Page 115 - Vertical City
P. 115

Postface

Calibrated Utopia

By his own admission, Philippe Samyn, architect and
engineer, in his “Vertical City”, indulges in a utopic pro-
vocation. If the multiplication of high-rise buildings, in
China for example, has imposed itself during these last
decades – at a rhythm of 120 new skyscrapers per year,
only in Shanghai; or where the density of population
reaches 1300 inhabitants per hectare in the Mong Kok
district of Hong Kong – the theme of verticality is far
from being the only answer to urban density. Indeed how
to check the irrepressible growth of cities (in European
countries, surely, but in an even more flagrant manner
on other continents), if not by limiting the ground occu-
pancy while preserving fundamental resources required
for agriculture and rural life (not only including tillable
land, but also forests, pastures, and the totality of the
watershed)? In China the first constraint is the scarcity
of ground: the rarity of cultivatable soil in relationship to
the size of the population.

   The quest for better economy of ground use can
only be relative, the principle effects of urban transition
being the spatial growth of cities and levels of density
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