Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, unlike the other two Baltic capitals is not a port city. Located deep inland on a hilly, forested landscape with two rivers piercing its urban centre, Vilnius scores high in many rankings for the green vs urban area ratio. Even though Vilnius can be proud of the quantity of green and biodiverse environment for its residents, at the same time this layout results in an expansive urban structure that leads to intense car use and decreased air quality. In contrast to its metropolitan role as the most important cultural, political and economic city in the country, Vilnius has also, to this day, preserved many unique qualities of a countryside.
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Built at the confluence of two rivers, the city is famous of its oldtown – one of the largest surviving medieval urban fabrics in Northern Europe, listed by UNESCO as a world heritage site. During the Industrial Revolution, which spurred the growth of many European cities, Lithuania was under the rule of the Russian Empire. Its capital Vilnius was a provincial centre at the periphery, therefore the urban development of that period was rather slow. Although it sounds disadvantageous, it allowed Vilnius to preserve its meandering, somewhat accidental medieval oldtown street structure as a foundational ground for the future character of the city – diverse, spontaneous and organic.
Intense, often chaotic urban structure
Highly multicultural due to its history, Vilnius was often the place where the interests of various countries and political groups collided. Even in the short time span between the end of the 19th century and the present day, given that Vilnius is almost 700 years old, the rulers of the city changed multiple times. Some of the reigns were too short to leave a mark on the city’s development; nevertheless, the implementation of sometimes drastically different policies and a succession of divergent cultural ideologies have brought forth an intense, often chaotic urban structure characterized by the merging of unfinished visions as much as the clash of various architectural periods.
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From top-down urban planning to unregulated urban sprawl
The close proximity of historical heritage, dense urban environments, rural settlements and almost untouched natural landscapes is what makes Vilnius different from other European capitals. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, which over a period of five decades had expanded the map of Vilnius with large-scale industrial andoften monofunctional developments common in the era of socialist modernism, the city started a new chapter of its evolution. During Soviet rule, cities were shaped through a top-down urban planning practice, but after gaining independence, Lithuania went into the opposite direction. Now urban processes were driven by the neoliberal principles of government deregulation and a free market economy. Controlled urban growth was replaced by unregulated urban sprawl, spontaneous developments and in general a lack of urban planning.
Full of unexpected and sometimes perplexing juxtapositions
As a result, since the 1990s the urban character of Vilnius as a city of contrasts has deepened. Given the lack of experience in controlling the forces of capitalism and due to weak democratic resistance to the influence of investors, empty plots were filling up with new architecture as if the urban fabric was a Baltic forest where growth happens rather accidentally. Although this kind of urban development brought about negative consequences, it also further saturated the existing identity of Vilnius as a multi-layered and heterogeneous social, cultural and architectural fabric. The city is full of unexpected and sometimes perplexing juxtapositions that enliven as well as jolt the viewer’s consciousness.
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This urbanisation that followed vastly contrasting ideologies, philosophies and cultures has resulted in a patchwork, leaving accidentally preserved gaps of countryside, natural landscapes and wild forests in between newly developed neighbourhoods and historically formed areas. One may find oneself in the middle of a cobbled street surrounded by wooden houses that resemble rural living while the high-rises of the central business district dominate the background; it is possible to enjoy a vibrant oldtown with still intact local communities and to walk into a lush natural forests five minutes outside the centre.
Identity of imperfection shaped over centuries
When the lockdowns caused by the Covid-19 pandemic imposed unheard-of restrictions on citizens’ personal freedom, Vilnius proved its resilience precisely through its abundance of open spaces to be enjoyed by its residents. For the past several years the city’s urban strategy has been slowly returning to textbook urban planning, aiming to densify the central areas and increase the overall efficiency of the city. In the process, abandoned, leftover, post-industrial patches have been revived and opened up in the attempt to unite the disparate urban structure into a continuous cityscape and correct the mistakes of previous developments. Nevertheless, while there is an understandable rush to catch up with the efficiency and density of Western cities, Vilnius should proudly be aware of its unique qualities and stand by its identity of imperfection shaped over centuries. Those who make the decisions on the future of Vilnius’ landscapes as well as built environment should be careful not to systematically remove the contradictions, unconventionalities and provocations that come with the patchwork.
