Departament d'Urbanisme, Territori i Paisatge

Departing from Peter Hall's thesis in Cities of Tomorrow, the chapter deepens existing and reconstructs the missing parts in the historical continuity of one of the major under-presented influences on urban planning – the anarchist roots of the planning movement. Authors like Ward, Woodcock and Turner in Britain, and Doglio, Magnaghi and De Carlo in Italy constitute the thread recognizing the regionalist bridge from Kropotkin and Reclus to planners Geddes and Mumford. To showcase these connections, the chapter reviews recent research in geography and planning history on Reclus and Turner, using Patrick Geddes as the connection.

Reclus and Geddes, beyond rich personal links, share a conceptual foundation of several projects. Outlook tower and Valley section emerge from mutual interest in a river basin and idea of the city-region – making the city-nature fusion an ideal of regionalist planning as presented in The Evolution of Cities. Geddes, further, resides in John Turner's holistic diagrams, urban-regional surveys and references on aided self-help housing in Indore report in Turner's pioneering research of self-aided housing in Latin America with Eduardo Neira. The influence crystalizes into Turner's housing is a verb, the maxim implying tenure, shelter and location as key vectors of housing provision.

https://revistascientificas.us.es/index.php/ppa/article/view/20634

[eng] This article explores the case of the community design of La Maison Médicale, ´La Mémé', a collective housing project at the Medicine Faculty of the Catholic University of Louvain, designed and constructed by Lucien Kroll. Begun in 1969, the project has often been described as a work of ´anarchitectureµ, occupying a prominent place in the historiography of participatory methods. The main aim is to examine the project’s participatory dimension and its evolution in time by researching the notion of  anarchitecture. To this end, it explores the term anarchitecture in association with the thinking of anarchist architects and urban planners in order to contextualize the tradition of which Kroll and his project form part. The main body analyses how, over time, this anarchitecture has been translated into the spatial forms and processes that make up La Mémé. To do so, it presents three resulting characteristics: organicity, community involvement and technical implementation, each addressed in terms of their conception in its design, use and possibilities for transformation today. It concludes with the key learnings that Kroll’s anarchitecture offers, based on reflections that question or challenge a simplified understanding of the idea of participation and its spatial conception.

KEYWORDS: anarchitecture; anarchism; user control; community design; collective housing; Lucien Kroll.
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[esp] Este artículo explora el caso de diseño comunitario de La Maison Médicale conocido como “La Mémé”, un proyecto de vivienda colectiva en la Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad Católica de Lovaina, diseñado y ejecutado por Lucien Kroll. Originado en 1969, el proyecto ha sido, a menudo, calificado como una obra de “anarquitectura” ocupando un lugar destacado en la historiografía sobre métodos participativos. El principal propósito consiste en examinar el proyecto desde su dimensión comunitaria y su evolución temporal a partir de investigar sobre la noción de anarquitectura. Con esta finalidad, exploramos el término anarquitectura asociado al pensamiento de arquitectos y urbanistas anarquistas para contextualizar la tradición en la que Kroll y su proyecto se inscriben. Como cuerpo principal, analizamos cómo esta anarquitectura se ha traducido, con el tiempo, en las formas espaciales y procesos que conforman La Mémé. Para ello presentamos tres características resultantes: organicidad, implicación comunitaria e implementación técnica, cada una de ellas abordadas desde su concepción en el diseño, uso y sus posibilidades de transformación presente. Finalmente concluimos con los principales aprendizajes que nos brinda la anarquitectura de Kroll a partir de reflexiones que cuestionan o ponen en duda una comprensión simplificada de la idea de participación y su concepción espacial.

PALABRAS CLAVE: anarquitectura; anarquismo; control del usuario; diseño comunitario; vivienda colectiva; Lucien Kroll.