LG . Mohammad Al-Asad

Local Governance Mohammad Al-Asad

As is the case in most Arab countries, the political discourse in Jordan has become very lively over the past year and a half. Politicians and decision makers – both present and previous ones – have been energetically presenting their views about the current state of political life in the country, and to where it should be heading. In spite of the wide variety of views they may express, almost all seem to view politics as a centralized activity that takes place on the national level. The empowerment of local government, primarily expressed through municipal government, is generally absent from their thinking.

One notable exception is provided by Walid al-Masri, the former mayor of Irbid. He has strongly advocated empowering municipal authorities in a real and meaningful manner. He emphasizes that the authority of municipalities should extend beyond issuing permits, paving streets, and collecting garbage, to an active involvement in matters such as public health, education, and mass transportation. This means that the ability of municipalities to collect taxes and to develop and implement bylaws should be expanded and strengthened.

As authority is increasingly decentralized and transferred from national bodies to municipal ones, people will be able to have more influence over many of the issues that directly, continuously, and intimately affect their lives. Also, decentralization will relieve national politics of considerable pressures, and will make them less divisive and conflict-ridden. It will allow many issues to be addressed and resolved on the local level rather than pushing them to the already overcrowded and overstressed arena of national politics.

It is at the municipal level that the practice of participatory democracy truly begins and much of its takes place. Here, people can come together – both as individuals and groups – to address and influence a wide range of issues affecting their daily lives. On a most basic level, these include how their buildings may be constructed and used, how traffic moves through their streets, and where cars may park. They also include how their garbage is collected and managed, how their water and electricity services are delivered, and how their sewage is disposed of and treated. They also should comprise how their children are educated, their public health clinics are run, and their public transportation is organized.

Many of the decisions affecting our daily lives should be taken on the local rather than national level. Municipal institutions are able to accumulate more immediate and intimate knowledge of the needs, concerns, and aspirations of a city’s residents in comparison to national centralized institutions. Moreover, municipal government functions at a smaller scale than national government, and this allows people to more readily become involved in them and in a manner that may not be easily realizable in national politics. It is easier at that level to engage in the various components of political activism, whether organizing, making alliances, lobbying, fundraising, or negotiating. Through this, people get to take control of their affairs as city residents, rather than feeling helpless, powerless, marginalized, and alienated in relation to the decision-making processes affecting their lives.

If increasing authority is given to elected municipal structures in Jordan, both municipal institutions and city residents will need to undergo a steep learning curve. This is especially true considering that both have had so little influence over urban affairs for such long periods of time. Errors will be made. Resources will not be always be used in a most efficient manner. Voters initially may not vote for those best qualified to represent them as mayors and city councilors. The all too familiar mayor whose legacy usually ends up consisting of buying a new mayor’s car, redecorating his office, and hiring his relatives, while leaving no positive impact on the city, will not disappear overnight. However, lessons will be learned quickly. Voters will come to appreciate the responsibility they take on when they vote. Municipal officials will quickly realize that they need to deliver tangible improvements to city residents if they are to stay in office beyond the current elections cycle. Also, municipalities will learn from each other, and they will compete with each other. In relatively little time, best practices will begin to emerge and spread.

For all this to happen, however, municipalities need to be given real authority, and the people of the city need to be able to fully decide through the voting process who takes on positions of municipal authority. Here, I am reminded of an opinion that Walid al-Masri has put forward: If the authority given to municipalities is limited to matters such as issuing permits, people will vote for those who will make it easier for them to obtain those permits. This even applies if the permitting process results in decisions that are clearly against the public good, as with allowing people to build larger buildings than they should, or permitting functions to take hold in locations where they shouldn’t be (a wedding hall in the middle of a residential area, which generates horrific levels of noise, traffic, and garbage, is one of many such examples). Voters under such circumstances will elect those with whom they have strong blood ties or social ties. However, if municipalities also have authority over issues such as education, public transportation, and public health, voters will begin to think differently. Rather than automatically electing those with whom they have close personal ties, they will start thinking about electing those who are able to deliver better education to their children, better health facilities to their families, and better public transportation to commuters. With that, the democratic process begins to enter a more mature phase.

Although the subject of decentralization is often mentioned in Jordan, it is not usually given more than lip service. While there is much talk about the political reforms that need to be made in the country, and while divergent and often conflicting opinions are being put forward as to what defines reform, these differing opinions seem to come together in viewing politics as a centralized activity. If meaningful reform is to be achieved, it has to include serious efforts at decentralization. Decentralization, in turn, cannot be achieved without empowering municipalities.

 The Article is co published by Tareeq & 7iber #Jordan 
in #Arabic http://tareeq.me/?p=2122 
To Know More about M. Al-Asad Kindly check http://csbe.org/

بقلم محمد شجاع الأسد*

كما هو الحال في غالبية بلدان العالم العربي، فإن الخطاب السياسي في الأردن تغير كثيراً خلال السنة والنصف الماضية. فالسياسيون ومتخذو القرار – الحاليون والسابقون منهم – يبدون آراءهم بشغف عن الوضع السياسي الحالي في الأردن، وأيضاً عن الإتجاهات المستقبلية لهذا الوضع. ومع اختلاف آرائهم، إلا أنه يبدو أنهم يتفقون في اعتبار السياسة نشاطاً يحدث على المستوى الوطني المركزي وليس على المستوى المحلي. ولذلك، فإن تعزيز وتمكين مؤسسات الحكم المحلي، الممثلة في الغالب بالبلديات، هو أمر عادة غائب عن تفكيرهم.

ومن الاستثناءات المهمة لذلك هي آراء وليد المصري، رئيس بلدية إربد السابق. إنه ينادي بدعم البلديات وتمكينها تمكيناً حقيقياً، ويركز على أن السلطات المتاحة للبلديات يجب أن تتوسع لتتعدى أموراً مثل منح التراخيص وتجميع النفايات وتعبيد الشوارع، لتتضمن ما هو أوسع من ذلك مثل الصحة العامة والتعليم ووسائل النقل العامة، هذا بالإضافة إلى تعزيز قدراتها على فرض الضرائب المحلية ووضع الأنظمة.

وإذا تمت تقوية اللامركزية وتحويل سلطات من المؤسسات الوطنية إلى البلديات، سيكون لسكان المدن دور أكبر في إدارة العديد من الأمور التي تخصهم وتهمهم. كذلك فإن اللامركزية ستحرر النشاط السياسي الوطني من العديد من الضغوطات، وتجعله أقل عرضة للممارسات التي تؤدي إلى التوتر والتفرقة والمواجهة، إذ ستسمح اللامركزية للعديد من الأمور أن تعالج وتُحل على المستوى المحلي بدلاً من إقحامها في حلبة السياسة الوطنية المشحونة والمكتظة بالقضايا المختلفة.

إن الممارسات الديمقراطية التشاركية تبدأ عند مستوى المدن وبلدياتها، وهناك يتجلى العديد من هذه الممارسات بوضوح، إذ يتجمع الناس عند ذلك المستوى – بصفتهم أفراداً ومجموعات – لمعالجة العديد من الأمور التي تؤثر على حياتهم اليومية. وهذا يبدأ بكيفية تشييد أبنيتهم واستعمالها، وإدارة حركة السير واصطفاف السيارات في شوارعهم. ويتضمن أيضاً إدارة نفاياتهم، وتأمين الماء والكهرباء لهم، وتصريف مياههم العادمة ومعالجتها. ويجب أن يتسع ليتضمن كيفية تعليم أولادهم وإدارة العيادات الصحية العامة وتنظيم وسائل النقل العام.

