Place matters

摘要

Back in the early 1960s Siena became the first Italian metropolis to restrict access to motor vehicles. The bus deposited us at the edge of the city. We pulled out suitcases into the dimly lit web of alleyways. The rain was now a drizzle and the black cobblestones shone darkly. The narrow streets made the houses loom over us. Their greying terracotta bricks were only vaguely perceptible in the night. The sharp turns of the passageways and the closeness of the buildings gave me the sense that I was entering a living organism. With every step I pressed deeper into it and, as though in response, it made room. I was inside a place both known and deeply unfamiliar.