Harvard GSD

Course Seminar Fall 2012

The Fourth Typology
Dominant Type and the Idea of the City



Christopher C.M. Lee

Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Course 09123: The Fourth Typology: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City 1





Aldo Rossi, Schemi tipologici; dallalto: XIII Triennale, Due progetti

Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Course 09123: The Fourth Typology: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City 2

09123: The Fourth Typology: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City
Harvard GSD, Seminar Fall 2012
Christopher C.M Lee (chris@serie.co.uk)
Teaching Associate: Simon Whittle (simon@serie.co.uk)
Wed 13.00 - 18.00, 40 Kirkland 1C

Open to all students, the seminars of this course will compliment Option Studio 1406, 1506:
Common Frameworks. It will provide the theoretical and historical basis, and serves as a platform
for a three year theoretical research on the developmental cities in China. Taking Anthony
Vidlers Third Typology as a starting point, the seminar proposes the fourth typology as a
common framework for the production of an architecture of the city in todays globalized
context. Unlike the first three typologies that found their justification for sociality from nature,
the machine and the historical city respectively; the fourth typology is rooted in the
developmental city.
The first half of the seminar will begin with the understanding of type from Quatremre
de Quincy and J.N.L Durand through the dialectics of idea and model. This renewed
understanding of type and typology will offer an alternative reading of the writings and projects
of Aldo Rossi and Rem Koolhaas as attempts to revalidate architectures societal and political
role through the redefinition of the idea of the city. This idea of the city will be discussed
through Aristotles polis, Schmitts homogenous demos, Mouffes agonistic pluralism, Rossis
collective memory, Agambens dispositif and Koolhaas heterogeneous containments.
The second half of the seminar will be theoretically projective. It will begin with an
attempt to trace the emergence of the developmental city in China and its apparatus, the mega-
plot. This will be underpinned by the theories offered in the first half of the seminar and further
complimented by guest seminars. These will include, 1. the history of urban governance in China
through its danwei system and a brief history of the mega-plot, 2. the history of Chinese urban
tradition and the theoretical basis for city making in China, 3. the possibility to formulate a
different understanding of criticality from a Chinese philosophical tradition that favours
efficacious propensities, and 4. the economic basis for the conception, construction and
sustenance of the public realm in cities.

Assignments
1. Main readings: students are expected to read the main readings for each seminar and
prepare several questions for discussion.

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2. Secondary readings: are intended to offer an alternative or opposing views to the ones
promulgated in the main readings. For every seminar, two students will prepare a 45-min
presentation that should cover the main propositions of the authors, critical issues raised
with reference to the theme of the seminar, a critique of the arguments and conjectures
as to the relevance of the ideas raised in the seminar.
3. Theoretical paper with drawn examples: that discusses the over arching theme of the course
will be due before the end of Fall 2012. A 500-word abstract should be submitted no
later than 14 Nov 2012. Consisting of 2,500 to 3,000 words, this theoretical paper should
be supported by analytical drawings of a dominant type chosen by the student. Details
will be discussed in class.


Wed 5 Sep 2012
Session 1: The Idea of Type
Any attempt to define type is an attempt to define what is typical; and what is most typical is
common to all. As such, type lends itself as an effective heuristic device to locate commonalities.
This search for what is common in architecture is not to locate formal or tectonic similitude, nor
is it used to usher in a universal style. It is a search for what is the idea that can be commonly
held so as to invest architecture with a social and political role. It is for this reason that the
question of type arises when architecture is perceived to be in crisis; when its relevance to the
wider milieu in which it is produced is in question. In the case of Quatremre de Quincy, who
first introduced the concept of type into architectural theory, the heuristic nature of type was
instrumental in his revalidation of the supremacy of Greek architecture, when its claim as the
origin of architecture was threatened by the archaeological discovery of Egyptian civilization that
predated it. Through type, he validates the use of classicism as an architectural language of
rationality and abstraction, an allegory for the revolutionary society defined by the ideals of
Enlightenment.

