaged at this point.


A- Identity Claims

1) Pre-Columbian
The native inhabitants were fully colonized; remnant culture has been 
essentially erased; there are a few small ruins; the city's participation 
in a larger pre-Columbian culture is only possible through active 
re-membering.

2) As Spanish postcolony
Spain remains the "mother-land"; Spanish is the principal language; 
nostalgia (contra the Americans) is common, frozen structure of old San 
Juan stands as an emblem of lost civilization; colonial architecture is 
seen as "indigenous" to land and culture; colonial architecture is 
imitative but localized through adaptation.

3)As American Territory
First re-structuring of urban texture of San Juan around turn of century; 
military bases; New Deal social housing, modern architecture and 
hypothetical "tabula rasa" schemes for development of city.
Currently Puerto Rico's history, ambivalent political position, and 
economic policies are constructed around a dual identity where the 
advantages of autonomy and dependency are simultaneously exploited. 
Puerto-Rico's political status as an American "territory" is currently 
the site of heated debate amongst identitarian politicians of both the 
mainland and the island.

4) Cultural Melting Pot
Beginning with indentured labor from the African continent, legal and 
illegal migration from the Dominican Republic.

5) As Carribbean Latin Area
Identity formation linking Puerto Rico, Cuba and Dominican Republic as 
Spanish post-colonies with formal structural similarities in 
architecture; the possibility of a Caribbean Latin architectural project 
as Frierian endeavor re-centralizing dispossessed knowledges; variously 
proposed as an ideal, political, utopian project.

6) As Latin America
Identity formation linking Central America, the Caribbean and northern 
South America.

7) Real Estate Development
Real estate development with consumer capitalism following the American 
model accounts for almost all the construction in the city; wide-spread 
single family plotted homes and high rise structures in the 50's and 
60's; large scale theme developments are current trend.

8) Tourist imperatives
Preservation of the old city through ordinances, marketing of Puerto 
Rican image as "isla del encanto" ("Island of Enchantment"); projection 
of image of island as the experience of the exotic, primitive, land 
withthe comfort and security of American amenities.

9) Nationalist sentiment
Early in 1996 independent party (PIP) leader Juan M. Bras renounced his 
North American nationality. U.S. immigration and naturalization accepted 
to revoke his passport. In keeping with current legislatures, the Puerto 
Rican government was unable to offer an alternate passport. The gesture 
sparked an ongoing debate over the reality of Puerto Rican sovereignty.

B- POSSIBILITIES OF ARCHITECTURAL ENGAGEMENT

1) No Active Engagement: Economic Determinism
This is the real estate industry.

2) No Active Engagement: Response to Mainland/Global fashion
Utilization of intra-disciplinary language and formal canon, usually 
imported from the center of the Academy.

3) Critical Regionalism
Reworking of local building traditions through contemporary aesthetic and 
technological frameworks

4) Modernism
Importation of the universalising claims of an autonomous architectural 
vocabulary and philosophy

5) As Voice from the Margin
Assumption of the role of "representative other", catering fundamentally 
to the image and conceptions of the metropolitan center.

6) Strategic Deployment of Subject Positions
Assumption of negotiable strategic subject position dependent on the 
inter-subjective interests and desires of the representer and represented.

7) Development of Strategic Contracts with other Professions
Strategic location of professional subject positions and alliances with 
the objective of centralizing architectural interests in the socius.

8) Other?







%%% overflow headers %%%
To: poco <postcolonial-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu>,
        architecture -- Aparna U Datey <adatey-AT-MIT.EDU>,
        Arindam Dutta <adutta-AT-Princeton.EDU>,
        Sonit Bafna <sonit.bafna-AT-arch.gatech.edu>,
        Shubhagato Dasgupta <ucfusda-AT-ucl.ac.uk>,
        "Muhammad I. Muzaffar" <Muzaffar-AT-Princeton.EDU>,
        Jagan Arvind Shah <jas150-AT-columbia.edu>,
        Manu Prithvish Sobti <Manu.P.Sobti-1-AT-tc.umn.edu>,
        Minakshi Maniben <minas-AT-MIT.EDU>,
        Peter Scriver <pscriver-AT-arch.adelaide.edu.au>,
        Pratap Talwar <Prtalwar-AT-aol.com>, Ritu Bhatt <rb34-AT-cornell.edu>,
        Vaishali Patel <vpatel-AT-acnet.pratt.edu>,
        Vikramaditya Prakash <Vikram-AT-asu.edu>,
        archtwo -- HAIDERI ABBAS IBRAHIM <abba-AT-falcon.cc.ukans.edu>,
        Ashish Dave <sanjeev.atz-AT-axcess.net.in>,
        Dipankar Mukherjee <u2165169-AT-keystone.arch.unsw.EDU.AU>,
        Jorge Otero-Pailos <jotero-AT-ns1.pupr.edu>,
        "Sanjay M. Kewlani" <smk2312-AT-hertz.njit.edu>,
        kamal kishore <hsb957119-AT-rccvax.ait.ac.th>,
        Meghana Parikh <tonyc-AT-shellx.best.com>, Partho Dutta <partho-AT-MIT.EDU>,
        Sapna Mehta <u2165189-AT-keystone.arch.unsw.EDU.AU>,
        union street <102630.1201-AT-compuserve.com>,
        uday shridhar andhare <uday-AT-unm.edu>,
        Vivek Agrawal <vivek-AT-world.std.com>,
        "John S. Coburn" <socrates-AT-user1.channel1.com>,
        "Helene M. Furjan" <hmfurjan-AT-phoenix.Princeton.EDU>,
        "Jonathan R. Massey" <jmassey-AT-phoenix.Princeton.EDU>,
        Sasha Sattar <ssattar-AT-phoenix.Princeton.EDU>,
        "Jennifer M. Beningfield" <jmbening-AT-phoenix.Princeton.EDU>,
        Anna Abengowe <abengowe-AT-phoenix.Princeton.EDU>,
        Ashish Dave <sanjeev.atz-AT-axcess.net.in>,
        Satish K Kolluri <kolluri-AT-comm.umass.edu>,
        "Sarah A. Lappin" <salappin-AT-phoenix.Princeton.EDU>,
        Susan Michael <ruminant-AT-netwizards.net>,
        Vidhya Sampath <vidhya-AT-obr.nl>
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