“The structural integrity of a building is no stronger than the social integrity of the builder and each nation has a responsibility to its citizens to ensure adequate inspection. In particular, nations with a history of significant earthquakes and known corruption issues should stand reminded that an unregulated construction industry is a potential killer”.
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Modern ruins. A profitable topography
juliaschulzdornburg.com |
An interesting photography research project entitled “Modern
ruins: a topography of profit” leaded by J.S.Dornburg shows the new Spanish landscape in the area between
Malaga, Murcia, Zaragaza and Almeria.
It is a photography inventory of the new housing estate, built during the property boom (1996-2007) before the economical
crisis and never inaugurated. These new settlements intended to
be luxury resorts, actually they will be the modern ruins, the new
frontiers of profitable urban districts. Virgin transformed landscape. Unfinished, abandoned and empty.
In Spain between 2000 and 2005 the surface of built-up soil increased to 27.666
ha . During the building boom Spain built more houses
than German, France and Italy put together. Ask for a loan was very affordable
until the financial bubble burst. The first consequences were a credit crunch
and a lot of unfinished buildings yard. Hundreds of thousands of unsold existing
homes and the construction industry not in operation led the Spanish economy to nose down. The Spanish bank which financed the development was trapped between
unsold properties and financial exposure by billions of dollars. That is the
Bankia case, which had twenty percent of loans in the real estate sector and in May
was nationalized by the government. Immediately the stock market crashed.
The italian case
In Italy during the ’70 a big economical crisis hit the
nation, but the investments “on the brick” were the only way to protect
savings. Many of these buildings were built illegally and the phenomenon was so
vast that three building amnesties, the last in 2003, increased the public
earnings, but didn’t solve the real problem. Still today on the 7.400 Km of Italian coasts,
it is possible to count a thousand of architectural emergencies subjected to
demolition. In most of these cases they are seized and perpetual neglected,
with a consequent degradation of the structure with high risk of collapse.
The phenomenon of illegal buildings in Italy is very
old, and very specific for the Italian context, but recalling some important
events could help to understand other similar conditions in different
countries.
In Italy after the war, the situation about the illegal
housing met a new development because of the massive wave of immigration and
the simultaneous lack of public solutions related to the housing. In response to
the housing crisis, the number of illegal units recorded a soaring. After the
Agrigento landslide (Sicily) in 1966, caused by the production of 8,500
buildings in conflict with the rules, the awareness of the immorality of
unauthorized buildings led to reform urban planning. The reform attempt was foiled
by the lords of the brick, as a result of their pressure on politicians of the
time.
Illegal buildings were legally regulated in 1985 with a law
by Craxi. It was the first Italian building amnesty and unfortunately not the
last. Decades after the first building amnesty, in Rome other
abusive villages were built. The tolerance of the institutions for this phenomenon and the
lack of public intervention permitted that the speculative annuity
prevails. The 1994 is the year of the second Italian building amnesty. The law introduced under the Berlusconi's government had the
aim and the illusion to refill the public finances. The building amnesty was repeated in 2003 as
a measure for the development and correction of public finances.
After sixty-three years from the first urban planning law, in 2005 in Italy was introduced an urban reform law, which makes equal the
public to private. According to this law the public and private sectors draw
together urban plans. Nothing wrong, but for the numerous gaps. Italy is the country where the public housing
continues to fail because is the answer of a system in perpetual emergency. The
persist of this state of affairs leads to a sort of no future city and for the
Italian territory in general, no longer regarded as common goods to preserve
and improve in a long-term perspective, become simply a tool in the hands of
speculative bodies with a short term vision.
In the book 'A brief history of unauthorized buildings in
Italy' Berdini illustrates ninety years of unauthorized building. In the chapter "The Triumph of the do it yourself country", he shows as a nation
without an involved government, become a DIY land, with all the negative
consequences.
Still building amnesties
Today the Spanish parliament approved a measure, which
reduces to just 20 meters
from the coast the extent to which it is possible to build.
The measure reverses the effects of a 1988 law that
prohibited the presence of houses less than 100 meters from the
coast. It states that twenty thousand houses built before 1988, whose
demolition was planned in 2018, will now be able to stand for 75 years more. This building amnesty maybe will be able to increase public cash, maybe will give oxygen to
the real estate industry paralyzed by the crisis and will avoid the cost of
dozens of demolitions of illegal buildings. Although it represents a recovery of money, it is just an
illusion: it is shown that the costs of an unplanned territory are greater and
they can never be recovered by a building amnesty. The substantial failure of
the practice of building amnesty consists in a measure that not only hurts the
economy and culture of legality, but legitimizes the presence of entire new urban
areas built on rural non-building land.
Moreover, it si important to recall the deep relationship between the
construction industry and corruption. In particular a study leaded by professors
Nicholas Ambraseys of Imperial College of London and Roger Bilham of the
University of Colorado explores the link between corruption in the
construction industry and the deaths caused by the collapse of buildings after
earthquakes, and shows that 83% of the deaths caused by the collapse of
buildings during an earthquake occurs in corrupt countries.
The use of low class materials, the rudimentary assembly methods, buildings placement in unsuitable sites and a non-compliance with
the building codes are the faces of corruption. The worldwide construction
industry, with an annual wealth of 7.5 billion, expected to double in the next decade;
it would be the most corrupt segment of the global economy. Since 1980, deaths
caused by the absence of an effective earthquake engineering activity averaged 18,300 per year.
What can we learn from these experiences, as citizens, as
architects, as well as planners, politicians or tourists?
If we can learn from mistakes, the Italian and Spanish
cases can help us to understand the role that the construction industry performs in the
national economy, but also the long-term consequences they cause. If it is true
that "the urban space gains its significance as a result of the activities
carried out within it, the characteristics of people who inhabit it, the shape
which it derives from its physical structures and perceptions that people have
of it” (J.Borja), as result the city is a social creation. The city is the mirror of
society. Improving the city means improving society and vice versa. That being
so, what city needs, it is control and freedom, but in order to equilibrate the
two aspects a greater effort of participation in decision-making is necessary.
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