Forty, Adrian, Type, in Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture (London: Thames &
Hudson, 2000), p. 304-11
Quatremre de Quincy, Antoine Chrysthome, Architecture, Character, Imitation, and Type, in
The True, the Fictive and the Real: The Historical Dictionary of Architecture of Quatremre De Quincy,
trans. by Youns Samir (London: Andreas Papadakis Publishers, 2000), p. 74-86, 103-11,
175-78, and 254-57

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Secondary Reading
Vidler, Anthony, From the Hut to the Temple: Quatremre de Quincy and the Idea of Type, in
The Writing of the Walls: Architectural Theory in the Late Enlightenment (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 1987), p. 147-64
Vidler, Anthony, The Third Typology, Oppositions, 7 (1976), p.1-4

Recommended
Laugier, Marc-Antoine, An Essay on Architecture, trans. by Wolfgang and Anni Herrmann (Los
Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, 1977), p.1-14
Lavin, Sylvia, I: Origins and II: Architectural Etymology, in Quatremre de Quincy and the Invention of
a Modern Language of Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), p.18-100
Le Roy, Julien-David, Essay on the History of Architecture, in The Ruins of the Most Beautiful
Monuments of Greece, trans. by David Britt (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2004), pp.
209-35
Palma, Vittoria Di, Architecture, Environment and Emotion: Quatremre de Quincy and the
Concept of Character, AA Files, 47 (2002), p.45-56
Quatremre de Quincy, Antoine Chrysthome, Architecture, and Character, in Tanis Hinchcliffe,
Extracts from the Encyclopdie mthodique darchitecture, 9H, 7 (1985), 25-39
Vidler, Anthony. The Idea of Type: The Transformation of the Academic Ideal: 1750-1830,
Oppositions, 8 (1977), 93-115
Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, History of the Art of Antiquity, trans. by Harry Francis Mallgrave (Los
Angeles: Getty Publications, 2006)
Youns, Samir, Quatremre de Quincys Theory, in The True, the Fictive and the Real: The Historical
Dictionary of Architecture of Quatremre De Quincy (London: Papadakis Publisher, 2000), pp. 17-
35


Session 2: The Deep Structure of Type
For J.N.L Durand, the deep structure of type is fundamental to his construction of a logic
of type. This seminar will propose that Durands theoretical construct is firmly based on the idea
of type although he did not use the word type himself; it is not constructed out of the theories of
imitation, as Quatremre did, but out of his attempt to systematize architectural knowledge. The
ideas that serve as a rule to his deep structures of type are 'solidity, salubrity and economy'; and

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although Durand utilizes typology in a pragmatic manner, his larger ambition was to arrive at a
general principle of architecture that is understandable and accessible to all. Thus, what is
common in the case of Durand is architectural knowledge itself. It can be argued that for
Durand, science and rationality are seen as a means of emancipation for the revolutionary
society, and he ascribed this to a method. Therefore, this method, as the logic of type, despite its
pragmatic leanings is in fact political. For Durand, architecture should not be the preserve of
monarchical and aristocratic patronage; it is universally accessible when it is teachable to all.

Durand, Jean Nicolas Louis, Volume One: Introduction, Part II: Composition in General, and
Graphic Portion of the Lectures on Architecture: Summary of the Oral Portion of the
Lectures, in Prcis of the Lectures on Architecture, trans. by David Britt (Los Angeles: Getty
Publications, 2000), p. 77-88, 119-127 (and plates 1-20 to Part II: Composition in General),
and 187-201 (and plates 1-25 of Graphic Portion)
Oechslin, Werner, Premises for the Resumption of the Discussion of Typology, Assemblage, 1
(1986), p. 36-53

Secondary Reading
Perez Gomez, Alberto, Durand and Functionalism in Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science
(Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1983), p.297-326
Zaera Polo, Alejandro, and Moussavi, Farshid, Phylogenesis: FOAs Ark (London: Actar & ICA,
2004), p.6-17

