The Problem of Scale: The City, the Territory, the Planetary

Transcription

1 The Problem of Scale: The City, the Territory, the Planetary Doctoral Dissertation Adrian Lahoud University of Technology Sydney Thesis supervisors: Professor Andrew Benjamin Professor Charles Rice

2 ACKNOWELDGEMENTS I would like to thank the principal supervisor of this thesis Professor Andrew Benjamin for the lucidity of his advice, intellectual generosity and support. Sincere thanks also to my supervisor, Professor Charles Rice whose consistent attention to the project guided me through long and difficult periods of writing. To Professor Eyal Weizman and everybody at the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, your limitless appetite for thinking new thoughts is a constant inspiration. Thanks also to Anthony Burke and Professor Desley Luscombe at the School of Architecture at The University of Technology Sydney for always supporting the research in Beirut, the present project finds its genesis in that city. My fondest thanks to Richard Goodwin for far too many things to mention. To the extraordinary teachers that have made a great impression on me either as a student or as a colleague and often as both at once: Samantha Spurr, Sam Jacoby, David Burns, Gerard Reinmuth, Pia-Ednie Brown, Gavin Perin, Michael Tawa and Adam Jasper, I owe you all my thanks. Thanks also to Pavlos Philippou for inspiring interludes to sometimes overlong days at the British Library. To Tarsha Finney for being an always lively sparring partner. To my former students at The University of Technology Sydney and my current ones at the Centre for Research Architecture, this work emerges from a lot of thinking about how to teach; if there is an answer to that question here, it is because of your camaraderie and contribution. 2

3 Finally, thank you to Katarina Baltar for your permanent love and friendship. To my parents Albert Lahoud and Wafa Lahoud, a gratitude that is beyond words. And finally, to my brother John Lahoud, thank you for the welcome distractions, wisdom and inspiration in all matters. This thesis is dedicated to my family. Adrian Lahoud London

4 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I INTRODUCTION THE SCALE OF MATTER 1. Divine miscalculations 1.1 The hylomorphic schema 1.2 Transcendence -immanence 1.3 Invisible fluids, entelechies and protoplasms 1.4 Kant and the problem of self-organization 1.5 Pitiless indifference 1.6 Aleatory collisions 1.7 Individuation 1.8 Metastability, emanation, resonance THE SCALE OF TRUTH 2.0 Introduction 2.1 Delanda's transcendental objectivity 2.2 Truth and relevance 2.3 Epistemic stability 2.4 Progressive specification 2.5 The Discord of the faculties 2.6 Common sense as implicit presupposition 2.7 The concord of the faculties 2.8 Kant's analytic of the sublime 2.9 The apprenticeship of the senses 2.10 The topology of the problematic 2.11 Collective individuation 2.12 The historical a priori 2.13 Explanatory scale DISCIPLINARY PROBLEMS 3.0 Introduction 3.1 Scale in geography 3.2 Marxist critique of hylomorphic spatiality 3.3 Disciplinary confusion 3.4 Regional scale 3.5 Urban scale 3.6 Local scale 3.7 Scale as epistemology 3.8 Scale as ontology 3.9 Conclusion PART II INTRODUCTION 4

5 4.0 Different truths 4.1 Objectivity and critique 4.3 Rationalities SPATIALISING CO-EXISTENCE 5.0 The idea of unity 5.1 A new synthesis 5.2 The geopolitical scale 5.3 Brasilia 5.4 The end of the modern project 5.5 The economic scale 5.6 The scale of the subject 5.7 Spatialising co-existence 5.8 The dome of the park 5.9 Fragmented utopias 5.10 Conclusion THE CYBERNETIC ETHOS 6.0 Zero latency 6.1 Error correction 6.2 Organisational biology 6.3 The national nervous system 6.4 Blind spot 6.5 Complexity and feedback 6.6 Sleeping dogs 6.7 The complexity surplus 6.8 Socialist Neo-liberalism / Neo-liberal Socialism CLIMATE CONFLICT 7.0 The chain of immanence 7.1 Climate scale 7.2 Forums for climate conflict 7.3 Individuating models 7.4 Deep inconsistency 7.5 Explanatory traffic 7.6 We have been asked to sign a suicide pact 7.7 A private calculus 7.8 Something in the world forces us to think CONCLUSION 8.0 The evisceration of scale 8.1 A political pedagogy 5