Roger Katan

After graduating from Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Katan won a scholarship to MIT in 1960, where he earned a master's degree in Architecture and Urban Design (1961). From 1961 to 1963, he worked for Louis Kahn in Philadelphia. From 1964 to 1975, he lived and worked in New York City. Based in East Harlem, he taught architecture and urban planning at Pratt Institute, City College of New York, and Pratt Graduate School of Tropical Architecture for ten years, with one year spent at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY (in the Political Science Department), practicing and teaching advocacy planning. He created, with Pratt and City College graduate students, one of the first Community Design Centers, offering free technical assistance to community organizations.

He supported the Civil Rights Movement and the students' claim for social responsibility. In 1964, Katan was already prescribing participation and putting his talent as an architect in the service of the poorest when Paul Davidoff tossed the phrase advocacy planning. Concurrently, Katan's publications and conferences helped spread the word throughout the United-States, Europe, and beyond. He was invited by student organizations calling for social change. His talks included Yale, Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Columbia, etc. Katan obtained American citizenship in 1968.

From 1963 to 1975, Katan was also involved in the art world. As a kinetic sculptor, he exchanged views and exhibited with artists such as Allan Kaprow, Roy lichtenstein, and Robert Smithson.[2] The early sixties saw the emergence of Pop Art and the revival of the kinetic movement, initiated in Europe in the 1930s. Using scrap materials like egg cartons, Katan developed structures evoking abstract cities. "Eternized" by a resin bath, his materials captured and reflected natural and artificial light. His sculptures became models of imaginary cities and villages, some of which resemble the artist's birthplace in Morocco.

From 1975 to 1999, he was actively involved in humanitarian relief and development as a consultant, mostly in Africa and Latin America, on behalf of the United Nations, the European Union, the World Bank, and the French Technical Cooperation. Faithful to his principles, the advocate planner kept privileging the interests of the people and encouraging self-management. His intervention programs included resettlement, microcredit, education, etc. In both agriculture and construction, Katan has always encouraged traditional methods as well as local, sustainable materials.

Hired by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Katan monitored the creation of a local microcredit network in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, West Africa, in 1976-78. The network has now grown to become a national organization, Réseau National des Caisses Populaires du Burkina. He supervised a displacement program in Mali in 1978 and the creation of a National Construction Standards Institute (appropriate technology) in Bamako in 1979. After 1980, he was hired on short-term contracts by the European Union, the United Nations, and various NGOs for missions in Central and South America. Katan helped individuals restore their traditions through small self-managed productive projects. In 1980, he advised the Dutch Technical Cooperation in Colombia to rethink rural education and in 1984 Katan built the first New Rural School (Escuela Nueva) for the Colombian government. Over 15,000 rural schools based on this model now exist throughout Latin America.

In 1981 photographs and plans of an adobe house designed by Katan for a displacement in Mali were shown at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The "Architectures de terre" (Earth Architectures)[3] exhibition was curated by Jean Dethier.

Katan has published two books in French, De quoi se mêlent les urbanistes? (Actes Sud, 1979), about advocacy planning, and Bâtir ensemble (CILF, 1988), a methodology for participatory practice. De quoi se mêlent les urbanistes? was translated into Italian. Construire ensemble received a grant from the Graham Foundation in 2010[4] for its English translation and update. Building Together was released in the U.S. by New Village Press in 2014, with two new chapters by Ronald Shiffman, founder of the Pratt Center for Community Development in 1963 and pioneer of advocacy planning.[5]

In 1999 Katan moved to Sauve, southern France, where he helped his current wife Julie, a ceramic artist, and Aline Crumb, a comic strip artist, launch their art gallery, Galerie VP. There Katan has exhibited his early kinetic works together with his latest sculptures.[1] His new works use state-of-the-art technology, including plastics, LED, and wireless devices.[6]

Katan attended primary school in Berguent (today's Aïn Bni Mathar), Eastern Morocco, near the Algerian border, whose population was then about 800.

• 1943-1949: Secondary education in Meknes and Oujda, Morocco. Aged 17, Katan won the Oujda High School logo competition and decided to study architecture.
• 1951-1953: Ecole supérieure des Beaux-Arts d'Alger (Algiers School of Fine Arts). Trained for competitive entrance examinations.
• 1954-1957: Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Katan would travel in France and work for architects to pay for his studies and visit two or three European countries every year.
• 1959: Licensed architect's degree (DPLG), Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris.
• 1957-1960: Military service in Paris during the war in Algeria.
• Late 1960: Grunsfeld Fellowship for a semester at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a study travel in the United States.
• 1961-1962: Master's degree in Architecture and Urban Design from the MIT, supervised by Imre Halasz and Lawrence B. Anderson. Katan also spent a semester traveling across the United States, studying works by Frank Lloyd Wright among other.

Dore Ashton wrote in her cultural guidebook about New York:

Katan's first prize-winning proposal for the Boston waterfront (maquette), 1961.

"Some of the advocacy planners, such as Roger Katan, insist that the architect can function only if he is prepared to extend himself to activities which were previously considered beyond his realm of competence. Katan's attitude is a long way from the aristocratic distance of a Richardson, whose clients took his word for law, and were always rich. Katan's clients are the community as a whole; they are mostly the very poor in the ghettoes of Harlem, and they share with him the planner's task. . . . By helping them to organize themselves and state their needs coherently, Katan is able to develop plans which make sense. He also recognizes the necessity of learning the intricacies of city bureaucracy, and how to deal with the political aspects of each citizen's existence. Over the years—he has lived in East Harlem for some seven years—Katan has slowly developed a number of alternative plans for rehabilitation and rebuilding in his neighbourhood."[7]

• 1955-1960 : Worked on various projects for architectural firms in France and Africa, including:
  • Hospital and city hall of Saint-Lô, Normandy, destroyed by WWII bombing,
  • Collège St Joseph, Dordogne, France,
  • Housing competitions in Paris,
  • Study for 2 dams on the Rhine river,
  • French military base in Niamey, Niger (housing, restaurant, amphitheater, and hospital),
  • Won competition for 3000 dwelling units with community and health facilities for US Army bases in France,
  • Study for 100 social housing units in Bir Mourad Raïs (formerly Birmandreis), near Algiers,
  • Optical store in Toulouse, France,
  • Duplex dry-cleaning center in Paris,
  • Villa Lehalle, Paradou, Algiers (1959),
  • Huet residence, Toulon, France,
  • 2-family residence project in Toulouse, France.[8]
• 1961: First prize of the Boston waterfront competition. This project was part of his master's degree at MIT. It was shown at the Faneuil Hall. It was originally inspired by Honfleur, Normandy, where each house overlooks the harbor. In the Boston project for 2000 housing units, stepped terraces planted with greenery offered each family a view of the harbor. Families could choose their surface and develop it according to their income.
• 1962-1964: Works for Louis Kahn in Philadelphia, PA. Introduced by Prof. Lawrence B. Anderson, Katan worked for Louis Kahn's studio for two years and taught architecture and planning at Pratt Institute once a week. Katan occasionally assisted Louis Kahn during his weekly graduate seminars at the University of Pennsylvania. Participated or was in charge of:
  • Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California,
  • Master plan for Center City, Philadelphia, and Dhaka, Bangladesh,
  • Presidential palace in Islamabad, Pakistan,
  • Science Research Building, University of Virginia,
  • Center for Performing Arts, Ft. Wayne, Indiana.[8]
• 1965: Project for a medical cooperative in Antony (Berny), France, near Paris. Practice and housing facilities for 8 doctors and 2 interns.[9]
• 1964-1976: Director of Environmental Resource Associates (356 East 116th Street, East Harlem, New York City), one of the first Community Design Centers. Katan left Philadelphia and moved to East Harlem, where he started working on the creation of a community center and housing project for senior citizens. He put his talent in the service of the poorest, got involved in the civil rights movement, the student struggle for greater social responsibility, advocating the active participation of residents.
• 1964-1968: Brooklyn Bridge and East Harlem Triangle Gateways. Proposal for a system of gateways to connect Manhattan bridges and tunnels. Traffic flows were analyzed for better distribution. New pedestrian and leisure spaces were designed. Specific studies for Brooklyn Bridge and 3 bridges of the East Harlem Triangle were published in the form of 2 brochures (32 and 38 pages respectively), financed by the Kaplan Fund, Inc.
  • Milbank renewal project: A counterproposal by residents against the City's project. Publication of a 20-page brochure presented to the City of New York.
  • 116th Street renewal project: A study financed by the City of New York. Publication of a 40-page brochure presented to the City of New York.
  • East Harlem Summer Festival: Initiated in July 1969, it was held each year for more than 10 years. Funded by the New York City Council for the Arts, the Festival was meant to enhance residents' participation through leisure activities and improve their living environment.
  • Project for a multiservice center in East Harlem: After consultation with representatives of various associations, Katan was contracted by the City of New York for the creation of health, education, and leisure facilities, including offices combining social services.
  • Corsi House: A neighborhood association was funded by the City of New York to develop a community center and 150 units for senior citizens on 116th Street in East Harlem.
  • Wards Island Psychiatric Hospital renewal plan (4000 beds): Katan was contracted by the New York State Office of Mental Health to provide an alternative to a previously abandoned 1000-bed expansion plan. His counterproposal, supported by elected residents, recommended to decentralize Wards Island Psychiatric Hospital and create small extensions in Harlem and East Harlem.

