Paris I

I have just been on a trip with the PDE department to the grand city of Paris. Nowhere else have I been where I have experienced such a clear juxtaposition of the traditional, the modern, and the postmodern.

I begin the tour by setting the stage in the centre of Paris. Paris has a massive central district. But the whole centre, which must span 12 miles in diameter, is kept strictly to a consistent building height, around 5 storeys is the norm. The streets here are often tight, but buzz with a really clear energy. The road network, seemingly based solely on providing views of the Arc de Triomphe, opens up loads of diagonal routes and 'V' shaped junctions, which provide plenty of opportunity for local community centres and clusters around small squares.

This is best illustrated with the obligatory Arc De Triomphe panorama. Open it and zoom around, that's miles and miles of well proportioned streetscape. It's all around Paris. A feat of urban planning. Turn 180 degrees and...

Oops. What's that? That's La Défense.

Europe's finest display of late 20th century architectural dick measuring, La Defense presses upon the heavy border of central Paris, a collection of meaningless skyscrapers and anonymous retail opportunity.

The problems with La Defense are threefold.

Firstly, here it is from the ground.

You could be anywhere. The place represents the worst of the effects of the 'international style'. Where paris has energy and character, La Defense has vague 'art' and plate glass. The central avenue, which, on it's own is a relatively decent public space is surrounded by a selection of shops such as Marks and Spencer, McDonalds and  New Look. The only thing that places this in France is the vague association with the brands on skyscrapers such as 'EDF'.

Secondly, let's try to walk there.

Easy, right? Well, No. That lovely 8min, 550m walk is not as it seems. If you'll forgive my use of google street view;

You'll see that the recommended route is a lovely avenue, for cars that is. The actual route:

Involves several changes of grade, a walk through a massive shopping centre, a mandatory coat and bag search, and is a headless hunt for the next signpost. It takes closer to 20 minutes. Why a new development should be so horrendous at accommodating for people on foot is beyond me.

But this high density development is all a necessary consequence of commercial success isn't it? I wouldn't say so, there is no reason planners couldn't have enforced mandatory pedestrian compatibility and a 10 floor height limit. What for land values though? Well ignoring the fact that the place was basically valueless 50 years ago, if you take a walk 600m in any direction from La Defense, you will find scores of three storey family homes. Hardly Manhattan is it?

Which brings me to my final point. A brief check on Wikipedia tells me that La Defense accommodates 180,000 daily workers. How many people live in La Defense? 20,000.

Leon Krier can be my crutch for this argument.

https://fishtown.us/sites/fishtown.us/files/Arch.jpg

Seeing as no one actually wants to live in high rise buildings, building commercial buildings at this height in small zones necessarily  creates large patches of suburban sprawl. This is what the americans have found. I think that Paris would have been better placed to expand it's well proportioned scale further as demand for building increased, perhaps integrate the 'horizontal skyscraper', and the odd monument like tour montparnesse doesn't do major harm. But our generation must learn from these 20th century mistakes and build cities that relate to humans and environments in the future.

Cartoons by Leon Krier, used without permission.

Drawing Cars

I've said what i've said about car design, and those views would obviously suggest I want cars to be plainer, more rational, and more honest. But when I sit down and draw a car, as I do out of habit at least 5 times a day, it ends up looking something like this:

A journey though a nearby folder takes me to all these random drawings, which took on average about 20 seconds each-

Here's a recent one - it's a casual re-fresh of audi's visual identity -

There seems to be a consistent, and rather surprising (if you've been redding this blog) observation - it's all very expressive. This brings up some very pressing questions. Most importantly, Why?

I've been drawing cars at various degrees of competency for a vary, very long time, and what i've learned is a muscle memory technique for drawing various views of cars, very quickly. Why are they all so 'expressive' the answer is because that's what's fun to draw.

Car designers are in a weird and specific sector of design, where they are separated from the kind of rational or sociological thought that is required of an industrial designer, and there is a very serious culture of passion in the car industry.

So I find myself drawing cars in a particular, fun, expressive, passionate manner. But this is at odds with what I believe a consumer product should be. Something I find myself wondering is 'if this is what I draw, what I feel, then isn't that what should be delivered to the consumer?'. In a large way, this is the thought that drives the majority of car design today. Any hint at any form of restraint seems constricting and oppressive compared to this practice.

But no, despite what my hand and my elbow tell me, I don't buy these kind of 'expressive forms'. We have to understand that in the scheme of things , a specific kind of crease on the side of a car has no positive effect whatsoever. It doesn't give the petrolhead any extra performance; the traditional looking Audi A6 has the exact same drag coefficient as it's swoopy, 'aerodynamic' sibling, the A7.

I'm not sure wether i'm mad at the grotesqueness in the car industry because I now believe myself 'a designer', or if i'm just a disappointed potential consumer; The car industry is struggling to give people my age a reason to buy anything! But I think it's clear that , with respect to car design that is actually respected long term, form does and should follow function.

Think of any of the 'classics' (those that actually sold in volume that is) the Mini, the Beetle, the (now retired) Land Rover, the 500, the Porsche 911, the Golf, citroen 2CV. What primarily defines these cars is, over all, restraint, sincerity and functionalism. The climate today is moving more and more towards fads and fashion, including the VAG group. I wonder if the car market will ever produce a high volume, long run production car ever again.