The digestive city

摘要

Our experiences of places hardly ever correspond to an image or a video but nearly always to a mix of sensations - a blend of lights, colours, smells, sounds, materials, dampness, warmth... Yet there is a great design focus on the image of architecture and of the city, on just the visual aesthetic. The contemporary city in the sense of a visual place has undergone radical changes and distortions. Think of the new Asian and Middle-Eastern metropolises, where urban growth is uncontrollably fast. We are now seeing the "digestive city", one of continuous spaces, no horizon, all interiors and claustrophobic architecture. They are expanding megalopolises that develop increasingly introverted and closed architectural models where the urban space is confined and you never see a shred of blue above.