• 1964-1974: Taught architecture and urban planning at Pratt Institute, City College of New York, and Pratt Graduate School of Tropical Architecture for ten years. In East Harlem he created, with Pratt and City College graduate students, one of the first Community Design Centers, offering free technical assistance to community organizations.
• 1968-1969: Invited lecturer at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, in the Political Science Department, he offered both a practical and theoretical approach to advocacy planning.[10]
• 1970-1971: Invited lecturer at Hunter College, New York. Students were asked to carry out a comprehensive socio-economic and physical survey of East Harlem and Ward Island, supervised by community representatives.

• 1976-1979: Based in Aix-en-Provence between missions in Burkina Faso, Katan was consultant to the French Department of the Environment and Construction (Ministère de l'Environnement et du Cadre de Vie, Direction de la Construction). Based on his own experience in the United States, he studied and developed a methodology for participatory practice. This study resulted in two volumes: De quoi se mêlent les urbanistes? (1979), about advocacy planning, and Bâtir ensemble (1988), a methodology of participatory practice.

Pacific Coast Cluster Homes (Cabanons), Bocana-Buenaventura, Colombia, 1991-93

• 1976-78: United Nations Development Program (UNDP) missions in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Katan carried out three 4-month missions for UNDP to set up a local microcredit and savings bank. Originally devised as a self-management tool for the Cissin district (20,000 people) in Ouagadougou, it has now become the Réseau National des Caisses Populaires du Burkina, a nationwide network.
• 1977: UNDP mission in Benin, West Africa, Nov. 2 to 23.
• 1979-80: Two UNDP missions in Mali, West Africa, from Feb. 1979 to March 1980. A 12-month mission to coordinate the displacement of 15 village communities during the construction of a power dam in Sélingué. It took Katan another 4-month mission in Mali to launch a National Construction Standards Institute in Bamako. Katan designed and built the UNDP headquarters in Sélingué using earth and local materials. It served as a model for the rehousing program. Photographs and plans were shown in Paris at the “Architectures de terre” (Earth Architecture) exhibition organized by Jean Dethier at Centre Pompidou in 1981. On this occasion, Katan lectured about earth architecture and his work in Mali.[3]
• 1980-99: Missions in South and Central America. Based in Colombia, Katan carried out short missions in Mexico and Chile for the European Union and the French Technical Cooperation.
• 1981: During a 3-month mission in Colombia for the Dutch Technical Cooperation, Katan studied the cause of demographic and economic disorders in villages located in three different areas of the Chocó department, on the Pacific Coast. The main cause was the absence of appropriate rural teaching. Schools were based on urban life conditions. Katan returned to Chocó in 1984, invited by the Education Department, UNESCO, and CVC to set up a model school for the Pacific Coast, where rural teaching would help local development.
• 1982: Katan developed 3 projects with the French Technical Cooperation in Colombia from May 15 to July 15.
• 1982: He designed and built a private residence made of sustainable materials (adobe, straw, bamboo, etc.) in the Andes, an hour's drive from Bogota.[3]
• 1983: Katan represented France in a project identification commission for the World Bank's Urban Development program in Bogota, Jan. 5-31.
• 1983-84: Katan performed various tasks for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Technical Cooperation through the Agency for Cooperation and Development and the Inter-Ministerial Cooperation Program REXCOOP to provide technical assistance to the ICT (Instituto de Credito Territorial) mounting a project for 3,600 self-built wooden houses in Tumaco, on the Pacific Coast. Subsequently, he was in charge of organizing the initial phase (250 houses) with participating beneficiaries in the design, construction, and project management. In Feb.-March, Katan launched 3 cooperatives (savings, transportation, consumer goods) with the same people for the French Technical Cooperation.
• 1984: Hired by BCH (Banco Central Hipotecario), Katan assessed the social impact of popular housing projects in Cali and Cartagena, defining the type of training required to manage such projects in an urban context.
• 1985-86: With the mayor and municipality of Tumaco, he worked on the co-financing of three projects: a self-managed housing cooperative for 200 families in a semi-rural area, a cooperative hotel in Bocagrande, near Tumaco, hiring local people and using sustainable power, with its own local livestock, biogas digesters, vegetable garden, windmill, bungalows, cooperative restaurant, etc., and a multi-purpose cooperative union of oil palm growers.
• 1986: Katan set up the self-built cooperative hotel project in Tumaco-Bocagrande. He developed a collaborative conceptual plan and coordinated the construction with the support of the DC-based Inter-American Foundation.
• 1987-89: He developed plans and supervised the construction of an International Research Center for Clinical Psychology (6500 sq. feet) in Cali, Colombia, using improved traditional materials (wood, adobe, bamboo). The project was financed by the Danielle Mitterrand Foundation (France Libertés - Fondation Danielle-Mitterrand). Concurrently, Katan designed and built an experimental house in Bocana (Buenaventura) and two private homes made of improved traditional materials in Cali.[3]
• 1989-93: From September 1989 to June 1994, he was an advisor to a number of organizations for development, including CECAN and its technical school in Cali, where he developed and operated training workshops (metalwork, car mechanics, joinery, carpentry, etc.) for unprivileged Cali youngsters aged 16 to 24. He also carried out a training project in construction and production of building materials with the same organization.
• 1989-93: Katan launched a small business manufacturing ceramic elements for construction (tiles, bricks, roof tiles, etc.) in Bocana-Buenaventura, on the Pacific Coast. After only six months, this two-men workshop produced 32,000 bricks and 20,000 tiles baked in a custom-made driftwood oven. Katan built two duplex bungalows in 1991-92 and two more in June 1993 using these materials.
• October 1991: Katan carried out an assessment mission for the European Community. The project planned 600 self-built houses in an urban area destroyed by the Popayán earthquake of 1987.
• December 1991: He was hired by the EEC to carry out a mission to assess the possibility to develop "small productive projects" on the Pacific Coast and evaluate the needs for technical assistance.
• Summer 1992: EEC's "small productive projects" for the Pacific Coast. Katan trained 12 people to build and operate five brick and tile ovens.

