week city memory

7/28/2019 Week City Memory

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photo: http://www.ickr.com/photos/stevenh/136006906/

Memory and the City
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevenh/136006906http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevenh/136006906


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Inormal/instant response missing person walls


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photo: http://www.ickr.com/photos/thenails1/3406271201/

Ritualistic/commemerative, but still inormal (1 year later)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thenails1/3406271201http://www.flickr.com/photos/thenails1/3406271201


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Tribute in Light 2002-2003


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Michael Arad, Peter Walker & Partners, Davis Brody Bond, Bond, Snhetta

National September 11 Memorial & Museum (1 decade later)


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Beore Benjamin, some questions:

How might we describe urban memory?Beyond monuments, how do cities remember?

Are there any dierences between public and private memory?

What is the dierence between place and space?


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Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)


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Benjamins major works:

Critique o Violence, 1921

Goethes Elective Afnities, 1922

Origin o German Tragic Drama, 1928

One Way Street, 1928

The Work o Art in the Age o Mechanical Reproduction, 1936

The Paris o the Second Empire in Baudelaire, 1938

On the Concept o History / Theses on the Philosophy o History, 1939

The Arcades Project, 2002 incomplete, published posthumously


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Benjamins style, approach

Benjamins mode o working is marked by

the techniques o archiving, collecting, and

constructing. Excerpts, transpositions, cut-tings-out, montaging, sticking, cataloguing

and sorting appear to him to be true activi-

ties o an author. His inspiration is inamed

by the richness o materials. Images, docu-

ments and perceptions reveal their secrets

to the look that is thorough enough. Ben-jamin was interested in the incidental. He

loved to think in marginal areas, in order to

push out rom there to the centre... Frag-

ments recombined into new things; this

researcher converted them into something

distinctive.

Walter Benjamins Archive, pg. 4.


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Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)


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The Parisan Arcades


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photo: http://www.ickr.com/photos/sea-turtle/3541655540/

The Parisan Arcades - origin o retail space
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sea-turtle/3541655540http://www.flickr.com/photos/sea-turtle/3541655540


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Present day Arcade


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These Arcades, a recent invention o in-

dustrial luxury, are glass-rooed, marble

paneled corridors extending through whole

blocks o buildings, whose owners have

joined together or such enterprises. Lining

both sides o the arcade, which gets its light

rom above, are the most elegant shops, so

that the passage is a city, a world in mina-

ture.

Illustrated Guide to Paris (quoted by Ben-

jamin)


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Paul Klees Angelus Novus

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus

shows an angel looking as though he is

about to move away rom something he is

fxedly contemplating. His eyes are staring,

his mouth is open, his wings are spread.

This is how one pictures the angel o his-tory. His ace is turned toward the past.

Where we perceive a chain o events, he

sees one single catastrophe which keeps

piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls

it in ront o his eet. The angel would like

to stay, awaken the dead, and make wholewhat has been smashed. But a storm is

blowing rom Paradise; it has got caught in

his wings with such violence that the angel

can no longer close them. The storm irre-

sistibly propels him into the uture to which

his back is turned, while the pile o debrisbeore him grows skyward. This storm is

what we call progress.


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Paris, Capitol o the Nineteenth Cenury

They [technological, social developments] are maniest as

phantasmagorias. Thus appear the arcadesfrst entry in

the feld o iron construction; thus appear the world exhibi-

tions, whose link to the entertainment industry is signifcant.

Also included in this order o phenomena is the experience o

the neur, who abandons himsel to the phantasmagorias o

the marketplace... where people appear only as types, , arethe phantasmagorias o the interior, which are constituted by

mans imperious need to leave the imprint o his private indi-

vidual existence on the rooms he inhabits

pg. 14

keywords: phantasmagoria, neur, iron, the interior


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Andreas Gursky, 99 Cent II Dyptichon (detail)

Retail space is the window to the soul?


