Urban Space and Cityscapes From the verticals of New York, Hong Kong, and Australia’s Gold Coast to the sprawls of London, Paris, and Jakarta, this cross-disciplinary volume of new writing examines constructions, representations, imaginations, and theorizations of urban space and cityscapes in modern and contemporary culture. Linked by a shared concern for issues of spatiality, the topics are organized around three interrelated themes – image, text, and form – and range from the examination of cyberpunk skylines, postcolonial urbanism, and the cinema of urban disaster, to the analysis of iconic city landmarks such as the Twin Towers, the London Eye, and the Jewish Museum Berlin. Working at the intersections of visual, material, and literary culture, Urban Space and Cityscapes seeks in particular: • to provide new critical and theoretical perspectives on the city at a time when the condition and future of urbanism are major subjects of international and public concern. • to examine the aesthetic, narrative, and representational strategies used to interpret the dynamic space of cities. • to explore the relationship between urban space and a variety of pressing cultural concerns, including issues of identity, memory, technology, class, gender, nation, and ethnicity. With original essays from the fields of architecture, cultural theory, film, geography, literature, and visual art, Urban Space and Cityscapes offers fresh insight into the increasingly complex relationship between urban space, cultural production, and everyday life. Christoph Lindner is Assistant Professor of Literature and Film at Northern Illinois University. Questioning Cities Edited by Gary Bridge, University of Bristol, UK and Sophie Watson, The Open University, UK The ‘Questioning Cities’ series brings together an unusual mix of urban scholars. Rather than taking a broadly economic approach, planning approach or more socio-cultural approach, it aims to include titles from a multi-disciplinary field of those interested in critical urban analysis. The series thus includes authors who draw on contemporary social, urban and critical theory to explore different aspects of the city. It is not therefore a series made up of books which are largely case studies of different cities and predominantly descriptive. It seeks instead to extend current debates through, in most cases, excellent empirical work, and to develop sophisticated understandings of the city from a number of disciplines, including geography, sociology, politics, planning, cultural studies, philosophy and literature. The series also aims to be thoroughly international where possible, to be innovative, to surprise, and to challenge received wisdom in urban studies. Overall it will encourage a multi- disciplinary and international dialogue, always bearing in mind that simple description or empirical observation which is not located within a broader theoretical framework would not – for this series at least – be enough. Published: Global Metropolitan Globalizing cities in a capitalist world John Rennie Short Reason in the City of Difference Gary Bridge In the Nature of Cities Urban political ecology and the politics of urban metabolism Erik Swyngedouw, Maria Kaika and Nik Heynen Ordinary Cities Between modernity and development Jenny Robinson Urban Space and Cityscapes Perspectives from modern and contemporary culture Edited by Christoph Lindner Forthcoming Titles: Cities and Race America’s new black ghettos David Wilson City Publics The (dis)enchantments of urban encounters Sophie Watson Small Cities David Bell and Mark Jayne Urban Space and Cityscapes Perspectives from modern and contemporary culture Edited by Christoph Lindner First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2006 editorial matter and selection, Christoph Lindner; individual chapters, the contributors This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “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.” 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 Urban space and cityscapes : perspectives from modern and contemporary culture / edited by Christoph Lindner. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Cities and towns in art. 2. Public spaces–Social aspects. 3. Space (Architecture)– Social aspects. 