وهناك العديد من القرارات التي تؤثر على حياتنا اليومية التي يجب أن تُتخذ على المستوى المحلي بدلاً من المستوى الوطني. إن البلديات أقدر على التعرف بشكل دقيق على احتياجات سكان المدينة وعلى الأمور التي تقلقهم وعلى آمالهم بالمقارنة مع المؤسسات التي تعمل على المستوى الوطني. كذلك، إن البلديات أصغر حجماً من المؤسسات الحكومية المركزية، وهذا يسمح لسكان المدن أن يتفاعلوا معها على نحو يصعب تحقيقه بنفس الفعالية مع المؤسسات الوطنية المركزية. ويكون أسهل عليهم المشاركة في النشاط السياسي سواء من ناحية التنظيم أو تكوين التحالفات أو التفاعل المباشر مع متخذي القرار. ومن خلال كل ذلك، يشعر سكان المدينة أنه لهم دور مهم في إدارة شؤونهم، بدلاّ من الإحساس بالضغف والعجز نحو ممارسات اتخاذ القرار التي تؤثر على حياتهم.

وإذا تعززت سلطات البلديات المنتخبة في الأردن، فإنه سيكون على سكان المدن والمؤسسات البلدية التي تمثلهم على حد سواء الكثير ليتعلموه، خاصة أنه لم يكن لأي منهم أي تأثير فعال على أوضاع الحياة في المدن لفترات طويلة من الزمن. وستُرتكب العديد من الأخطاء. فمثلاً، لن تُستخدم الموارد المتاحة للمدن بالضرورة على أفضل وجه، ولن ينتخب المواطنون بالضرورة من هم الأفضل لتمثيلهم من رؤساء بلديات وأعضاء مجالسها، ولن يختفي فوراً رئيس البلدية النمطي الذي سيتذكره الجميع بأنه اشترى سيارة جديدة لرئاسة البلدية وأعاد تأثيث مكتب رئيس البلدية ووظف أقاربه، ولكن لم يترك أي أثر أيجابي على المدينة. ولكن الجميع سيتعلمون الدروس المهمة بسرعة. وسيعي المواطنون بالمسؤولية التي ترافق عملية التصويت، وسيتعلم مسؤولو البلديات أنه عليهم أن يقدموا تحسينات ملموسة لسكان المدينة إن أرادوا أن يعاد انتخابهم. وستتعلم البلديات من بعضها البعض، وأيضاً ستتنافس مع بعضها البعض. وبعد مرور القليل من الزمن، ستظهر وتنتشر الممارسات الإيجابية المختلفة بين البلديات.

وحتى يحدث كل هذا، يجب أن تعطى البلديات سلطات حقيقية ويجب أن يشعر سكان المدينة أنهم يقررون من خلال عملية التصويت من هم المسؤولون عن إدارة بلديتهم. وفي هذا السياق، أعود إلى آراء وليد المصري بخصوص الحكم المحلي. يقول المصري أنه إذا اقتصرت مسؤوليات البلديات على أمور مثل إصدار التراخيص، فإن السكان سيصوتوا لمن يسهّل عليهم الحصول على هذه التراخيص، حتى ولو كانت ضد المصلحة العامة، كما في السماح للسكان بتشييد أبنية أكبر مما يجب أو السماح لأبنية معينة أن تتواجد في غير الأماكن المخصصة لها (من الأمثلة الكثيرة على ذلك السماح بتواجد صالات أفراح في وسط حي سكني، إذ أنها تولد مستويات غير مقبولة من التلوث الصوتي والإزدحام المروري والنفايات). وفي مثل هذه الظروف سيصوت المنتخبون لهؤلاء الذين تربطهم بهم علاقات قرابة أو علاقات تقارب اجتماعية أخرى. ولكن إذا كانت البلديات مسؤولة أيضاً عن أمور مثل التعليم والصحة العامة والنقل العام، فيسبدأ سكان المدينة بالنظر إلى عملية الانتخاب بشكل آخر. وبدلاً من انتخاب هؤلاء الذين تربطهم بهم علاقات قرابة، سيبدأوا بالتفكير بانتخاب من يستطيع أن يؤمن التعليم الأحسن لأبنائهم والخدمات الصحية الأفضل لعائلاتهم وخدمات النقل العام الأكثر كفاءة لهم. ومن خلال هذه التطورات تدخل العملية الديمقراطية مرحلة جديدة وأكثر نضوجاً.

ومع أن موضوع اللامركزية يذكر في العديد من الأحيان في الأردن، إلا أنه لم تتخذ أي جهود جدية تهدف إلى تحقيقه. ومع أننا نسمع الكثير عن الحاجة إلى الإصلاح السياسي في الأردن، ومع أننا نسمع آراء متباينة وحتى متضاربة بخصوص تعريف هذا الإصلاح، إلا أنه يبدو أن هذه الآراء المتباينة تتوافق إجمالاً في اعتبار السياسة نشاطاً يحدث على المستوى المركزي، هذا مع أن الإصلاح دون اللامركزية سيكون ناقصاً، وتحقيق اللامركزية يعتمد أساساً على إعطاء البلديات صلاحيات حقيقية.

*الدكتور محمد الأسد مهندس معماري ومؤرخ، وهو مؤسس مركز دراسات البيئة المبنية.

Jacques Herzog . Interview

An Interview with Jacques Herzog

For a recent book project, Architecture Dialogues Positions, Concepts, Visions, edited by Marc Angélil and Jørg Himmelreich, interviewers Hubertus Adam and J. Christoph Burkle met with Jacques Herzog, who discussed the recent work and intellectual and aesthetic formation of Herzog & de Meuron, the Basel firm he cofounded with Pierre de Meuron. 
 
J. Christoph Bürkle: How are you? How’s your firm doing?

Jacques Herzog: Business is good, thanks. The firm’s doing really well. We’re still growing — slowly — but we’ve got a better handle on it now. We could take on even more projects, but we want to remain very selective. Switzerland is still a country that has good conditions for architects compared to most other countries we’re involved with — both in quality and quantity. Here, architects are even closer to the client and realization. Content-wise, of course, it’s not getting any easier to keep such a large international company on track and support it as intellectually as we have always done. But we’re pressing ahead with it; it’s a top priority for our work. The world is changing dramatically and architecture, and especially cities, need to move with these changes. What can we do to help as architects? Architecture as a way of thinking — as the title of our first exhibition in 1989 suggested — is more relevant than ever.

JCB: Of the Swiss firms, yours has had the biggest international impact. In retrospect, however, it must be hard work to always want to be avant-garde. You were often the first to focus on new themes. How do you manage that over such a long period?

JH: Architecture can only define and keep reinventing itself from within. In that sense, we’re pupils of Aldo Rossi and continue to pursue this approach — perhaps even in a far more archaic sense. We always proceeded from architecture and didn’t just tackle it out of an onerous sense of duty, as other well-known and innovative architects of our generation did and also proclaimed accordingly. However, we always forayed into related fields, especially the social sciences, psychology and, of course, the fine arts, and used them as sources.

