The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space

value there, and while there are comparable examples, it is not the work of
Atget, it is not the work of Reyner Banham, nor is it the work of some freak
in Islington civil engineering department, but it’s in a space between all
those, and thousands of other possibilities. Significantly, I don’t actually like
the transparencies as objects.
JK: But they’re actually inert, except when they’re being projected.
RW: Yes, and I love the idea that in much the same way the street is inert.
Someone quoted Hamlet to me the other day, something like, “There’s neither
good nor bad till it’s thought.” It’s only now when you look at the building
opposite, which I’ve seen a thousand times, that you think, “Aren’t the
afternoon shadows amazing”; because that’s a north-facing street and it
aligns itself with the setting sun at this time of the year. The rest of the time
you might be merely saying, “Oh they’re stuccoed up to the first floor, and
mostly they’re painted white”; it’s only where you are exhilarated that you
name it.
JK: That was an intriguing list you gave of Atget, Banham, and others. So
are you conscious of being in a tradition of urban commentary about lived
experience, and of looking at the world in a certain way?
RW: No I don’t think I am, and in a studied way I don’t know anything about
it, but I’m sensitive to that kind of idea. I remember that soon after leaving
college, it was like throwing down a gauntlet to read Christopher Alexander’s
description of a newspaper-selling machine near a traffic light (I guess in
Harvard); and the traffic light sequence allows you to stop at the newspaper
machine, put the money in, and get the newspaper. He just pointed out that
the sequence of the traffic lights gave that shop its economy. I thought this
idea was just delicious, and it now seems terribly obvious, so for instance I
know why the dry cleaners is by the bus stop, while ten doors up would not
be a good site. I’m sure that particular dry cleaners legitimizes the incompetence
of the bus service, so that people feel better about the wait, because
there’s a potential to do something in that space. It’s not a traceable thing
but I’m sure that part of that sense of waiting for the bus, the inconvenience
of traveling by bus in London, is matched up with the idea “well that’s all
right because I can combine it with going to the dry cleaners,” so that the
two things are in a symbiotic relationship. Unlike nearby Logman Ltd., “specialising
in water melons,” who presumably doesn’t need to be anywhere
near any bus stop.
JK: Specializing in watermelons is a great idea, isn’t it.
Journeys on the Caledonian Road