Recommended
Durand, Jean-Nicolas-Louis, Recueil et parallle des difices de tout genre, anciens et modernes : remarquables par
leur beut, par leur grandeur, ou par leur singularit, et dessins sur une mme chelle, 2 vols (Paris: Chez
l'auteur, 1799-1801)
Hernandez, Antonio, J.N.L. Durand's Architectural Theory: A Study in the History of Rational
Building Design, Perspecta, 12 (1969), 153-60
Le Roy, Julien-David, Essay on the Theory of Architecture, in The Ruins of the Most Beautiful
Monuments of Greece, trans. by David Britt (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2004), p.367-86
Madrazo, Leandro, Durand and the Science of Architecture, Journal of Architectural Education, 48.1
(1994), p.12-24
Perrault, Claude, Ordonnance for the Five Kinds of Columns after the Method of the Ancients, trans. by Indra
Kagis McEwen (Los Angeles: Getty Publications 1993)

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Picon, Antoine, From Poetry of Art to Method: The Theory of Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, in
Pr'ecis of the Lectures on Architecture, trans. by David Britt (Los Angeles: Getty Publications,
2000), pp.1-6
Vitruvius, Book IV, Chapter I: The Origins of the Three Orders, and the Proportions of the
Corinthian Capital, in Ten Books on Architecture, trans. by Ingrid Rowland (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999)


Wed 12 Sep 2012
Session 3: Standard, Megastructure and Archetype
In the conception of the Modernist city, the notion of type came to be identified with the
standard. This standard as the typical object was promulgated as being able to increase civic
dignity and cohesion, and used to meet the demands of urban industrial population for the
emergence of a new harmonious social order. 40 years on, sharing the same belief in technology
and grand visions as the architects and planners of the modern movement, the Metabolist and
Mega-structuralist of the 1960s re-envisioned the city as a large, flexible and ever-expanding
structure, turning the typical to the proto-typiccal. At stake is architecture's claim to offering
solutions to the problems of rapid urbanization by treating the spaces of urbanization as one a
singular architectural project. At this juncture, architectural modernisms unequivocal claim of
instituting a clean break with tradition and history were challenged through the revival of the
question of type and archetype.

Colquhoun, Alan, Displacement of Concepts in Le Corbusier, in Essays in Architectural Criticism;
Modern Architecture and Historical Change (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), p. 51-66
Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture (New York: Dover Publications, 1987), p. 85-147
Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow and its Planning (New York; Dover Publications, 1987), p. 5-26, 57-
80 and 159-247

Secondary Reading
Aureli, Pier Vittorio, City as Political Form: Four Archetypes of Urban Transformation,
Architectural Design, 81.1 (2011), Typological Urbanism
Agamben, Giorgio, What is a Paradigm? in The Signature of All Things: On Method (New York: Zone
Books, 2009), p.9-32

Recommended

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Banham, Reyner, Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past (New York: Harper & Row, 1976),
p.13-69
Gropius, Walter, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus, trans. by Morton Shand (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1965)
Frampton, Kenneth, Megaform as Urban Landscape (Univ of Michigan, 1999)
Maki, Fumihiko, Some Thoughts on Collective Form, in Structure in Art and in Science, ed. By
Gyorgy Kepes (New York: George Braziller, 1965), pp. 116-127
Rowe, Colin, Mathematics of the Ideal Villa, in Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1976), pp. 1-28
Teige, Karel, Minimum Dwelling: The Housing Crisis, Housing Reform (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002)


Session 4: Type and the Historical City
As the failures of the city of modern architecture became increasingly apparent, a
recourse to typology and the historical city was instigated by the Neorationalist, the Krier
brothers, the New Urbanist and Rowe & Koetter. The return to the historical city as the urban
model par excellence allowed the various proponents to revalidate it as a permanent yet
functionally transparent architecture, an idealised image or a source for composing an urban
plan. This seminar will focus on the instrumentality of type as a heuristic device, but this time
with the focus on the city as exemplified by Aldo Rossis structure of permanence and Giulio
Carlo Argans precedents and continuity in design. The goal is to show how type can be seen as
a heuristic device that allowed each generation of architects and theorists to revalidate the role of
architecture within society by searching and defining what is the idea of type, that is, what is the
ideal that is common to all that will act as the principles for which architecture is produced.

