Living in the hyperreal post-modern city - Revision history

Editor at 19:45, 30 November 2020

2020-11-30T19:45:11Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:45, 30 November 2020
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	* Psychogeography.		* Psychogeography.
	* Smart cities.		* Smart cities.
		+	* Speculative architecture.

−	=== External references ===	+	= External references =

	* 1 - Lin, Kenzo Tange and the Metabolist movement, p.248.		* 1 - Lin, Kenzo Tange and the Metabolist movement, p.248.

Editor at 18:01, 17 November 2020

2020-11-17T18:01:04Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:01, 17 November 2020
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	It is possible to question whether our surrounding spaces (such as the street) can be reclaimed as an archetype of urban place rather than mere public space, taking into account economical issues of branding and marketing, sociological issues such as the safety of contested spaces or the interrelation of gender, ethnicity, class and power, as well as the unavoidable impact of the spaceless place (30) formed by the invisible virtual networks.		It is possible to question whether our surrounding spaces (such as the street) can be reclaimed as an archetype of urban place rather than mere public space, taking into account economical issues of branding and marketing, sociological issues such as the safety of contested spaces or the interrelation of gender, ethnicity, class and power, as well as the unavoidable impact of the spaceless place (30) formed by the invisible virtual networks.

−	~~= Find out more =~~	+	= Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki =
−		+
−	=== Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki ===	+

	* Architectural styles.		* Architectural styles.
		+	* Brasilia Syndrome.
	* City Beautiful.		* City Beautiful.
	* Genius loci.		* Genius loci.

Designing Buildings at 08:40, 12 October 2020

2020-10-12T08:40:05Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 08:40, 12 October 2020
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	* Masterplanning.		* Masterplanning.
	* Nakagin Capsule Tower.		* Nakagin Capsule Tower.
−	* [[Open_data_-_how_can_it_aid_the_development_of_the_construction_industry?\|Open data - how can it aid the development of the construction industry?]]	+	* [[Open_data_-_how_can_it_aid_the_development_of_the_construction_industry%3F\|Open data - how can it aid the development of the construction industry?]]
	* Place.		* Place.
	* Psychogeography.		* Psychogeography.
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	* 30 - Barker, Cultural studies, p. 367.		* 30 - Barker, Cultural studies, p. 367.

−	[[Category:History]] [[Category:Theory]]	+	[[Category:DCN_Commentary]] [[Category:DCN_Research,_Development_and_Innovation]] [[Category:History]] [[Category:Theory]]

Editor at 12:37, 30 August 2018

2018-08-30T12:37:26Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:37, 30 August 2018
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	* Masterplanning.		* Masterplanning.
	* Nakagin Capsule Tower.		* Nakagin Capsule Tower.
−	* Open data - how can it aid the development of the construction industry?	+	* [[Open_data_-_how_can_it_aid_the_development_of_the_construction_industry?\|Open data - how can it aid the development of the construction industry?]]
		+	* Place.
	* Psychogeography.		* Psychogeography.
	* Smart cities.		* Smart cities.

Editor at 13:04, 26 October 2017

2017-10-26T13:04:45Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 13:04, 26 October 2017
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−	[[File:Hyperreal.jpg]]	+	[[File:Hyperreal.jpg\|link=File:Hyperreal.jpg]]

	[Replica skyline at New York-New York in Las Vegas]		[Replica skyline at New York-New York in Las Vegas]
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	Residential living of this kind has been made possible by the development in Tokyo of a comprehensive support infrastructure: convenience stores open 24/7 (conbini) offer a wide variety of services – from hot meals, books, bill paying and laundry services, etc. (7)		Residential living of this kind has been made possible by the development in Tokyo of a comprehensive support infrastructure: convenience stores open 24/7 (conbini) offer a wide variety of services – from hot meals, books, bill paying and laundry services, etc. (7)

−	[[File:Nakagin-capsule-tower270.jpg]]	+	[[File:Nakagin-capsule-tower270.jpg\|link=File:Nakagin-capsule-tower270.jpg]]

	Conbinis use a sophisticated computer-driven inventory (known as a Pointed Operation System), to record and compile sales figures for every city block, which are then used to plan marketing strategies. The system has no need for architecture, public, or commercial space, localities, communities, families, class, culture or morals. In short, it can do without any of the elements of the traditional city. (8)		Conbinis use a sophisticated computer-driven inventory (known as a Pointed Operation System), to record and compile sales figures for every city block, which are then used to plan marketing strategies. The system has no need for architecture, public, or commercial space, localities, communities, families, class, culture or morals. In short, it can do without any of the elements of the traditional city. (8)
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	* Nakagin Capsule Tower.		* Nakagin Capsule Tower.
	* Open data - how can it aid the development of the construction industry?		* Open data - how can it aid the development of the construction industry?
		+	* Psychogeography.
	* Smart cities.		* Smart cities.