Find out more about Vilnius in topos 114.
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AFTER PARTY is a Lithuanian architectural practice founded by Giedrius Mamavicius and Gabriele Ubareviciute. Giedrius and Gabriele graduated in Architecture and Urban Design in 2012. In 2016 both joined OMA Hong Kong where they lead large scale masterplanning projects as well as architecture projects in China and South East Asia. Prior to that, they worked at BIG Bjarke Ingels Group in Copenhagen. Creating value through the means of sustainability, conscious design and social awareness is the fundamental principle of Gabriele ̇’s and Giedrius’ work.
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All Images © Andrej Vasilenko
At 1.2 people per square mile, New Jersey has one of the highest population densities of the United States, comparable to the Netherlands. It is called the Garden State, although its green agricultural heart is just one side of the coin. New Jersey is a poly-centric urbanized region, too and the poster child of suburban sprawl: a continuous carpet of suburban homes, malls, office parks and distribution centers; all knit together by a dense highway network and the occasional open space.
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Now, during the coronavirus crisis, many Manhattanites find the prospect of larger living spaces, a private yard and accessible public open space increasingly attractive, motivating them to consider moving across the Hudson to New Jersey, joining the ranks of the “bridge and tunnel people.” However, the Garden State still suffers a rather questionable reputation. Older folks will remember the smell of New Jersey when they crossed the large Meadowlands garbage dumps on the Turnpike, or their fear of the riots in Newark. Although the landfills are closed and Newark is back as a dynamic urban community, New Jersey is still not considered the place to go.
The face of New Jersey has changed
Most of New Jersey is a polycentric urbanized region with two core economic hubs outside the State. The North-East is a suburb of New York, the South-West is linked to Philadelphia. Only the most southern section still resembles the agricultural landscape that once defined the Garden State. Since 1857, when Llewellyn Park, America’s first planned suburb was established, the face of New Jersey has changed. Once its rural landscapes had been destinations for urban dwellers seeking a better life in a healthy environment. Government subsidies and a dense highway network further supported suburban sprawl after World War II.
New Jersey is the poster child of suburban sprawl
Today, most of New Jersey is ‘built out’ and has one of the highest population densities in the US, comparable to the Netherlands. The “corona move” further enhances existing development pressure. New high-rises emerge in Jersey City, just one subway stop away from Manhattan’s World Trade Center. “Transit Villages” with high density residential development and neo-colonial style townhouses pop up along the regional train lines providing easy commute to New York City. Today, New Jersey is the poster child of suburban sprawl, a continuous carpet of suburban homes, malls, office parks and distribution centers; all knit together by a dense highway network and the occasional open space.
The car makes New Jersey work
The car makes New Jersey work. Although people spend many hours in traffic jams, following the bike use example of Philadelphia and New York is unthinkable. New Jerseyans may ride a bike in a park but will use the car to get there. It is a challenge that the American ideology of independence and freedom, having worked well while conquering a vast continent, does not match the reality of a population density equivalent to the Netherlands.
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New Jersey’s “home rule”
Washington’s Revolutionary War was also a fight for independence from British feudal landownership. High property values make it difficult to contain sprawl through planning. Farmland preservation means that the State must acquire the development rights from the farmer and preserving remaining pockets of open space in suburbia requires local governments to outright buy the land. Further, New Jersey’s “home rule” gives independence to municipalities, which hold power over land use and other governance issues. Because property tax is the main source of municipal and school funding revenues, municipalities compete for wealthy residents, further exacerbating to the ongoing building boom.
A patchwork of ethnicities
The immigration waves of the last 25 years add to the cultural diversity of the state, forming a patchwork of ethnicities: New Brunswick in central New Jersey, once the hub for Hungarian immigrants, now has a large LatinX population, neighboring Highland Park holds a thriving Orthodox Jewish community. Adjacent Edison is home to residents of Indian and Pakistani descent. Crossing from Edison into Woodbridge, Oak Tree Road is a cultural and economic hub for the south-eastern Asian community, well known even beyond the State’s borders.