Argan, Giulio Carlo, On the Typology of Architecture, in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An
Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995, ed. by Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 1996), p. 242-46 (first publ. Architectural Design, 33.12 (1963), 564-65)
Rossi, Aldo, Introduction, The Structure of the Urban Artifact and The Individuality of Urban
Artifacts; Architecture in The Architecture of the City, trans. by Diane Ghirardo and Joan
Ockman (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982), p.21-27, 29-61, 103-137


Secondary Reading
Rossi, Aldo, An Analogical Architecture, in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture, p.348-52

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Eisenman, Peter, Text of Analogy in Ten Canonical Buildings (New York: Rizzoli, 2008), p.178-198

Recommended
Aureli, Pier Vittorio, Difficult Whole in LOG 9, Winter/Spring 2007 (New York: Anyone
Corporation, 2007)
Krier, Leon, Chapter IV: Prospect for a New Urbanism and Chapter V: The Polycentric City of
Urban Communities, in Architecture: Choice or Fate (Windsor: Andreas Papadakis Publishers,
1998), pp.85-119 and 123-169
Rossi, Aldo, A Scientific Autobiography, trans. by Lawrence Venuti (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981)
Rossi, Aldo, The Architecture of the City, trans. by Diane Ghirardo and Joan Ockman (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1982)
Rowe, Colin, and Fred Koetter. Collage City (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1978)
Ungers, Oswald Matthias, The Dialectic City (Milan: Skira Editore, 1997)


Wed 3 Oct 2012
Session 5: Typology and Reinvention
In light of the discontentment with the universalism of architectural modernism and its
'nave functionalism' and technological positivism as a design method, the discussion of type and
typology in the late 1960s to early 1980s centred upon the possibility of reinventions via history
and tradition. This discourse in rethinking architectures response to a new 'realism' as opposed
to the neutrality of abstraction oscillated between the treatment of type as a conceptual
framework in search of a new universality and typology as a design method that addressed the
questions of precedent, repetition, continuity and reinvention.

Colquhoun, Alan, Typology and Design Method, Arena, 83 (1967), repr. in Theorizing a New Agenda
for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995, ed. by Kate Nesbitt (New York:
Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), pp. 250-57
Bandini, Micha, Typology as a Form of Convention, AA Files, 6 (1984), 73-82
Lee, Christopher C.M., Projective Series in Lee, Christopher, and Sam Jacoby, eds. Typological
Formations: Renewable Building Types and the City (London: AA Publications, 2007) p.136-147
O.M. Ungers, Oriol Bohigas, Carlo Aymonino, Anton Schweighofer, Aldo Rossi, Manuel de Sol-
Morales Rubi, Ludovico Quaroni, Rob Krier, Guido Canella, Aldo Van Eyck, interviewed
in Ten Opinions on Type in Casabella, 509-510, Jan-Feb 1985, p.92-112

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Secondary Reading
Moneo, Rafael, On Typology, Oppositions, 13 (1978), p.23-45
Eisenman, Peter, The End of the Classical The End of the Beginning, The End of the End,
Perspecta, 21 (1984), p.154-73

Recommended
Bandini, Micha Typological Theories in Architectural Design." in Companion to Architectural Thought,
eds by Ben Farmer and Hentie Louw (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 387-395
Colquhoun, Alan, Rationalism: A Philosophical Concept in Architecture, in Collected Essays in
Architectural Criticism (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2009), p. 163-77
Colquhoun, Alan, Three Kinds of Historicism, in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture An
Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995, ed. by Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 1996), p. 202-09
Madrazo, Leandro, The Concept of Type in Architecture: An Inquiry into the Nature of Architectural Form
(unpublished PhD thesis, ETH Zrich, 1995)


Session 6: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City
Types relation to the idea of the city is the extension of the concern to search for a
commonality in which architecture could invest itself with sociality. This necessitates the
discussion of the idea of the city, from Aristotles definition of the city or polis as a space of
coexistence to Chantal Mouffes concept of agonistic pluralism. The rereading and
reinterpretation of the writings and projects on the city of Aldo Rossi and Rem Koolhaas are
viewed through the lens of type and the idea of the city as a space of agonistic pluralism.
Although it is not customary to draw the relation between the two, it is precisely the intention of
this seminar to show that the instrumentality of type as a tool for renewal is in its ability to locate
the idea of what is common through the city.

