On this planet today, there are about 50 cities that are larger than five million people. I'm going to share with you the story of one such city, a city of seven million people, but a city that's a temporary megacity, an ephemeral megacity. This is a city that is built for a Hindu religious festival called Kumbh Mela, which occurs every 12 years, in smaller editions every four years, and takes place at the confluence of the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers in India. And for this festival, about 100 million people congregate.
Danas na planetu postoji oko 50 gradova većih od 5 milijuna ljudi. Podijelit ću s vama priču o jednom takvom gradu, gradu od sedam milijuna stanovnika, o gradu koji je privremeni, prolazni megagrad. Taj grad se izgrađuje za hinduističku vjersku svečanost imena Kumbh Mela, koja se obilježava svakih 12 godina, u manjem izdanju svake 4 godine. Događa se na ušću rijeka Ganges i Jamuna u Indiji. Za ove svečanosti skupi se oko 100 milijuna ljudi.
The reason so many people congregate here, is the Hindus believe that during the festival, the cycle every 12 years, if you bathe at the confluence of these two great rivers you are freed from rebirth. It's a really compelling idea, you are liberated from life as we know it. And this is what attracts these millions. And an entire megacity is built to house them. Seven million people live there for the 55 days, and the other 100 million visit.
Razlog zbog kojega se toliko ljudi sastaje ovdje jest što Hindusi vjeruju da, tijekom svečanosti, koja se ponavlja svakih 12 godina, ako se okupate na ušću ovih dviju velikih rijeka, oslobođeni ste ponovnog rođenja. To je doista zapanjujuća ideja, oslobođeni ste od života kakvog znamo. A to privlači sve te milijunske mase. Izgradi se čitav jedan megagrad da bi ih se smjestilo. Sedam milijuna ljudi živi ondje tijekom tih 55 dana, a još 100 milijuna dođe u posjet.
These are images from the same spot that we took over the 10 weeks that it takes for the city to emerge. After the monsoon, as the waters of these rivers begin to recede and the sand banks expose themselves, it becomes the terrain for the city. And by the 15th of January, starting 15th of October to 15th of January, in these weeks an entire city emerges. A city that houses seven million people.
Ovo su fotografije s istog mjesta koje smo snimili tijekom 10 tjedana, koliko je potrebno ovom gradu da nastane. Nakon monsuna, kako se vode ovih rijeka povlače i kako se počnu pojavljivati pješčane obale, to postaje teren za nastanak grada. I do 15. siječnja, počevši 15. listopada do 15. siječnja, u tim tjednima nastane cijeli grad. Grad koji može primiti sedam milijuna stanovnika.
What is fascinating is this city actually has all the characteristics of a real megacity: a grid is employed to lay the city out. The urban system is a grid and every street on this city goes across the river on a pontoon bridge. Incredibly resilient, because if there's an unseasonal downpour or if the river changes course, the urban system stays intact, the city adjusts itself to this terrain which can be volatile. It also replicates all forms of physical, as well as social, infrastructure. Water supply, sewage, electricity, there are 1,400 CCTV cameras that are used for security by an entire station that is set up. But also social infrastructure, like clinics, hospitals, all sorts of community services, that make this function like any real megacity would do. 10,500 sweepers are employed by the city. It has a governance system, a Mela Adhikari, or the commissioner of the festival, that ensures that land is allocated, there are systems for all of this, that the system of the city, the mobility, all works efficiently. You know, it was the cleanest and the most efficient Indian city I've lived in.
