Cities across Nations, PhD Dissertation, Els Verbakel, Princeton University, ongoing
This dissertation studies the discourse on the changing image of the city that emerged from the 1958 competition for the seat of the European Communities (ECSC, EEC and Euratom). This particular moment in postwar European history represents a crossroads in thinking about the role of cities in the evolution of larger political and economic structures. From the city as a central place where the socio-economic mechanisms of a nation-state converge, this turning point places the city in a broader perspective, as a juxtaposition of districts connected to other districts by international networks of transportation, utilities and information. This city is no longer a homogeneous, integrated entity, but rather a conglomerate of parallel districts, each with its own role within a transnational urban system. Moreover, the 1958 competition presents the city district as a platform, a 'flat' space, a hub for highways and train tracks to plug into, a coherent and identifiable 'ensemble' representing modernization, Europeanness and unification, an urban segment, distinct enough to provide the grounds for an extraterritorial urbanity to take place.
Cities of Dispersal, AD Magazine, edited by Rafi Segal, Els Verbakel, 2008
Questioning the traditional boundaries between cities, suburbs, countryside and wilderness, this issue of AD explores emergent types of public space in low-density environments. It describes this new form of urbanism: decentralised, in a constant process of expansion and contraction, not homogenous or necessarily low-rise, nor guided by one mode of development, typology or pattern.
While functionally and programmatically dispersed, settlements operate as a form of urbanism; the place of collective spaces within them has yet to be defined and articulated. The physical transformation of the built environment on the one hand, and the change in our notion of the public on the other - due to globalisation, privatisation and segregation - call for renewed interpretations of the nature and character of public space. The concept of public space needs to be examined: replaced, re-created or adapted to fit these conditions. What is the place of the public in this form of urbanism, and how can architecture address the notion of common, collective spaces? What is the current sociopolitical role o such spaces? How does the form and use of these spaces reflect the conception of the public as a political (or non-political) body? And can architecture regain an active role in formulating the notion of the collective? These and other issues are addressed through essays, research projects and built work by distinguished writers such as Bruce Robbins, Albert Pope and Alex Wall, and Practitioners including Zvi Hecker, Vito Acconci, MUTOPIA, Manuel de Sola-Morales, Martha Rosler and Manuel Vicente in a search for new collective architectures within the dispersed city.
City of Wilderness, Rethinking the European Citta Diffusa, AD Magazine, 2005
As the EU is strengthening its global identity and at the same time expanding its territory, its internal boundaries are transforming and making space for a new type of urban environment. At these internal borders, where the city has known a different history than large urban centers, we find a new type of wilderness that does not distinguish human production from natural process. A closer look at Flanders Fields, where mirror-towns have developed on both sides of the border between France and Belgium, uncovers the opportunity for a symbiosis of the advantages of urban density and the qualities of wild nature.
Backyard City / Garden State, Rotterdam International Architecture Biennale, Rafi Segal, Els Verbakel and Princeton CAUI, 2007
The spatial products of New Jersey; objects, buildings, cities, and landscapes, are collected, categorized and dissected into separate architectural elements. These elements — New Jersey's urban traits — are then combined and mixed to breed new off-springs for a future New Jersey Citystate.This project proposes a tool for urban speculation and experimentation, whereby the architect generates new urban entities (programs and forms) using units and elements of corporate power and expansion. As New Jersey outgrew its suburban nature, transforming into a new dispersed urban condition, its typical physical features — the generic products created by corporate power, have now become the genes for urban hybrids of a 21st century Citystate.
Urban Life, Housing in the Contemporary City, Exhibition and Website, Architectural League of New York, 2003
"Urban Life" examines innovative housing typologies in the urban environment characterized by continuously increasing densities. This research, conducted by Els Verbakel as a Research Fellow for the Architectural League of New York formed the base of a travelling exhibition and accompanying online knowledge platform. Six 'perspectives on housing' structure both website and exhibition: Body, Building, City, Environment, Technology, Implementation. They operate as lenses through which the housing projects can be understood and evaluated as urban strategies. The first three spectra relate to different scales and are delineated not as merely the mathematical ratio between relative and real size but as the relationship between physical, economical, political and social meanings linked to different fields of reach. The second group of spectra is related to the ways in which the projects are implemented, the processes in which they take part.