An important incentive we set ourselves, as it were, was the foundation of the ETH Studio Basel together with Marcel Meili and Roger Diener. Initiated without a strategic vision really, the place proved to be a lucky break for us in tackling the problems of the urbanization of our planet, which the four of us wouldn’t have been able to do in the same way in our firms. It always challenges us greatly. The work at the studio is very strenuous but worthwhile because we reach places that, in the true sense of the word, we’d never have imagined. Examining other cities and problems all over the world gives us other ideas.


JCB: How do you always manage to make your projects an expression of a theme? In the end, your buildings always seem so logical, as if there was no alternative. Does a theme turn into the project or result from it? This object-like uniqueness, whether it be the Prada Store in Tokyo [2003] or the Dominus Winery near San Francisco [1998]: How do you manage to convince the customer on the one hand and always give the projects something iconic on the other?

JH: We weren’t as good at it in the past. Back then, we always worked towards a project that was, as you say, how it was and nothing else; we never worked with alternatives. That was still the case with the Tate Gallery [London, 1995]; but there we got bogged down with this approach, which I think of as very Swiss today, because it has something hermetic and defensive. That’s how we’d learned to work at university: to think in terms of certainties, not variations. Back then, we always worked in one direction with a lot of intuition. We often hit the bull’s eye, too; otherwise the Tate wouldn’t have chosen us in the first place. But later on we also learned to work in such a way as to start by putting forward a lot of potential ideas and examining them in parallel to bring us closer to the best possible solution in an open dialog with the customer. That’s our method. We have to convince ourselves first before we can convince a customer, but then it’s often much easier. Good projects are often interesting because they’re so complex that you can question them from various sides. They raise new questions, which in turn opens up abundance, not a dead end.

Hubertus Adam: Characteristic of your work are recurring themes that appear in new variations, are explored in a new manner or fade into the background. A theme is rarely dealt with in one project. And, to my mind, the individual projects are not to be seen as ultimate statements, after which there’s nothing more to say.

JH: Our projects really are very different and, in a way, unique solutions. However, it’d be wrong to say that architecture can be reinvented with every project, as it were. You can browse through any work of architecture in history and look for different perspectives, and you’ll always find some "pattern" or other. Some historians call that typology. But it isn’t always typologies but rather other, less categorical basic features that you can’t and shouldn’t avoid. There are many architects who aren’t really aware of their own patterns, just like most people don’t know their patterns in private. We find that a really exciting theme because architecture and psychology suddenly become very close.


JCB: Part of this is surely that you never want to arrive at your own explicit design or product language from the outset, like other architects. Many work towards this, like Frank Gehry. In your case, however, it’s a different kettle of fish altogether. We never know what a project will look like but we always know it’s going to be significant. You worked on this very early on.

JH: As young architects, you don’t do it as consciously, but we tended to have an aversion towards corporate design. At the beginning of your career, everyone wants to do things differently to the established players: in our day, architects like Richard Meier or Mario Botta, who were clearly recognizable from their style; a style that was omnipresent and acknowledged all over the place. Of course, a recognizable style makes it easier to establish yourself on a market — as we know from other products. But the way the market works also means that eventually you’ve seen enough of it. For sure, some architects suffered because they were predefined by their style and had to carry it with them, like hunchbacks. Every architect and, indeed, everybody has a hunchback, a pattern.

Because we know that and can observe it day in, day out — also with us — we try to work against these patterns to find a fresh balance or open up new horizons. That might be what you mean by "reinvent" or "avant-garde." For us, it’s a way of working, but above all a way of life. The awareness of and reaction to this pattern and obsessions that worry us all might be unusual for architects. Nonetheless, they exercise an overt design force throughout our urbanized world and find direct, physical expression. That’s what our text on the "Specific City" [1] is about, and we’ll be analyzing these issues further together with Marcel Meili and Roger Diener’s chair in a comprehensive study at the ETH  in Basel.

HA: The astonishing thing is that you manage to reinvent yourselves with a big firm. It’d be much easier in a small one, that’s for sure. Then there are the architects we mentioned who became big because you always know what you’re getting with them. And those who don’t have such big design ambitions but have become big through a professionalization in the processing. But rarely does someone manage to combine size and design heterogeneity. But is there a size where you can’t manage it anymore? Does growth set limits? With a staff of 360, do you have to make too many compromises?

JH: The quality of the firm has always depended on the creativity invested in developing the company structure. And in this respect we must be one of the best in the world, at least in our generation. Here too, not just in the architectural design, it was a stroke of luck that Pierre and I governed the destiny of the firm together without one of us being responsible for everything. For sure, Pierre has more merits in this respect, and yet we actively bounce ideas off each other on these topics — even more so in the last few years, where the questions of the size of our firm today, tomorrow and in the future seem so urgent, and we’ve developed the idea of a generation model where the main partners increasingly take more responsibility and can also buy shares in the company.

When I say we’re right up there with the best in establishing a successful corporate structure, it’s because we’ve always put the design of the architecture and the design of the working conditions on a par. Right from an early stage, we wanted to support younger architects and make them partners. Today, Christine Binswanger, Ascan Mergenthaler and Stefan Marbach have top responsibilities as senior partners along with Pierre and me. One day, others might join us and Pierre and I won’t be able to inspire and supervise all the projects closely to the same extent we do today. Then we’ll see how good the envisaged generation model can work. Are there conflicts and jealousies about money and concepts of quality or can it all be combined in a relaxed atmosphere? We don’t know, but we’re confident; otherwise, we wouldn’t be working towards it.


JCB: Although there’s a discursive design process, in your case in particular you get the impression that you come out on top quite strongly.

JH: Come out on top ... over our partners, the clients or the public? Makes no difference, really. The important thing, as you say, is the discursive process that forces everyone involved into a debate. It’s pointless to cut corners in the discursive process by getting all authoritarian. It might be more laborious, as is the case with the democratic processes in Switzerland that [means that projects] still have to go through a voting process to be accepted by everyone in the end. We’re certainly not that patient at the firm; everything’s always urgent and the discussions and permanent changes force us all to be present all the time to follow this discourse. But in public, the discourse is simplified to make it understandable for everyone. The architect is also needed for communication here, if major building projects have to be conveyed. Public projects that have been confirmed through votes, however, quite literally stand on better footing.

HA: The situation in this country is undoubtedly in jeopardy. What will it be like in ten years? Will Switzerland fall into line with the European environment or remain defiant?

JH: The question is whether Switzerland is politically and economically an island and completely independent, as some people see it and want to achieve, or we can no longer dodge the European development, norms, laws, pay pressure and so on and have to adapt accordingly. At the moment, we’re still living in both "realities." The internationally and globally active companies have long had to adapt to the corresponding standards of a globalized architecture world. The so-called star architects might benefit from the advantages of their reputation here, which enjoys a particular status as an international brand. But for the majority of the projects and new inquiries, [the processes of] public procurement, competitions and management already take place according to European norms.

