C 09 63
of urbanism, the scale of architecture, the
scale of the office.
RK: But by asking this, are you presuming
that the large scale is irredeemably connected
to unsustainable practices? Or do you think
the scale is a precondition for sustainability?
RI: I think I should have asked you that
question, which you rephrased in a better way
than I stated it. But if I had to answer, I would
say big scale is a big problem due to the power
of corporate structures, which operate with
a top-down mentality, as in the planning of
Masdar City, whereas if we started at more
intermediate scales, with more commitment
to identity and place, I think we would come
up with better solutions. And now where
people are living, if 50% is urban, is not
in concentrated cities, but in sprawl, which
requires excessive transportation, leading to
14% of greenhouse gases.
RK: Yes, so you could say it no longer
permits a typology of the culture of conges-
tion, and how wasteful that has been in the
last thirty years. But the idea of congestion
remains necessary as a sort of compactness
in terms of more equitable use of resources.
And here there is a deep connection between
scale and density. I don’t think you should be
so skeptical about projects such as Masdar,
because the numbers and the time frame im-
pose artificialities, even though rhetorically
and emotionally it is acceptable that you
could start with a situation that is given
and then kind of moves slowly. And we have
done many projects like that, particularly in
preservation in places like Dubai, where we
tried to gain the responsibility to preserve
urban situations and change them over time,
which seems incredibly resistant as a realistic
utopian project despite the current economy.
Political change is necessary, and it’s really
a promising moment considering the eco-
nomic crisis is still there and does not seem
to be healing itself, and is probably getting
worse if you observe the increase in inequal-
ity, which is leading to unbelievable tensions
and populism. It’s a crunch moment that
also has positive potentials. For instance, in
non-western societies, particularly in Asia,
you find a healthy increase in the middle
class and a rise in confidence and gaining of
access to things that were previously totally
unthinkable. So it’s very hard to generalize
and you cannot say point blank that poverty
has increased.
RI: But the levels have changed, and the
1% that owns over 50% of the wealth is a
definite increase.
RK: And nobody is for that!
RI: Well, I think the 1% is, and they usu-
ally control the lobbies of the political system.
RK: But the fact that the growing aware-
ness of the inequities of the 1% has drawn so
much negative critical attention is important
in that it forces them to prove their integrity.
There are many indications that it is no longer
business as usual, in almost any profession.
But you have to stop moaning about the pre-
vious condition. It was an excessive situation.
A lot of irresponsibility, corporate greed, and
neo-liberalism led to ruin, so now there is
a kind of necessary reconstruction period,
where we could play a positive role.
RI: If we can see the enduring econom-
ic crisis as an opportunity of some sort to
change policies, to change lifestyles, a kind
of natural degrowth, as Serge Latouche has
called it, could we see the impending envi-
ronmental crises of floods, droughts, crop
failures, as an opportunity? Could we be
like Svante Arrhenius, the first theorist of
the greenhouse effect, who presumed a rise
in temperature would be beneficial?
RK: There has been an enormous amount
of natural and man-made negative outcomes,
leading to a collective sense of what happened
and who is to blame, and how we could afford
it. It is so blatant, it’s in the air. So without
sounding too much like Voltaire’s Candide we
could state that there is an amazing global
awareness. With a lot of people fishing in
troubled waters. So it would be absurd not
to try to use this moment as an opportunity.
RI: In Rotterdam, where you have your of-
fice, there is an agency devoted to a climate
change adaptation strategy, which in the last
two years has been exporting information to
other cities, such as New York. By the end
of the century it is predicted that 90% of the
world’s great cities will have seen dangerous
changes in water levels, similar to Venice’s
acqua alta. There is also a new public plaza
in Rotterdam, Benthemplein, proposed as an
urban sponge to assist in such situations.
Should we learn from Rotterdam?
RK: I don’t think I need to take a position
on Rotterdam, but let’s say that the whole of
the Netherlands provides an example of what
you can do in a dire situation of changing
sea levels. And it’s an experience that shows
“Europe needs to establish
a culture of consensus
that can be detached from
political colors“
