The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space

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Preface
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As well as these exhibition venues and the symposium, the program
stimulated new connections with a number of diverse organizations—
including the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), the Photographers’
Gallery, and the Urban Research Group—and a number of individuals who
have each in different ways contributed to the ongoing life of the program.
Through such reexaminations, whatever is thought to be understood, whatever
is taken for granted, comes under scrutiny and must, by such intense
attention, be rethought once again.
Strangely Familiar is still a loose affiliation. It was generated through
interests that still remain intense and still make the group cohere, while the
individual relationships have changed significantly. This is the flux, the
rubbing against the grain, that moves things forward. Whether it provokes
an intellectual tussle or merely a new alliance, the success or impact of such
a project is almost impossible to state or quantify: sometimes it seems as if
it has taken on a life of its own. The only thing to do is to hold on and to
make the most of this unfolding scenario.
The Unknown City is, then, the next manifestation of the program
that began in 1994. We always intended to continue the first Strangely Familiar
project by publishing a book—but it was initially conceived as a
summation. Instead, The Unknown City has become more of a transition,
presented with the understanding that our grasp of the city can never be
complete and knowing. With this book, Strangely Familiar has become an
un-knowing of the city. This does not mean that we know nothing, but that
there are more things to consider, more complexities to encounter. Further-