Architecture as Infrastructure: Toward Sustainable, Inclusive and Beautiful City Streets
The development of cities has always been intricately linked to the evolution of infrastructure. Cities' establishment and expansion rely heavily on the support and dependence of infrastructure. Choosing an optimal location, constructing defense structures, ensuring water supply, and domesticating adjacent land were initial actions to claim territory and establish a city. Until the late eighteenth century, key infrastructures were limited to paths (streets and roads), irrigation canals, and defenses, typically walls. Paths served functions of access, circulation, and drainage, while walls defended cities and acted as boundaries, shaping urban growth. City identity, encompassing social, cultural, military, and symbolic elements, was deeply influenced by this infrastructure. City life and the flow of people, goods, and ideas were facilitated through the network of streets, serving as communal (mobility) and social (public space) infrastructure.
Contemporary cities are increasingly reliant on architecture and infrastructure. Modern infrastructures, from Haussmann to Le Corbusier, Cerdà, Olmsted, Howard, Wright, Allen, Easterling, and Waldheim, offer new possibilities. However, the advent of modern city infrastructure marked the theoretical, conceptual, symbolic, and material fragmentation of cities. Post-World War II, the specialization of infrastructure and technical disciplines, as well as the rise of car mobility, exacerbated this fragmentation.
On July 26, 1963, Skopje faced a devastating earthquake, causing over 1,070 casualties, 3,300 injuries, and significant destruction. The United Nations initiated an unprecedented effort to reconstruct and redesign the city. The Skopje Project showcased international cooperation and demonstrated the potential of architects like Kenzo Tange, Jaap Bakema, and Constantin Doxiadis. The reconstruction emphasized Tange's Metabolist architecture, Bakema's Open Society, and Doxiadis's Ekistics theory, turning architecture into an infrastructure for societal and city development.
In September 2024, the University "Ss. Cyril and Methodius" in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia, will host the interdisciplinary conference "City Streets 6" with the theme "Architecture as Infrastructure – Toward Sustainable, Inclusive and Beautiful City Streets." The conference aims to highlight architecture's role in creating additional values, meaning, and community-based quality in city streets beyond material and communal infrastructure. It invites researchers, scholars, architects, urban designers, planners, artists, and policymakers to share knowledge and experiences in making city streets more inclusive, just, sustainable, and beautiful.
Prof. Ognen Marina, Ph.D.
Dean, Faculty of Architecture
Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje