The
outdoors is threatened today by two indoors phenomena: the shopping malls which offer product variety with climatic comfort and
personal safety, and the internet which offers an alternative arena for social
interaction. The advantage of the shopping mall lies in its financial capability which can harness and manipulate the market
powers. Its technique - use of urban principles to create
alternative street-forms. Its problem - synthetics.
The
advantage of the internet lies in its limitless availability of potential
partners. Its technique - offering the users the possibility
of presenting themselves selectively, or of utterly hiding behind a fabricated
identity. Its problem is that it replaces human senses with virtual
feelings.
In
an age when we can hover over any street on earth (earth.google.com),
it is not hard to imagine a situation where one enters a cafe in Paris, finds a “friend” and performs a commandment. The only
thing that might distinguish this rather synthetic act from the real thing is
the touch, the smell, and the magic combination between them.
One
can claim of course that any change in the concept of space is legitimate, as
long as it expresses the needs of the society which
created it. But, from an urban standpoint - one that
aims to return outdoor activities to the urban streets - the abandonment of
open spaces presents a real problem. This is not the place to discuss the
powers that result in the urban product - politics, fashions, economics, demographics and even corruption. However, it is precisely
the vast variety of sources which provides reality with its multi-colored
authentic aspect - an authenticity whose most significant drive is randomness.
Both
mall planners and internet programmers, virtually free of limitations and
meticulous in planning, are making every effort to color their products with
authenticity. This is clearly an indication that the built environment still
possesses an advantage over them. Moreover, the fact that both phenomena - the
mall and the internet - stem from open space and result in it, indicates that
it is still an indispensable platform for social interaction.
The
fact that almost every plan aspires to adopt the urban code, whose center is
locality, indicates that authenticity is place-related. However, in most cases
this aspiration results in synthetic products that do not provide any tangible
sense of locality. The reason is that in the “global village” sources of
inspiration, technologies and building materials are all imported, and thus
only blur any local identity.
The
lesson is that authentic touch does not stem from one design alone, but rather from an
accumulation of many random intentions.
Focusing
on this idea, Italian architect Mirko Zardini suggests in his book “Senses of the City, an
Alternative Approach to Urbanism” that urbanists
should pay attention to the qualities of space, rather than its quantified
ones, such as form, style or scale.
Zardinis suggestion is not new, of course, since already
in the 60s several models were developed to describe
places by means of sensual perception (Kevin Lynch, 1956). However, these
attempts preempted the virtuality threat, and they
tended to focus on how built-space looks, rather than its smells or sounds.
Although
there is no real urban theory in the book, the message is clear. Zardini actually suggests that the aroma of a place
encompasses almost all of its aspects - from natural smells like vegetation,
water and land, through building material - wood, steel, concrete or asphalt,
to the activities that occur in it.
No
one needs reminding that certain places can be recognized
by their odor - coffee houses, gyms, perfume stores, boutiques. However, Zardini sharpens the idea that while one can argue with
form, it is harder to argue with smell. There is no need to go further than the
old city of Jerusalem
to realize that the more the place is charged with
content, the richer its aroma.
And so, without too much risk, one can state that the aroma
of a place expresses its urban depth. Who does not recognize the dynamic odor
of the London
underground, the home feeling of the smell of coal, or the urban image that is
carried by the smell of fish-and-chips. Christmas in Berlin smells of punch, while Christmas in Wadi Nisnas in Haifa smells like bitter olives, kababs and chestnuts.
And
even deeper - Manhattan
smells of urban ingenious. So do Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona,
and even Neve Tzedek. The
Flea Market reeks of a special combination of varnish and second hand cloths.
Florentine neighborhood smells like a dizzying mixture of carpentries, upholsteries and ethnic restaurants. The old central bus
station in Tel Aviv smells of shawarma mixed with the
fear of the immigration police, and the new one - of a public urinal and bus
fumes. The Mann auditorium used to smell like culture, and now it stinks of the
pettiness of the municipality. The smell of chocolate at the Elite Junction
still refuses to give in to the office towers that now surround it; the marina
in Herzilya smells like coffee and cake, while the
entrance to the city is sewers mixed with garlic.
Realizing
the trick, many cities today encourage the use of perfume to replace their
negative aromatic identity with something more positive and hopeful. Special
internet sites (search: smells of places) enable one to “smell” photos of
places, to add, erase and invent any idea. But then again, what one sees one
cannot necessarily smell.