In Switzerland, however, there is still a special case: There’s more state that advertises correct competitions, organizes fair judging panels for them and spreads the commissions over a wide area so that young people also get a chance time and again. That’s important for the culture of architecture and one reason why Switzerland spawns so many good architects. But it’s also important for young architects to learn how to flaunt their qualities on the European and global stage and not just settle for the Swiss scene because it’s so convenient here and you can easily start your own little firm. That might well sound like a lecture, but sometimes the architecture scene in Switzerland makes me cringe since, even though it produces good people, all in all it comes across as incredibly hermetic and cocky.

JCB: You’ve often mentioned various role-models, like Aldo Rossi and Robert Venturi, but you also stress that as young architects you wanted to do things differently from your predecessors. Traces of modernists like Mies van der Rohe or — in art — minimalism, in other words the precision of these directions, might also be mentioned as reference points. Weren’t there other benchmarks?

JH: Rossi and Venturi had the biggest impact on us as students. Back then, they stood for something new that countered modernism somewhat; something ambivalent and routine; something that wasn’t as abstract and model-like as modernism demanded. Very soon, however, while we were still at university, the fine arts had a much greater appeal. I personally studied art and artists more strongly than architecture. Why? The great appeal that my friends back then in the Basel scene, Helmut Federle, Martin Disler and Rémy Zaugg, held for us. Their personal dedication and their far more radical exposure — compared with the safety of the architects — challenged us. We noticed that there weren’t any recipes, traditions or ideologies anymore that could be used for your own work. Everything had had its day and that has remained the case until now. What has changed compared to then, however, is that architecture scenes have developed in Switzerland and other places that support each other and that there is a kind of unspoken consensus as to what good architecture is that is not explicitly formulated, but lived all the more intensely in practice. If you look at Swiss publications or the weekend supplements, you can see how similar the projects of various Swiss authors have become; how identical the volumes, windows, large formats and materials are. There’s hardly anything that’s really bad and even more rarely anything that at least challenges this uniformity. Swiss architecture has become a lot more Swiss, homogenous, hermetic and folkloristic again today — like at the time of the Landi perhaps? — than its protagonists would like to recognize and believe. I don’t mean this as a criticism of the architects; it doesn’t bother us all that much. What bothers us far more is the mishmash that goes hand in hand with it and which the Swiss building zones are being filled with. The Swiss architecture of today is a kind of "pseudomodernism" that thinks it recognizes a moral legitimization with the abandonment of playfulness, individuality, experimentalism and radicalism, without following the really interesting side of modernism, namely the critical vision of a new society. But we believe it’s high time we strove for precisely this more intensely again.


HA: You say you grew up in a time of departure from the modern. There was a clear concept against it and there were the stimuli we mentioned earlier. The last few years, however, have been marked by a sense of laissez-faire — a tendency throughout society that also leaves an imprint on architecture. Where conflicts were fully discussed in the past, there’s a heterogeneous coexistence that seems to bother no one.

JH: In this uniformity, I see a tendency among architects to respect and maintain the status quo, and a consensus about what architecture is and can do for our society. That’s the expression of a decorative understanding of architecture, even if it expresses itself in a subtle, modernist language.

It contrasts with the political understanding we’re aspiring to and which we gave a nudge toward with the Studio Basel publication Switzerland: An Urban Portrait [2006]. At the moment, we think that considerations of where, how densely, how much and how distributed over the country we can and should build are more important questions than those concerning the individual object. Yet there have always been different kinds of models for living and exploring architecture. You just have to think of modernism in Switzerland, where there were radical, strongly politicized figures from Basel like Hans Bernoulli, Hannes Meyer or Hans Schmidt on the one hand who combined extreme minimalism with a social utopia and created objects of immaculate beauty, and on the other hand the bourgeois architects from the Zurich or central Swiss scene like Haefeli Moser Steiger or Armin Meili, who tended towards an attractive, decorative architecture.

JCB: So at the end of the day it’s all about attitude. What’s the situation with the young architects? What’s your take on the younger tendencies?

JH: The question is to what extent you use architecture simply to produce or understand something, like society for instance — and how far your own work changes as a result. This question is uppermost in our minds at the moment, but we haven’t found a decent answer to it. Yet it brings us back to the patterns we were talking about earlier. You can’t just change a nation and the way it lives. In Switzerland, there’s now this semi-urbanism; architecture that’s neither good nor bad, neither urban nor rural, and yet well-connected to the public transport network; where there’s always something green, but never lush or a lot; where there’s always a bit of water in the form of a river, stream or a lake. As long as most people can live like that and it doesn’t suddenly become too dense and packed in the districts, and in the trams and suburban trains, it’s impossible to change it. And the author architects, whether they are young or old, add a few buildings to the mix here and there that are mostly somewhat better than the large mass of the more anonymous architects. But how much better does it really get? Can this added value be justified in the long run without the authors becoming authors of a complete overhaul of the urban and ecological conditions in our country?

JCB: Your generation has theorized a lot, conducted dialogs and struck new paths. Does that still exist among today’s generation or does laissez-faire take precedence?

JH: I’m sure you journalists and architecture critics could answer that question a lot better; you’ve got a greater insight into the scene. But there are bound to be a few prominent figures in every generation.

HA: Undoubtedly. But it’s been some time since a book was published that was as significant as Rem Koohlhaas’s S, M, L, XL. Things are also stagnating theoretically at the moment. And in this country some architects can build a lot quickly at a young age because the economic situation enables them to. At the same time, however, this is leading to an ebb in creativity because often the [prevailing] patterns are just copied.

JH: The last seminal publications are a lot older still: L’ Archittetura della città by Rossi and Learning from Las Vegas by Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, which were both analyses of specific urban conditions: the Italian city, which Rossi invoked with a poetic and nostalgic impetus; and Venturi’s Las Vegas, which introduced pop art into architecture. I regard all key later architecture books like Koolhaas’ publications more as brilliant journalistic articles. They’re not sustainable textbooks or instructions as Rossi, Venturi or, even earlier and more explicitly, Le Corbusier or Adolf Loos, intended. The theoretical works of my generation consist more of individual essays or pamphlets; comprehensive works like the Urban Portrait of Switzerland, mentioned earlier, are rarely published. But the most effective and sustainable communicative architecture tool is still architecture itself; every single work. This means that the necessary political, urban and ecological dimension of architecture we talked about earlier needs to be expressed in the work itself. There’s nothing outside; no justification, no book, no explanation. Nothing has changed in architecture in this respect as long as it has existed.

JCB: In other countries, urban development discourse always proceeds from the mostly lacking or poor infrastructure. In this country, as far as urban development is concerned, we talk about construction zones or their concentration. With the Studio Basel, you raised awareness again of the topic of the urbanization of Switzerland, and meanwhile an increased urban concentration is in the pipeline at the planning offices in the region and cities. Is that a topic you’re still interested in?

