1 Emanuel Christ, Christoph Gantenbein, and Victoria Easton, Typology: Hong Kong, Rome, New York, Buenos Aires, (Zurich: Park Books, 2012).
2 Pasajes are a type of dwelling specifically developed in Buenos Aires which has very deep city blocks. The passages allow to access low-rise living units organized around a patio.
3 polykatoikies means “apartment building” in Greek. It is a building type which is almost uniformly found in Athens and whose profusion is linked to the introduction of the horizontal division of ownership in multi-storey buildings.
4 Rafael Moneo, “On Typology,” Oppositions 13 (1978): 23.
5 Moneo, “On Typology,” 23.
6 Giorgio Grassi “Normativa e Architettura,” in Scritti scelti, 1965-1999 (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2000), 113.
7 Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (Paris: Plon, 1955), 122.
8 Maurice Halbwachs, La Mémoire Collective, (Paris: Les Presses Universitaires de France, 1950), 84.
9 We investigated this phenomenon for the first Uzbekistan Pavilion at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennial. The result is published in Mahalla – The Survey (Milan: Humboldt Books, 2021), edited by Emanuel Christ, Victoria Easton, and Christoph Gantenbein.
Emanuel Christ & Victoria Easton
Alongside Modernism and its visions of a new architecture, a new city, and a new human being, there are real modern cities — built, not fantasized. Their architecture is pragmatic: the buildings are based on types, i.e. optimized solutions for standard problems. Depending on the city, these types take into account very different constraints and conditions. Thus, Hong Kong differs from Athens, and Buenos Aires differs from Rome because of their different landscapes, legislation, movie industries, and mass-produced dreams. In a study called Typology,1 we looked for the urban constants in eight different metropolises, creating a catalog of “ordinary solutions” that build the backdrop of a dense urban space. The main criterion for selecting these buildings was their repetition and impact on the urban fabric. The gray mass rather than the individual case was sought and subjected to a comparative analysis. By doing so, we highlight the contextual and “reactive” nature of the type as a site-specific and time-specific answer to precise surrounding conditions.
![Buenos Aires Pasaje Type, Christ & Gantenbein]()
![Buenos Aires Pasaje Type, Christ & Gantenbein]()
Extraordinary
Ordinariness is a matter of perception. Can something be perceived as ordinary to one person appear extraordinary to another? In an effort to understand the underlying principles of urban conventions in different cultural contexts, what was ordinary to the locals often seemed extraordinary to us as outsiders. The pasajes2 in the 120-meter-wide blocks of Buenos Aires, the amazingly thin pencil towers in Hong Kong, the intricate, large-scale housing developments in Delhi, or the endless repetition of one and only type, the polykatoikies3 in Athens — all these examples are extreme manifestations of typological evolution which result from very specific local constraints. But they belong to the backdrop of daily life that, they correspond to the local conventions. Ordinary is not universal.
![Hongkong Pencil Tower Type, Christ & Gantenbein]()
![Hongkong Shop House Type, Christ & Gantenbein]()
Authorship / Designing the Ordinary
Is the ordinary, without authorship? And can the ordinary be a project? In other words, can architecture with great ambitions be ordinary? In the end, Modernism taught us that standard can be understood as a goal in itself. And if one were to strive for it, how can architecture have a strong intellectual agenda and be ordinary at the same time? Within our research, we encountered many projects by municipal building departments, or city development agencies in New Delhi, Hong Kong, Rome, and Paris. As such, most of the time, singular architects would not be mentioned since design solutions were elaborated in-house. But for instance, in Delhi, the evolution of a system of buildings developed by the Delhi Development Agency (DDA) accounts for the innovative design of Sir Kuldip Singh. An architect educated in England, Singh returned to India and embraced Nehru’s ideas for a new society. His design interprets the patterns found in Old Delhi’s street maze while sampling metabolism-inspired three-dimensional systems. The result is unique in its approach to low-rise, high-density development, and served as a foundation for a series of further implementations conducted through the DDA architects. This innovative design became omnipresent, and thus somehow ordinary.
Critical Mass
How often must a principle be repeated for it to be perceived as ordinary? Must ordinary be repetitive, or can a singular occurrence also be ordinary? At what point does a case become a category? According to Rafael Moneo, “the essence of the architectural object lies in its repeatability” because “a construction, a house . . . can be defined through formal features, which express problems running from production to use, and which permit its reproduction.”4 In each of the eight cities we studied, we looked for buildings with similar morphological assets. Often, scrolling through Google Earth or strolling around the city, a motif would be observed multiple times hinting at recurrent patterns of settlement. Reaching a certain critical mass, it would establish a group which could be defined by understanding the underlying principles of this repeating type. And indeed, Moneo goes on describing the type, as “fundamentally based on the possibility of grouping objects by certain inherent structural similarities.”5 These groups are never absolute and would often be challenged by some “fringe” examples: figures that would neither completely belong to one, nor to the other category. Thus, even if part of a group, each example is equally unique, since no two similar sites exist.
