Toronto – New York Run By The Swiss

I recently returned from a research trip to New York and Toronto. Being the first time in Canada’s largest metropolis my expectations were high. I was not disappointed. Nevertheless the image I had had of Toronto was altered a lot. The first days it represented itself as what many would call a highly livable city, everyone’s  friendly, there is a lot of green space, people move around on bikes or in streetcars, small little restaurants, clean and safe, many of the big chain retailers are hidden well in shopping malls, to make way for more small scale retail infrastructures also in the bigger shopping streets. Moreover it definitely has a European touch und it is certainly understandable why it has been ranking top in various ‘most livable cities’ indexes.

However, soon I ‘discovered’ the suburbs. Standing at the viewing platform of CN Tower revealed the vast suburban landscape which is part of Toronto and its metropolitan area.  

This Ain’t California – Skateboarding and the City in the GDR

Skateboarding at Alexanderplatz. Film still ‘This Ain’t California’

Public space in the GDR was - as in many other autocratic societies - understood as a means of political representation of the regime. The occupation of East Berlin by the USSR and the foundation of the GDR also entailed a radical change in the configuration and understanding of urban public spaces. One of the foundational principles of the GDR was overcoming of previous epochs, which also influenced urban planning and the built environment. As a first measure, the demolition of buildings that had been closely associated with Prussia should make space for the new regime. Therefore buildings like the Berlin palace (Stadtschloss) and Schinkel’s Bauakademie needed to give way for public spaces as sites of organised mass events. East Berlin got rebuild as the ’centre of a representative publics’, a space of self-staging. Moreover the built environment should represent the collective thinking of the socialist state through grand gestures of buildings beyond human scale provoking humbleness in its citizens. The individual was subordinate and rendered small under the overwhelming influence of the state. With grand axes and vast open spaces, East Berlin’s new city centre should appear as one continuous space. Alexanderplatz, the space around the impressive new TV Tower was designed as one continuous concrete surface that should later become a heaven for skateboarders.

International Public Space Library

Image source

IPSL book (source)

The International Public Space Library’s (IPSL) ambition is to offer books for free in public spaces all around the world. Soft-launched in September 2010, under the light of the recent occupy movement the experiment has gained new topicality.  Unlike a traditional library, the IPSL has no physical building or location. Each one of the books, anonymously donated, contains an IPAL label and are left in public spaces, free to pick up. Readers are encouraged to return the book after reading to the library by placing it at another space.

Anyone can donate a book to the IPSL collection. Just download a PDF copy of the IPSL ex libris here or download the image below, print and affix it inside the front cover of the books you want to share and spread them (but make sure they don’t get wet). With more publicity this project potentially is able to build up the greatest library of the planet and fromulates a challenging growing spatial configuration of a library consisting of connections and movements of books. "Libraries are not made; they grow." (Augustine Birrell (1850-1933), Chief Secretary of Ireland)

During the just started 7-day growing exhibition on Strategies for Public Occupation by the Storefront for Art and Architecture, the IPSL will launch a temporary ‘pop-up’ branch. This temporary library will offer a selection of books to help stimulate the ongoing public discussion of economics, politics, society and culture that may be reflective of the Occupy Wall Street movement and other social movements that have been or are currently powered by the free exchange of ideas, particularly through the sharing of books. At Liberty Plaza (Zuccotti Park) the occupiers established The People’s Library with a collection of more thatn 5500 books, unfortunately most of them got missing after the police raid to clear the park in November.

São Paulo's Highline

Picnic on Elevado Costa e Silva. Image source.

The city of São Paulo is famously known for its congested streets and highways and as well its tremendous lack of public space. In the 1970s the Elevado Costa e Silva (also known as the Minhocão - the 'big worm') was built to relieve the load of the traffic in the city centre. Right from the beginning the infrastructural project has been very contested, since the elevated highway was boldly erected in the inner cities street canyons leading the traffic only few meters away of the windows of the neighbouring buildings. This fact has rendered an ongoing discussion to destruct the highway ever since it has been built. In order to compensate the infrastructural misplanning the city government has decided to close the route from Monday to Saturday during nighttimes and also during daytimes on Sundays only a few years ago. Hence the 2.2 miles long Minhocão has become a space for leisure in the city where public space is scarce. For many residents the highway, paradoxically, has become a retreat from the chaos of the congested city to enjoy a minimum of leisure time. Hence especially on Sundays the park is packed with runners, dog walkers and even picnickers. Therfore each week a linear park evolves comparable to New York City's Highline - both are successfull, but the Minhocão doesn't need an awarded design firm for its public activation.

