Tools for Urban Regeneration case study of Serbia and Montenegro

Transcription

1 Tools for Urban Regeneration case study of Serbia and Montenegro Ass.Prof. Aleksandra Djukic 1 Ass. lect. Aleksandra Stupar Ph.D 2 1Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra 73/2, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro, sandra@arh.bg.ac.yu 2 Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra 73/2, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro, stupar@arh.bg.ac.yu Keywords: urbanity, identity, urban regeneration, restoration, sustainable tools Abstract Facing the global changes the city and its multidimensional background modify the essence of their historical role and symbolism. Unprepared to respond at different high-tech civilization flows and unprotected from the strength of recently established networks, urban space and its consumers are forced to balance between their needs and unified frames imposed by the post-modern mainstream. On other hand, the dynamics of socialism and the circumstances of transition from a socialist to a market economy, left Central European countries including Serbia and Montenegro with an exceptionally large burden of brownfields in urban areas. Reuse of land, urban recycling, limitation of land consumption and other scarce resources, as the principles of sustainable development. The research paper has theoretical and practical frame and results. It will describe a design tool for sustainable urban development of cities and towns for use in urban planning. The purpose of this tool is to provide designers with information and ideas on the possibilities for the sustainable development of existing urban areas. It helps identify alternatives and limitations with regard to sustainable development on the basis of the existing and the desired spatial structure. The design tool is primarily intended for use by urban planners, designers and local government policy officials who are involved in urban renewal projects and they are already checked on a few Master plans in Serbia and Montenegro. 1. Introduction Cities appear and develop in time and space. Both time and space are of universal character and are accepted as universally changeable. It means that cities within a region get interconnected gradually, and those connections become more complex with time. These spatial and timely dimensions of a city can be used to have better understanding of the present and to predict future more easily. Past experience is a good indication of the impact that social, political and economic factors can have on the tempo and method of the transformation of a city, but also the impact on a builder s awareness of identity, spirit and uniqueness of a city and its environment. For thousands of years, people of different cultures created the cities of great beauty, functionality and complexity, most often by mere chance and without any big difficulties. On the other hand, there are cities that have appeared as a result of the studies done by great visionaries. When these cities and their spaces are renewed and restored, it is impossible to repeat existing visible forms without having understood the circumstances of their development. The process of city transformation requires that the factors be discovered which are independent from current circumstances thus being a stable basis of the city structure in a given time. On the other hand, it is necessary to comprehend a city as a dynamic structure under constant development and transformation. The cities of Serbia and Montenegro can be said to have transformed relatively continually from the middle ages and all the way up to the first half of the 20 th century. Mid 20 th century was the beginning of intensive urbanization that resulted in uncontrolled spreading of city boundaries as well as eradication of the specificities

