Everywhere is city
“Everywhere is city: We still conceive of cities as discrete objects, separate from their surroundings. This is no longer true. There is no exterior to the global city that connects and sustains us all.
“One thing is sure. The earth is now more cultivated and developed than ever before. There is more farming with pure force, swamps are drying up, and cities are springing up on unprecedented scale. We’ve become a burden to our planet. Resources are becoming scarce, and soon nature will no longer be able to satisfy our needs.” - Quintus Septimus Tertullianus, 200 B.C.
We must extend design and stewardship to encompass all terrain. The new global city is now defined with zones of urban, suburban, rural, leisure, and even “natural” precincts, all managed, all part of a designed system. Instead of isolated parcels of land or singular architectural projects, it is a matter now of considering an entire city infrastructure and its connected environs, whose reach is hundreds of miles beyond what has been conventionally considered urban domain. The city now represents all territory and all territory needs to be regarded and managed as one urban system. The contradiction embodied in the practice of architecture is that it has traditionally chosen to focus on big buildings rather than to see the big picture as the most compelling design project. Architects have tended to build pieces of city without regarding their relationship to the whole. But holistic thinking is exactly what we need here if we’re ever to develop the capacity we need to provide shelter on a global scale.”
“Everywhere is city: there’s no exterior to the global city that connects and sustains us all.”
in Massive Change, de Bruce Mau.
(imagem: Black Rock City, Nevada. Autor: Tristan Savatier)
posted by geno @ 10/12/2006
Comments: 4