![Delhi Cluster Type, Christ & Gantenbein]()
![Rome Courtyard Type, Christ & Gantenbein]()
![Paris Groupement Type, Christ & Gantenbein]()
Conventions / Collective Work
Is ordinariness, collective, per se? For Giorgio Grassi, “a common language is in fact a necessary convention linked to the very concept of collective work.”6 Is the grammar of this common language “ordinary”? The background of our cities is the common ground upon which a collective project can be built. Since the city in its genericness — this chose humaine par excellence7 — relies on the normative and legal framework that defines how we live together. What if the restrictions established by the normative would actually guarantee genuine architectural freedom? In The Architecture of the City, Aldo Rossi quotes Maurice Halbwachs’ La Memoire Collective: “when a group is introduced into a part of space, it transforms it to its image, but at the same time, it yields and adapts itself to certain material things which resist it. It encloses itself in the framework that it has constructed. The image of the exterior environment and the stable relationships that it maintains with it pass into the realm of the idea that it has of itself.”8 Collectivity and city thus operate in recursive fashion: the collectivity produces the city in its own image, and the city forms collectivity in its own image.
The time of the ordinary
When does something ordinary become extraordinary? As culture and habits evolve, lifestyles can become anachronistic, and so can architecture. If architecture is unable to adapt or lacks typological affordance, types are in danger of disappearing. These witnesses are thus isolated as relics of an extraordinary past and become objects of exhibition. This can be observed, for example, in the case of the mahalla, a popular form of traditional housing in Uzbekistan that still occupies an important part of Tashkent’s city center.9 Recently saved from destruction, these buildings are now becoming rare and are about to lose their very ordinariness.
However, this obsolescence might only be temporary since processes of gentrification often target generic fabric. In a very short span of time, a redundant heritage site can suddenly be reassessed and reappropriated: a courtyard building in the heart of the city can become a catalyst for a new beginning. The type might even slightly change through a process of adaptation. One consequence of this modification process is that certain types gradually adapt to the point where nothing remains of the original. Such a perversion of original characteristics is interesting because paradoxically, the resulting types can only emerge from an evolutionary process.
Is “typology of the ordinary” a pleonasm? Both concepts bear the idea of repetition, collectivity, conformity, and generalization. We believe that understanding our built environment in the light of these ideas is a key to allow the contemporary architect to face the current challenges and responsibilities linked to sustainability and urbanization.
Emanuel Christ is an architect and a founding partner at Christ & Gantenbein, an architecture firm based in Basel, Switzerland and Barcelona, Spain. Emanuel taught at various institutions, among others at ETH Studio Basel, Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland, ETH Zurich, and Harvard GSD. In 2018, Emanuel Christ was appointed Full Professor of Architecture and Design at ETH Zurich.
Victoria Easton is an architect and a partner at Christ & Gantenbein. Parallel to her professional practice, she has always been involved in teaching, research and writing, and among others, leading the research Typology that documents more than 400 buildings as the modern city’s urban constants. Currently, she is the head of research in Christ & Gantenbein’s studio at ETH Zurich, where she pursues the investigation on contemporary building types.
Typology of the Ordinary
Alongside Modernism and its visions of a new architecture, a new city, and a new human being, there are real modern cities — built, not fantasized. Their architecture is pragmatic: the buildings are based on types, i.e. optimized solutions for standard problems. Depending on the city, these types take into account very different constraints and conditions. Thus, Hong Kong differs from Athens, and Buenos Aires differs from Rome because of their different landscapes, legislation, movie industries, and mass-produced dreams. In a study called Typology,1 we looked for the urban constants in eight different metropolises, creating a catalog of “ordinary solutions” that build the backdrop of a dense urban space. The main criterion for selecting these buildings was their repetition and impact on the urban fabric. The gray mass rather than the individual case was sought and subjected to a comparative analysis. By doing so, we highlight the contextual and “reactive” nature of the type as a site-specific and time-specific answer to precise surrounding conditions.
Extraordinary
Ordinariness is a matter of perception. Can something be perceived as ordinary to one person appear extraordinary to another? In an effort to understand the underlying principles of urban conventions in different cultural contexts, what was ordinary to the locals often seemed extraordinary to us as outsiders. The pasajes2 in the 120-meter-wide blocks of Buenos Aires, the amazingly thin pencil towers in Hong Kong, the intricate, large-scale housing developments in Delhi, or the endless repetition of one and only type, the polykatoikies3 in Athens — all these examples are extreme manifestations of typological evolution which result from very specific local constraints. But they belong to the backdrop of daily life that, they correspond to the local conventions. Ordinary is not universal.
