Red Vienna

I'd made for Vienna to see the Karl Marx Hof, an apartment complex built when social democrats ran the city in the years following WWI. As a social, aesthetic project, seeing the building taught me a great deal. 

Consider something as seemingly trivial as the ideal proportion of building heights to the distances between them. Too tall, and you create a sense of suffocation. Too spread out and the area ceases to be a comforting, protected enclosure.  KMH apartments were about three stories high and wrapped around a large, enclosed area that was differentiated from the wider urban context, like the courtyard of a single home. 

In a typical urban and suburban setting, most of our encounters are instrumental; we make appointments and we have goals in mind as to what we want from our interactions, be they romantic, commercial and so on. But the KMH welcomed interactions with others for the sole reason that they were part of the architecture of your daily life. Speak to your neighbors, because you share, are invested in, a common space. Real interactions gradually become the foundation stones of real communities.

A great deal of modern planning, along with the digital age, has paradoxically divorced us from space and from the people who are physically present around us. It has given each individual the ability to create their own social apartheid. This problem was particularly acute in my personal diaspora experience as an Iranian American. While my mind was constantly in Iran, where I was powerless to affect direct change, I often didn't know the first thing about issues facing my own neighborhood, where I had the ability to make a real difference.

On issues that matter (eg. environment, social justice) we have no choice but to work together with all types of people, not just those we like or agree with. If strong ties are not cultivated in moments of stability and calm, we cannot expect to rely on them in moments of crisis and upheaval. 

I saw in the KMH an attempt to physically turn residents inward, to allow them to identify with common features of their daily lives. My hypothesis: over time, this type of architecture has the ability to translate into more interactions, more dialog, and ultimately, a greater willingness to build a future with others around you.