2 of certain city parts. All regional, cultural and other characteristics are erased by new trends. Modern cities, especially their new parts (suburbs, newly built blocks and radical reconstructions of old city parts), resemble each other incredibly. Repetitions of similar assemblies, modules and elements resulting in unified structures can be seen in other European cities, especially those of the Eastern blocks. To make it even worse, today s trends in reconstructions aimed at making the urban tissue more compact and optimal, change drastically the identity of the city central zone, paying no attention to its cultural character. Social, economic and political conditions result in having the buildings in the city centre expanded in width and height at any price so that the identity is lost, and short-term profits and free market laws win over cultural, historical and spatial qualities of the place. One of crucial conditions of achieving sustainable development of a city is to create conditions for renewal of existing construction funds as an important factor of urban regeneration. These activities in urban renewal should be implemented together with more rational utilization of land and utility resources, preservation and improvement of achieved values and preservation of social and cultural identity of constructed areas. 2. Urbanity and identity of city parts Identity of some space can be observed from two different points of view, which only together show a complete character of the given environment. The first point of view refers to spatial character of a given space, i.e. to its urbanity, while the other refers to the activities carried on within that space. Each environment has certain specific characteristics making it different from other environments thus making it unique. These specific characteristics are products of cultural, traditional and individual experiences of a given area and together they create its identity. Urbanity as a measure of how much a given area is urban, and identity as a level of uniqueness, intermingle and determine the character and importance of the city area. According to the researches of different authors, the theory of urban design and planning recognizes various ways in which it is possible to determine the identity level of a given area. A lot of authors refer to the city spirit, describing it as a structural link between the city itself and all its citizens (starting from the description of morphological entities). The city spirit becomes a historical category, a characteristic limited to within the city walls, a characteristic that is both determining and decisive a memory. Maurice Halbwachs (1975) says that when a group of people comes to an area, they change it according to their ideas, at the same time adjusting to its material resources. These people enclose themselves inside the boundaries they have decided upon, and the image of external environment and relationship they build with it have an important impact on the image these people create about themselves. This cycle has a feedback, and it is influenced by external factors such as changes in the society (social, political, economic), but also by global movements in urban designs. Christine Boyer (1996) points out that a unity between past and future lies in the very idea of the city that imbues it, just like the memory imbues a person s life, and in order to make an idea come true, it has to shape the reality, and be shaped itself within the same reality. These processes are written in unique city parts, on its monuments, as well as in our notions and experience of those parts, which somehow explains also the reasons for building myths into the city foundations. Kevin Lynch (1960) thinks that the identity of a space and activities in it can easily be measured with a simple test of recognition, memories and description, which all together form a memory stamp imprinted into the consciousness of each individual. He points out that city areas have to have their special characteristics and certain level of uniqueness as well as to stimulate the users. The speed and intensity of recognition of city areas by polled users can be defined with numbers and it is one of the inputs that help us determine the existence of certain area s identity. According to Norberg-Schulz (1990), familiarity as a feeling of belonging to some area is formed as early as in our childhood. This memory stamp is something that we carry with us and it helps us feel better in that area, find our ways around more easily and accept it as an integral part of our own memory picture. Similar experiments have been carried out in the cities of Serbia and Montenegro with an aim to define elements of crucial importance for the spirit of the place. One of major conclusions of this research regards the fact that basic elements of urban identity of a city are its areas located in the central city core, which has both the longest continuity and urban identity. The foremost are main city squares, parks and main streets with important buildings, but also the areas with history, i.e. the areas with an important role during the urban development in a certain period of time.

3 2.1. Urbanity of city parts Urban quality of a city, as a sign and measure of its urbanity is always in relation with the quality of its development and the contents of its central core, and with its vitality, i.e. its ability to accept changes which are mostly functional. Thus, we can say that the urbanity level of a certain area is directly connected with the quality of life of its inhabitants. Urbanity represents also a harmonious form of urban interventions in the city area, tending to establish quality relations between the space and its user relying upon preservation of identity and culture. According to Elin (2002), urbanity can be defined also as that aspect of the place that explains its uniqueness. There are two basic systems of researching a city structure with an aim to define the level of its urbanity or the level of urbanity of its sub-entities. The first one observes a city as a product of functional systems that decide their architecture thus deciding their urban space, and the second one observes it as a spatial structure. In the first, a city is considered in regard to political, social and economic relations and is treated from the aspect of these disciplines, while the second point of view attaches more importance to architecture and geography (Aldo Rossi, 1996.). In the theory of urban research, higher importance was often given to one or the other starting point, and the impacts on the city parts were obvious. It often resulted in nicely arranged areas without users, or functionally organized parts without any feeling for cultural and historical quality of the area. Only an integral overview of physical and social dimensions of city areas can give complex and balanced knowledge of them, and inclusion of all these aspects makes it possible to form tools for their successful reconstruction and renewal. According to Elin (2002), city areas should be observed through networks and not through boundaries, through relations and touches and not through objects; they should be observed as changeable creations having an influence on and being influenced by other urban elements of the city. Time as the fourth dimension of spatial transformations is also crucial for its development, because city areas in this context are never regarded as static but always as dynamic creations and always in virtual movement. In practice, there are two extreme types of development and construction of central city zones. The first was typical for majority of the cities of the USA, Australia, but also Dubai and some European countries in the 1980s, and it is characterized with the development of the central zone as a business-commercial centre. In this case, non-profitable activities and small private shops are moved, historical monuments removed and local people leave. The central zone becomes uninteresting for the inhabitants and it is almost completely abandoned after working hours. This is the case of expressed degradation of city areas, and the level of urbanity considerably decreases in time. In the second case, degradation of the central city core occurs because commercial and business activities are moved out of the central zone, the content and maintenance of constructed areas degrade and the area is left to sub-standard lodging. This was the most frequent case in the cities of former East European block and this is the case with majority of the cities in Serbia and Montenegro. In this case, also, the level of urbanity was considerably degraded Restoration of urbanity Central city zones, which are also carriers of urban identity and a measure of urbanity level, were considered a temporary category in the theory of planning and in the time to come were to lose their functions and disperse them along the boundaries of the cities. This expectation proved wrong, because the urban city core has survived up to these days with all its characteristics. Many cities of West Europe started active renovation in early 1980s, following a plan and established methodology. Very often has this phenomenon been linked to having a city declared a cultural capital of Europe or granting it the right to organize some major sports manifestation. These cities manage to maintain the level or urbanity because they develop the life quality in central city zones and recognize the identity of the place as a measure of its diversity. The insistence on the principles of a compact city increasing the level of compactness and preventing its expansion and the principle of form-based code, i.e. following an open system

