we no longer talk of the body in the city but of the ‘city in the body’
the city became embedded in the body. what the city carries has integrated into the body, resulting in the body represents the city, instead of a city represents the bodies as a whole.
Urban infrastructures are not only material manifestations of political power but theyare also systems of representation that lend urban space its cultural meaning.
Relating this to Brian Larkin's "The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure." Infrastructures expose forms of political rationality that emphasizes technological projects. They constitute of the architecture for circulation, providing the undergirding of modern societies, and they create the surrounding environment of everyday life, which becomes parts of the cultures in the societies.
Studies of infrastructure tend toprivilege the technological even if they qualify it by defining urban spaces as hybrid systems ofhumans and machines bundled together through infrastructural networks.
hydrauliccitizenship, a form of belonging to the city enabled by social and material claims made to the city’swater infrastructure”
it is sooo sad to think that in the less developed countries, some means of resources such as water in this case can put its own citizens into categories that depending on their status or how well-networked they are in reaching the resources
ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations.
Yet he also reports that many of those evictedsupported the new settlement and regarded it with a sense of pride, even though they themselvesrepresent exactly the sort of disorder that the development was designed to overcome. “Yes, we’llbe the victims,” one fisherman says, “but still it will be beautiful” (p. 278)
how is this possible?!
Many infrastructural projects are copies, funded and constructed so that cities or nations cantake part in a contemporaneous modernity by repeating infrastructural projects from elsewhereto participate in a common visual and conceptual paradigm of what it means to be modern
repetition of rhythms
A road’s technicalfunction is to transport vehicles from one place to another, promoting movement and realizing theenlightenment goal of society and economy as a space of unimpeded circulation.
they are objects that create the grounds on which other objects operate, and when they do sothey operate as systems
circles. infrastructure creates and facilitates the flow of rhythms
Infrastructures are built networks that facilitate the flow of goods, people, or ideas and allow fortheir exchange over space.
What do surveys show contemporary urban dwellers are most concerned by in cities? Why crime, noisy neighbours, a whole raft of intrusions by unwelcome others. There is, in other words, a misanthropic thread that runs through the modern city, a distrust and avoidance of precisely the others that many writers feel we ought to be welcoming in a world increasingly premised on the mixing which the city first brought into existence
expectations VS reality. Mixing the population was the intension of creating a city. However every individual has a different perspective and various levels of tolerance. But there is always an invisible pressure around us that expects us to think and behave in certain way, and live peacefully with one another, though that might not turn out in reality.
, speed has produced a new landscape of anticipation
We are very used to being fast-paced on everything and needed responses/results asap. Will this level of anticipation decrease by any chance? Do you think we will ever slow down?
t this kindness has to be built into the spaces of cities. Thus cities have to be designed as if things mattered, as if they could be kind too. Cities would then become copy- ing machines in which a positive affective swirl confirmed its own presenc
What are the kindness built into Whittier College? And is there anything we can do to bring more kindness to the college?
the city produces solipsistic experiences which, in some sense, cut people off from each other and, presumably, from the natural condition of inter-relation they feel in smaller, rural communitie
This is similar to what we talked about in the last class. Different kinds of social divisions created by the human-built environment
sub-citizens, sub-Americans, and sub-humans
It is really crazy to think that people are categorized in different levels because of their races. And surely the sub-categories are made to create supremacy and a larger segregation by the already privileged people.
An unsegregated America might see poverty spread across the country, with no particular bias toward skin color
How would you define "unsegregated"? And does skin color really affect one's wealth?
“The two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black,” John C. Calhoun
Do you agree with Calhoun? Why/why not?
And what are the other social divisions exist in the American society?
"Cities are just a particular form of urbanisation."
As more developments and modifications are implemented on the cities, cities evolve and improve for the better. But urbanization could also produce creative destruction that increase the vulnerability of the cities.
physical landscape VS soft landscape
who and what define the edge of the city?
this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it;
How will this power relation last in a long run when everyone is getting used to everyone else in the architecture?
major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the auto-millic functioning of power.
Visibility increases awareness of the surroundings and self-consciousness. Everyone feels that they are being "watched" at some point of the time therefore will restrict certain kinds of behaviors. Thus, effective use of monitoring will establish inevitably strong power.
The Panopticon immediately reminds me of the Fujian Tulou in southern China and the Tietgenkollegiet in Copenhagen. Fujian Tulou has the same concept as the Panopticon but it is used as residential housings for community living, and also protecting the families against the enemies in the olden days. While the Tietgenkollegiet's design referenced the concept of the Tulou, and it is one of the most popular dorms in KU, where students live in a community and share the common space in the center of the architecture.
structural-functionalis
What is "structural-functionalism"?
how culture generates built form (306, 307) and explores how meaning is transmitted as nonverbal communication through the built environmen
Every built environment has multiple layers of meanings and functions behind their designs. One particular built environment can be interpreted variously by different eyes because each individual has their own ways of looking and feeling the ambience.