A reader’s comment I have mentioned, in my last post, the fact that a live place provided one the sense of being “aware, functional, oriented and connected,” be it spatially with respect to the physical place, and socially with respect to the occupants-users. A keen reader, Claire, responded in a personal email to this and to …
Introduction I hope you will agree when I state that without its people, a city is nothing but a ghost town, an archaeological remain. You and I, with the “things” around us, by our sheer co-presence, as in the featured image above, and by moving and gathering in the city, are the ultimate measuring rods …
What is it about a stair landing? One does not often linger on a stair landing and even less so on the landing of an exterior stair, usually serving as an emergency means of exit. Because of this instrumental destination, such a landing must remain free of obstacle to a quick exit and, given its …
Event and place centered querencias It occurred to me, while rethinking the notion of querencia, that preceding a bullfight, the arena would give little cue as to where the bull will make its most aggressive stand if provoked, i.e. where its querencia would be may be the direction of the sun. Faced with danger, a …
What is it about? The feature image, that is. It is about being outside, and about framing the situation, in order to provide sufficient visual interest to turn it into a series feature image. Of course the subject is yours truly on a photo safari, showing what is in front and in back of me …
What is it about … the feature image that is! Much of what we experience of the physical city, in continuous and auto referential fashion, is given while walking and being aware of our surroundings … however encumbered the sidewalks may be at times! Please consider how our near total sensorial, perceptive and interactive apparatus …
URBAN FIELD NOTES: Pathways, Querencias and Sweet Spots Read More »
Back to basics The original Commons involved two groups of people: the landowners and the commoners in a mutually beneficial relation, whereby the commoners would have free access to the land to bring their sheep to graze, thereby maintaining and enriching it with the animals manure…simplifying it of course! We know that all this went …
URBAN FIELD NOTES: The Neighborhood as Urban Commons – Two Walks Read More »
A reminder, and an introduction. The development of an outdoor public market in a northern city may seem counter intuitive. Yet the Swedish town of Lund, for instance, has one in the format of an indoor four-season venue adjacent to a public open space given periodically to the holding of a seasonal open-air market, when …
URBAN FIELD NOTES: Public Markets as Commons (part two) Read More »
Street Corner Market … bare asphalt under a tent roof. This corner lot, property of the city next to a primary school, is a 24/7 public market from April to November, a Xmas tree lot in December, and is snowed under for the rest of the year. Throughout these three states the bare asphalt …
URBAN FIELD NOTES: The Public Market as Commons (Part 1) Read More »
Context Of all human territorial manifestations the most vexing perhaps, in terms of trying to define, is the one of the Commons, inserted conceptually between the Private and the Public domains. As conventionally accepted, the Private domain is strictly accessible to, and used by the few it belongs to; and the Public domain is accessible …
URBAN FIELD NOTES: The Commons as Notion and Places Read More »
A reminder The balcony’s specific agency of urban sociability resides in the fact that it acts both as a loge from which street life could be looked at, and as a stage upon which some private activities could be set as part of street life. The rest is a question of social attitude and physical …
With eyes all around You have seen others do it… You have done it yourself… You know the irresistible attraction to look at oneself in the mirror-like windows of parked cars or of certain shop windows when it is darker inside than outside. I have done it often enough to become aware of the fact …
About CITY STILLS I wish to present periodically this spring and summer, short, event centered vignettes of social situations mediated by the physical city … with a touch of humour if at all possible. The feature image will remain unchanged as visual signature. Lunch at the Royal Bank Like a flock of birds swarming, pupils …
What notions can best describe the balcony’s claim to being an agent of urban sociability?
Cultural Weekly has announced six nominees for this year’s Pushcart Prize. They are: Paul Rogov for “Isis Syzgy: Reunion in Pere-Lachaise,” Judi Kaufman for “A Tumor is a Tumor,” Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo for “Our Lady of the Water Gallons,” Melissa Morphew for “By Their Image Shall Ye Know Them,” Adam Leipzig for “If You Can’t Afford …
Cultural Weekly's Pushcart Prize Nominees Announced Read More »
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