2006/02/27
the generic city
Is the contempary city like the contemporary airport - "all the same"? is it possible to theorize this convergence? And if so, to what ultimate configuration is it aspiring? Convergence is possible only at the priece of shedding identity. That is usually seen as loss. But at the scale at which it occurs, it must mean something. What are the disadvantages of identity, and conversely, what are the advantages of blankness? What if this seemingly accidental - and usually regretted - homogenization were an intentional process, a conscious movement away from difference toward similarity? What if we are witnessing a global liberation movement: "down with character!" What is left after identity is stripped? The Generic?
(...)
The great originality of the Generic City is simply to abandon what doesnt work - what has outlived it use - to break up the blacktop of idealism with the jackhammers of realism and to accept whatever grows in this place. In that sense, the Generic City accommodates both the primordial and the futuristic - in fact, only these two. The Generic City is all that remain of what used to be the city. The Generic City is the post-city being prepared on the site of the ex-city.
Rem Koolhaas, The Generic City printed in S,M,L,XL
(...)
The great originality of the Generic City is simply to abandon what doesnt work - what has outlived it use - to break up the blacktop of idealism with the jackhammers of realism and to accept whatever grows in this place. In that sense, the Generic City accommodates both the primordial and the futuristic - in fact, only these two. The Generic City is all that remain of what used to be the city. The Generic City is the post-city being prepared on the site of the ex-city.
Rem Koolhaas, The Generic City printed in S,M,L,XL
