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Melancholy and the "other": const of modern cities
Melancholy and the "other"
Esra Akcan
"By looking at the construction of modern cities and the "other", Esra Akcan analyzes the meaning of melancholy: "In a world where modernization is defined as the 'universal' processes guided by the 'West', in a world where the 'West' is perceived as the subject of history, while the 'non-West' as its inferior translation, the 'others' that are excluded from this definition of 'universality' live through a loss or lack of a natural right. This is the natural right of being a part of this history, of belonging to the process of modernization that is conceived as the inevitable 'universal' achievement. This is what I would like to call the melancholy of the geographical 'other'."
Continue reading this fascinating article at Eurozine, http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2005-08-25-akcan-en.html
© Eurozine
Esra Akcan
"By looking at the construction of modern cities and the "other", Esra Akcan analyzes the meaning of melancholy: "In a world where modernization is defined as the 'universal' processes guided by the 'West', in a world where the 'West' is perceived as the subject of history, while the 'non-West' as its inferior translation, the 'others' that are excluded from this definition of 'universality' live through a loss or lack of a natural right. This is the natural right of being a part of this history, of belonging to the process of modernization that is conceived as the inevitable 'universal' achievement. This is what I would like to call the melancholy of the geographical 'other'."
WORLD = CITY. The back cover of Mutations by Rem Koolhaas, Stefano Boeri, Sanford Kwinter, Nadia Tazi, and Hans U. Obrist is a straightforward shortcut to the impact of globalization on architectural knowledge. This formula must be meant to suggest not only that the world is increasingly becoming urbanized, but also that globalization is turning the world into an intertwined set of urban zones, where an accentuated interest in the hitherto ignored parts of the globe is necessary. In current discussions, the city has replaced the village as a metaphor describing the speed of communications and the flow of capital throughout the globe. The crucial question to ask here is whether this city is fortified or open, medieval or modern in conception. The socio-economic theories of globalization usually focus on the decreasing authority of national borders in determining the flow of capital during the era of multinational capitalism.[1]
The information highways also point in the same direction, emphasizing the openness of and connectivity between the zones. However, our contemporary world would seem as an open city only to those who ignore the prevailing geographical distribution of power. There, actually, is no smooth correspondence between the flow of information and capital, and the flow of people. A quick observation of the visa rooms is enough to confirm this point those architecturally neglected but indicative spaces that exemplify a unique combination of panoptic and heterotopic spatial principles, where a group of racially and ethnically mixed immigrants of some countries ("usual suspects") wait for hours under the disciplinary gaze of officials. While the world's borders are evaporating for some who can effortlessly travel from one continent to the other and perform simultaneously in multiple zones, the same borders are getting more and more closed for others. It is these "others" that I would like to address in this article, not with the somewhat naïve intention of "letting the other speak", but in order to criticize the very making of the "other". (....)
Continue reading this fascinating article at Eurozine, http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2005-08-25-akcan-en.html
© Eurozine
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