Aureli, Pier Vittorio, Towards the Archipelago in The Possibility of An Absolute Architecture
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2011) p.1-46
Carl, Peter, Type, Field, Culture, Praxis, Architectural Design, 81.1 (2011), Typological Urbanism
Mouffe, Chantal, A Politics Without Adversary? in The Democratic Paradox (London: Verso, 2005),
p.108-128

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Secondary Reading
Koolhaas, Rem, Tabula Rasa Revisited in S, M, L, XL, 2nd ed. (New York: Monacelli Press, 1998)
p.1091-1135
Ungers, Oswald Matthias, Rem Koolhaas, Peter Riemann, Hans Kollhof, Peter Ovaska, Cities
within the City, Proposal by the Sommerakademie Berlin, in Lotus International, n.19, 1977,
p. 82-97

Recommended Reading
Arendt, Hannah, Introduction into Politics, in Arendt, The Promise of Politics, ed. Jerome Kohn (New
York: Schocken Books, 2005), p.93-200
Aristotle, Politics, trans. by Ernest Barker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)
Agamben, Giorgio, Metropolis trans., by Arianna Bove
(http://www.generationonline.org/p/fpagamben4.htm)
Koolhaas, Rem, Life in the Metropolis or The Culture of Congestion in Architecture Theory since
1968, Hays K.Michael, MIT Press, 1998, p.322330
Lee, Christopher C.M., 'Common Artifacts' in Human Experience and Place: Sustaining Identity, ed. by
Paul Brislin, Architectural Design, November 2012
Lucan, Jacques, OMA. Rem Koolhaas. Architecture 1970-1990 (Electa France, Milan-Paris: 1990; Electa,
Milan 1991)
Schmitt, Carl, The Concept of the Political (London: London University of Chicago Press, 1996)
Stadler, Matthew, The Story of K in What is OMA: Considering Rem Koolhaas and the Office for
Metropolitan Architecture, (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2003), p.123-135


Wed 17 Oct 2012
Session 7: Criticality: Between China and West (Jianfei Zhu)
There is a renewed interest in critical architecture in recent years. The debate is centered
on a new possibility regarded as post-critical, and that has also led to two positions, one
centered on performance the other social engagement. These are the debates occurring in the
west, between North America and Western Europe. Against this background is a study that
aims to connect with Asia using Rem Koolhaas and some Chinese architects as agents who had
transferred various energies between Asia and the West (Criticality in between China and the
West, 2004). What will be presented in this seminar is a more recent study: a comparison

Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Course 09123: The Fourth Typology: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City 11

between a Chinese state-led constructive approach with the western critical positions. It is argued
that the Chinese Confucian approach supports the Frankfurt Marxist critique, but demands
more, and thus opens up a new dimension that needs to contemplated with the collaborative
with the state that aims for a real social transformation, beyond formal gesture and oppositional
criticism.

Jianfei Zhu, Opening the Concept of Critical Architecture: The Case of Modern China and the
Issue of the State, in William S. W. Lim & Jiat-Hwee Chang (eds) Non West Modernist
Past: On Architecture & Modernities, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2012, p. 105-
116.
Jianfei Zhu, Criticality in between China and the West, Journal of Architecture, vol. 10, no. 5, 2005:
479-98.
Hilde Heynen, A Critical Position for Architecture, in Jane Rendell, Jonathan Hill, Murray
Fraser and Mark Dorrian (eds) Critical Architecture, London: Routledge, 2007, p. 48-56.

