The Hieroglyphics of Space: Reading and Experiencing the Modern
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Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 05:44 28 September 2013 The Hieroglyphics of Space ‘Spatial images’, wrote the German cultural theorist Siegfried Kracauer, ‘are the dreams of society. Wherever the hieroglyphics of any spatial image are deci- phered, there the basis of social reality presents itself.’ But how exactly are these spatial images to be deciphered? This volume addresses this question with a series of insightful essays on some of the great metropolitan centres of the world. From political interpretations to gendered analyses, from methods of mapping to filmic representations, and from studies in consumption to economic surveys, the volume offers a range of strategies for reading and experiencing the modern metropolis. Neil Leach teaches at the Architectural Association, London, and the University of Bath, where he is Professor of Architectural Theory. He is the author of The Anaesthetics of Architecture and Millennium Culture and editor of Rethinking Architecture, E-Futures and Architecture and Revolution. Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 05:44 28 September 2013 Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 05:44 28 September 2013 The Hieroglyphics of Space Reading and experiencing the modern metropolis Edited by Neil Leach Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 05:44 28 September 2013 London and New York First published 2002 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2002 Selection and editorial material: Neil Leach; individual chapters: the contributor The right of Neil Leach to be identified as the Editor of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Library of Congress Data for this book has been applied for Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 05:44 28 September 2013 ISBN 0-203-99641-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0–415–19891–7 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–19892–5 (pbk) This volume is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001. These attacks demonstrated – with tragic consequences – the potential of architecture to convey a level of symbolic meaning beyond the materiality of its fabric. Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 05:44 28 September 2013 Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 05:44 28 September 2013 Contents List of illustrations x Notes on contributors xi Introduction 1 PART I The legible metropolis 13 1 The metropolis as text: Otto Wagner and Vienna’s ‘Second Renaissance’ 15 DAVID FRISBY 2 Cognitive mapping: New York vs Philadelphia 31 JONATHAN HALE 3 Benjamin’s London, Baudrillard’s Venice 43 GRAEME GILLOCH PART II The political metropolis 57 Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 05:44 28 September 2013 4 Resurrecting an imperial past: strategies of self-representation and ‘masquerade’ in fascist Rome (1934–1938) 59 ANNA NOTARO 5 Airbrushed Moscow: the cathedral of Christ the Saviour 70 NATASHA CHIBIREVA viii Contents 6 Erasing the traces: the ‘denazification’ of post-revolutionary Berlin and Bucharest 80 NEIL LEACH 7 Erasing the traces: the ‘denazification’ of post-apartheid Johannesburg and Pretoria 92 NEIL LEACH PART III The gendered metropolis 101 8 The pursuit of pleasure: London rambling 103 JANE RENDELL 9 Gay Paris: trace and ruin 125 ADRIAN RIFKIN PART IV The representational metropolis 137 10 ‘Waiting, waiting’: the hotel lobby, in the modern city 139 DOUGLAS TALLACK 11 Venice: masking the real 152 BARRY CURTIS AND CLAIRE PAJACZKOWSKA 12 Benjamin’s Moscow, Baudrillard’s America 164 GRAEME GILLOCH 13 Addressing the post-urban: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York 185 Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 05:44 28 September 2013 SARAH CHAPLIN AND ERIC HOLDING Contents ix PART V The filmic metropolis 201 14 ‘The Problem of London’, or, how to explore the moods of the city 203 STEVE PILE 15 Playtime: ‘Tativille’ and Paris 217 IAIN BORDEN 16 Blade Runner : ‘Ridleyville’ and Los Angeles 236 PETER WOLLEN PART VI The economic metropolis 245 17 French bidonvilles around 1960’s Paris: urbanism and individual initiatives 247 MIREILLE ROSELLO 18 Pl(a)ys of marginality: transmigrants in Paris 260 DOINA PETRESCU 19 The capsular city 271 LIEVEN DE CAUTER 20 Media-polis/media-city 281 CONSTANTIN PETCOU Index 289 Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 05:44 28 September 2013 List of illustrations 1.1 Wagner’s bird’s-eye view of projected development of Danube canal quay and projected Wagner Avenue from southern end of the Ringstrasse towards