INTENTIONS AND PERCEPTIONS OF THE CITY

Heather and Ivan Morison, Journée des Barricades, 2008, Various industrial and domestic items 

800 x 2100 x 1000cm, www.daniellearnaud.com

In One-Dimensional Man Herbert Marcuse argues “the technological underpinnings of modern culture both exploit and at the same time destroy personal freedom.”

The industrial revolution not only mechanized human action, objectifying the body, but also called for the calculated organization of the masses to produce more efficiently. 

In an essay published in 1963, titled The Mass Ornamentation, Kracauer looked at mass culture as it is on the surface as the essence of the historical present. Taking the Tiller Girls as an example of the mechanization of the body as a result of capitalism he argued that what appears to be progress is in fact a deformation of - or an alienation from nature. This mass mechanization was not only reflected in the mass spectacle of theater, dance, and cinema but also in architecture and the city.

Similarly, the Deurbanists perceived the city as a form of alienation and imprisonment, and praised the countryside opting to scatter “across the countryside, in the woods, on the meadows, so that the houses will be in the heart of nature”. This attitude could be explained as an outcome of the lack of compensation to the labor or output coupled with the lack of public spaces. Raymond Williams in The Country and the City explains that the changing attitudes towards the city and the rural is simply connected to the economic situation, and that in times of crisis people turn to the glorification of the rural land and the natural way of life.

According to a recent UN study published in July 2014, “54 per cent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 66 per cent by 2050”. One might wonder what roles urban planners and architects will play with such an exponential influx of people to cities. Will the top-down planning be feasible? Will the economy be able to cater to the overambitious projects of re-designing cities or buildings that meet the demands of vanity? Perhaps by re-articulating the glorification of the countryside as a desire for a bottom-up culture, evident in the virtual worlds of blogs and social media, we can begin to understand, expand on, and experiment with the possibilities of dealing with the city as a forum and platform of cultural expressions.