Editor at 08:27, 23 June 2017

2017-06-23T08:27:44Z

Show changes

Editor at 16:12, 6 June 2017

2017-06-06T16:12:19Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:12, 6 June 2017
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	* City Beautiful.		* City Beautiful.
	* Genius loci.		* Genius loci.
		+	* Hostile architecture.
	* Internet of things.		* Internet of things.
	* Interview with Tom Dyckhoff.		* Interview with Tom Dyckhoff.

Editor at 13:36, 19 May 2017

2017-05-19T13:36:45Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 13:36, 19 May 2017
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	= Introduction =		= Introduction =

−	Technological change in the past few decades has been at a pace never experienced before, and its impact has also been unprecedented. With the shift from the second industrial age to the digital age, the accelerating flows of population, materials and information have fundamentally changed conceptions about ‘permanence’ and ‘transience’. (1) As a result, cities are transforming dramatically as the emphasis on urbanism is shifting from concrete structures to more complex and flexible organisations as well as ‘soft’ (digital and ecological) infrastructures. Architects and urban planners need to take into consideration wider networks carrying flows of information that reach every part of the world and create a virtual but unified community, rather than developments relating solely to their immediate context. This idea is promoted in Collage 'City, where the notion of total urbanism is rejected in favour of analysing urban form as the fragmented, incomplete result of every attempt to organise it logically. (2)	+	Technological change in the past few decades has been at a pace never experienced before, and its impact has also been unprecedented. With the shift from the second industrial age to the digital age, the accelerating flows of population, materials and information have fundamentally changed conceptions about ‘permanence’ and ‘transience’. (1)
		+
		+	As a result, cities are transforming dramatically as the emphasis on urbanism is shifting from concrete structures to more complex and flexible organisations as well as ‘soft’ (digital and ecological) infrastructures. Architects and urban planners need to take into consideration wider networks carrying flows of information that reach every part of the world and create a virtual but unified community, rather than developments relating solely to their immediate context.
		+
		+	This idea is promoted in Collage 'City, where the notion of total urbanism is rejected in favour of analysing urban form as the fragmented, incomplete result of every attempt to organise it logically. (2)

	Georg Simmel’s The'Metropolis and Mental Life (written in 1903) explored a similar subject discussed by Jean Baudrillard in Simulations (written in 1983). These two models are applicable to our contemporary times of Disneyfication and McDonaldisation. Tokyo and Las Vegas may set the extreme boundaries for these, but understanding the connections between them and issues of simulacra and hyperreality hint at how we produce a mental image of a place and how we discriminate a place from a space.		Georg Simmel’s The'Metropolis and Mental Life (written in 1903) explored a similar subject discussed by Jean Baudrillard in Simulations (written in 1983). These two models are applicable to our contemporary times of Disneyfication and McDonaldisation. Tokyo and Las Vegas may set the extreme boundaries for these, but understanding the connections between them and issues of simulacra and hyperreality hint at how we produce a mental image of a place and how we discriminate a place from a space.
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	The Disney landscape provides a multimedia experience representing a tourist attraction and a symbolically desirable lifestyle. This is a ‘public’ culture, where social interactions occur within a secure regime in which there is no violence – presenting in symbolic and imaginary form the pleasurable aspects of urban life while removing the fear. (24) Disney World, through its spatial control and stimulating / simulated visual culture, is the new model for creating public space (principles that are also echoed in shopping malls).		The Disney landscape provides a multimedia experience representing a tourist attraction and a symbolically desirable lifestyle. This is a ‘public’ culture, where social interactions occur within a secure regime in which there is no violence – presenting in symbolic and imaginary form the pleasurable aspects of urban life while removing the fear. (24) Disney World, through its spatial control and stimulating / simulated visual culture, is the new model for creating public space (principles that are also echoed in shopping malls).

