SPECULATIVE GROWTH OF CONSERVATION NARRATIVES

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1. XX Century Modernity Mismanagement At a time when the globalization of knowledge even in the most remote countries finally allows a universalization of environmental practices and the emulation of hybrid forums involving a reassessment of the ecosophical achievements, the understanding of ideologies, ontology, and ecology of the contemporary built environment inquires for a holistic understanding of the factors inherent in the human expansion settlement of the last decades. As Cornelius Castoriadis (1981) reminded us of the State Capitalism that made Communism and Capitalism the same economic and political model, the sustainable development that was once thought to be a reaction to the excesses of neo-liberalism triumphing over the 80s, was a simple continuation of the invisible hand (Smith 1759). It is crucial today that the environmental resistance put in place by civil society experts of the common good in rupture with the gangrenous expertise of the built environment enables to decode the superficial ecological narratives, i.e., Shallow Ecology (Naess 1972). The environmental programmed obsolescence (fig. 1) which instigates a new breath to an economy of the 2000s jostled by the appearance of new mode of thinking of new Asia, Middle East, and sometimes very backward territory and yet repositioning nowadays the geopolitical chessboard, has profoundly discredited the managerial and philosophical apparatus of an environmental discipline that must then rethink its rights and duties towards an ecological democratic. Especially since the twentieth century has left an indelible mark that designers and planners have the task to repair, especially to seize the malignant construction as it is easy today to continue the same processes. In the image of the environmental imperialism sabotage (Mannisi 2019), it is imperative to understand how much a planning of the territories and economic motive of that time has mistreated their spaces, ecologies, and landscapes without taking the necessary lessons today makeing their reference impossible. Management errors symbolizing Western modernity destroying societal biotopes essential for the balance and stability of human groupings are now reiterated. The reasons for their outbreaks do not shed light on the dramatic misdeeds in terms of social cohesion, Город вне города Ключевые слова: Globalization from the Grass-roots, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Autochthonous practices and Customs. Keywords: Глобализация на низовом уровне, Япония, Сингапур, Южная Корея, Автохтонные практики и границы. Figure 1. Environmental Programmed Obsolescence. 72 Innovative Project. 2018. Т3. №9 Figure 2. The destruction of The Halles, Paris in 1971. Figure 3. The Highway Construction above the Cheongecheon river in Seoul. 73 pollution, quality of life, and ultimately unsustainable biotopes that still achieved a global balance celebrated for their economic, environmental, and social diversities. The environmental deconstruction weakening the economic capital of Paris in 1971 (fig. 2), the environmental injustice caused by the environmental damage of the infrastructure in place of the Cheongecheon river in the heart of the Korean capital (1958-70) (fig. 3), the community scares orchestrated by the Westernization of social capital management in Japan after the Second World War (fig. 4) are just as much as a symbol of modernity that should be decrypted so as not to be repeated. Yet, as an essential model, many stamped projects of Sustainable Development reproduce the same mistakes with even more vigor in order to cover the needs of countries to facilitate their entry into the global market of Western standards. The Atlas of Disasters that the West should present not to repeat its mistakes and to think of another mode of human and nonhuman territorialization is the stakes of the political philosophy of the Landscape (Mannisi 2019). A study of international relations also called Ambiences (Duroselle 1968) will allow to reconnect with the positivist vision of globalization; an exchange of knowledge between traditional and indigenous practice in constant hybridization, i.e., ecological transition. 2. Japan. Repetitive Difference Today, Japan illustrates the symbol and symptom of Western modernity in Asian territory (Mannisi 2015). A project like KAMOKEN led by the team of the environmental philosopher Toshio Kuwako on the island of Sado traces the extent of the damage that made Japan the world most polluted country in the 60s (Mannisi 2012). The team led by Kuwako, composed of researchers in environmental ethics and civil engineering, stakeholders of the civil society, and government officers led the projects of environmental mediation amongst the inhabitants disillusioned by the management of the political and engineering elites from the mainland capital city. In such top down approach, risk taking is always taken by indigenous communities and not exogenous experts (fig. 5). The Kamo Lake restoration project presents an exemplary case of the current sources of environmental conflict (Mannisi 2012). It expresses the authoritarian mechanisms of planning procedures and the emergence of civil society resistance against the Top-Down expertise procedures. The lake, at the edge of the island and the Yellow Sea, is known for its mixture of fresh and salt water that benefited the production of the local oyster production until the construction of a dam, designed by engineers from Niigata to avoid Город вне города Figure 4. Disappearance of Japanese agriculture management in Japan. 74 Innovative Project. 