Fascinantno je da ovaj grad zapravo ima sve osobine pravoga megagrada: polaže se infrastrukturna mreža. Gradski sustav ima oblik mreže i svaka cesta ovog grada prelazi rijeku pontonskim mostom. Nevjerojatno je otporan, jer ako dođe do izvansezonske poplave ili ako rijeka izmijeni svoj tok, gradski sustav ostaje netaknut jer se grad prilagođava terenu koji može biti promjenjiv. Također preslikava sve oblike fizičke ali i socijalne infrastrukture. Opskrba vodom, kanalizacija, električna energija, postoji 1400 nadzornih kamera koje se koriste u sigurnosne svrhe putem cijele TV postaje koju se također organizira. Ali također i socijalna infrastruktura kao što su klinike, bolnice, različite društvene usluge, koje čine da ovo funkcionira baš poput svakog megagrada. Grad zapošljava 10,500 čistača. Ima i sustav upravljanja, Mela Adhikari, povjerenik svečanosti, koji osigurava da se rasporedi zemlja, da postoje svi potrebni sustavi, da gradski sustavi, mobilnost, sve radi besprijekorno. Znate, bio je to najčistiji i najučinkovitiji indijski grad u kojem sam ikada živio.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
And that's what it looks like in comparison to Manhattan, 30 square kilometers, that's the scale of the city.
Grad ovako izgleda u usporedbi s Manhattanom, 30 četvornih kilometara, to je površina grada.
And this is not an informal city or a pop-up city. This is a formal city, this is a state enterprise, the government sets this up. In today's world of neoliberalism and capitalism, where the state has devolved itself complete responsibility from making and designing cities, this is an incredible case. It's a deliberate, intentional city, a formal city.
A ovo nije neformalan ili slučajan grad. Ovo je formalni grad, ovo je državni projekt, vlada ovo postavlja. U današnjem svijetu neoliberalizma i kapitalizma, gdje je država sama sebi izuzela potpunu odgovornost za izgradnju i dizajn gradova, ovo je nevjerojatan slučaj. To je namjeran, planski, formalan grad.
And it's a city that sits on the ground very lightly. It sits on the banks of these rivers. And it leaves very little mark. There are no foundations; fabric is used to build this entire city. What's also quite incredible is that there are five materials that are used to build this settlement for seven million people: eight-foot tall bamboo, string or rope, nails or screw and a skinning material. Could be corrugated metal, a fabric or plastic. And these materials come together and aggregate. It's like a kit of parts. And it's used all the way from a small tent, which might house five or six people, or a family, to temples that can house 500, sometimes 1,000 people. And this kit of parts, and this imagination of the city, allows it to be disassembled. And so at the end of the festival, within a week, the entire city is disassembled. These are again images from the same spot. And the terrain is offered back to the river, as with the monsoon the water swells again. And it's this sort of imagination as a kit of parts that allows this disassembly and the reabsorption of all this material. So the electricity poles go to little villages in the hinterland, the pontoon bridges are used in small towns, the material is all reabsorbed. Fascinating, it's amazing.
Taj grad leži vrlo nježno na zemlji. Leži na obalama ovih rijeka. I ostavlja vrlo malen trag. Nema temelja; cijeli grad je sagrađen od tkanine. Također je gotovo nevjerojatno da se koristi tek pet sirovina kako bi se sagradilo ovo naselje za sedam milijuna ljudi: 2,5-metarski bambus, niti ili užad, čavli ili vijci te fasadna tvar. To može biti rebrasti metal, tkanina ili plastika. Te tvari se spajaju i stapaju. To je poput kutije dijelova. Koriste se za sve, od malenog šatora, koji može primiti 5-6 osoba, ili obitelj, do hramova koji mogu primiti 500, katkad i 1000 osoba. A ova kutija dijelova, ova zamisao grada mu dopušta da ga se i rastavi. Pa tako na kraju svečanosti, za tjedan dana, cijeli grad se rastavlja. Ovo su ponovne snimke s istog mjesta. Teren je ponuđen natrag rijeci, kako s monsunima rijeke ponovo bujaju. A ova vrsta imaginacije u vidu kutije s dijelovima omogućuje ovo rastavljanje i reapsorpciju ovih materijala. Tako da električni stupovi odlaze u sela u zaleđu, pontonski mostovi se iskoriste u gradićima, sav materijal se ponovo upotrijebi. Fascinantno, zapanjujuće.
Now, you may embrace these Hindu beliefs or not. But you know, this is a stunning example, and it's worthy of reflection. Here, human beings spend an enormous amount of energy and imagination knowing that the city is going to reverse, it's going to be disassembled, it's going to disappear, it's the ephemeral megacity. And it has profound lessons to teach us. Lessons about how to touch the ground lightly, about reversibility, about disassembly. Rather amazing.