4 of development which cherish transformability in clear physical frames, raised the quality of life in urban areas to an adequate level thus initiating the development drive of the cities. The role of city centers, in view of solving urbanity problems through the solutions found in proven models of sustainable development, is to keep cultural, physical, economic and social identity on one side, and polyfunctionality and compactness of city parts on the other. Creation of integrated urban structures would influence the development of city urbanity thus influencing its economic prosperity, which in the end would help it keep its identity. On the other hand, the insistence extends to environmental factors having a global aim to preserve natural non-restorable resources, and the responsibility has been extended to the local level i.e. to the city level. Searching for the concept of urbanity restoration, an important fact is that we have stepped into an informatics era that offers us new communication forms in virtual surrounding. Globalization has made it possible also to view city areas as elements of a global city, where each area tending to ensure its future has to have certain characteristics distinguishing it from the others. Most often, a support to these trends can be found in local specificities or in avant-garde efforts to make the space reach beyond usual clichés. An important role in these processes belongs to individuality, a prevailing characteristic of big cities inhabitants that gets fully expressed on the change of centuries. Actions which should be taken in restoring city parts and which support above attitudes are: to shape recognizable areas with ethnic specificities within a multi-cultural city tissue but preserving the identity of the city; to create compact multi-functional city cores (mixed used development); to create different surroundings for different users and their activities and to shape the space so that it suits the end-users; to treat street fronts as potential city scenery where certain activities take place; to enable availability and visibility of the city history in public city areas by activating the potentials of cultural-historical inheritance; to shape city areas in such ways that they contribute to profitability and become generators of further development (actions to rehabilitate and restore architectural inheritance are most often the driving forces that make local economy stable, especially in case of recession when there are no possibilities to invest in new buildings). 3. Tools for urban restoration Tools to be used for city restorations do not differ much on global level. However, since different social-historical factors determined the specificities of individual environments and situations of today s cities, certain specific characteristics can be distinguished. The cities of former East Block developed in similar ways for a long period of time, and their appearance and spatial distribution of contents were often results of political decisions in similar ideological frames. A good thing was that the politicians often had no interest in investing into radical reconstructions of the cities (as was proposed in city-planning documents) and that the central city cores remained untouched in most of the cases. Nationalization, expropriation and revocation of ownership of the city construction land resulted in less compact city tissue, mono-functional areas and city centers. All this led to losing streets and squares as social arenas of the cities as well as to the lack of interest in maintenance and reduced attraction for the users. The process of global urban reconstruction in Serbia and Montenegro hasn t taken a full swing yet. In this transition period that we are going through now, a number of planning documents has been initiated and they include the principles of sustainable development. Their easer implementation requires certain changes in the ways of thinking and acting in the field of urban restoration. The tools of urban restoration that would serve for faster and more efficient approach to this problem are: modification of legal regulations, establishment of adequate legal frameworks to support successful restoration of the cities de-nationalization (giving the property back to previous owners) and clarification of land ownership issues (in the cities there is no private ownership of land). These two steps would be followed by land rearrangement meaning that a number of land lots would become public

