scientific knowledge, methods of calculation and cartography, works for the public good, and the ambition of regenerating society by means of large-scale intervention embedded in engineering could tackle the problems of causality and circulation characterizing modern society. Engineers were assigned the task of equipping and managing or, rather, structuring of and mastery over the territory and in extenso society (Desportes and Picon 1997, 45). Consequently, the design of infrastructure networks and the embedded spatial development models for the territory became the object of persistent political attention and intervention in order to regulate (contested) modernization processes (Swyngedouw 1999; De Block and Polasky 2011).
When conceptually comparing early 19th century design to current historical momentum, many parallels can be traced in regard to the ideas and methods of “staging the ground for uncertainty” as well as the rising importance of the expert when faced with immediate threats—with the obvious differences that the role of the engineer is (re)claimed by the urban designer and more (or other) forms of life are incorporated into what Foucault would call mechanisms of security. However, when analyzing more fundamentally the socio-spatial construction of technology, a clear difference between earlier engineering and today’s design is taking shape. Whereas the spatial project, or how one can shape society by the intermediary of a well-thought-out transformation of the territory through infrastructure, was implicit in the engineers’ and politicians’ practice and theory, the relationship between technology and space is again explicit. Current design is characterized by an explicit, inclusive urban strategy, formulating coherent spatial schemes of infrastructure and urbanization. The spatial and not only infrastructure policy an sich has become a full-fledged point of departure. However, in contrast to this prominent relationship between space and technology, “grand ideas” about society with related spatial ideologies are less explicit in contemporary practice.
The earlier strong ties between politicians and state engineers, both extensively formulating the constructs of technological innovation, territorial organization, and societal modernization, seem to be replaced by a focus on and accumulation of local interventions generated by what seem like more complex design techniques. Whereas in his essay “What ever happened to urbanism?” Rem Koolhaas’ call for a “new urbanism” creating “enabling fields that accommodate processes” and manipulating “infrastructure for endless intensification and diversification” has been successfully answered, his concern about “taking positions” as the “most basic action in making the city” or “encoding civilizations on their territory” remains largely hidden under the zeal of “sophistication” (Koolhaas 1995). Consequently, the sociopolitical dimension of space or the notion of territory in general has become ambiguous in current design theory and practice. In his contribution to the conference on Ecological Urbanism at the GSD, Koolhaas is explicit about the direction in which the discipline needs to move: “We need to step out of this amalgamation of good intentions and branding and move in a political direction and a direction of engineering” (Koolhaas 2010, 70).
What could be considered as a complement or elaboration of Koolhaas’ question about the disciplinary crisis of urbanism, Picon rephrased the question to “What has happened to territory?” (Picon 2010c). Although, in previous episodes, the territory was approached with a distant, “scheming gaze” as a project or resource mastered
Downloaded by