Pa, možete, a i ne morate prihvatiti hinduistička vjerovanja. Ali, znate, ovo je sjajan primjer. I vrijedi promisliti o njemu. Ovdje, ljudska bića troše ogromnu količinu energije i imaginacije, znajući da će se grad okrenuti suprotno, bit će rastavljen na dijelove, nestat će. To je privremeni megagrad. I od njega možemo naučiti bitne lekcije. Lekcije kako doticati zemlju na nježan način, lekcije o načelu povratnosti, o načelu rastavljanja na dijelove. Prilično zapanjujuće.
And you know, we are, as humans, obsessed with permanence. We resist change. It's an impulse that we all have. And we resist change in spite of the fact that change is perhaps the only constant in our lives. Everything has an expiry date, including Spaceship Earth, our planet.
I znate, svi smo, kao ljudi, opsjednuti trajnošću. Opiremo se promjeni. To je podsvjestan nagon u nama. Opiremo se promjeni usprkos činjenici da je promjena možda jedina stalnost u našim životima. Sve ima rok trajanja. Pa čak i naš svemirski brod Zemlja; naš planet.
So what can we learn from these sorts of settlements? Burning Man, of course much smaller, but reversible. Or the thousands of markets for transaction, that appear around the globe in Asia, Latin America, Africa, this one in Mexico, where the parking lots are animated on the weekends, about 50,000 vendors, but on a temporal cycle. The farmer's market in the Americas: it's an amazing phenomenon, creates new chemistries, extends the margin of space that is unused or not used optimally, like parking lots, for example.
Pa što možemo naučiti od ovakvih vrsta naselja? Kao svečanost Burning Man, koja je naravno puno manja, ali je povratna. Ili tisuće transakcijskih tržnica koje izniču diljem svijeta u Aziji, Latinskoj Americi, Africi, ova u Meksiku, gdje parkirališta ožive vikendom, nađe se oko 50 tisuća izlagača, ali tek privremeno. Seljačka tržnica u obje Amerike: to je divan fenomen, stvara se nova kemija, proširuje se rub prostora koji se ne koristi ili se nedovoljno koristi, poput parkirališta.
In my own city of Mumbai, where I practice as an architect and a planner, I see this in the everyday landscape. I call this the Kinetic City. It twitches like a live organism; it's not static. It changes every day, on sometimes predictable cycles. About six million people live in these kinds of temporary settlements. Like -- unfortunately, like refugee camps, the slums of Mumbai, the favelas of Latin America. Here, the temporary is becoming the new permanent. Here, urbanism is not about grand vision, it's about grand adjustment.
U mom gradu Mumbaiju, gdje radim kao arhitekt i urbani planer, vidim ove primjere u svakodnevnom krajoliku. Nazivam to Kinetičkim gradom. Kreće se kao živi organizam; nije statičan. Mijenja se svakodnevno, ponekad u predvidljivim ciklusima. Oko 6 milijuna ljudi žive u ovakvim privremenim naseljima. Poput -- nažalost, poput izbjegličkih kampova, slamova Mumbaija, favela u Latinskoj Americi. Ovdje, privremeno se pretvara u novo trajno. Ovdje, urbanizam nije nikakva velika vizija, nego velika prilagodba.
On the street in Mumbai, during the Ganesh festival, a transformation. A community hall is created for 10 days. Bollywood films are shown, thousands congregate for dinners and celebration. It's made out of paper-mache and plaster of Paris. Designed to be disassembled, and in 10 days, overnight, it disappears, and the street goes back to anonymity. Or our wonderful open spaces, we call them maidans. And it's used for this incredibly nuanced and complicated, fascinating Indian game, called cricket, which, I believe, the British invented.