The aftermath of racist planning through redlining
It would be an illusion to believe that all people are living happily together. Since colonial times, various groups have held animosities and were jealous of each other. When an 1878 New Jersey state law allowed the breakup of towns into small boroughs, the number of municipalities in New Jersey increased from 94 to 564. The aftermath of racist planning through redlining (withholding government-backed mortgages from African Americans) and efforts to prevent lower income residents from moving into wealthier towns with better schools still results in extreme income disparities throughout the state. But with all its challenges, New Jersey is a fascinating place that deserves a better reputation.
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WOLFRAM HOEFER is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He also serves as Director of the Rutgers Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability. He holds a doctoral degree from the TU München 2000 and is a licensed landscape architect in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany. He is interested in the role of urban plazas, neighborhood parks, or community gardens as places where people of diverse backgrounds can meet, interact, and possibly learn from each other.
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Read this article in topos 113.
Accra – the capital of Ghana and with more than four million people living in the urban agglomeration an urban giant on the rise – stands for openness, diversity and multi-culturalism. As Ghana’s economy is booming, the sector of architecture and urban planning is flourishing, too. Accra’s possible futures, however, remain contested as modernist visions are enforced through evictions and unrestrained gentrification, while plans for a waterfront redevelopment and national cathedral take precedent over urgent issues of housing, sanitation, and ecology.
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One of the globe’s largest emerging conurbations stretches along the south-facing coast of West Africa, reaching from Abidjan, Ivory Coast, to Lagos, Nigeria. Accra and its sister city Tema are located roughly in the middle between these two end points and make up a 50-kilometer stretch of urbanized area on the Trans-West African Coastal Highway, which connects the urban nodes of the region. Accra is the political capital, commercial center and largest city of Ghana, one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. As such, it brings together people from multiple backgrounds including the northern regions of the country that border the Sahel. Openness and tolerance for different cultures, value systems and lifestyles can be sensed throughout the city. Virtually all neighborhoods of Accra are diverse as tenants with links to different parts of Ghana live and work side-by-side. Accra is famous for its maker culture that reveals itself throughout the city and is attracting international companies and research centers to the metropolis.
Openness and tolerance for different cultures, value systems and lifestyles can be sensed throughout the city
One can get a glimpse of the city’s possible futures when peeking into co-working hubs in the historic neighborhoods of Osu or Ridge, where entrepreneurs are developing startups and ‘leapfrogging’ technologies that may well become models for other parts of the world. More forms of entrepreneurism and reverse engineering are practiced in the open-air workshops in districts such as Circle, a roundabout- cum-transport node-cum-market, and Agbobloshie, Ghana’s largest scrapyard, which is supplied by domestic and global chains of consumption. On the other side of town, in a garden that serves as playground and exhibition space, architectural technologist Mae-ling Lokko displays high performance building panels made from upcycled coconut agrowaste. Accra’s art scene is growing and has made a name for itself with hubs such as the newly reopened Nubuke Foundation that runs a diverse program of exhibitions and educational initiatives, or the Chale Wote Street Art Festival that attracts tens of thousands from the city and abroad to historic Jamestown every year. Accra’s possible futures, however, remain contested as modernist visions are enforced through evictions and unrestrained gentrification, with plans for a waterfront redevelopment and national cathedral taking precedent over urgent issues of housing, sanitation, and ecology. More inclusive visions of Accra are being modelled by activists such as architect Namata Serumaga- Musisi with her practice of decolonial space-making, musician Wanlov the Kubolor with his outspoken lyrics and performances, and a network of progressive political organizations, industries and artist communities. Accra is a place that has undergone tremendous change in little time. The city had circa 22,000 inhabitants in 1918 and today is a polycentric urban agglomeration inhabited by more than four million people. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the south and mountains to the north. Urban sprawl extends east and west. Historic Ga neighborhoods such as Jamestown and Osu as well as historic migrant settlements with predominantly Muslim populations called zongos, such as Nima founded in 1836, are keeping alive communal life on the streets and in courtyard compounds.