4. Public spaces in literature. I. Lindner, Christoph, 1971– II. Title. NX650.C66U73 2006 307.1′216–dc22 2005018286 ISBN10: 0–415–36652–6 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–415–36653–4 (pbk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–36652–6 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–36653–3 (pbk) To Nicole, Gretchen, and Scott Contents List of illustrations ix Contributors xi Acknowledgements xiii Foreword xv EDWARD W. SOJA 1 Revisioning urban space and cityscapes 1 CHRISTOPH LINDNER Part I Image 15 2 Cityscape with Ferris wheel: Chicago, 1893 17 MARK DORRIAN 3 Seeing only corpses: vision and/of urban disaster in apocalyptic cinema 38 BARRY LANGFORD 4 New York, 9/11 49 BRIAN JARVIS 5 The idea of Hong Kong: structures of attention in the City of Life 63 STEPHANIE HEMELRYK DONALD Part II Text 75 6 Paris underground: Juan Goytisolo and the ‘Situationist’ city 77 ANDREW HUSSEY viii Contents 7 Negotiations of London as imperial urban space in the contemporary postcolonial novel 88 SARA UPSTONE 8 Reading urban spaces in African texts 101 TIM WOODS 9 Reading the illegible cityscapes of postmodern fiction 112 CAROLINE BATE 10 The death and return of the New York skyscraper: Cather, Libeskind, and verticality 122 CHRISTOPH LINDNER Part III Form 135 11 The museum, the street, and the virtual landscape of Berlin 137 JULIA NG 12 The reversible city: exhibition(ism), chorality, and tenderness in Manhattan and Venice 155 TERESA STOPPANI 13 Australia’s Gold Coast: a city producing itself 177 PATRICIA WISE 14 Cognitive mapping the dispersed city 192 STEPHEN CAIRNS Bibliography 206 Index 217 Illustrations 1.1 Çatalhöyük: detail from reconstruction of volcanoscape 2 1.2 New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2005, exterior 4 1.3 Rotterdam: Schouwburgplein at night 5 1.4 Manchester: Piccadilly Gardens at night 6 2.1 Vienna: Harry Lime and Holly Martins on the Prater wheel in The Third Man 18 2.2 World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893: the Ferris wheel 22 2.3 World’s Columbian Exposition: the Grand Basin and Court of Honor, White City 23 2.4 World’s Columbian Exposition: the Temple of Luxor, Midway Plaisance 24 2.5 World’s Columbian Exposition: the Javanese Village, Midway Plaisance 25 2.6 World’s Columbian Exposition: the Street in Cairo, Midway Plaisance 26 2.7 World’s Columbian Exposition, looking east along the Midway: the captive balloon and the Ferris wheel 27 2.8 A comparison of building heights 28 2.9 World’s Columbian Exposition: the view towards the White City through the Ferris wheel 31 2.10 World’s Columbian Exposition: view towards the White City, from the Ferris wheel 32 2.11 World’s Columbian Exposition: panorama of the Volcano of Kilauea 33 2.12 Apparatus for catching and suspending hogs, 1882 35 2.13 Cincinnati: slaughtering and packing hogs, 1882 36 2.14 Eadweard Muybridge, ‘“Daisy” galloping, saddled’ 37 8.1 Johannesburg: a squatter camp in Soweto 105 8.2 Johannesburg: the central business district 108 10.1 New York: the Singer Tower, 1908 124 10.2 New York: the Freedom Tower and World Trade Center site, design study, 2004 130 11.1 Jewish Museum Berlin: floor plan and vertical section through void bridges 139 x List of illustrations 11.2 Jewish Museum Berlin: model showing underground streets between the Berlin Museum and the Jewish Museum 142 11.3 Jewish Museum Berlin: three vertical sections 143 11.4 Über den Linden: elevation and plan 144 11.5 Über den Linden: scale model 147 11.6 Jewish Museum Berlin: the ‘architectural alphabet’ 148 11.7 Über den Linden: model showing its scale against the Brandenburg Gate 151 11.8 Über den Linden: ‘A Machine for Producing Gods’, landscape model 153 12.1 Manhattan, Rockefeller Center: Arata Matsumoto, ‘Attainable’, 1992 157 12.2 Manhattan, Rockefeller Center: Radio City Music Hall 158 12.3 Lisette Model, ‘Reflection’, New York City, 1940 159 12.4 Lisette Model, ‘Reflection’, New York City, 1950 161 12.5 Evsa Model, ‘New York City IV’, 1942/43 162 12.6 Evsa Model, ‘New York City V’, 1942/43 164 12.7 Kazuhiro Murayama, ‘Glass Venice’, 2001 166 12.8 Venice: La Serenata, Grand Canal 167 12.9 Venice: Ca’ d’Oro, Grand Canal 169 12.10 Venice: Palazzo Pisani, Grand Canal 171 12.11 Venice: Palazzo Surian-Bellotto 173 12.12 Venice: St Mark’s Square 174 13.1 Gold Coast, Australia: Biarritz Apartments 178 13.2 Gold Coast, Australia: Phoenician Spa Resort 179 13.3 Gold Coast, Australia: Q1 residential tower 188 14.1 Kronologi, Gamel Fauzi is heading to his office... 204 14.2 Kronologi, Hendrik Silalahi and Rudi Tinambungan are operating inside the bus... 205 Contributors Caroline Bate is an Associate Lecturer in the School of Cultural Studies at University College Winchester, UK. Stephen Cairns is Senior Lecturer in Architectural Design and Theory in the School of Arts, Culture, and Environment at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Stephanie Hemelryk Donald is Professor of Communication and Culture and Director of the Transforming Cultures Research Centre at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. Mark Dorrian is Reader in Architecture in the School of Arts, Culture, and Environment at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.