To identify these morphological and typological transformations, it is necessary to have some classification for these systems; one that must take into account their international trajectories. After all, what is ultimately of interest is to understand the architecture that was produced, the types of buildings that were built, and how these were gradually transformed and adjusted to the most varied local conditions. Our in- terest, then, is to research the connections between technology and typology; between industrial production and architectural form; between standardization and the residential units that emerged from them. In confronting a genuinely international architecture here, what matters is to understand how these specific cultural, political, and technological contexts challenged, distorted, or even contaminated the (generally considered rather rigid) typologies of 'closed' prefabrication systems. In 2011, we began the technical, typological, and conceptual reconstruc- tion of the large concrete panel systems that were developed in the world between 1926 and 1984. Since then, and to date, we have digitally modeled 60 systems, panel by panel, thanks to the work done with José Hernández and fourth-year students from the School of Architecture at Universidad Católica de Chile.⁹ This approach has helped us to identify which things were repeated, and which were transformed, in the journeys of each sys- tem, and led us to discard 'generic' as a useful category for our analysis. For example, the Chinese 9014 system, created in 1958, seems to be a curious combination of the Soviet K-7, I-335, I-464, and I-464A series (something unthinkable but possible thanks to the similarity of their joint systems). 10 By 1963, the system had begun to be used in the Tuanjiehu district of Beijing: the panel consisted of a rigid external structure that, if there was insufficient concrete to complete the building, it would allow workers to fill the panels with alternative materials. 11 In another case, the Hungarian reception of I-464 in the Tulip system (1963) was developed with the idea of combating the rigidity of residential building typology by adding a floral motif in some special panels. 12 Described by Virág Molnár in the Debate de los tulipanes, 13 this adaptation reveals efforts to combine the highly industrial with the purely local, using organic imagery. 14 9 See: Pedro Ignacio Alonso & Hugo Palmarola, “From abstract to concrete”, ARQ n.° 82 (December 2012): 18-23. 10 Chinese literature does not mention specific systems adopted or imported from the Soviet Union or other European countries. However, they do mention Russian architects and engineers who came to China to teach panel housing. Considering the crisis between China and the USSR during the 1950s and 1960s, it is understandable that they would have been reluctant to openly acknowledge the implementation of Soviet systems. Moreover, because of the urgency to solve their own housing crisis, the first generation of Chinese architects and engineers were more concerned with providing housing solutions for specific cities and urban areas than with naming or classifying their systems. Their primary goal was not to flaunt their technological dependence on other nations but to radically 'absorb' such solutions. For example, the 1970s book References to drawings for the construction of prefabricated residential buildings mentions residential areas, not structural systems See: Qīnghuá Dàxué, Jiángōng Xì, & Jiànzhùxué Zhuānyè, References to drawings for the construction of prefabricated residential buildings: Pekín, 1974. Ten years later, the literature no longer mentions locations, but specific features of the buildings; despite this, the names of the systems are omitted. It was only after 1980, coinciding with the reforms of Den Xiaoping and new economic stability, that the panel systems began to be baptized (See: Chén Quán, Cài Bīnqīng, & Lín Ping (ed.), ( Introduction to prefabricated buildings ) (Pekín, 2017). 11 Daniela Manzur Nabzo, “The case of Shuiduizi in Beijing: Hybridization of the prefabricated system". An unpublished paper was presented at the research workshop "Panel Systems, a natural history". Professors: Pedro Ignacio Alonso & José Hernández. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Santiago de Chile, 2018. 12 See: Daniel Kiss, “From Hungarian Tulip Dispute to a Post-Socialist Kulturkampf”, in Re-Fra- ming Identities: Architecture's Turn to History, 1970-1990, edited by Ákos Moravánszky & Torsten Lange. (Basilea: Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH, 2017), 105-118. 13 Virág Molnár, “Cultural Politics and Modernist Architecture: The Tulip Debate in Post-War Hungary”, American Sociologist Review 70 (1), 111-35. 14 Catalina Quintana Vicuña, “The Tulip House of Hungary: prefabrication and local tradition". An unpublished paper was presented at the research workshop "Panel Systems, a natural history". Professors: Pedro Ignacio Alonso & José Hernández. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Santiago de Chile, 2018.
The success of large concrete panel systems, in terms of adaptability and number of built square meters (some estimates suggest that more than 5 billion square meters have been built worldwide), 15 makes us think that their achievements were accomplished, not despite the typological rigidities of standardized panels, but because of them. Without having to comply with the multiple complexities inherent in the quest for 'open' prefabrication systems (and their obsession with universal modular co- ordination), the closed systems were able to change and adapt gradually but efficiently, through adjustments in both the form of their components and their assembly methods. We are aware that this is such a vast and varied subject that we run the risk of approaching it superficially. Beyond the systems we have studied. During the 20th century, hundreds of systems were conceived, patented, and put into operation, creating many variations, series, and transformations that are virtually infinite. Thus, this text aspires to be a brief introduction to a field of research into the underlying logic of the global and differentiated production and distribution of panel systems, within given 'architectural geopolitics'. Beyond the particularity of each system 16 a global history of these technological geopolitics will reveal the political and economic controversies of the 20th century, those trig- gered by the transnational movement of reinforced concrete panels. ! Pedro Alonso Ph.D. in Architecture by the Architectural Association (2008), UC Architect (2008), and Director of the UC Architecture and Urban Studies Doctorate. He has been Visiting Scholar at The Getty Research Center (2010), at The Canadian Center for Architecture (2011), at The Rockefeller Foundation (2019), as well as Mellon Fellow at Princeton University (2015-16). Hugo Palmarola Ph.D. in Latin American Studies by UNAM, UC Designer, and UC School of Design professor. He has been a fellow and member of The Society for the History of Technology in the United States (2008), and he received the Student Essay Prize granted by The Design History Society in the United Kingdom (2018). 15 It is difficult to provide an accurate figure for all the buildings that were constructed using these panel technologies, but some calculations have shown the enormous magnitude of this process. See: Hans Wolfgang Hoffmann, “Learning from mistakes. Legacy of complex housing: How Berlin is helping its neighbors to redevelop the slab”, Stadtforum (October 1999). 16 We know how unstable the very idea of a system is, and how difficult it is to establish universal criteria for classifying certain types of objects under a system's name. Just like in the 'species problem', we must take into account the fact that nature itself is a conceptualization arising from many historical and philosophical debates on the ideas of classification, repetition, differentiation, variation, etc. As Richard Richards pointed out, "the various classifications are a consequence of the subjective tendencies of the researchers themselves: some systematists simply tend to separate groups of organis- ms into more kinds of species than others". Consequently, the number of panel systems depends on the concept of 'system' we use to determine them. "Instead of resolving differences in the use of species concepts, the new information seems to have brought about a multiplication of species concepts as a consequence." In this sense, Humboldt again seems to have an answer, in that he did not study organisms as if they were within strict classification categories, but as types that functioned according to specific climatic situations and contexts. See: Richard Richards, The Species Problem: A Philosophical Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 3.
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