5 property and after rearrangement i.e. reconstruction be returned to their private owners with adequate share of ownership; participation inclusion of the citizens in the processes of making plans from a general plan to a detailed design and already from the initiation phase (for the time being, with us the citizens get involved when the program and plan strategy have been adopted and during the adoption of the plan itself through public hearings). In order to have this process successfully implemented, it is necessary to constantly educate people and raise their awareness on importance of urban restoration for the benefit of all people and to inform them in due time on actions planned for the city as well as on the plans made for the city improvement; introduction of active methods of protection and insistence on the smallest possible number of the buildings under full protection there are many more buildings under certain form of state protection than there are needs for museums. Budgets of the state and local community for these purposes are insufficient to cover all expenses of protection and reconstruction of such buildings. Another problem is that in most cases the owners of these protected buildings are not those dealing with the protection of architectural inheritance; foundation of a reconstruction agency a connection between local authorities and investors through experts (urban planners). Political changes in transition countries with a sudden inflow of foreign capital open the possibilities to start a complex process of urban restoration. To have this process implemented in the right way for all participants, it is necessary to establish an agency for restoration and reconstruction. The agency would employ experts in the field of urban restoration and they would be a link between local authorities, the city and the republic on one side and interested investors on the other. (Such an agency was founded in Belgrade in 2004). 4. Conclusion Every city which wants to grow into a metropolis or keep its importance in the global city network has to accept restoration and regeneration of its parts. Old historical cores, especially in the cities with attractive architectural inheritance, should have their importance in sociological, cultural and economic sense restored (urban renaissance), which will have a reversible impact on the prosperity of all their citizens (tourism development, better functionality, higher employment rate, economic prosperity). To attract some capital and investors, local communities have to prove that they differ from other regions. This can be achieved most easily by emphasizing the identity of the place, its special characteristics and diversity of what it has to offer. Urbanity of such areas is in direct connection with above factors. Spatial social interdependence expressed through urbanity indicates the complexity of city restorations. Certain specific characteristics can be shown for the cities of the countries that are now in transition (transition from a collective ideology to pluralism, with gradual introduction of market economy and with immediate disappearance of the middle class). It is not enough to implement only physical restoration in these cities but the attitudes of both the public and authorities have to be changed. The priorities in city restoration are: restoration of degraded urbanity, permanent education of the citizens about urban restoration and regeneration; arrangement of city areas in such a way that they contribute to their profitability and become generators of further development; creation of recognizable areas with ethnic characteristics and elements of identity; creation of compact multi-functional city cores and activation of historical-cultural inheritance. The tools that would contribute to faster restoration and regeneration of city areas, especially of old city cores are: modification of legal regulations which would result in returning land and real estate to previous owners, public participation in all phases of planning, introduction of active methods of protection for architectural inheritance and foundation of an agency for restoration and reconstruction as a connection between interested parties in the process of urban restoration.

6 References Boyer, C. 1996, The city of Collective Memory, The MIT Press, Cambridge, pp Elin, N. 2002, Postmoderni urbanizam, Orion art, Beograd, Halbwachs M. 1975, La Memoire Collective, pp.198 Lozano, E. 1990, Community Design and the Culture of Cities, Cambridge University Press Lynch, K. 1960, The Image of the City, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp Norberg-Schulz C. 1990, Egzistencija, prostor i arhitektura, Beograd, pp Rossi, A. 1996, Istorija grada, Gradjevinska knjiga, Beograd, pp Sim.D. 1982, Change in the City Centre, Gower, Aldershot, England. Vanista-Lazarevic, E. 2002, Obnova gradova u novom milenijumu, UUS, Beograd, pp Vernez, M. 1991, Public Streets for Public Use, Columbia University Press, New York.