Mapping Rome (0.0)

"By the beginning of the twentieth century the city had become ostensibly quantified and delineated for the first time. As a result of this, in the years that followed, the dominant discourse on urban space was shaped by the view that cities could be designed or governed to produce optimal conditions. Modernist designers were drawn to such cartographic representations and they formulated schemes to shape historic cities in such a way that they could solve, both spatially and socially, the ills of the city. The works of Le Corbusier and Ludwig Hilberseimer in the 1920s in Europe exemplify this overarching, god-like perspective, looking down on cities for the purpose of shaping the future. Yet, some isolated groups rebelled against this position and celebrated the sensual, emotional or philosophical potential of the city; those illusive qualities that cartography cannot capture. The tools they used to recreate their urban experiences were more immediate and idiosyncratic; they relied on literature, poetry, photography and film to map, edit and organise the terrain between space and emotion. Rather than working from the representations authorised by surveyors or scientists, they set out to curate their own version of the city."

Chapman, Michael & Ostwald, Michael: "Curated desires. Film, photography and the visual transformation of urban space in surrealism."
En: Chaplin, Sarah & Stara, Alexandra (ed.): Curating Architecture and the City. Routledge. New York, 2009.