Secondary Reading
Peter Eisenman, Critical Architecture in A Geopolitical World, in Cynthia C. Davidson &
Ismail Serageldin (eds) Architecture beyond Architecture: Creativity and Social Transformation in
Islamic Cultures, London Academy Editions, 1995, p. 78-81.
Michael Hays, Critical Architecture: between Culture and Form, Perspecta 21, The Yale
Architectural Journal, 1984, p.15-29.
Robert Somol & Sarah Whiting, Notes around the Doppler Effect and Other Moods of
Modernism, Perspecta 33: Mining Autonomy, 2002, p. 72-7.
Michael Speaks, Design Intelligence: Part 1: Introduction, A+U, 12, no. 387, 2002: p.10-18.
Michael Speaks, Ideals, Ideology and Intelligence in China and the West, T+A, 91, no. 5, 2006:
p.63-5.
Peter Eisenman & Rem Koolhaas, Supercritical, ed. Brett Steele, London: AA Publications, 2010.
Rem Koolhaas, Singapore Songlines, in Rem Koolhaas, SMLXL, 1995, p. 1008-89.
Jianfei Zhu, Architecture of Modern China: A Historical Critique, London: Routledge, 2009 (C6).

Recommended Reading
Max Horkheimer, Traditional Theory and Critical Theory, in Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory:
Selected Essays, trans. Mattew J. OConnell, NY: Continuum, 1982, p. 188-243.

Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Course 09123: The Fourth Typology: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City 12

Stephen Eric Bronner, Of Critical Theory and Its Theories, NY& London: Routledge, 2002 (Chapter
2, p. 11-38).
Tu Wei-ming, ed. Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture
in Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996.


Session 8: Largeness as a Construct in Culture, Politics and Urban Form in China
(Jianfei Zhu)
Given the unprecedented scale of modernization now happening around the world, scale
or largeness is becoming a concept in art, design and theorization (such as bigness in Rem
Koolhaas SMLXL and the multitude in Hardt and Negris Empire). On another front, there are
scholars (such as Tu Wei-ming) who have identified an East-Asian model of modernization
with a distinctive feature of state leadership for efficient capitalist development, with a Confucian
tradition of a moral state rooted in the region and chiefly in China. This seminar asks two
questions: at what point does largeness begin to acquire qualitative content as a construct, and if
there is a construct of largeness in China in culture and politics and technological practice of
building and urban formation. This seminar explores this construct of largeness in basic systems
of signs and the arts of the state including building design and urban construction. It is argued
that, if there is a Chinese contribution today, it would be (beyond Tus neo-Weberian thesis) a
generic construct of largeness that advocates hybridity and connectedness, against a modernity of
autonomy and opposition.

Jianfei Zhu Largeness as a construct in culture and political ethics: towards a new modernity
with Chinese characteristics, unpublished paper (to be provided by the author).

Secondary Reading
Lothar Ledderoses Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art, Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2000.
Francois Jullien, The Propensity of Things: towards a History of Efficacy in China, trans. Janet Lloyd,
New York: Zone Books, 1995, p. 246-53
O. M. A, Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S, M, L, XL, New York: The Monacelli Press, 1995
(Bigness or the problem of large, pp. 495-516).

Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Course 09123: The Fourth Typology: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City 13

Tu Wei-Ming, ed. Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture
in Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996
(Introduction & Epilogue, pp. 1-10, 343-49).

Recommended Reading
Youlan Feng, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, New York: Free Press, 1966.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1984.


Wed 31 Oct 2012
Session 9: Dominant Type and the Developmental City
The city of Singapore will be used here as a case study to exemplify the utilization of the
dominant type to figure forth the idea of the developmental city state. It is a contingent idea that
evolves with the regimes of power and is therefore an evolving political project - a manifestation
of political forces. An understanding of the dominant type in this context will centre on the
discussion of the generic nature of type the propensity of the typical for transformation - as a
shared disciplinary knowledge and social contract. Unlike the urban artifacts associated with the
historical city, the dominant types here arose from the conditions of tabula rasa. As one of the
earliest examples of the developmental city in Asia, Singapore will be understood through two
dominant types the high-rise, high-density tower and slab block of Singapores public housing
project and the podium block.

