Re: [-empyre-] time and space and movement
Hi Ana, Reading your description of Visby reminded me of my visit and stay in the island of Gotland a couple of years ago, when I also had the pleasure to meet you in person. It was a wonderful experiencethanks for making that possible with the Swedish Traveling Exhibitions. I also found myself doing the same thing you describe on Sundays, when I was there. For me Visby did not feel like a city, but more like a small town. Yet, everything needed and expected of big cities was to be found in the local stores. Visby is great in that the architecture is untouched but the shops, themselves, are super modern. To this day I still remember having some of the best coffees in the local shops. Regarding Montevideo, I visited it a few years earlier, and was hosted by Brian Mackern. It felt like a different type of city than any other I had visited at the time, and have visited since then. The architecture is absolutely beautiful, yet at the same time, during my visit, many buildings appeared abandoned, and many streets were not well kept. Very windy during my time therejust like Visby! In any case, I was compelled to respond to your post, not so much because I am acquainted with the cities you describe, but because your post made me realize how the concept of the city, when we think about it, is quite elusive and difficult to define and especially describe formally in ³universal² terms if we really tried to move beyond the usual descriptions we are used to sharing. As I read other posts after yours, I realized that while, as someone pointed out, when one may think of a city, it is Paris may come up, (in my mind is also New York), such generic definition is understood in relation to the city(ies) one lives or has lived in. The concept of the skin of the city could be extended in this case to the diversity within the city as a concept beyond a singular urban center. I think of this especially since regentrification has become a way to revise the ³skins² of very different cities in different parts. I noticed the act of reinvention (one could argue a more distanced form of regentrification) in both Visby and Montevideo, and in this sense I think that cities are amazing social organisms that reflect the diversity and complexity of the people who dwell in them. Eduardo On 3/13/12 2:46 AM, Ana Valdés agora...@gmail.com wrote: I am an urban dweller, it means I only enjoy the cities, any city, the feeling of many people moving around busy with their own lives. Last year I worked at the Swedish National Direction of Travelling Exhibitions, an institution with 40 employees and a beautiful new building in the city of Visby, in the island of Gotland, west from Stockholm. Gotland is the largest island in the Balticum Sea, inhabitated by around 6 people. In the city of Visby lives around 1 the whole year, in Summer about one million people comes to the island to enjoy the sea, the sun and the views. Visby is one of Europes most well conserved medieval city, with the walls intact. The walls were erected in the 13th century to separate the wealthy German merchants from the Swedish peasants who lived outside the walls and paid huge taxes to come into the city. Visby was part of the Hanseatic League and was (and still is) a beautiful city with several impressive churches and cathedrals. At Sundays, last Winter, I could see myself being the only person walking around the center of the town. I could walk home following my own traces and stepping up the marks left by my shoes. For me Visby was never a city, too empty, too beautiful, too clean. I need a dirtier and more soddy city. Montevideo, the city I moved to, fits in the latest classification. Ana ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] time and space and movement
Thank you Eduardo for sharing my nostalgy of Visby and of Sweden :) I was nostalgic of Montevideo when I was in Sweden :), now it's exactly the opposite. The thing is someone asked me when I was deported to Sweden in the 80:s and now when I am back in Montevideo how was exile and I said exile is not missing a territory or a land but to miss a time. I mean now when I stroll the streets of Montevideo I look for places and spots where I usually hanged out when I was a teenager or a child. I wish me back to the time when I was young together with others, now I feel this country right a foreign country to me, in despite of dear friends as Alicia, Sabela and others, who make me feel welcomed here. And about the cities in itself my city is a mixture of certain shops in Paris some museums in New York the Carl bridge in Prag the castle also in Prag the cathedral in Mexico City the streets of Florence a little church in Rom the Ecce Homo cloister in Jerusalem the flowers I saw in the dusty streets of Gaza... My city is Benjamins flaneur appropiating all cities and all flavours and all smells of all the cities of the world. My city is Metropolis and Gotham City and Camelot and Ulan Batar and Petra and Troy and Izmir and Samarkand and all the cities Calvino wrote in Invisible Cities, my favorite book :) Ana On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 1:35 AM, Eduardo Navas edua...