Na ulici Mumbaija, tijekom svečanosti Ganesh, događa se transformacija. Višenamjenska dvorana nastane za 10 dana. Prikazuju se bollywoodski filmovi, tisuće se okupljaju na večerama i slavljima. Izrađena je od lijepljenog papira i gipsa. Dizajnirana je kako bi bila rastavljena, i za 10 dana, preko noći, nestaje, a ulica se vraća u anonimnost. Ili naši prekrasni javni prostori, nazivamo ih maidani. Koristi ih se za ovu nevjerojatno nijansiranu i zamršenu fascinantnu indijsku igru, kriket, čini mi se da su ga izumili Britanci.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
And in the evenings, a wedding wraps around the cricket pitch -- Notice, the cricket pitch is not touched, it's sacred ground.
Svake večeri, svadba okruži teren za kriket -- Primijetite, teren za kriket ostaje netaknut, to je sveto tlo.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
But here, the club members and the wedding party partake in tea through a common kitchen. And at midnight, it's disassembled, and the space offered back to the city. Here, urbanism is an elastic condition.
Ali ovdje, članovi kluba i gosti svadbe sudjeluju u pijenju čaja putem zajedničke kuhinje. A u ponoć, sve se rastavlja i prostor je ponuđen natrag gradu. Ovdje, urbanizam je elastično stanje.
And so, if we reflect about these questions, I mean, I think many come to mind. But an important one is, are we really, in our cities, in our imagination about urbanism, making permanent solutions for temporary problems? Are we locking resources into paradigms that we don't even know will be relevant in a decade? This becomes, I think, an interesting question that arises from this research.
I tako, ako promislimo o ovim pitanjima, mislim, mnoga nam padaju na pamet. Ali jedno važno pitanje jest, stvaramo li mi doista, u našim gradovima, u našim zamislima o urbanizmu, trajna rješenja za privremene probleme? Ograničavamo li resurse paradigmama za koje ne znamo niti hoće li išta značiti za deset godina? Ovo postaje, smatram, zanimljivo pitanje koje proizlazi iz ovog istraživanja.
I mean, look at the abandoned shopping malls in North America, suburban North America. Retail experts have predicted that in the next decade, of the 2,000 malls that exist today, 50 percent will be abandoned. Massive amount of material, capturing resources, that will not be relevant soon.
Mislim, pogledajte napuštene trgovačke centre u Sjevernoj Americi, u predgrađima Sjeverne Amerike. Prodajni stručnjaci su predvidjeli da će u sljedećih 10 godina, od 2 tisuće centara koji danas postoje, 50 posto bit će napušteno. Ogromne količine materijala, zarobljenost resursa, za nešto što uskoro neće značiti ništa.
Or the Olympic stadiums. Around the globe, cities build these under great contestation with massive resources, but after the games go, they can't often get absorbed into the city. Couldn't these be nomadic structures, deflatable, we have the technology for that, that get gifted to smaller towns around the world or in those countries, or are stored and moved for the next Olympics? A massive, inefficient use of resources.
Ili olimpijski stadioni. Širom svijeta, gradovi grade ove stadione pod velikim pritiskom nadmetanja s ogromnim resursima, ali nakon što igre završe, grad ih često ne može apsorbirati. Ne bi li to mogle biti preseljive strukture, rastavljive, imamo tehnologiju za to, i onda bismo ih darovali manjim gradovima širom svijeta ili u istoj zemlji, ili bismo ih spremili i preselili za sljedeće Olimpijske igre? Masivna, neučinkovita upotreba resursa.
Like the circus. I mean, we could imagine it like the circus, this wonderful institution that used to camp in cities, set up this lovely kind of visual dialogue with the static city. And within it, the amazement. Children of different ethnic groups become suddenly aware of each other, people of color become aware of others, income groups and cultures and ethnicities all come together around the amazement of the ring with animals and performers. New chemistries are created, people become aware of things, and this moves on to the next town. Or nature, the fluxes of nature, climate change, how do we deal with this, can we be more accommodating? Can we create softer urban systems? Or are we going to challenge nature continuously with heavy infrastructure, which we are already doing, unsuccessfully?