Authorship / Designing the Ordinary
Is the ordinary, without authorship? And can the ordinary be a project? In other words, can architecture with great ambitions be ordinary? In the end, Modernism taught us that standard can be understood as a goal in itself. And if one were to strive for it, how can architecture have a strong intellectual agenda and be ordinary at the same time? Within our research, we encountered many projects by municipal building departments, or city development agencies in New Delhi, Hong Kong, Rome, and Paris. As such, most of the time, singular architects would not be mentioned since design solutions were elaborated in-house. But for instance, in Delhi, the evolution of a system of buildings developed by the Delhi Development Agency (DDA) accounts for the innovative design of Sir Kuldip Singh. An architect educated in England, Singh returned to India and embraced Nehru’s ideas for a new society. His design interprets the patterns found in Old Delhi’s street maze while sampling metabolism-inspired three-dimensional systems. The result is unique in its approach to low-rise, high-density development, and served as a foundation for a series of further implementations conducted through the DDA architects. This innovative design became omnipresent, and thus somehow ordinary.
Critical Mass
How often must a principle be repeated for it to be perceived as ordinary? Must ordinary be repetitive, or can a singular occurrence also be ordinary? At what point does a case become a category? According to Rafael Moneo, “the essence of the architectural object lies in its repeatability” because “a construction, a house . . . can be defined through formal features, which express problems running from production to use, and which permit its reproduction.”4 In each of the eight cities we studied, we looked for buildings with similar morphological assets. Often, scrolling through Google Earth or strolling around the city, a motif would be observed multiple times hinting at recurrent patterns of settlement. Reaching a certain critical mass, it would establish a group which could be defined by understanding the underlying principles of this repeating type. And indeed, Moneo goes on describing the type, as “fundamentally based on the possibility of grouping objects by certain inherent structural similarities.”5 These groups are never absolute and would often be challenged by some “fringe” examples: figures that would neither completely belong to one, nor to the other category. Thus, even if part of a group, each example is equally unique, since no two similar sites exist.
Conventions / Collective Work
Is ordinariness, collective, per se? For Giorgio Grassi, “a common language is in fact a necessary convention linked to the very concept of collective work.”6 Is the grammar of this common language “ordinary”? The background of our cities is the common ground upon which a collective project can be built. Since the city in its genericness — this chose humaine par excellence7 — relies on the normative and legal framework that defines how we live together. What if the restrictions established by the normative would actually guarantee genuine architectural freedom? In The Architecture of the City, Aldo Rossi quotes Maurice Halbwachs’ La Memoire Collective: “when a group is introduced into a part of space, it transforms it to its image, but at the same time, it yields and adapts itself to certain material things which resist it. It encloses itself in the framework that it has constructed. The image of the exterior environment and the stable relationships that it maintains with it pass into the realm of the idea that it has of itself.”8 Collectivity and city thus operate in recursive fashion: the collectivity produces the city in its own image, and the city forms collectivity in its own image.
The time of the ordinary
When does something ordinary become extraordinary? As culture and habits evolve, lifestyles can become anachronistic, and so can architecture. If architecture is unable to adapt or lacks typological affordance, types are in danger of disappearing. These witnesses are thus isolated as relics of an extraordinary past and become objects of exhibition. This can be observed, for example, in the case of the mahalla, a popular form of traditional housing in Uzbekistan that still occupies an important part of Tashkent’s city center.9 Recently saved from destruction, these buildings are now becoming rare and are about to lose their very ordinariness.
However, this obsolescence might only be temporary since processes of gentrification often target generic fabric. In a very short span of time, a redundant heritage site can suddenly be reassessed and reappropriated: a courtyard building in the heart of the city can become a catalyst for a new beginning. The type might even slightly change through a process of adaptation. One consequence of this modification process is that certain types gradually adapt to the point where nothing remains of the original. Such a perversion of original characteristics is interesting because paradoxically, the resulting types can only emerge from an evolutionary process.
Is “typology of the ordinary” a pleonasm? Both concepts bear the idea of repetition, collectivity, conformity, and generalization. We believe that understanding our built environment in the light of these ideas is a key to allow the contemporary architect to face the current challenges and responsibilities linked to sustainability and urbanization.
Emanuel Christ is an architect and a founding partner at Christ & Gantenbein, an architecture firm based in Basel, Switzerland and Barcelona, Spain. Emanuel taught at various institutions, among others at ETH Studio Basel, Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland, ETH Zurich, and Harvard GSD. In 2018, Emanuel Christ was appointed Full Professor of Architecture and Design at ETH Zurich.
Victoria Easton is an architect and a partner at Christ & Gantenbein. Parallel to her professional practice, she has always been involved in teaching, research and writing, and among others, leading the research Typology that documents more than 400 buildings as the modern city’s urban constants. Currently, she is the head of research in Christ & Gantenbein’s studio at ETH Zurich, where she pursues the investigation on contemporary building types.
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