Accra is a place that has undergone tremendous change in little time
All streets of Accra are activated by residents through communal events, the extension of life onto the streets, and a hawker economy, which together make Accra the socially connected and safe place it is. The historic neighborhoods of coastal Accra are adjacent to the central business and administrative districts, which are characterized by boulevards and tropical modernist architecture. The privileged planning of areas initially dedicated to colonial settlers such as Cantonments persists to this day, making these areas more spacious, greener, equipped with better infrastructure, and inhabited by the business and diplomatic elites. Most of Accra, however, is characterized by the heterogeneities of a fast-growing metropolis that is attracting people from all over Ghana, West Africa and other continents. Accra’s cosmopolitanism and entrepreneurial spirit make it a global city and many are convinced it can become a fairer, more sustainable place, if large-scale developments go hand-in-hand with progressive programs that build on the needs and ingenuities of all its residents.
JUERGEN STROHMAYER is an architect based in Accra working on research, community engagement and architectural projects. He has been active in Ghana since 2012 and moved to Accra in 2018 for the construction of the Nubuke Foundation, a cultural hub, designed together with nav_s baerbel mueller. He taught at EiABC in Addis Ababa, lived in Khartoum, and worked in Abidjan before moving to Accra. He currently teaches at the [applied] Foreign Affairs lab at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Read Juergen’s Metropolis Explained and other articles in topos 112.
Rome – the eternal city. To architect Chiara Dorbolò the Italian capital is anything but eternal. On the contrary, its unique character is the result of a sometimes violent juxtaposition of different and transient identities: The authoritarian and the rebellious, the formal and the spontaneous, the new and the old, the devoted and the careless. In times of the coronavirus a new identity has arisen and another vanished: The empty and the overcrowded. In a way, the absence of urban life brings Rome back to its promised eternity.
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Last weeks’ footage of Rome has a confounding familiarity to it. Its streets emptied by the government response to the pandemic, the eternal city seems to have finally honoured its reputation, suspended in a timeless state devoid of human life. Yet, the photos of the Spanish Steps, one of the city’s most famous tourist attractions, only depict the final stage of a process already started in 2016, when the monumental stairway was cleaned as part of a costly Bulgari-funded operation. After the marble was returned to its original white, some suggested fencing off the area off and locking it overnight to avoid a quick return to old habits and dirt. The proposal was rejected, but then in June 2019 the municipality issued a ban on sitting, eating, or drinking on the Spanish Steps and other monumental stairways. While policemen monitored the steps, whistling at incredulous tourists, Roman intellectuals were divided between those in favour of protecting the monuments and those who considered the ban an overly authoritarian measure. This coming summer the debate will not arise again.
“The city centre has become an open-air museum, where speculation has gradually forced out local residents and activities.”
Until last year Rome was the main tourist destination in a country that relies heavily on tourism for its gross domestic product. In the effort to monetise its historical heritage, the city has faced the same difficulties as other European tourist hotspots such as Barcelona, Amsterdam, and London. The city centre has become an open-air museum, where speculation has gradually forced out local residents and activities. A common example is Campo de’ Fiori, the famous square where the 17th-century philosopher Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake as a heretic. The only important square in Rome without a church, it was historically associated with the tension between Catholicism and secularism. It was a meeting place for hippies in the ‘60s and feminists in the ‘70s, and later it became very popular among foreign students and professionals (mostly American) in Rome. A couple of decades ago, despite the already numerous tourists, and the chaos often wrought by football fans on weekend nights, the area was still home to a lot of permanent residents. Every morning, they would stroll the market stalls set up at dawn by farmers coming from the city’s outskirts. Now the market is still there, but no one is doing their grocery shopping there. Produce has been mostly replaced by souvenirs, fruit salads to go, and local delicacies. The clochards, artists and activists who used to populate the square have given way to weekend travellers and tourism workers; shops have turned into restaurants and bars, and apartments into short-stay accommodations.
“Have Romans given up on their city centre?”
As the tourist area expands, a similar process is affecting other, not so central neighbourhoods as well. In Monti and Pigneto, for example, local movements are now recognising and strongly opposing gentrification. A notable example is the Ex SNIA, an artificial lake born from a real estate mishap and then reclaimed by the neighbourhood as a public asset. And yet, cases of angered residents fighting speculation in central areas are quite rare. For the most part, opposition to gentrification in the city centre stems from intellectuals who strive to save specific cultural sites rather than social movements opposing a broad urban phenomenon. In a city where the boundary between the centre and the periphery is far from being clear-cut, newer neighbourhoods’ social fabric seems to reflect a stronger identification with the urban context. Have Romans given up on their city centre? Probably not.
“Allowing the city to coexist with tourism without losing herself in it.”
We just believe the identity of the city to be immortal. With our special kind of cynicism, we dismiss every change as temporary and insignificant, in the face of what the city has experienced in its almost 3000 years of life. But the eternal city is not eternal. On the contrary, its unique character is the result of the sometimes violent juxtaposition of different and transient identities: The authoritarian and the rebellious, the formal and the spontaneous, the new and the old, the devoted and the careless. This complexity, rather than the white marble of the Spanish Steps, is what needs to be protected − and not from an invasion by ill-behaved tourists but from the speculative, extractive and toxic relationship that tied them to the city. Perhaps the relaunch of the tourist sector that will inevitably follow the end of this pandemic can be used to set the course straight, allowing the city to coexist with tourism without losing herself in it.
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Chiara Dorbolò is an independent architect and researcher. She studied in Rome and in Amsterdam and currently works as a contributing editor to Failed Architecture. She teaches architectural theory and practice at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam.
Read this Metropolis Explained and other articles in topos 111.
Mexico’s capital is a complex and contradictory place. As the saying here goes, there is not one Mexico City, there are many Mexico Cities. Indeed, sprawling shantytowns coexist with gated communities. Fourhour commutes are a reality for many, while helipads crown developments for the uber-rich. The metropolis’ history is equally surreal and tumultuous. Once the heart of the Aztec civilization, it has since seen waves of colonizers come and go. But over the course of half a millennium, it has become accustomed to ongoing conflicts and crises and has developed an incredible resilience. In the face of countless challenges including inequality, pollution, crime and corruption, the megalopolis has learned to bounce back and life continues unceasingly with will power and vitality that will stop at nothing.
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While the country wrestles with the increasingly gruesome violence spurred by the nation’s drug war, Mexico’s vibrant capital seems to dance to its own beat. Forget what you think you know about “el monstruo”, as the city has been known in the past, and you will be surprised to find a cultural epicentre bursting at the seams with fresh, raw energy.
“A cultural epicentre bursting at the seams with fresh, raw energy.”
Chefs are cooking up a new culinary movement by remixing age-old pre-hispanic recipes. The city’s flourishing contemporary art scene has led many to call it the next Berlin. And a new generation of architects is pursuing an architecture that is both contemporary and timeless, Mexican in its extraordinary sensuality and material sensitivity, yet by no means folkloric. Add to that a veritable renaissance in the film, fashion and design scenes and it becomes easy to understand why young creatives have started to stream in from all corners of the world. Key to Me-Mo – as this “Mexican Moment” has been affectionately dubbed – is the rediscovery of a number of decaying historic neighbourhoods located adjacent to the old city centre. A devastating 8.1-magnitude earthquake in 1985, exacerbated by the fact that the city is built on the unstable and sinking ground of a dried-out lake bed, had killed more than 3,000 and led many to relocate from these areas to the city’s outskirts in search of the safety of the bedrock. In the following years, insecurity led to an increase in gated communities. Urban life became more and more segregated.
