Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
transforming villains into protagonists), genre shifting (for instance, converting a drama
into a comedy), crossing over (combining programs), character dislocation (moving
characters to another time and/or place), personalization (injecting oneself), emotional
intensification, and eroticization. Applied to urbanism, we “slash” the city when we
become actively involved with it, when we challenge convention by recombining elements
in new ways, and when we activate places that have laid dormant, or manifest intensities
in places where they have only been latent.
Neither idealizing the past nor escaping the present, the incipient canalscape and already
impactful contributions of numerous creative entrepreneurs are generating a distinctive
desert urbanism. They are making slits in the urban fabric, slashing Phoenix, in a fashion
described by Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson as “incremental metropolitanism,”
thereby placing a brake on the economic, cultural, and environmental devastation of sprawl.
To the extent this upward spiral succeeds in countering the downward one, this could be
a region whose majestic landscape joins an ancient civilization with contemporary urban
sophistication to produce an unparalleled quality of life. 7
25.6 The Beauty of the Child
Prometheus was bound to a rock for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to people.
Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden for eating fruit from the Tree of
Knowledge. And the Babylonians were forced to speak mutually unintelligible languages
and scattered across the earth for attempting to build a tower to heaven and achieve noto-
riety. As allegories about our desire for knowledge, power, and control, these caution-
ary tales advocate against hubris and for humility. And they admonish against excessive
rationality, invoking instead wonder, awe, mystery, and sanctity. They serve as remind-
ers to acknowledge and celebrate our human qualities in contrast to the dual temptation
to become god-like or machine-like, a temptation particularly endemic to architects and
planners.
Listening to the minute differences noticed by my then 6 year old daughter Theodora
(now 16) between her Star War Legos and the characters from the movie, I remarked that
she remembered many more details from the movie than I did. Theodora responded,
“Children who found the beauty of being a child when they were a child remember
these things. I guess you didn't find the beauty of being a child when you were a child.
Or you lost it.” Struck by the painful recognition of my innocence lost, I asked, “Is there
any way I could get it back?” She thought for a moment and replied, “If you lose the
beauty of the child, it's very hard to get it back. You get it by playing a lot. Maybe if you
have lots of fun as a grown-up, you can get it back.” After a moment, she added, “And
once you've got your child back, there's nothing that can stop you from doing anything”
(Figure 25.7).
Just as the “beauty of the child” can get buried beneath the responsibilities of adult-
hood, so the vitality of a city—its soul and character—can disappear if squeezed into a
rational and overly-prescribed master plan. Rather than throw any discipline or plan-
ning to the wind, perhaps we might rethink how and when to apply them. Keeping a
place's “child” alive, or bringing it back to life, would not mean zero intervention but
instead a gentle guidance that is responsive, flexible, playful, and nurturing, permitting
self-realization.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search