Cities and Fascination Beyond the Surplus of Meaning Edited by Heiko Schmid, Wolf-Dietrich Sahr and John Urry CITIES AND FASCINATION Re-materialising Cultural Geography Dr Mark Boyle, Department of Geography, University of Strathclyde, UK, Professor Donald Mitchell, Maxwell School, Syracuse University, USA and Dr David Pinder, Queen Mary University of London, UK Nearly 25 years have elapsed since Peter Jackson’s seminal call to integrate cultural geography back into the heart of social geography. During this time, a wealth of research has been published which has improved our understanding of how culture both plays a part in, and in turn, is shaped by social relations based on class, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, age, sexuality and so on. In spite of the achievements of this mountain of scholarship, the task of grounding culture in its proper social contexts remains in its infancy. This series therefore seeks to promote the continued significance of exploring the dialectical relations which exist between culture, social relations and space and place. Its overall aim is to make a contribution to the consolidation, development and promotion of the ongoing project of re-materialising cultural geography. Also in the series Swinging City A Cultural Geography of London 1950–1974 Simon Rycroft ISBN 978 0 7546 4830 7 Remembering, Forgetting and City Builders Edited by Tovi Fenster and Haim Yacobi ISBN 978 1 4094 0667 9 Doing Family Photography The Domestic, The Public and The Politics of Sentiment Gillian Rose ISBN 978 0 7546 7732 1 Cultural Capitals Revaluing The Arts, Remaking Urban Spaces Louise C. Johnson ISBN 978 0 7546 4977 9 Critical Toponymies The Contested Politics of Place Naming Edited by Lawrence D. Berg and Jani Vuolteenaho ISBN 978 0 7546 7453 5 Cities and Fascination Beyond the Surplus of Meaning Edited by HEIKO SCHMID University of Jena, Germany WOLF-DIETRICH SAHR Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brasil and JOHN URRY Lancaster University, UK © Heiko Schmid, Wolf-Dietrich Sahr, John Urry and contributors 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Heiko Schmid, Wolf-Dietrich Sahr and John Urry have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East Suite 420 Union Road 101 Cherry Street Farnham Burlington Surrey, GU9 7PT VT 05401-4405 England USA www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Cities and fascination: beyond the surplus of meaning. – (Re-materialising cultural geography) 1. City and town life. 2. City dwellers–Psychology. 3. Cultural geography. I. Series II. Schmid, Heiko. III. Sahr, Wolf-Dietrich. IV. Urry, John. 307.1’6-dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schmid, Heiko. Cities and fascination: beyond the surplus of meaning / by Heiko Schmid, Wolf-Dietrich Sahr and John Urry. p. cm. – (Re-materialising cultural geography) Includes index. ISBN 978-1-4094-1853-5 (hardback: alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4094-1854-2 (ebook) 1. Sociology, Urban. 2. Cities and towns. 3. City and town life. 4. Urbanization. 5. City planning. I. Sahr, Wolf-Dietrich. II. Urry, John. III. Title. HT151.S288 2010 307.76–dc22 2010034088 ISBN 9781409418535 (hbk) ISBN 9781409418542 (ebk) II Contents List of Figures and Table vii Preface ix Acknowledgements xi List of Contributors xiii 1 Cities and Fascination: Beyond the Surplus of Meaning 1 Heiko Schmid, Wolf-Dietrich Sahr, John Urry PART I: REVEALING FASCINATION: THEORETICAL HORIZONS 2 The Urban Question after Modernity 17 Michael Dear 3 The City is Back (in Our Minds) 33 Jacques Lévy 4 Emotions in an Urban Environment: Embellishing the Cities from the Perspective of the Humanities 49 Jürgen Hasse 5 Aesthetics and Design: Perceptions in the Postmodern Periphery 75 Ludger Basten PART II: FOCUSING FASCINATION: CROSSING THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL PERPECTIVES 6 ‘The Most Dangerous Knack’: Fetish and Fascination in the Built Environment 95 Neil Smith 7 The Urban Staging of Politics: Life Worlds, Aesthetics, and Planning – and an Example from Brazil 107 Wolf-Dietrich Sahr PART III: IMPLEMENTING FASCINATION: CASE STUDIES 8 From Dreamland to Wasteland: The Discursive Structuring of Cities 129 Ulrike Gerhard, Ingo H. Warnke vi Cities and Fascination 9 Re-designing the Metropolis: Purpose and Perception of the Ruhr District as European Capital of Culture 2010 147 Achim Prossek 10 Strategic Staging of Urbanity: Urban Images in Films and Film Images in Hamburg’s City Marketing 169 Sybille Bauriedl, Anke Strüver 11 ‘Neoliberalism with Chinese Characteristics’: Consumer Pedagogy in Macao 187 Tim Simpson PART IV: CONSEQUENCES OF FASCINATION: NEW HORIZONS 12 Excess, Fascination and Climates 209 John Urry Index 225 List of Figures and Table Figures 2.1 A hinterland urban aesthetic 22 3.1 Harlem 2003 – still a poor and unattractive neighbourhood 39 3.2 Harlem 2003 – social and ethnic mix still to come, but some features of a renaissance are already