the Stephansdom: reading from the city above 20 1.2 Completion of Wagner’s ‘Majolika’ apartment block, 1899: similar but not identical lifestyles 24 1.3 Construction of section of Wagner’s city railway and regulation of the River Wien, and Olbrich’s Secession building, 1898 28 2.1 Plan of Philadelphia (re-drawn by the author after William Penn’s Plan for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1682) 39 2.2 Plan of Manhattan (re-drawn by the author after the Commissioners’ Plan of New York City, 1811) 40 4.1 Mussolini starts demolition work on the Via dell’Impero 61 5.1 Master plan of the Palace of the Soviets, showing a footprint of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and signed by Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich on 22.04.35 70 5.2 The cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow 72 6.1 Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin 81 6.2 The People’s House, Bucharest 82 7.1 The South African Embassy Projection, Trafalgar Square, London, 1985 93 7.2 Nelson Mandela’s prison cell, Robben Island, Cape Town, South Africa 94 7.3 Voortrekker Monument, Pretoria, South Africa 97 8.1 Women on display 103 10.1 Edward Hopper, American painter, Hotel Lobby, 1943 139 13.1 CityWalk, Universal Studios, Los Angeles 191 Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 05:44 28 September 2013 13.2 Fremont Street, Las Vegas 192 13.3 The Venetian Hotel-Casino, Las Vegas 194 13.4 The Paris Hotel-Casino, Las Vegas 195 13.5 New York, New York 196 13.6 Real New York 197 Every effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyright material. If any proper acknowledgement has not been made, or permission not received, we invite copyright holders to inform us of the oversight. Contributors Iain Borden is Director of the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where he is Reader in Architecture and Urban Culture. He is co-editor of Architecture and the Sites of History (1995), Strangely Familiar (1996), Gender Space Architecture (2000), The City Cultures Reader (2000), InterSections (2000), The Unknown City (2001) and New Babylonians (2001). He is the author of Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture and the Body (2001), and co-author of The Dissertation: an Architecture Student's Handbook (2000). Sarah Chaplin is a qualified architect and has a Masters in Architecture and Critical Theory. She is Senior Lecturer in Visual Culture and Media at Middlesex University where she set up the MA Digital Architecture in 1998. She is also a Director of the design consultancy evolver. Her publications include: chapters in Intersections, Feminist Visual Culture, Images of the Modern Woman in Asia, articles in The Journal of Architecture, Leonardo, Space and Culture, Urban Design International, Architecture, and Architectural Design and she is the author of two books: Visual Culture, an Introduction, co-authored with John A. Walker, and Consuming Architecture, which she co-edited with Eric Holding. Natasha Chibireva is currently working as an architect in private practice. She was trained in architecture at the Moscow Institute, Russia, and won a President Yeltsin scholarship to undertake postgraduate research at the University of Nottingham, England, leading to doctoral research on 1930s’ classical architecture and its connection to extremist political regimes. She has published articles and design work, and has collaborated in art installations with the Russian avant garde group, Art Blaye. Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 05:44 28 September 2013 Barry Curtis is Professor of Visual Culture and Director of Research and Postgraduate Studies in the School of Art, Design and the Performing Arts at Middlesex University. He is researching the relationship between architec- ture and film, and his most recent publications are: ‘That Place Where’ in The Unknown City (MIT 2001), a contribution to a book on 'Location Envy' and an essay, ‘Out of Babylon’ in New Babylonians, eds. Borden and McCreery (Wiley/Academy 2001). xii Contributors Lieven de Cauter studied Philosophy and History of Art, and was awarded a PhD for a study of Walter Benjamin. He teaches part-time at the department of Architecture and Urban Design (ASRO) of the Catholic University of Leuven, as a member of OSA, and teaches philosophy of culture in several art schools and universities. He is the author of Het hiernamaals van de kunst (The Hereafter of Art) (1991), Archeologie van de kick: verhalen over moderniteit en ervaring (An Archaeology of Kicks: Tales on Modernity and experience) (1995), De Dwerg in the schaakuatomaat Benjamin’s verborgen leer (The Dwarf in the Chess Machine.