words from an awesome woman who has taught me to open my eyes and question what i see
“Under the seeming disorder of the old city, wherever the old city is working successfully, is a marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city. It is a complex order. Its essence is intricacy of sidewalk use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes. This order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to the dance — not to a simple-minded precision dance with everyone kicking up at the same time, twirling in unison and bowing off en masse, but to an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole. The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any once place is always replete with new improvisations.”
— Jane Jacobs (The Death and Life of Great American Cities)
charming old estate…
I love the inward looking corridors
the human interaction between neighbours
kids shouting across from one side to the other
this is the wonders of old architecture
* all residents have moved out of this estate and demolition has been scheduled for the redevelopment of this area.
u.dys.hetero.topia
Utopia, in its most common and general positive meaning, refers to an imaginary, ideal civilization, which may range from a city to a world, and may be regarded as possible in the future, although not currently existent. It has also been used to describe actual communities founded in attempts to create such a society in order to better themselves in an economic and political fashion.
A dystopia is a fictional society that is the antithesis of utopia. It is usually characterized by an oppressive social control, such as an authoritarian or totalitarian government. Dystopia is a negative utopia: a world wherein utopian ideals have been subverted. Example: George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Heterotopia, the “other place”, with its real and imagined possibilities (a mix of “utopian” escapism and turning virtual possibilities into reality.)
leave a comment