JH: Yes, of course. Marcel Meili and I just had a lengthy discussion with the Tages-Anzeiger on these issues, a sort of review ever since Switzerland: An Urban Portrait came out. You can concentrate [urban development], but only in a country that also has an urban consciousness and where, somewhat more crowded together, you still see a certain quality and can live it, too. Really, the country is moving toward a kind of "City of Switzerland," since the agglomerations are beginning to touch, such as the metropolitan areas of Basel and Zürich with the Aargau interchange. What’s the vision now that the future developments are supposed to gear themselves toward? Today’s zone plans only yield unsatisfactory answers that don’t project the everyday reality. Concentrations within the existing centers confirm the identity and distinction of one city from the others. So what would the alternatives be? Concentration along commuter flows, concentrating what used to be rural or village areas? What do Swiss citizens want? Who’s going to explain to them what’s possible and makes sense? There are overly divergent forces between what’s desirable, reasonable, feasible and necessary, and no one knows how all of these forces can be made fruitful. We already considered whether a regular TV format, in the same vein as Arena on Swiss television, might trigger public discussion and awareness of such issues.


JCB: It probably isn’t possible to resist the urban sprawl in Switzerland; it might be more pragmatic, as you say, to find the [desirable] qualities in this mixture of city and country. There isn’t any real urbanity in this country anyway.

JH: Really, it’s just being filled up somehow. Then sometimes there’s a competition in a community that isn’t quite rural anymore because it already has a population of 25,000; then you build a square, like in Oerlikon, that looks a bit urban and gradually it become a town district. That was already the case with the medieval suburbs and it hasn’t changed much to this day. Apart from those dating back to the Gründerzeit [in the mid 19th century], there are hardly any city quarters that are designed from scratch. The transformation of industrial wasteland is mostly more of an addition and adaptation than a tabula rasa, too. That’s not a bad thing; it’s also a reaction to the partly reckless encroachments of the modern into the old town and village. But it’s also an expression of a lack of vision as to how a city or country of cities like Switzerland can work in the future.

JCB: There’s an ambivalence in regions adjacent to cities, obviously a reluctance to commit themselves to the city. Among the young architects, you don’t find any urban structures in the designs for the outlying suburbs that’ll be slam-bang in the middle of the city in a few years. Why is it so hard to realize urban patterns in Switzerland?

JH: Because people don’t like them — and perhaps the architects don’t either. Architects in Switzerland, and indeed elsewhere, aren’t designing a vision that’s supposed to change anything radically. Architecture seems powerless to me today — more so than ever.

HA: You mentioned the necessity for a radical perspective that didn’t just develop for you based on the insights of the Studio Basel, but is also necessary with regard to the contemporary world situation. You already mentioned a few points — but there must be more of what you might call a new agenda.

JH: The topics of sustainability, resources and energy are on everyone’s lips these days. We’re also dealing with questions of the CO2-free city and asking ourselves what architecture can do to help. Instead of rebuilding cities radically, it’s more likely that we’ll see inventions like solar cells that you can adjust according to the position of the sun to collect more power.

But maybe in parallel there’ll be more radical developments, where parts of our city realize new perspectives from the 21st century. If you ask me, that’s only possible through infrastructure. Radical changes only come about through things we have to learn the hard way. We’re seeing that now with the discussion on nuclear power plants: We already knew it wasn’t possible to supply the world using nuclear power — even before the disaster in Japan — because its permanent disposal isn’t guaranteed for thousands of years. But a change in thinking only comes about if the knife’s at your throat and your throat’s already been half slit — then you get a panicky reaction. That’s the way of the world and human nature: more reactive than active.

And that’s why cities look the way they do: because the pressure isn’t great enough to change anything. But it’s up to us architects to try and make a difference, because we might recognize a bit earlier what others might not yet see — the ingredients for possible change. Still, we don’t have any recipes that can be realized directly, either. The Studio Basel book about metropolitan regions and the green spaces in-between was adopted by the Swiss federal planning department; yet it [doesn't contain] about precise, firm wording, which is famously difficult in Switzerland. On the other hand — and here comes the "but" already — that’s also part of Switzerland’s success.

JCB: The topic matters to you, you can see that. But more precisely: Conflicts like the current one between zero-energy and Minergie [the Swiss rating agency for green buildings] — do they concern your firm or do you think it’s up to the technicians to resolve it? Anyhow, you’re well-known for conducting a lot of research.

JH: That’s a very good question. Of course, we don’t develop any new solar collectors or types of insulation. There are strict laws and regulations in Switzerland that we have to respect. In concrete terms, we tried to develop autonomous houses that are self-sufficient. Mostly, these attempts fall flat because they are merely recipes that are accepted by the building owners — or not. They are approaches to possible ideal conditions. We’re more interested in questions of sustainability in the context of urban development or a whole country. Next semester, we want to concentrate on these questions at Studio Basel and devise an overview of the state of affairs, as hardly anyone knows where we really stand at the moment. That goes for both the individual object as well as the regions and cities. We’re particularly interested in the issue of water, food production and waste.

HA: I’d like to come back to the need for radicalization. The sensitivity to social change has also taken mostly a backseat in the architecture profession internationally. Maybe that’s the problem.

JH: That’s right. We grew up and studied in the late Sixties, during the social revolution. The transition from modernism to postmodernism, the criticism of society, was fundamental. That left its mark on us and we left ours on the period. Nowadays, we live in a time in which nothing’s forced upon us that shapes the younger generation, which isn’t politicized to the same extent. And being politicized also means questioning everything. After all, architecture is just an instrument to shape our society and give the people in our time the chance to express themselves in one form or another and live in a particular way, both privately and publicly. That also means that public space corresponds to it: It can be open or hermetic.

Here’s an example: Because it's accessible to everyone, the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern is a contribution to the notion of public space. That’s the most exciting thing of all at the Tate. We learned that lesson during the project and have been able to use it in other locations, including in Switzerland. Architecture is a vessel for the people in a society. That’s fundamental for our understanding of architecture and the city. You can also understand the state of a society historically from how much the architecture productively sought this publicness or not. We always used to say: Architecture is an object of perception for the world, and also society.

JCB: So we’re experiencing a Jacques Herzog who’s just as radical as he was at the beginning of his career. But there’s also a Jacques Herzog who’s looking to devote himself to other themes after all this time, like sculptural architecture, the reference to nature, and is not as interested in everyday problems anymore. Do I sense a certain wisdom with age here?

JH: No, you’ve got me all wrong. A curious person will always be curious — whether that’s an advantage or not. Those of us from the generation of ’68 are rooted in a tradition of reason. But now we live in a time where ideologies are increasingly on the rise — in other words, in an anti-enlightenment era. Is that the future of the world? Will the world enter a new phase of isolation, nationalization, ideologization? As a paradoxical counterplay to the onset of globalization? That would require new architecture or author architecture to degenerate into a kind of "parallel architecture," which it already is to a certain extent today.



JCB: You could ask whether this process has caught on in some places, for instance, in the more repressive parts of the Arab world.

JH: We shouldn’t assume our form of democracy is the only possible democratic form. A revolution like the one that started in North Africa in 2010, and that might lead to an enlightenment in your own society, is far more interesting. In Christianity, the Reformation destroyed an incredible number of values. I was raised a Protestant and only realized its enormity later as an art and architecture enthusiast. In Basel alone, entire churches, monasteries and cathedrals were knocked down. This was evidently necessary to achieve something new, to reach a truly new starting point for a society that had had its day and couldn’t rebuild itself from the established power structures.