all images by Paolo Batalha

Nevertheless in recent years the dismantling of the expressway is demanded from various fronts, including São Paulo's Major. Also filmmaker Fernando Mereilles advocates for its destruction. The Minhocão famously featured in his film 'Blindness',  since for him it 'is a perfect image to represent the madness of a city built and inhabited by the blind'. In case it is possible that the traffic can be dealt with, the destruction might be a good idea. Nevertheless, what Mereilles - who interestingly also is an architect and urban planner - and the other supportes of the highway's destruction are not thinking of is to compensate the use of the Minhocão as a public space. 

Film still 'Blindness'. Image source.

This post is part of an ongoing research on urban picnicking. More to come soon.

Occupy Wall Street - The community and their clearing

Filmmaker Alex Mallis gives insight in the protesters' everyday life. Only in a few weeks time OWS formed a remarkable community with highly developed infrastructures at Zuccotti park. Amongst the most obvious of the emerged infrastructures are food provision, personal hygiene, and sleeping camps. Moreover the protesters also initiated a highly developed media centre at the square, with electricity from gasoline powered generators. Furtheron they have organised their own health-care with sponsored medication, and as well - since protesting and sleeping on the concrete floor has implications on the protesters' body - a massage studio. Collective cigarette rolling and musical entertainment are also amongst the activities and services the occupation of Zuccotti Park provides. Watching the short documentary very much brings into mind how informal settlements in other cities of the world work. Strinkingly, the OWS protesters generated a thriving urban space in a remarkable short period of time. What sets the OWS space apart from other informal settlements is that the mainly young protesters can tap into recources that less medialised communities are not able to access. The internet and even the installation of a shipping address (The UPS Store, Re: Occupy Wall Street, 118A Fulton St. #205, New York, NY 10038) has supported the rapid infrastructural development at Zuccotti Park.

After it was announced that the police will be clearing the privately owned public space of the protesters so that the parks owner can clean and do repairs, OWS has mounted an online effort to get the resources they need to clean up the park themselves before the police will take action on friday. The single proper reaction to this announcement. OWS is asking people to donate brooms, lots of brooms, mops, squeegees, buckets, waste bins, dust pans, trash bags, and they could use some power washers too either to bring them to the plaza or to ship them to their address (via amazon possibly).
In course of the announcement of the clearing of the plaza the letter from the park owner Brookfield Properties to NYPD leaked yesterday. Unsurprisingly they no longer tolerate the occupation. Their reasons are mainly circulating around that the 'public space' has to be clean and neat to be able to serve the local population again - which in fact are the Wall St brokers (who also were sending complaints to the owner). Hence cleanliness and locality might overcome freedom of political expression with potentially massive impact. And NYC Mayor Bloomberg approves. We are waiting with bated breath what will happen.

Finally, here is a link to the transcript of Slavoj Zizek's recent speech at Zuccotti Park.



Postscript Oct 22: The clearance of the park could have been prevented. Here is a link engaging as well with the community that evolved since the start of the occupation of Liberty Plaza: It tells us more about the barbers, cigarette rollers and other volunteer workers.

Occupy Wall Street - Zuccotti Park

Zuccotti park during the Occupy Wall Street protest. Image source.

Zuccotti Park in Manhattan's financial district has become the locus for the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests in the last few weeks. Protesters have gathered, prostested and camped out there to make their demands visible in public. Yet, in contrast to other recent social movements the site of protest is not a public space in its common sense. Zuccotti Park is privately owned, named after a real estate development lawyer who has been active both in governmental affairs and in private development. The park, which is actually a paved plaza, is owned by Brookfield Properties, in conjunction with its ownership of One Liberty Plaza, the adjacent high-rise commercial tower. Arguably the park is a privately owned public space, a quasi public space that is so common in city centres of the great capitalist cities. Nevertheless, and interestingly, the space is still a site to enact democratic action.
OWS's spatial setting is different than those of other urban movements like the arab spring which is closely connected to Tahrir Square for example. OWS' site was chosen deliberately due to its symbolic character, as being right in the middle of New Yorks financial district. The occupation of Zuccotti park IS already the occupation of a piece of Wall Street.
Besides, the park has quickly become a tourist attraction.
Also Peter Marcuse has written a worth reading comment on the protest.
Zuccotti park after the post 9/11 refurbishment. Image source.