2018. Т3. №9 flood issues. Unfortunately, the latter has had the effect of deteriorating the precious hydrological balance and condemning the oyster economy. This was followed by a reaction from the inhabitants to no longer discuss with a disconnected expertise but to harness social engineering by calling the philosopher Toshio Kuwako and his team to generate Consensus Building procedure and think about the future from the community (fig. 6). Following the urbanism policy (1919), Toshi keikaku-hō [都市計画法], implementation from Western standard in Japan Figure 5. Hybrid Forums of Experts in Japan. Figure 6. Consensus Building procedure with the village stakeholders. 75 Город вне города during the since Taishō [大正] era, the ontology of the Japanese community has become deeply shaken. The management of the last 20 years has transformed the economic and ecological society of the inhabitants of the island which have since taken the decision to self-sustain their future. The type of gathering of environmental experts, politicians, researchers, and civil society refers to the dialogic forum advocated by Bruno Latour in his Actor Network Theory (Latour 1987). The principle is to explore the controversies with those who were the victims but also the actors, so that Citizen empowerment can be assumed by everyone. It is a form of ecological democracy that actions for the common good can be re-discussed from new conditions. The trust between Citizen / Expert / Politics explored through Consensus Building (Suskind 2010) is called Gôi-keisei [合意形成] in Japan. Thus, the Kuwako’s team prepares some form of information in order to understand the Environmental Construction of the Reality and allow everyone to take his/her share of action in the development of the common future. This resilience, now well understood by developers, is slow and complex for everyone to identify the share of social, environmental and political capital responsibility. Maelstrom is always difficult to unravel, if misunderstood, who is the source of new error. The ability of everyone to discuss action and resolution allows community refinement of the policy (fig. 7). What emerges is the possibility of redeploying from local environmental ethics, the next Ecosophy; locally based, discussed, developed and at times created from new Commons conditions. Thanks to the elaboration of future Applied Ethics, it is a question to deviate from the market of the sustainable development of disconnected experts from reality, to enhance sustainable biospheres in that dark and complex ecology (fig. 8). 3. Singapore. Universal Knowledge To continue the investigation of contemporary ecological democracies, Singapore which has become one of the world’s leading economic powers since its independence (1965), is an example of enlightened governance which makes it a remarkable example of Citizen Territorialization. The drastic direction of its founder allowed to lead an exemplary and flexible early Urban Policy which managed and preserved its spatial Curriculum and ecology. Having the ability to solve one of the major problems of our modern world; the access to the property (Proudhon 1840), a result of the industrial revolution, Singapore allowed each inhabitant to his/her own housing. Such social contract became a crucial component of Singapore’s Intangible Landscape to enhance its social link and cohesion (fig. 9). It is certainly the most enthusiastic aspect of the Singapore sustainability of maintenance of its grassroots Figure 7. Acknowledgment of the Environmental Construction of the lake Kamo reality. 76 Innovative Project. 2018. Т3. №9 community culture, allowing the least dominated spaces by the speculative market, to reveal new form of Commons. The remarkable religious cohesion among Christian, Hindu, and Muslim, as well as its social diversity embracing Indian, Malaysian, and Indonesian inhabitants is essentially the foundation of such most advanced sustainable biosphere. It then follows an exchange of trust between civil society and politics that expresses itself in a soothing daily life expressing an independence and self-management that determine any empowered community (fig 10). Unfortunately, inherited from its geopolitical situation which made it one of the major counter of the British East India Company in 1826, as well as its determination to enroll in the liberal economy in order to overcome its absence of natural resource, Singapore nowadays suffers from the dawn of global scape excess (fig. 11). Its neoliberal ecology that is the exploitation of its environment for the only satisfaction of the global market speculation legitimized a Green Capitalism (i.e., Sustainable Development) which reinforces a nuclearization henceforth perfectly out of date in our post Fuskushima era (Mannisi 2013). This is what leads a new generation to engage with the disturbed endemic relationships in the South-Asia region with its soil and food production. The team led by Bjorn Low within Edible Garden City elaborates a whole set of actions to revitalize the indigenous practices and customs of the island (fig 12). To enable the citizen to avoid the massive food imports, the group undertakes a whole series of citizen engagements to stimulate and awaken an ecological consciousness that is very lively in government discourse but invalidated by territorial planning and economic orientation. As it is increasingly the case among historical neoliberal economies, Singapore’s economic power produces new social, spatial, and environmental injustice that local activists begin to point out due to their irreversible nature. Surprisingly, the desirable Singaporean quality of life is envious of the community design energy in vogue in South Korea (Mannisi 2014), while this reaction of the civil society is based on a deprivation of its individual freedom that Singapore never endures. 