@navasse.net wrote: Hi Ana, Reading your description of Visby reminded me of my visit and stay in the island of Gotland a couple of years ago, when I also had the pleasure to meet you in person. It was a wonderful experience—thanks for making that possible with the Swedish Traveling Exhibitions. I also found myself doing the same thing you describe on Sundays, when I was there. For me Visby did not feel like a city, but more like a small town. Yet, everything needed and expected of big cities was to be found in the local stores. Visby is great in that the architecture is untouched but the shops, themselves, are super modern. To this day I still remember having some of the best coffees in the local shops. Regarding Montevideo, I visited it a few years earlier, and was hosted by Brian Mackern. It felt like a different type of city than any other I had visited at the time, and have visited since then. The architecture is absolutely beautiful, yet at the same time, during my visit, many buildings appeared abandoned, and many streets were not well kept. Very windy during my time there—just like Visby! In any case, I was compelled to respond to your post, not so much because I am acquainted with the cities you describe, but because your post made me realize how the concept of the city, when we think about it, is quite elusive and difficult to define and especially describe formally in “universal” terms if we really tried to move beyond the usual descriptions we are used to sharing. As I read other posts after yours, I realized that while, as someone pointed out, when one may think of a city, it is Paris may come up, (in my mind is also New York), such generic definition is understood in relation to the city(ies) one lives or has lived in. The concept of the skin of the city could be extended in this case to the diversity within the city as a concept beyond a singular urban center. I think of this especially since regentrification has become a way to revise the “skins” of very different cities in different parts. I noticed the act of reinvention (one could argue a more distanced form of regentrification) in both Visby and Montevideo, and in this sense I think that cities are amazing social organisms that reflect the diversity and complexity of the people who dwell in them. Eduardo On 3/13/12 2:46 AM, Ana Valdés agora...@gmail.com wrote: I am an urban dweller, it means I only enjoy the cities, any city, the feeling of many people moving around busy with their own lives. Last year I worked at the Swedish National Direction of Travelling Exhibitions, an institution with 40 employees and a beautiful new building in the city of Visby, in the island of Gotland, west from Stockholm. Gotland is the largest island in the Balticum Sea, inhabitated by around 6 people. In the city of Visby lives around 1 the whole year, in Summer about one million people comes to the island to enjoy the sea, the sun and the views. Visby is one of Europes most well conserved medieval city, with the walls intact. The walls were erected in the 13th century to separate the wealthy German merchants from the Swedish peasants who lived outside the walls and paid huge taxes to come into the city. Visby was part of the Hanseatic League and was (and still is) a beautiful city with several impressive churches and cathedrals. At Sundays, last Winter, I could see myself being the only person walking around the center of the town. I could walk home following my own traces and stepping up the marks left by my shoes. For me
[-empyre-] time and space and movement
I am an urban dweller, it means I only enjoy the cities, any city, the feeling of many people moving around busy with their own lives. Last year I worked at the Swedish National Direction of Travelling Exhibitions, an institution with 40 employees and a beautiful new building in the city of Visby, in the island of Gotland, west from Stockholm. Gotland is the largest island in the Balticum Sea, inhabitated by around 6 people. In the city of Visby lives around 1 the whole year, in Summer about one million people comes to the island to enjoy the sea, the sun and the views. Visby is one of Europes most well conserved medieval city, with the walls intact. The walls were erected in the 13th century to separate the wealthy German merchants from the Swedish peasants who lived outside the walls and paid huge taxes to come into the city. Visby was part of the Hanseatic League and was (and still is) a beautiful city with several impressive churches and cathedrals. At Sundays, last Winter, I could see myself being the only person walking around the center of the town. I could walk home following my own traces and stepping up the marks left by my shoes. For me Visby was never a city, too empty, too beautiful, too clean. I need a dirtier and more soddy city. Montevideo, the city I moved to, fits in the latest classification. Ana -- http://www.twitter.com/caravia15859 http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/ http://www.scoop.it/t/food-history-and-trivia http://www.scoop.it/t/gender-issues/ http://www.scoop.it/t/literary-exiles/ http://www.scoop.it/t/museums-and-ethics/ http://www.scoop.it/t/urbanism-3-0 http://www.scoop.it/t/postcolonial-mind/ mobil/cell +4670-3213370 When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always long to return. — Leonardo da Vinci ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