That brings us back to the radical perspective. Perhaps everything has to break down. In the spirit of the age we’re living in today, maybe we won’t manage to overcome this shallow, sluggish, random but successful indifference in Switzerland. Remember: The change of Protestantism opened the door for industrialization; the Huguenots came to Switzerland, bringing silk dyeing and ultimately the pharmaceutical industry to Basel and basing the clock industry in Geneva and Jura. A large part of industrialization, in Germany and England, too, wouldn’t have been possible without Protestantism; you see that in Catholic countries where no such development took place. 500 years on, that’s still a social reality and continues to have an impact as a conflict between the countries in the north and south, which causes friction in the EU. Even though Switzerland is doing well, we must constantly seek new horizons.

JCB: That would be a nice note to finish on.

JH: I’ve often talked to you both and always found it interesting to tackle issues relevant to architecture. Mostly, this works best with reference to a specific object. However, if you don’t ask yourself these overriding questions, the object ultimately becomes boring.

JCB: Just before we finish, however, I’d like to ask an object-related question that is of particular interest to me, coming from Hamburg: What’s the situation with the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie? Why are there now conflicts after the brilliant launch in this city, which doesn’t exactly have an affinity with architecture?

JH: Complex political and contractual constellations have led to [the delays in construction]. We always have to make an effort with various lawyers to ensure that everything is correctly represented and we’re not accused of things we’re not responsible for. I wouldn’t wish that on any architect. Unfortunately it’s a reality in such big public projects nowadays — not just in Hamburg, although it’s particularly pronounced there. We have to battle on, but we’re confident we’re on the right track. The especially important thing for us now is that it ends up as magnificent as we always imagined it. It’ll be a wonderful building; the rooms are fantastic and at the end of the day that’s the only thing that counts. The building will stay up for a long time to come and should give all the citizens of Hamburg and its visitors a lot of pleasure.







http://places.designobserver.com/feature/an-interview-with-jacques-herzog/32118/

http://www.thecity2.org/

http://www.tedcity2.org/

It's Evolving =)

welcome to the city2.0 

an idea that been awarded bY TED  

Mr. Lenin is promoting De-signsimage courtesy city 2.0.

#Ylvp 2012

#Ylvp 2012   This Year's scholarship is open.
Highly Recommended.

http://www.si.se/English/Navigation/Scholarships-and-exchanges/Leadership-programs/Young-Leaders-Visitors-Program/

Architectural Edu > Brit

Architecture Review EXCLUSIVE: 

SCHUMACHER SLAMS BRITISH ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION

The submissions to the current RIBA President’s Medals demonstrate once more that architectural education in Britain is operating in a parallel universe. The (best?) students of the current generation as well as their teachers seem to think that the ordinary life processes of contemporary society are too boring to merit the avant-garde’s attention. Instead we witness the invention of scenarios that are supposedly more interesting than the challenges actually posed by contemporary reality. The points of departure for the majority of projects are improbable narratives with intended symbolic message or poetic import.


Accordingly, the resultant works are statements or allegories rather than designs. This is evidenced by the emphasis on evocative, atmospheric imagery, with little or no demonstration of how the visualised spaces organise and articulate social life processes and institutions. For instance, the Bronze Medal (first prize in the Part 1 category) proposes to place ‘an acoustic lyrical mechanism’ into a quarry in Bangalore. ‘The building is played by the wind, acoustically transforming the abrasive sounds of quarrying.’ The Silver Medal (first prize in the Part 2 category) presents itself in the form of a dystopian science fiction movie in which Brixton is transformed into ‘a degenerated and disregarded area inhabited by a robot workforce’. The robots are supposed to symbolise immigrant labourers; they are meant to represent racist exploitation.
One of the runner-up projects presents itself with sarcasm as a ‘genetically engineered “nature factory” for luxury goods, masquerading as a revamped “eco-industry”’. Like the Robots of Brixton this ‘nature factory’ is not a design but an ironic allegory intended as critical commentary.
The other projects in this category that have been selected and highlighted by the RIBA Journal (by publishing them with a project description) ‘engage’ the following ‘topics’: an algae monitoring facility, a retreat for Echo from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and a storage building based on the fictional narrative that all citizens would deposit personal things into safety boxes throughout their lives in order to be later confronted by their past.


Although there is rather less explanation about the other entries, the project titles (eg, Pyrolytic Power Plant, Tsunami Alert Community, Hydrodynamic Landscape, Mushroom Farm, Guild of Tanners and Butchers) as well as the dominance of atmospheric (mostly dark, cloudy, poetic and dystopian) imagery suggests a similarly idiosyncratic, unreal understanding of what constitutes a worthy design brief. The last two years were also similar: the 2010 winner was a ‘shipwrecking yard’ and the 2009 winner proposed ‘motorised coastal defence towers acting as a warning device to mankind with respect to climate change’. Again, these are not designs of spaces intended to frame social life, these are narratives and messages pushed by evocative imagery.
There is no doubt that creative imagination and skills are in evidence here. However, it is difficult to see what such works achieve and contribute to the advancement of the discipline of architecture. The RIBA’s director of education, David Gloster, seems to endorse what I criticise here: ‘The ability of the best work to create its own world while still reflecting everything that has been going on around its authors was captivating.’ Gloster also welcomes what he considers to be ‘a pronounced political edge’ and he takes this as an indication that ‘students haven’t given up on architecture as catalyst for change’.
I believe that architecture co-evolves with other subsystems of society like the economy, politics, the mass media, science etc. In this co-evolution innovative architecture can be as much a catalyst for progress as innovations in science, the mass media, or in the political system. However, I doubt if the invention of other worlds as arenas for imaginative design is the way to achieve this. I also doubt that architecture could be a site of radical political activism. I believe that architecture is a sui generis discipline (discourse and practice) with its own, unique societal responsibility and competency. As such it should be sharply demarcated against other competencies like art, science/engineering and politics.


Architects are called upon to develop urban and architectural forms that are congenial to contemporary economic and political life. They are neither legitimised, nor competent to argue for a different politics or to ‘disagree with the consensus of global politics’ (as David Gloster suggests). ‘Critical architecture’ commits the fallacy of trying to substitute itself for the political process proper. The result might be a provocation at best, but often ends up as nothing but naive (if not pompous) posturing. Success in the world is not to be expected from such pursuits.
The demonstration of creative imagination and virtuoso visualisation skills is not enough to merit an award. Should we not expect the best students and teachers at the best architecture schools to make a serious contribution to the innovative upgrading of the discipline’s capacity to take on the challenges it might actually face via its future clients and commissions?
I consider the best schools to be a crucial part of the avant-garde segment of the discipline charged with the permanent innovation of the built environment. It is here that systematic research and serious design experiments can be conducted in ways that are more principled and more forward looking than would be possible within professional practice on the basis of real commissions. Academic design research allows designers to select and focus on specific aspects of the built environment, and abstract from other aspects.
Academic design research − and a Part 2 project could play this role − is not a full simulation of a real project with all its concerns. Thus neither the design brief, nor the design solution of an academic thesis project, have to be pragmatic in a straightforward way. The realism I mean is of a more subtle order. It calls for an optimistic probing of our contemporary world with respect to the opportunities it offers and considers the vogue of otherworldly narratives as counterproductive.


better view > 


http://www.architectural-review.com/view/overview/ar-exclusive-schumacher-slams-british-architectural-education/8625659.article

City 2.0

At TED everything could happen. It's been a very enjoyable & inspiring platform ever since i learned about it in 2008.. it never fails one searching for an original, genuine words or some Courageous voice.