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Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milano / photo: http://www.ickr.com/photos/beholder/194280522/

A. Fourier, or the Arcades
http://www.flickr.com/photos/beholder/194280522http://www.flickr.com/photos/beholder/194280522


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Fouriers Phalanstere

-sel contained community / megastructure

-community o 1620-each wing, dedicated task. centre: quiet activities (studiying,

meeting), one wing or noisey activities, another as interace

to public (outsiders paid access ees)


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The secret cue or the Fourierist utopia is the advent o the

machines. The phalanstery is designed to restore human be-

ings to a system o relationship in which morality becomes su-

peruous... Fourier does not dream o relying on virtue or this;

rather; he relies on an efcient unctioning o society; whose

motive orces are the passions. In the gearng o the passions...

Fourier imagines the collective psychology as a clockworkmechanism. Fouriest harmony is the necessary product o this

combinatory play.

pg. 16


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Joseph Paxtons The Crystal Palace (1851)

B. Grandville, or the World Expositions


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World exhibitions gloriy the exchange value o the commod-

ity. They create a ramework in which its use value becomes

secondary. They are a school in which the masses, orcibly ex-

cluded rom consumption, are imbued with the exchange value

o commodities to the point o identiying with it: Do not touch

that item on display. World exhibitions thus provide access to a

phantasmagoria which a person enters in order to be distract-ed. Within these divertissements, to which the individual aban-

dons himsel in the ramework o the entertainment industry...

pg. 18


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D, Baudelaire, or the Streets o Paris

With Baudelaire, Paris becomes or the

frst time the subject o lyric poetry. This

poetry o place is the opposite o all poetry

o the soil. The gaze which is allegorical

genius turns on the city, betrays, instead a

proound alienation. It is the gaze o the -neur, whose way o lie conceals behind a

benefcient mirage the anxiety o the uture

inhabitants o our metropolises. The neur

seeks reuge in the crowd. The crowd is the

veil through which the amiliar city is trans-

ormed...

The neur plays the role o the scout in

the marketplace

pg. 21


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1871

E. Haussmann, or the Barricades


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The true goal o Haussmanns projects wasto secure the city against civil war. He want-

ed to make the erection o barricades int

he streets o Paris impossible or all time...

Haussmann seeks to orestall such com-

bat in two ways. Widening the streets will

make the erection o barricades impossible,andnew streets will connect the barracks in

straight lines with the workers districts

pg. 23

E. Haussmann, or the Barricades


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Index Urban Taxonomy


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Selections or readings included:

Dream House, Museum Spa The Flneur The Streets o Paris

Given todays presentation:

What was your reaction to the readings? Could you fnish

them?

Thoughts on the structure?What is Benjamins strategy here?

More importantly, what kind o model does this text provide or

how we might think about memory and the city?


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(Some) Takeaway point rom The Arcades Project:

1. Cities are comprised o multiple narratives2. Spatial organization & experience are extremely political

3. The past maniests itsel in everyday ritual

4. The ephemeral/trivial is loaded with meaning

5. Architecture is social control6. Progress is a myth, decay much more pervasive

7. Grand narratives are simplistic

And observing the structure o the text:

1. The whole is more than the sum o its parts

2. Archival research can be an art

3. Montage is an eective means o constructing arguments


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I we were executing this exercise in Toronto what would we look at?


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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Z2XAS3Ss0

Benjamin Bardou Paris, Capital o the 19th Century (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Z2XAS3Ss0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Z2XAS3Ss0


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photo: http://www.ickr.com/photos/yourdon/3835288186/

Vietnam Memorial (Designed by Maya Lin in 1982)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3835288186http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3835288186


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photo: http://www.ickr.com/photos/stesmith_otos/267461282/

Vietnam Memorial II
http://www.flickr.com/photos/steffsmith_fotos/267461282http://www.flickr.com/photos/steffsmith_fotos/267461282


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photo: Cyrus Irani

Toronto Police Funeral Procession or Sergeant Ryan Russell


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photo: National Post

Toronto Police Funeral Procession or Sergeant Ryan Russell


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Not all memories aect thousands though how might we use tech-

nology to annotate space and share more personal memories?


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Shawn Micalle + James Roussel + Gabe Sawhney

[murmur]

Its history rom the ground up, told by thevoices that are oten overlooked when the

stories o cities are told. We know about the

skyscrapers, sports stadiums and land-

marks, but [murmur] looks or the inti-

mate, neighbourhood-level voices that tell

the day-to-day stories that make up a city.The smallest, greyest or most nondescript

building can be transormed by the stories

that live in it. Once heard, these stories can

change the way people think about that

place and the city at large.


