Thirty-Three: Quick Thoughts (09-13-2022)
This city is a bombardment of conflicts, with a solution to each often creating a new conflict. The most ancient streets here are truly ancient- from Antiquity- and as such developed as a result of need rather than unified planning. The newest streets are contemporary, but many somewhat new streets date from the modern period back through the 17th century. The grids of these newer neighborhoods clash with each other, and with their ancient neighbors. Most architects become excited when street patterns present unusual sites, in both scale and shape, but there is an optimism and pretentiousness that encourages the use of these sites. Optimism in that the architect can create with contemporary methods a building capable of communicating with if not fully complimenting its older neighbors, and pretentiousness in believing that unusual sites and the inbetweens of an ancient city are no more than the muse of the architect.
Reading Ellul, it becomes clear that the processes that define the built environment industry today are not tuned for artistic endeavor, and where artistic endeavor does break through, for the fortunate few "starchitects", the dogma of design often muddies any individual flourish, and the value engineer of construction often turns brilliant ideas into lifeless masses. This city lacks the abundance of contemporary architecture that can be found in most other world cities, mostly because of resultant feelings of inadequacy, but also because of public disinterest in the construction of non-traditional buildings within the city center. As time marches on, it is inevitable that this city's historical center will become infested with glass boxes and simply forms, as the industry for traditional construction and restoration is not so strong as to avoid the march of technological efficiency.
Another issue in this city is garbage. While the entire city acts as an ashtray, it also acts in small part as a garbage receptacle. Waste separation programs act as a mask for the abundance of trash piling up and around historic neighborhoods, landmarks, and monuments. The carelessness with which trash is strewn about is nicely paralleled with frequent complaints about the quantity of trash.
The future of this city, as it seems today, is a slow decline in its ability to preserve its ancient character, and a rapid decline in quality of living resulting from political quarrel, mass migration, and economic downturn at the macro scale. For an American, here not as a tourist but as a short-term resident, it seems as though a metropolis more ancient than our entire nation, is facing a set of problems not unlike those which undid some of the great metropolises of American history. At least here the trains will continue to run.