4. South Korea. Market Society Even though it’s a whole different Korea that can be seen today. Today, Moon Jae-In’s government tries to resume its history and ontology after a dependency orchestrated for several decades by an alienated state capitalism to the anarcho-capitalist market. Nevertheless, the civility mechanisms and its deployment are engraved by 60 years of the Atlantic Market-Society political Figure 8. Restored Lake Kamo. 77 Город вне города Figure 9. Verdant Singaporean Housing. Figure 10. Empowered Diverse Singaporean Community. 78 Innovative Project. 2018. Т3. №9 Figure 11. The GlobalScape of Garden By the Bay. Figure 12. Citizen Empowerment by Edible Garden City. 79 philosophy dreams of little creating the wealth of elite and poverty of too many (fig. 13). What the new government helped in this by a whole cohort of politicians from the civil society like the mayor of Seoul, Park Won-Soon, is to renew the notions and values of public realm (Mannisi 2015). It examines innovating public policies that new generations of architects like Cho Min-Suk (Masstudies) and landscape Architects like Zoh Kyung-Jin discussed and shared (fig. 14), which define the 21st century Korean «Social Construction of the Reality» (Berger 1966). During the years of presidency of the Hyundai Construction mogul Lee Myung-Bak (2008-2013), and then that of Park Geun-Hye (2013-2017), the daughter of the former dictator Park Chung-Hee (1963-1979), the Korean society was plunged into a long ordeal of corruption and embezzlement of which territorial planners were particularly opportunistic and ethically irresponsible. The event of ecological democracy represented by the uprising of the population to overthrow the regime, called Candlelight Revolution [촛불혁명], is one of the finest examples of contemporary citizen empowerment. The civil society has demonstrated how non-experts were able to reconsider themselves the State / Market Collusion organized by neoliberal elite planners. To end the Neoliberal Territorialization of this situation legitimizing the Korean dependency of American market and policy, the society used its right to the city (Lefevre 1968) by “occupying the street” (i.e., the main political infrastructure Gwanghwamun Square) against the market and its pupils (fig. 15). It was not necessary to wait for James Corner to understand what the Landscape Urbanism could provide for the cohesion of a society (Corner 2014). Unfortunately, the redevelopment of the Gwanghwamun neighborhood results from this opportunistic awareness of ecological issues and the need for pedestrian mobility dealing with Place-Making Process. To please a Neoliberal Preservation Values of Tourism Cultural Assets misunderstood by ignorant expertise of their own culture entertaining international behaviorism; the richness of Seoul’s historic centre has been tarnished forever by mono-use urban fabrics cherished by mainstream developers (fig. 16). The historical, political, and cultural centre of Seoul, which can boast a pre-modern application of landscape Urbanism, has unfortunately lost its considerable 500-year-old diverse district in the name of the preservation of its culture (fig. 17). In places of a dramatic Spatial Curriculum destruction, now flourish, Город вне города Figure 13. Global Mass Tourism in Gyeongbokgung, Seoul. 80 Innovative Project. 2018. Т3. №9 among international architectures, fusion burger, sexy beer, and Californian sushi in the midst of public real mimicking of the period Joseon dynasty garden [1392-1897] for a tired society of alien libidinal economy (Lyotard 1974). 7. Conclusion The three examples that we have observed present the very heterogeneous characteristics and dynamics in terms of environmental affiliation. Some projects Figure 14. Gyeongie Line Linear Park as an example of new Korean Shared Space. Figure 15. Civil Society on Gwanghwamun Square, Seoul. 81 Город вне города must be served as ontological whistle-blower to warn a built environment expertise that deals with ecological warnings in the manner of outrageous global environmental imperialism (Mannisi 2019). The Atlas of Disasters that the Western culture must update as an essential guardian to achieve an improvement of our nature/culture relation, is painfully at work in a boosted Asia where economic capital and historical ignorance allowed by a Corporate University culture seems to dig the same furrow of ecological neoliberalism that led us to our recent Anthropocene. Many regions have not yet suffered the onslaught of modernity and lived the throes of their resilience. It is essential to encourage researchers and designers to discover other sources of knowledge than these «difference and repetition» (Deleuze 1968) of a long, since then consumed postmodernity. Continuing the entreaty of the Italian territorialist Alberto Magnaghi (2005) to better take into account the globalization from the grassroots drivers, which are witnessing the emergence of ecological insurrection on the whole planet, as politicians, planners, or designers of the common good, we need to be able to translate these actions into applied ethics, as did the 18th century Malay fishermen, Korean merchants near logistical infrastructures, and Japanese Satoyama growers. It is a crucial time to rethink the indigenous future. Figure 16. New Gwanhamun District with “Koreanish” Garden. Figure 17. 500 years old Pitmatgol disappeared in the name of Sustainable Development.

About the authors

Alban Mannisi

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University)

Author for correspondence.
Email: mannisialban@gmail.com
Australia,

References

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