Chua, Beng Huat, Public Housing and Political Legitimacy in Political Legitimacy and Housing
(London: Routledge, 1997), p.124-151
Lee, Christopher C.M., Working in Series: Towards an Operative Theory of Type in Working in
Series (London: AA Publications, 2010), p.4-12
Perry, Martin; Kong, Lily and Yeoh Brenda, Singapore: A Developmental City State (Chihester: John
Wiley & Sons Ltd., 1997), p.1-18



Secondary Reading
Chua, Beng Huat, Public-housing policies compared: United States, ex-socialist nations and
Singapore in Political Legitimacy and Housing (London: Routledge, 1997), p.12-2
Koolhaas, Rem, Generic City SMLXL (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995), p.1239-57

Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Course 09123: The Fourth Typology: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City 14


Recommended Reading
Castells, Manuel, The Developmental City-State in an Open World Economy: The Singapore
Experience (unpublished working paper for the Centre for Advance Studies, National
University of Singapore, 1988)
Chua, Beng Huat, Arrested Development: Democratisation in Singapore in Third World Quarterly,
Vol.15, No. 4 (London: Taylor & Francis Ltd, 1994), p.655-668
Chua, Beng Huat, From City to Nation: Planning Singapore in Political Legitimacy and Housing
(London: Routledge, 1997), p.25-50
Chua, Beng Huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (Oxon: Routledge, 1995)
Koolhaas, Rem in Singapore Songlines in SMLXL (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1995)
Wang, L.H and Yeh, Stephen H.K., (ed.) Housing a Nation: 25 Years of Public Housing in Singapore
(Singapore: Maruzen Asia for Housing Development Board, 1985)
Yeh, H.K., Public Housing in Singapore: A Multi-disciplinary Study, (ed.) Yeh, H.K. (Singapore:
Singapore University Press, 1975)
Singapore Planning and Urban Research Group, SPUR 65-67 (Singapore: SPUR, 1967)
Tay, Kheng Soon and Bay, Philip, Tay Kheng Soon and SPURS: Activism in the early days of
Singapores History (1999), <http://www.newsintercom.org/?p=18> (accessed 10
December 2011)
Wee, CJW-L, The end of disciplinary modernisation? The Asian crisis and the ongoing reinvention
of Singapore in Third World Quarterly, Vol. 22, No.6, The Post-Cold War Predicament
(London: Taylor & Francis Ltd., 2001), p.987-1001


Session 10: From Big to Small to Mega: Understanding the superblock development of
Beijing in a socio-political context (Ling Fan)
The Superblock is a unique urban form in Chinese cities. It evolves, adapts, and
dominates different moments of urban developments: the period of industrialization in the
1950s, the de-urbanism and anti-urbanism during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 70s,
and the period of rapid urbanization that we are currently encountering. The Superblock is a
mediator between the city and its architecture, between the abstract space of governance and
design and the real space of production and living. The Superblock is treated here as an
archetype. Arguably, it is the most enduring spatial formation since the establishment of the
Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. It varies in size, spatial layout and terminology in
different periods. Yet, there is an overt typological consistency and historical genealogy residing

Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Course 09123: The Fourth Typology: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City 15

in its variations and formation. From its inception, the Superblock is always embedded with a
strong political will that changes the sense of the city through their confrontation. This
presentation will focus on the overall urban strategy and genealogy of the superblock. Case
studies will be used to further articulate its transition from big to small to mega. This shift is
simultaneously an ideological, formal and spatial change, through which the formal is a mediator
of ideological changes within a socio-political context.

Bray, David. 2005. Social Space and Governance in Urban China: the Danwei System from Origins to
Reform (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press), Ch. 6
Brazier, Cressica, Ling Fan, and Tat Lam. From Big to Small to Mega-zone: Reading Large-scale
Development of Chinese Cities Through Social and Spatial Structures. Shi Dai Jian Zhu =
Time & Architecture, no. 2 (May 2009): p.2837.
Fan, Ling., Cressica. Brazier, Tat. Lam, Becoming Beijing: Developer-Architect Dynamics in Socio-
political Context in A & U: architecture & urbanism, 2010 July, n.7(478), p.94-99.

