evolution/form/sublimity

The all-encompassing Egyptian state is architecturally symbolized by huge buildings all across the vastness of Cairo. Many of these date from the earliest years of the post-monarchical, post-colonial Republic—the optimistic era of Gamal Nasser’s socialism, which promised to propel Egypt into the modern era of the mid-20th century, and carry the rest of the Arab world with it. Here is one of those primary symbols, both of yesterday’s optimism and today’s tyranny: the State Radio and Television Headquarters, built in 1959-60 to the highest standards of international production and broadcasting. Informally known as the Maspero (the name of a nearby street that honored a French archaeologist), it rose as a skyscraping symbol of Arab modernity and unity—Cairo had long been the media, publishing, literary and theatrical capital of the Arab world, and the Maspero, its proud tower’s reflection glistening in the waters of the Nile, promised to refresh this status in a new technological age. What was decades ago a symbol of the Arab world’s embrace of progress has over time come to embody the intentional abandonment of those hopes. What had momentarily been a socialist pan-Arab miracle is today a shabby and suffocating state bureaucracy, functioning only to disseminate propaganda. In its immense dimensions, especially of its horseshoe-shaped lower portion as much as its encrusted tower block, it physically manifests the bland, decrepit brutality conjured by the term Kafkaesque.

773. Jacques Hondelatte /// Fargues House /// Saint Paul les Dax, France /// 1969-71

On the 16th of May 1968 a gas explosion led to the collapse of an entire corner of the recently opened Ronan Point council estate in Newham, East London. The responsible council tenant, Ivy Hodge, set of a domino effect of buckling flats by trying to light her stove in her 18th floor apartment.  While Miss Hodge miraculously survived, four others died and seventeen were injured.

The accident led to a plunge in the public esteem for Modernist architecture and the architectural profession, an impact comparable to the iconic blowing up of the St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe housing project. This was especially so since the collapse of Ronan Point was due to construction errors. The gas explosion caused by Miss Hodge blew out the flank walls, which supported the floors situated above. A local architect discovered that the weakness was in the joints connecting the vertical walls to the floor slabs. Lack of quality control led construction workers to fill the joints with newspapers, instead of concrete.

                                         Ronan Point following the explosion (Daily Telegraph)