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photo: http://www.ickr.com/photos/spacing/2692329935/ & http://www.ickr.com/photos/spacing/2616258614/

[murmur]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacing/2692329935http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacing/2616258614http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacing/2616258614http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacing/2692329935


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Cassidy Curtis, 2005 http://www.otherthings.com/graarc/ash/view.htm

Grafti Archaeology

History can be a tool or social change It is
http://www.otherthings.com/grafarc/flash/view.htmhttp://www.otherthings.com/grafarc/flash/view.htm


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Tim Groves (2002)

Missing Plaque Project

History can be a tool or social change. It is

oten said that the victors o history write

the history books in their avor. Some sto-

ries are promoted, and others are let to

dwindle in obscurity. The Missing Plaque

Project tries to stand as a orce to stop thisrom happening, by shedding light on the

hidden histories.

But why are some histories overlooked?

Racism and other biases are partly to

blame... Another part is that many o thepeople who do work around the citys his-

tory come rom a narrow background and

happy to ocus on the history o the British

and the rich. Many o them are interested in

what most people fnd banal. Oten are hap-

py to look at the history o buildings in the

city rather than the people who lived here,

and the social turmoil o the past.


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Rocky Darrell Dobey (picture taken in 2005)

Copper engraving/Fixtures (Dobey has been active since 1977)

Th Cit Th Ci M d S


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The City, The Cinema: Modern Spaces

Some opening questions:

In what way might we consider the city cinematic?

How does cinema relate to memory?

What are some examples o flms that ocus on the city?


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http://www.youtube.com/watch?eature=player_detailpage&v=pF0GOo-LSZ4#t=118s

Dark City (1998)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=pF0GOo-LSZ4#t=118shttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=pF0GOo-LSZ4#t=118s


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Inception (2010)

The City The Cinema Modern Spaces


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The City, The Cinema: Modern Spaces

I Benjamin is wildly unocused and over ambitious, James

Donald is a relatively ocused taskmaster.

In this text Donald:

-reveals tensions between public and private narratives

-highlights flms attuned to the rhythms o the city, which thecinematic apparatus is attuned to capture

-weaves narratives o Anthony Vidler, Baudelaire, Hugh Ferris

together

city is mythic (not unlike Benjamin in this regard)-provides a pretty great list o flms to investigate


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I the city stages dark space in bright

space, cinema projects a bright light in a

dark space. To bring the two together by

looking at some o the ways in which thecity has been represented is not wholly ar-

bitrary or tangential. The modern(ist) me-

tropolis and the insitution cinema come into

being at the same time. Their juxtapositions

provides more clues to the pragmatic aes-

thetic through which we experience the city

not only as visual cutlure, but above all as

physical space.

pg. 84

Hugh Ferris


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Candyman (1992)


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Cinema revels in the tension between representations o panopt

...a mediation on contemporary percpe-

tions o the city. The flm is punctuated by

aerial shots o Chicagos townscapes: thecirculation o trafc on reeways, barrack-

like housing, monumental but silent ampi-

theatres. From that Gods eye view, the city

presents a dehumanised geometry. People

are as invisible, or as insignifcant... From

below on the streets the black underclasswho live in the projects make sense o the

citys irrationality in terms o myths and

subcultural legends... It is concrete, but just

as brutally it is antastic.

pg. 78


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Man with a Movie Camera (1928)


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quote rom A Conversation with the Inspector o Taxes about Poetry

Vladimir Mayakovsky


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However rationalised and disenchanted modern socieites

may have become, at an experiential level (that is, in the un-consious) the new urban-industrial world had become ully

re-enchanted. In the spectacular shopping arcades and de-

partment stores o Second Empire Paris, in its huge adveritis-

ing billboards, images jostled in mythic or dream like combi-

nations. But, or Benjamin, even the most rationalised urban

plans, with their uniorm streets and endless rows o build-

ings, have realised the dreamed-o architecture o the an-

cients: the labyrinth.

pg. 83

week city memory

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