−	On the other hand, McDonalds operates, as George Ritzer’s analysis has shown, through four main strategies – efficiency, predictability, calculability and control – providing the cosy familiarity and creating a preference towards know quantities. (25) Going back to the Fremont Street Experience example, we can see how the four traits of McDonaldisation surface: it brings large numbers of people, who might otherwise have stayed in the hotel-casinos farther up the Strip, to frequent casinos on Fremont Street and through the spaced timing of the LED shows (a 2004 addition) supplies - like traffic lights - controlled waves of gamblers to the casinos. This architectural intervention shows another way in which the post-urban experience adopts cinematic tactics in order to compete with its own cinematic Döppelganger. At the same time, in eliminating the risk of the unpredictable in the quality, quantity and timing, the consumer must turn elsewhere in order to experience surprise or to regain an element of the unexpected, and this is where the Disney effect fills the gap. (26) It is not a fixed structural effect and hence, the ‘shows’ can be adjusted to suit the theme of the moment.	+	On the other hand, McDonalds operates, as George Ritzer’s analysis has shown, through four main strategies – efficiency, predictability, calculability and control – providing the cosy familiarity and creating a preference towards know quantities. (25) Going back to the Fremont Street Experience example, we can see how the four traits of McDonaldisation surface: it brings large numbers of people, who might otherwise have stayed in the hotel-casinos farther up the Strip, to frequent casinos on Fremont Street and through the spaced timing of the LED shows (a 2004 addition) supplies - like traffic lights - controlled waves of gamblers to the casinos.
		+
		+	This architectural intervention shows another way in which the post-urban experience adopts cinematic tactics in order to compete with its own cinematic Döppelganger. At the same time, in eliminating the risk of the unpredictable in the quality, quantity and timing, the consumer must turn elsewhere in order to experience surprise or to regain an element of the unexpected, and this is where the Disney effect fills the gap. (26) It is not a fixed structural effect and hence, the ‘shows’ can be adjusted to suit the theme of the moment.

	When Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour visited with their students in the early 1970s, Las Vegas was a city of adult entertainment, nocturnal in habit and to be experienced from the car. By the end of the 1970s, the market for gambling alone was saturated and Las Vegas had to reinvent itself as a resort aimed more at families, providing daytime entertainment and pedestrian-orientated. As a result, the frontal car parks have been replaced with roller coasters, pirate ships, pyramids or simulacra of entire cities – New York, Paris, and Venice (27).		When Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour visited with their students in the early 1970s, Las Vegas was a city of adult entertainment, nocturnal in habit and to be experienced from the car. By the end of the 1970s, the market for gambling alone was saturated and Las Vegas had to reinvent itself as a resort aimed more at families, providing daytime entertainment and pedestrian-orientated. As a result, the frontal car parks have been replaced with roller coasters, pirate ships, pyramids or simulacra of entire cities – New York, Paris, and Venice (27).

−	This change has been noted in collection of essays by Robert Venturi, Iconography and Electronics upon a Generic Architecture, where he states that ‘the Strip is no longer a linear settlement within the desert, it is a boulevard in an urban setting. The Disneyfied Boulevard provides a three-dimensional, theatre-like experience for the pedestrian, with evocative imagery for role playing, a total departure from the car orientated iconography of the Canonised Strip.’ (28) The development of Las Vegas is summarised in the same article as from: ‘the Strip to the Boulevard; urban sprawl to urban density; parking lot to front yard; asphalt plain to Romantic garden; the decorated shed to the duck; electric to electronic; neon to pixel; electrographic to scenographic; pop culture to gentrification; perception of the driver to perception of the walker; strip to mall; mall to edge city.’ (29)	+	This change has been noted in collection of essays by Robert Venturi, Iconography and Electronics upon a Generic Architecture, where he states that ‘the Strip is no longer a linear settlement within the desert, it is a boulevard in an urban setting. The Disneyfied Boulevard provides a three-dimensional, theatre-like experience for the pedestrian, with evocative imagery for role playing, a total departure from the car orientated iconography of the Canonised Strip.’ (28)
		+
		+	The development of Las Vegas is summarised in the same article as from: ‘the Strip to the Boulevard; urban sprawl to urban density; parking lot to front yard; asphalt plain to Romantic garden; the decorated shed to the duck; electric to electronic; neon to pixel; electrographic to scenographic; pop culture to gentrification; perception of the driver to perception of the walker; strip to mall; mall to edge city.’ (29)

	= Separating place and space =		= Separating place and space =
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	If modern theory regarded time as the dynamic field of social change, contemporary times have moved the emphasis onto the discrimination between space and place as socio-cultural constructions, with the latter marked by embedded human emotional investment and identification.		If modern theory regarded time as the dynamic field of social change, contemporary times have moved the emphasis onto the discrimination between space and place as socio-cultural constructions, with the latter marked by embedded human emotional investment and identification.