Thank You #TED platform & people behind it for make it happen. 

For the first time in history, the TED Prize winner is not an individual, but an idea that greatly impacts the future of planet Earth… and the winner is The City 2.0. The City 2.0 is the city of the future, a future in which more than ten billion people are dependent on. The idea is not a “sterile utopian dream” but rather a “real-world upgrade tapping into humanity’s collective wisdom.” More urban living space will be constructed over the next 90 years than all prior centuries combined, so it is time to get it right.

Continue reading for more information on The City 2.0 and details on how you can participate.
Provided by the TED Prize press release:

The City 2.0 promotes innovation, education, culture, and economic opportunity.
The City 2.0 reduces the carbon footprint of its occupants, facilitates smaller families, and eases the environmental pressure on the world’s rural areas.

The City 2.0 is a place of beauty, wonder, excitement, inclusion, diversity, life.
The City 2.0 is the city that works.

Each year, TED Prize is awarded to an “exceptional individual” who receives $100,000 and “One Wish to Change the World.” Visionaries from around the globe will be given the collective opportunity to craft one wish for The City 2.0.
Back in 2006, TIME’s person of the year was Y O U. It became evident that we are in charge of shaping our own destiny and we are one collective whole. If you wish to contribute an idea for The City 2.0, write to tedprize@ted.com and join the conversation here.

The wish will be announced on February 29th, 2012 at the TED Conference in Long Beach, California.

“On a Leap Year date, we have the chance, collectively, to take a giant leap forward.”

Reference: TED Prize, TIME Magazine

TED Conversations

This conversation will close in 5 days, 15 hours and 43 minutes, on December 13, 2011 at 4:43:19 PM.

Today, TED announces the winner of the 2012 TED Prize: the City 2.0.
......

A range of visionaries around the world will be advocates on behalf of the City 2.0. We are listening to them -- and to you.

What is your wish for The City 2.0? A wish capable of igniting a massive collaborative project among the members of the global TED community, and indeed all who care about our planet's future.
http://www.ted.com/conversations/7683/if_you_could_make_a_wish_on_be.html

Links...
http://www.tedprize.org/
http://blog.ted.com/2011/12/06/ted-prize-2012-goes-to-the-city-2-0/
http://www.tedprize.org/announcing-the-2012-ted-prize-winner/
http://www.archdaily.com/tag/the-city-2-0/
https://twitter.com/#!/ArchDaily


The last function of making a City That works bring back The words of Le Corbo to my mind...  Ones he discussed =that cities exists as long as they function as ones, and they have to be replaced if they failed to... sure he was extreme.
But ever since his time; Making A City That works is what everyone's craving for...   

X Inventions

Originally Published

http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/inventions/10-things-that-women-invented.htm

Top 10 Things That Women Invented

At the end of the 20th century, only 10 percent of all patents were awarded to female inventors [source: Bedi]. When you compile a list of the most famous inventions of the past few centuries, few women will show up as the creators of those items. 

It's not that women lack ingenuity or a creative spirit, though; it's just that women have faced many hurdles in receiving credit for their ideas.

Take the case of Sybilla Masters, a woman who lived in the American colonies. After observing Native American women, she came up with a new way to turn corn into cornmeal. She went to England to obtain a patent for her work, but laws at the time stipulated that women couldn't own property, which included intellectual property like a patent. Such property was considered to be owned by the woman's father or husband. In 1715, a patent for Sybilla Masters' product was issued, but the name on the document is that of her husband, Thomas.

Such property laws prevented many women from acquiring patents for inventions several centuries ago. 

Women were also less likely to receive a technical education that would help them turn an ingenious idea into an actual product. 

Many women faced prejudice and ridicule when they sought help from men in actualizing their idea. 

And some women came up with ideas that would improve life in their households, only to see their inventions treated with scorn for being too domestic and thus unworthy of praise..
Mary Kies was the first American woman to earn a patent in her own name. In 1809, she developed a way of weaving straw into hats that was an economic boon for New England. By receiving that piece of paper with her name on it, Kies led the way for other female inventors to take credit for their ideas. In this article, we'll salute 10 things invented by women.

10: Circular Saw

In the late 18th century, a religious sect known as the Shakers emerged. Shakers valued living communally (albeit celibately), equality between the sexes and hard work. Tabitha Babbitt lived in a Shaker community in Massachusetts and worked as a weaver, but in 1810, she came up with a way to lighten the load of her brethren. She observed men cutting wood with a pit saw, which is a two-handled saw that requires two men to pull it back and forth. Though the saw is pulled both ways, it only cuts wood when it's pulled forward; the return stroke is useless. To Babbitt, that was wasted energy, so she created a prototype of the circular saw that would go on to be used in saw mills. She attached a circular blade to her spinning wheel so that every movement of the saw produced results. Because of Shaker precepts, Babbitt didn't apply for a patent for the circular saw she created.

9: Chocolate Chip Cookies

There is no doubt that many treasured recipes came about through accidental invention in the kitchen, but we must single out one of the most enduring -- and delicious -- of these recipes: the chocolate chip cookie.
Ruth Wakefield had worked as a dietitian and food lecturer before buying an old toll house outside of Boston with her husband. Traditionally, toll houses were places weary travelers paid their road tolls, grabbed a quick bite and fed their horses. Wakefield and her husband converted the toll house into an inn with a restaurant. One day in 1930, Wakefield was baking up a batch of Butter Drop Do cookies for her guests. The recipe called for melted chocolate, but Wakefield had run out of baker's chocolate. She took a Nestle chocolate bar, crumbled it into pieces and threw it into her batter, expecting the chocolate pieces to melt during baking. Instead, the chocolate held its shape, and the chocolate chip cookie was born.
Nestle noticed that sales of its chocolate bars jumped in Mrs. Wakefield's corner of Massachusetts, so they met with her about the cookie, which was fast gaining a reputation among travelers. At Wakefield's suggestion, they began scoring their chocolate (cutting lines into the bar that allow for easier breaking) and then, in 1939, they began selling Nestle Toll House Real Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels. The Wakefield cookie recipe was printed on the back of the package; in exchange, Ruth Wakefield received free chocolate for life.

8: Liquid Paper

Bette Nesmith Graham was not a very good typist. Still, the high school dropout worked her way through the secretarial pool to become the executive secretary for the chairman of the board of the Texas Bank and Trust. It was the 1950s, and the electric typewriter had just been introduced. Secretaries often found themselves retyping entire pages because of one tiny mistake, as the new model's carbon ribbon made it difficult to correct errors.
One day, Graham watched workers painting a holiday display on a bank window. She noticed that when they made mistakes, they simply added another layer of paint to cover them up, and she thought she could apply that idea to her typing blunders. Using her blender, Graham mixed up a water-based tempera paint with dye that matched her company's stationary. She took it to work and, using a fine watercolor brush, she was able to quickly correct her errors. Soon, the other secretaries were clamoring for the product, which Graham continued to produce in her kitchen. Graham was fired from her job for spending so much time distributing what she called "Mistake Out," but in her unemployment she was able to tweak her mixture, rename the product Liquid Paper and receive a patent in 1958. Even though typewriters have been replaced by computers in many offices, many people still have a bottle or two of that white correction fluid on hand.