• 1964-74: Katan lectured extensively, invited by American universities and student associations to deliver conferences under the auspices of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Park Service.
• Took part in a seminar organized by the New York State Department of Health.
• 1966: Seminar on behavioral science organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
• 1967: Key speaker at the National Institute of Architectural Education (today's Van Alen Institute) seminar about "The Student and His Future development," New York Hilton, May 15. Katan spoke about the advantages of student exchange programs and community organizations.[19]
• 1967-78: Conferences and seminars on advocacy planning in American universities, such as University of Michigan, UC Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, University of Pennsylvania, Yale, Princeton, University of Nebraska, University of North Dakota, University of Syracuse, Carnegie Mellon University, Alfred University (New York), New School of Social Research (New York), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (New York), etc., and European universities, including Delft and Amsterdam universities in The Netherlands, Vincennes, Aix-en-Provence, Ecole nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France, Grand Palais, etc.
• Since 1979: Katan occasionally delivers conference papers and lectures including:
• 1981: "International Design Conference," Finlandia Hall, Helsinki, Finland, Aug. Katan was one of 4 key speakers. The conference was attended by 1500 people.
• 1981: In Bogota, Colombia, Katan organized an international conference on shantytowns in developing countries.
• 1982: He supervised the organization of a Franco-Colombian conference on social housing in Bogota, May 11–14.
• 1992: "Case Studies from Developing Communities," with Michael Cohen. A conference organized by the Municipal Art Society of New York on July 21.

From 1963 to 1975, Katan's works were shown in museums and galleries, including Finch College Museum of Art in New York, and various art festivals.

Wayne Anderson, the MIT Art historian and critic, wrote about his work:

"Roger Katan's recent studies in kinetic illumination expand his architectural interests into a form which projects itself upon its surroundings. . . . Following a logical sequence from fantasy to reality, his studies of repetitive, machine-made, ubiquitous objects, made into painted structures excited by active colored lights, strive to create phenomena of form and color that are commensurate with the spontaneous and intricate manner in which human senses react. The ultimate place of Mr. Katan's art is with architecture, particularly the architecture of night."[20]

Katan, Kinetic Sculpture, mixed media, 2009-13

In Katan's most recent compositions, the shapes and colors of the solids intertwine, casting light and colors through matter… These works are inspired by the recent discovery of the elementary particles in the primordial fireball at time zero (the very first moments of the universe), when the infinitely small collided with the infinitely big… The power of changing lights enhances and transforms matter. Colors and shapes merge, then alternately combine and separate, and the viewer's optic nerve finishes the painting. At time zero, why are some bosons (elementary particles mediating fundamental interactions) such as photons, a.k.a. light particles, massless while others are massive? What caused this phenomenon to occur? First you enjoy a moment of peace and purity, the gentle breeze of colors and matter blowing through your mind… Then total chaos breaks out, fueled by luminous upheavals and apocalyptic visions, slowly rising and receding to finally let life emerge from the symbolic eggshells—and a new order arises. The changing colors of the LEDs shine through the translucent solids depending on the viewer's frame of mind—and creative remote control. Matter and light are the sacred essence of all creation, the founding elements of life and mankind… The brighter the signs, the deeper they echo within… Then our eyes are caught by the colors projected by LEDs through a spinning helicoid, inviting us to enter the ever-changing magnetic vortex of polar lights and their haunting mystery.[21]

• Roger Katan: Kinetics
• Roger Katan: Handmade Houses
• Roger Katan: YouTube Channel
• Jean-Louis Cohen's architectural news, France Culture, Modes de vie, mode d'emploi, "Budget participatif, concertation: quel impact réel sur la ville?" (Nov. 3, 2014)