−	Japanese cities, including Tokyo, have no tradition of large urban spaces such as the squares, plazas or piazzas of European cities, around which civic and religious buildings are positioned to form an open but well-defined public space. Public activities in Japan were held in Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines and, more importantly on the streets. Due to land prices and ever-changing life styles, the homes of most people are extremely small. Hence, the often narrow and labyrinthian streets have become extensions of the living space and places where much of the daily life unfolds. The crowded streets are sites of events and activities - trading, socialising, entertainment, festivals, and the place where ‘momentary communities’ permanently unfold.	+	Japanese cities, including Tokyo, have no tradition of large urban spaces such as the squares, plazas or piazzas of European cities, around which civic and religious buildings are positioned to form an open but well-defined public space. Public activities in Japan were held in Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines and, more importantly on the streets. Due to land prices and ever-changing life styles, the homes of most people are extremely small.
		+
		+	Hence, the often narrow and labyrinthian streets have become extensions of the living space and places where much of the daily life unfolds. The crowded streets are sites of events and activities - trading, socialising, entertainment, festivals, and the place where ‘momentary communities’ permanently unfold.

	It is possible to question whether our surrounding spaces (such as the street) can be reclaimed as an archetype of urban place rather than mere public space, taking into account economical issues of branding and marketing, sociological issues such as the safety of contested spaces or the interrelation of gender, ethnicity, class and power, as well as the unavoidable impact of the spaceless place (30) formed by the invisible virtual networks.		It is possible to question whether our surrounding spaces (such as the street) can be reclaimed as an archetype of urban place rather than mere public space, taking into account economical issues of branding and marketing, sociological issues such as the safety of contested spaces or the interrelation of gender, ethnicity, class and power, as well as the unavoidable impact of the spaceless place (30) formed by the invisible virtual networks.
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	* Genius loci.		* Genius loci.
	* Internet of things.		* Internet of things.
		+	* Interview with Tom Dyckhoff.
	* Landscape urbanism.		* Landscape urbanism.
	* Masterplanning.		* Masterplanning.

Editor at 13:58, 18 October 2016

2016-10-18T13:58:53Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 13:58, 18 October 2016
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	* Architectural styles.		* Architectural styles.
	* City Beautiful.		* City Beautiful.
		+	* Genius loci.
	* Internet of things.		* Internet of things.
	* Landscape urbanism.		* Landscape urbanism.

Editor at 13:26, 27 May 2016

2016-05-27T13:26:59Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 13:26, 27 May 2016
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	* City Beautiful.		* City Beautiful.
	* Internet of things.		* Internet of things.
		+	* Landscape urbanism.
	* Masterplanning.		* Masterplanning.
	* Open data - how can it aid the development of the construction industry?		* Open data - how can it aid the development of the construction industry?
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	* 8 - Ibid., p. 26.		* 8 - Ibid., p. 26.
	* 9 - Momoyo Kaijima and Junzo Kuroda, ‘Made in 'Tokyo’ (Tokyo, 2001), p. 38.		* 9 - Momoyo Kaijima and Junzo Kuroda, ‘Made in 'Tokyo’ (Tokyo, 2001), p. 38.
−	* 10 - Chris Barker, ‘Cultural studies : theory and practice ' ed.’ ~~'''~~2nd'(London, 2003), p. 212.	+	* 10 - Chris Barker, ‘Cultural studies : theory and practice ' ed.’ 2nd'(London, 2003), p. 212.
	* 11 - Leach, The Hieroglyphs of Space, p. 198.		* 11 - Leach, The Hieroglyphs of Space, p. 198.
	* 12 - Ibid., p. 198.		* 12 - Ibid., p. 198.