7: The Compiler and COBOL Computer Language

When we think about advancements in computers, we tend to think about men like Charles Babbage, Alan Turing and Bill Gates. But Admiral Grace Murray Hopper deserves credit for her role in the computer industry. Admiral Hopper joined the military in 1943 and was stationed at Harvard University, where she worked on IBM's Harvard Mark I computer, the first large-scale computer in the United States. She was the third person to program this computer, and she wrote a manual of operations that lit the path for those that followed her. In the 1950s, Admiral Hopper invented the compiler, which translates English commands into computer code. This device meant that programmers could create code more easily and with fewer errors. Hopper's second compiler, the Flow-Matic, was used to program UNIVAC I and II, which were the first computers available commercially. Admiral Hopper also oversaw the development of the Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL), one of the first computer programming languages. Admiral Hopper received numerous awards for her work, including the honor of having a U.S. warship named after her.

6: Colored Flare System

When Martha Coston was widowed in 1847, she was only 21 years old. She had four children to support, but she hadn't a clue about how to do so. She was flipping through her dead husband's notebooks when she found plans for a flare system that ships could use to communicate at night. Coston requested the system be tested, but it failed.
Coston was undeterred. She spent the next 10 years revising and perfecting her husband's design for a colored flare system. She consulted with scientists and military officers, but she couldn't figure out how to produce flares that were bright and long-lasting while remaining easy to use at the spur of the moment. One night she took her children to see a fireworks display, and that's when she hit upon the idea of applying some pyrotechnic technology to her flare system. The flare system finally worked, and the U.S. Navy bought the rights. The Coston colored flare system was used extensively during the Civil War.
Unfortunately, the flare system wasn't the best way for Coston to support her family. According to military documents, Coston produced 1,200,000 flares for the Navy during the Civil War, which she provided at cost. She was owed $120,000, of which she was only paid $15,000; in her autobiography, Coston attributed the Navy's refusal to pay to the fact that she was a woman [source: Pilato].

5: The Square-bottomed Paper Bag

Margaret Knight didn't invent the paper bag, but those first paper bags weren't all that useful for carrying things. They were more like envelopes, so there was no way they'd become the grocery store staple that they are today. For that, we have to thank Knight. Knight realized that paper bags should have a square bottom; when weight was distributed across the base in this way, the bags could carry more things.
In 1870, she created a wooden machine that would cut, fold and glue the square bottoms to paper bags. While she was working on an iron prototype of the machine to use for her patent application, she discovered that her design had been stolen by a man named Charles Annan, who had seen her wooden machine a few months earlier. She filed a patent interference suit against Annan, who claimed that there was no way that a woman could have developed such a complex machine. Knight used her notes and sketches to prove otherwise, and she was granted the patent for the device in 1871.
That was hardly Knight's first patent, though. At the age of 12, Knight had developed a stop-motion device that would automatically bring industrial machines to a halt if something was caught on them, which prevented many injuries; all told, Knight was awarded more than 20 patents.

4: Dishwasher

You might think that the first dishwasher was invented by someone who spent years washing dishes, bemoaning the wasted time and the dishpan hands. Actually, Josephine Cochrane, who received the patent for the first working dishwasher, didn't spend that much time washing dishes. The real impetus for her invention was frustration over her servants breaking her heirloom china after fancy dinners.
Cochrane was a socialite who loved to entertain, but after her husband died in 1883, she was left with massive debt. Rather than selling off that beloved china, she focused on building a machine that would wash it properly. Her machine relied upon strong water pressure aimed at a wire rack of dishes, and she received a patent for the device in 1886. Cochrane claimed that inventing the machine was nowhere near as hard as promoting it [source: Lienhard]. At first, the Cochrane dishwasher tanked with individual consumers, as many households lacked the hot water heaters necessary to run it, and those that had the capacity balked at paying for something that housewives did for free. Undaunted, Cochrane sought appointments with large hotels and restaurants, selling them on the fact that the dishwasher could do the job they were paying several dozen employees to do. In time, however, more households acquired the device as greater numbers of women entered the workplace.

3: Windshield Wiper

At the dawn of the 20th century, Mary Anderson went to New York City for the first time. She saw a much different New York City than the one tourists see today. There were no cabs honking, nor were there thousands of cars vying for position in afternoon traffic. Cars had not yet captured the American imagination and were quite rare when Anderson took that trip, but the woman from Alabama would end up inventing something that has become standard on every automobile. During her trip, Anderson took a tram through the snow-covered city.
She noticed that the driver had to stop the tram every few minutes to wipe the snow off his front window. At the time, all drivers had to do so; rain and snow were thought to be things drivers had to deal with, even though they resulted in poor visibility. When she returned home, Anderson developed a squeegee on a spindle that was attached to a handle on the inside of the vehicle. When the driver needed to clear the glass, he simply pulled on the handle and the squeegee wiped the precipitation from the windshield. Anderson received the patent for her device in 1903; just 10 years later, thousands of Americans owned a car with her invention.

2: Nystatin

Long-distance romantic relationships are often troubled, but Rachel Fuller Brown and Elizabeth Lee Hazen proved that long-distance professional relationships can yield productive results. Both Brown and Hazen worked for the New York State Department of Health in the 1940s, but Hazen was stationed in New York City and Brown was in Albany. Despite the miles, Brown and Hazen collaborated on the first successful fungus-fighting drug.
In New York City, Hazen would test soil samples to see if any of the organisms within would respond to fungi. If there was activity, Hazen would mail the jar of soil to Brown, who would work to extract the agent in the soil that was causing the reaction. Once Brown had found the active ingredient, it went back in the mail to Hazen, who'd check it against the fungi again. If the organism killed the fungi, it would be evaluated for toxicity. Most of the samples proved too toxic for human use, but finally Brown and Hazen happened upon an effective fungus-killing drug in 1950. They named it Nystatin, after New York state. The medication, now sold under a variety of trade names, cures fungal infections that affect the skin, vagina and intestinal system. It's also been used on trees with Dutch elm disease and on artwork affected by mold.

1: Kevlar

It was just supposed to be a temporary job. Stephanie Kwolek took a position at DuPont in 1946 so she could save enough money to go to medical school. In 1964, she was still there, researching how to turn polymers into extra strong synthetic fibers. Kwolek was working with polymers that had rod-like molecules that all lined up in one direction.
Compared to the molecules that formed jumbled bundles, Kwolek thought the uniform lines would make the resulting material stronger, though these polymers were very difficult to dissolve into a solution that could be tested. She finally prepared such a solution with the rod-like molecules, but it looked unlike all the other molecular solutions she'd ever made. Her next step was to run it through the spinneret, a machine that would produce the fibers. However, the spinneret operator almost refused to let Kwolek use the machine, so different was this solution from all the others before; he was convinced it would ruin the spinneret.
Kwolek persisted, and after the spinneret had done its work, Kwolek had a fiber that was ounce-for-ounce as strong as steel. This material was dubbed Kevlar, and it's been used to manufacture skis, radial tires and brake pads, suspension bridge cables, helmets, and hiking and camping gear. Most notably, Kevlar is used to make bulletproof vests, so even though Kwolek didn't make it to medical school, she still saved plenty of lives.