Poput cirkusa. Mislim, mogli bismo to zamisliti kao cirkus, ovu prekrasnu instituciju koja se naseljavala u gradovima, i postavljala jednu lijepu vrstu vizualnog dijaloga s nepokretnim gradom. A unutra su se nalazila čudesa. Djeca različitih etničkih skupina odjednom postanu svjesna jedni drugih. Ljudi različitih rasa postaju svjesni jedni drugih, različite klase, kulture, nacije se susreću radi oduševljenja oko kruga sa životinjama i izvođačima. Stvara se nova kemija, ljudi postaju svjesni nekih stvari, i to se prebacuje na sljedeći grad. A što je s prirodom, mijenama u prirodi, klimatskim promjenama, kako ćemo se nositi s tim, možemo li se više otvoriti prema tim problemima? Možemo li stvoriti nježnije gradske sustave? Ili ćemo nastaviti izazivati prirodu teškom infrastrukturom, što već činimo, ali neuspješno?
Now, I'm not arguing that we've got to make our cities like a circus, I'm not arguing that cities must be completely temporary. I'm only making a plea that we need to make a shift in our imagination about cities, where we need to reserve more space for uses on a temporal scale. Where we need to use our resources efficiently, to extend the expiry date of our planet. We need to change planning urban design cultures, to think of the temporal, the reversible, the disassembleable. And that can be tremendous in terms of the effect it might have on our lives.
Ne zalažem se za to da moramo stvarati gradove poput cirkusa, ne zalažem se za to da gradovi moraju biti potpuno privremeni. Samo pozivam na promjenu smjera u našoj imaginaciji gradova, gdje je potrebno sačuvati više prostora za privremene svrhe. Gdje je potrebno učinkovitije koristiti resurse, kako bismo produžili rok trajanja našem planetu. Moramo promijeniti kulturu planiranja urbanog dizajna, misliti na privremeno, povratno, razgradivo. A to bi moglo iznimno mnogo značiti u smislu učinka koji bi to moglo imati na naše živote.
I often think back to the Kumbh Mela that I visited with my students and I studied, and this was a moment where the city had been disassembled. A week after the festival was over. There was no mark. The terrain was waiting to be covered over by the water, to be consumed. And I went to thank a high priestess who had helped us and my students through our research and facilitated us through this process. And I went to her with great enthusiasm, and I told her about how much we had learned about infrastructure, the city, the efficiency of the city, the architecture, the five materials that made the city. She looked really amused, she was smiling. In any case, she leaned forward and put her hand on my head to bless me. And she whispered in my ear, she said, "Feel blessed that the Mother Ganges allowed you all to sit in her lap for a few days."
Često razmišljam o Kumbh Meli koju sam posjetio i proučavao sa svojim studentima, to je bilo u vrijeme kada je grad bivao razgrađivan. Tjedan dana nakon završetka svečanosti. Nije mu bilo traga. Teren je čekao ponovno prekrivanje vodom, da bude progutan. Otišao sam zahvaliti glavnoj svećenici koja je pomagala meni i mojim studentima tijekom istraživanja i vodila nas kroz cijeli postupak. Otišao sam k njoj s velikim entuzijazmom i pričao sam joj o tome koliko smo naučili o gradskoj infrastrukturi, o učinkovitosti grada, o arhitekturi, o pet tvari koje su sačinjavale grad. Izgledala mi je vrlo zabavljeno, smješila se. Nagnula se naprijed i položila mi ruku na glavu kako bi me blagoslovila. Šapnula mi je u uho, "Budi blagoslovljen što vam je Majka Ganges dozvolila da joj sjedite u krilu nekoliko dana."
I've often thought about this, and of course, I understood what she said. She said, cities, people, architecture will come and go, but the planet is here to stay. Touch it lightly, leave a minimal mark. And I think that's an important lesson for us as citizens and architects. And I think it was this experience that made me believe that impermanence is bigger than permanence and bigger than us all.
Često sam razmišljao o ovome, i naravno, razumio sam što mi je rekla. Rekla je, gradovi, ljudi, arhitekture će doći i otići, ali planet će ostati. Dirajte ga nježno, ostavite minimalan trag. Mislim da je ovo važna lekcija za nas kao građane i arhitekte. I mislim da me je ovo iskustvo nagnalo da vjerujem kako je nestalnost veća od trajnosti i veća od sviju nas.
Thank you for listening.
Hvala vam na slušanju.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)