appearing 40 3.3 Chicago 2003 – the comeback of the nineteenth–early twentieth century inner city means an increasing social mix, a revival of public transport and a new focus on public space 41 3.4 Election results of the Swiss referendum (popular initiative) on the banning of the construction of minarets, November 29 2009 46 5.1 Suburbia as design challenge 83 5.2 Distinction through theming 87 9.1 Ruhr Museum at the former Zollverein Coal Mine 155 9.2 Ruhr area: regional structures, landmarks, and spatial identification 157 10.1 Film still of Die Entscheidung [The Decision], Germany 2005 177 10.2 Set photo of Paulas Geheimnis [Paula’s Secret], Germany 2006 178 10.3 The production of meaning (1): interplay of film images and imaginations (revised adoption from Hall 1980) 179 10.4 The production of meaning (2): interplay of film images and ‘strategic re-cycling’ of film images/urban imaginations 179 10.5 Film images in city marketing publication (detail), Hamburg HafenCity development project 181 10.6 Film images in a city marketing publication (detail), ‘dockland’ office building 182 11.1 Grand Lisboa Casino and Hotel, next to Bank of China building, Macao 2009 190 11.2 Mock hotel room, Casino Training School, Taipa, Macao 2007 201 Table 3.1 Three ways for managing distance 43 This page has been left blank intentionally Preface From the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and Jehovah’s Temple of Jerusalem to the boulevards of Haussmann’s Paris and the shiny desert cities of Dubai and Las Vegas, large cities and their landmarks have always fascinated people because of their images and symbols. Though the theming of urban landscapes has been a common subject in urban studies since the 1980s, the emotional function of symbolism has surprisingly been largely neglected in the academic research. So even today, most academic traditions are still profoundly influenced by functional, critical, and semiotic approaches, subordinating the subjective and aesthetic dimensions to a mere secondary category. But Georg Simmel’s investigation of the psychology of metropolitan man, and the contributions of the critical ‘Frankfurt School’ have clearly pointed to the fact that capitalist urbanism goes far beyond such a functionalism, and even beyond semiotics. In this context, a symposium was held in Heidelberg (Germany) from 8–10 November 2007, aiming to add to the discussion with ideas highlighting the different dimensions of fascination in the city as an everyday phenomenon. The symposium ‘Economy of Fascination: Themed Urban Landscapes of Postmodernity’ was intended to reflect primarily on the role of spectacularization and fascination in the recent transformations of urban landscapes into themed environments. Being hosted in the heart of the historic city of Heidelberg, itself a city with a remarkable ‘Romantic’ theme, the conference attracted scholars from different countries and disciplines. During the meeting an inspiring debate began on the phenomenon of ‘fascination’ in and of the city, revealing a great diversity of sometimes controversial positions on the subject. These positions however together formed a network in which almost all the contributions focused on the links between four human dimensions: aesthetics, emotion, experience, and power. Originally it was the intention of the symposium to publish conventional proceedings. However, the diverse and continuing discussions encouraged the editors to venture into a more conceptual book on ‘Cities and Fascination’. We now offer to a broader public the results of these discussions, which have continued during the process of making this book. We hope to hereby give an insight into the subject of fascination in and of the city beyond conventional terms and theories, so that the phenomenon is simultaneously approached from very different perspectives, and where even the organizers interpret the phenomenon from different angles. Thus the book cuts across traditional academic boundaries in the fields of urban studies, architecture, urban sociology, urban geography and cultural studies, but we hope it will fascinate because of its very diversity and the attempt to pave the ground for a difficult dialogue. x Cities and Fascination In this respect, we would like to thank all those who have contributed to the conference ‘Economy of Fascination: Themed Urban Landscapes of Postmodernity’ in Heidelberg, and especially for those who later permitted the publication of their contributions after all having reworked the chapters of this book. We thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [German Research Foundation] and the Foundation of the University of Heidelberg for providing the funds for hosting this conference at the Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg [International Academic Forum Heidelberg]. We are also very grateful to Valerie Rose and Jude Chillman at Ashgate for their support, and to Sabine Heurich for her editorial assistance.