In The Metro

I am in the process of reading "In the Metro" by Marc Auge. It is a small book where he muses about his experiences in the Paris Metro and engages in "ethnography" of its population.

There is an interesting bit about the tendency to give stations the name of some historic figure (e.g., "Charles de Gaulle - Etoile") or of some famous feature of the area (e.g., "Bastille"). Perhaps those in charge of naming such stations believed that the names would foment an appreciation of the history of the city or an appreciation of the unique places of the city. Being confronted with those names on a daily basis as one moves from one point to another might cause further reflection about Charles de Gaulle's contribution to France, for instance.

Auge, however, notes that the effort to increase civic knowledge and pride by naming subway stations in this manner actually may have the opposite effect. Think of the times you have coursed through a public transportation system and looked at maps and signs to orient yourself. Perhaps, during your first encounter with these names, you may have had some sustained thoughts about their referents. As time passes and familiarity with the transportation system increases, however, the names lose that historical/regional reference and they simply become scribbles and/or noises referring to that stop where the dentist's office is.

Sure. This is a generalization -- but there is some truth to it. Yet, Auge does not condemn people for losing hold of the original referents of those terms. Oddly enough, losing touch of the historic or regional referents of those names and creating your own idiosyncratic associations with those names is part of the process of becoming a full-fledged member of the urban community you are in.

Auge asks you to think of times when you are commuting in your subway system and you witness a tourist near you. The tourist glances out of the window at the station you are in, smiles and says with a sigh "Ah, the Bastille." It is at those moments when you set aside your primary associations (e.g., the place where my dentist is, good bookstore a block away, crappy coffee) and recall the grander intent of the subway planners.

It is a nice discussion and there are several other incisive observations about our relationship to our subway systems ranging from the complicity we feel travelling to mass events (e.g., sports events, political rallies) to the highly personal, almost Proustian memories that specific subway stations trigger in us.

| In the Metro by Marc Auge | The Subway Page: Links to Subway Maps from around the world |

Airport Design

When I was younger, a highlight of any trip I took involved getting to know the airports and train stations that were part of the trip. Since I lived in Mexico City, the Benito Juarez International Airport became a significant structure early on.

This airport, and many others at that time, had a clean and spare modernist logic. One huge marble hallway allowed the criss-crossing of passengers on the way to the smooth, curved plastic ticket counters. Despite the fact that waiting would be an important component of the experience, the black leather seats sprinkled throughout the hall seemed to be added for the sake of aesthetics rather than convenience.

I feel nostalgia for these types of airports. Their organization and decor drive one toward one central activity: transit. The lack of regional decor or identity within the edifice made it clear that you had entered a conduit. Once you entered the airport, you were invited to shed the sensory memories of the location you had dwelled in. Now, your senses were being purged in preparation for travel to a new locale -- where new sensory data could bombard you and thrill you with the newness of it all. The architecture and organization invited meditation on what was to come.

Nowadays, airports have succumbed to commercialization. The Philadelphia International Airport, for instance, has constructed a mall in the largest and most congested hall of the airport. This makes it difficult to slip into the dreamy anticipation that precedes travelling. Given that this commercial standardization of airports is a trend, airports are losing their ability to focus travellers' attentions on the process of slipping from one environment to another. My city has plenty of Starbucks and Brookstone outlets -- now, they follow me to the airport, on-flight and to the destination's airport.

I miss those spare modernist airports -- and not because of the current, though fading, modernist revival in design and home decor. The current trend in airport architecture makes it more difficult to purge before shuttling your way across the globe. Of course, there are exceptions -- and I would love to catalog those.

| Philadelphia International Airport 1 |
| Philadelphia International Airport 2 |
| Copenhagen Airport 1 | Copenhagen Airport 2 |
| ID-Cafe Thread on Airports and Airport Signs |

The Flâneur

Let's start with a discussion of what it means to be a flâneur. A simple definition would be "one who strolls aimlessly through urban spaces." Often, being a flâneur is associated with idleness and with the decadent luxury of having enough time to take those meandering strolls.

Though the original use of the term might have applied to folks that were decadent dilettantes with plenty of idle time, several writers, theorists and philosophers have appropriated the term and have used it to refer to a more complex activity. Walter Benjamin, in particular, has done the most to bolster the meaning of the term. Instead of assuming that those who have the time to wander aimlessly through urban landscapes are only engaged in a cursory and leisurely survey of their environment, Benjamin brought attention to the cognitive value and pleasures associated with urban strolling.

A flâneur, under this interpretation, becomes an active sociologist or reader of the environment around him or her. As urban landscapes become more dense and the architecture more complex, opportunities to observe and interpret events and objects have increased in number and complexity. Unfortunately, this has occurred in tandem with accelerated industrialization and the entrechment of the capitalist work-ethic. More often than not, we spend time in our cities commuting to and from our work places; too preoccupied or tired to take note of the visual complexities around us. We rarely have time to pause and admire small details in the architecture or to pursue a reverie caused by some stranger's facial expression. Our workplaces have also become barren environments where, more often than not, visual complexity has been replaced by monotony -- all in the name of economic efficiency (i.e., cubicles).

This lack of engagement is worrisome since we are not exercising our cognitive skills to read our environment. Whether it is the result of the pressures of commuting, of our inane habit of completing errands at break-neck speeds or of simple laziness, our visual intelligence is becoming rusty. Whether it should be deemed an aesthetic and/or political movement, it is time to rekindle our abilities to engage actively with our immediate environment and resist the tendency to let it pass unnoticed as the rythmic swaying of our bus or train lulls us into a stupor.

“The street becomes a dwelling for the flâneur; he is as much at home among the facades of houses as a citizen in his four walls. To him the shiny, enamelled signs of business are at least as good a wall ornament as an oil painting is to a bourgeois in his salon. The walls are the desk against which he presses his notebooks; newsstands are his libraries and the terraces of cafés are the balconies from which he looks down on his household after his work is done.” ––– Walter Benjamin, “The Flâneur”

| Flâneur, Fall 2002 | The Arcades Project, Walter Benjamin | v-2.org |

Welcome to EllipticBlog

Why "Elliptic"? Well, I enjoy the tension inherent in one of its definitions:

a. Of or relating to extreme economy of oral or written expression.
b. Marked by deliberate obscurity of style or expression.

On the one hand, I want to offer a series of musings about urban life, art, film, architecture, etc. that are clear and engaging to you without getting bogged down in the swamp of self-indulgence. On the other hand, I'm content to leave untouched some paths for further discussion -- hoping that you will tread through those and contribute your thoughts.

Subtlety is an aesthetic and moral value that is central to my daily concerns. When a work of art tends to "leave things unsaid," it welcomes you to fill in the void with sustained thought and analysis. Sometimes, negligent obscurity and a lack of meaning are mistaken for depth and subtlety. I'd like to discuss authentic instances of subtlety; whether they are found in our immediate urban environment, in a few fleeting seconds on celluloid, in a shady corner of the city or in the lucid layout of a subway map.

So, please join me as I try to chronicle fleeting instances of beauty and do slap me upside the head if I become self-indulgent [but, frankly, the right kinds of self-indulgence are virtues].