Secondary Reading
Chang, Yung-Ho. City of Objects Aka City of Desire. A & U: Architecture & Urbanism, no. 399
(December 2003), p.7073.
Lu, Duanfang. 2006. Remaking Chinese Urban Form : Modernity, Scarcity and Space, 1949-2005. Planning,
History, and Environment Series (London; New York: Routledge, 2006), Ch. 2, 3.

Recommended Reading
Blau, Eve. 1999. The Architecture of Red Vienna, 1919-1934. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press.
Chung, Chuihua Judy., Jeffrey. Inaba, Rem. Koolhaas, Sze Tsung. Leong, Bernard. Chang, Harvard
Project on the City., and Harvard University. Graduate School of Design. Great Leap
Forward. Vol. 1. Project on the City; Kln: Cambridge, Mass.: Taschen ;Harvard Design
School, 2001.
French, R. A. Plans, Pragmatism and People : the Legacy of Soviet Planning for Todays Cities. Vol. 2.
Changing Eastern Europe ; London: UCL Press, 1995.
Lu Junhua, Peter G. Rowe and Zhang Jie. Modern Urban Housing in China, 1840-2000, New York,
2001. Ch. 2, 4, Conclusion
Wang, Jun. 2011. Beijing Record : a Physical and Political History of Planning Modern Beijing. Singapore;
London: World Scientific.
Wu Hung, Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Creation of a Political Space, London, 2005.

Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Course 09123: The Fourth Typology: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City 16

Zhu, Jianfei. Architecture of Modern China : a Historical Critique, 75104. London; New York:
Routledge, 2009.


Wed 14 Nov 2012
Session 11: The economic basis for the conception, construction and sustenance of the
public realm in cities. (Bing Wang)
Public realms are a complex assemblage of various constructions over different deposits
of urban times. The conception, construction and sustenance of public realms are, more often
than not, economically contingent. Shifts of architectural philosophy, cultural movements and
spatial significations inevitably correspond to, and reflect profound transitions in, capital forces
and economic structures of a society. This session of the seminars focuses on the introduction of
economic institutions and market mechanism that have shaped and are shaping these public
realms in cities. The interrelationship between physical manifestation of public realms and their
underlying production process are explored through analysis of themes in regard to rational
economic activities, real estate ownership structures as well as the efficacy of public financing.

Yennga Thi Khuong, Carla Jaynes (ARUP). "Financing Methods for Improving and Securing
Public Spaces." Walk 21 Conference. New York, 2009.
Conference paper presenting detailed financial descriptions for funding the implementation of
pedestrian priority zones in three case studies in American cities.

Paul Walter Clarke, The Economic Currency of Architectural Aesthetics, In Designing Cities:
Critical Readings in Urban Design, ed. Alexander Cuthbert (UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), P29-
43.
Theoretical argument on architectural aesthetics, ideology, imagery and possible economic value.
Deutsche, Rosalyn. Uneven Development: Public Art in New York City. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996.
Describing how the homeless are dispelled from public space when the city is designed as a piece of
art.

Secondary Reading
Smith, Arthur L. "PPP Financing in the US." In Policy, Finance and Management for Public Private
Partnerships, by Matthias Beck Akintola Akintoye. Chicester: Wiley Blackwell, 2009.
Very detailed look at public funding tools used to implement major infrastructure projects in the US
with short case studies.

Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Course 09123: The Fourth Typology: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City 17


Gavin, Angus. "Remaking Beruit." In City Edge: Contemporary Discourses on Urbanism, by Ester
Charlesworth, 14-32. Oxford: Architectural Press, 2005.
Book chapter detailing the process and outcome of transferring the ownership of virtually all land,
including the former public realm, to a private development corporation, Solidere, to redevelop (and
ultimately sell most back to the city) after a civil war.

Recommended reading

Lefebvre, Henri. The Right to the City. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.

An argument for equitable use of the city, because anthropological foundation of social needs
should trump the financial inability to enjoy the space of the city.




Session 12: Student tutorials