Since then, however, the city has gone through a catharsis. In recent years, neighbourhoods such as La Condesa with its stunning Art Deco architecture and lush parks have been rediscovered and are in a process of reinvention. In the eclectic colonia Roma dilapidated French-style mansions from the turn of the last century have been retrofitted and transformed into art galleries and restaurants. The municipality’s investment in upgrading public space has breathed new life into these barrios’ plazas and tree-lined boulevards. While 15 years ago cycling in the city was unthinkable there is now an abundance of bike-sharing schemes and use of the automobile is being disincentivized. The rehabilitation of these central districts goes hand in hand with their redensification. In a sense, the metropolis’ seemingly endless sprawl has reached its physical limits, a necklace of mountains and volcanoes, and the city has started to fold back on itself.
“The metropolis’ seemingly endless sprawl has reached its physical limits.”
About six years ago, the government introduced zoning modifications that combat urban sprawl. While applaudable in principle, this shift in policy opened the floodgates for high-rise office towers like the ones popping up relentlessly along the city’s principal avenue Reforma. Mono-programmatic ghettos for ultrawealthy corporations, they have exacerbated traffic problems and put a significant strain on the city’s service infrastructure. Luckily though, private actors have started to step up to the challenge of sustainable densification. Young developers with a keen passion for architecture are championing the adaptive reuse and extension of historic properties.
“The city centre is virtually bursting with the energy of the reinvention.”
Their projects are highly dense despite being low- to mid-rise and cater to a more tenable mix of use and income. The urban model of radiating growth is thus being challenged by a new ideal: one of restoring, adapting and upgrading the historic urban fabric. As a consequence, the city centre is virtually bursting with the energy of the reinvention. The main beneficiaries of this tendency are of yet a privileged elite. While it remains to be seen whether the more than 20 million inhabitants outside of this gentrification bubble will benefit from this new urbanity, there is optimism in the air. New government incentives are targeting corruption and pollution while poverty is being countered by the growth of the country’s middle class. Give it some time and the Mexican spirit of persistence might just deliver.
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Max von Werz is a German architect who has lived in Mexico City since 2014. He studied at the Architectural Association in London and after gaining extensive work experience with David Chipperfield Architects and Tatiana Bilbao Estudio, established his own architecture practice in 2013 with a particular interest in adaptive reuse, housing and projects related to the arts.
Read this Metropolis Explained and other articles in topos 110.
Again and again Vienna has been voted one of the most livable cities in the world. The city’s approach to urban development, which focuses mostly on urban regeneration, affordable housing and a well-developed public transport system, has successfully made the life quality of its inhabitants a priority. Vienna is growing, and in a healthy way. Yet it still has two speeds – sometimes blessedly slow and sometimes travelling in the fast lane.
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It has been almost exactly 30 years to the day that I got off the train at the Südbahnhof. A direct connection from an upland village in South Tyrol at the Italian-Austrian border. The first challenge was the escalators; I had never seen anything like it before. I had arrived in Vienna and I was here to stay, as it turned out.
“Vienna is growing and is getting a lot of things right.”
The Südbahhof doesn’t exist anymore, having made space for the central station. This boasts yet more escalators and is more shopping centre than train station, in line with the global trend of commercialisation. The plot of the former station has become one of Vienna’s most important urban development sites, and so has the area of the former Nordbahnhof. The development of the Nordwestbahnhof is next in line and ideas and visions for the Westbahnhof are in discussion. Vienna is growing and is getting a lot of things right. It is growing comprehensively, not just on the outskirts but also in the centre. Through redensification in the city centre, conservation and restoration, and the use of reserves freed up by the restructuring of the traffic system. The development of the Nordbahnhof following the model and masterplan of StudioVlayStreeruwitz „Free centre – versatile edge“ seems to me especially ambitious and promising: The strong densification of outskirts bordering the growing city, for the benefit of the wild and sprawling free spaces in the centre of an area, mostly unused since World War II. And further out you can find the creation of the satellite city Seestadt Aspern, where once more the city of Vienna is doing everything right. First the underground was extended, then facilities for business and education were built. Only then were large numbers of flats added simultaneously. Of course large development projects such as these take time. Like the trees that were newly planted there life needs to grow, but the soil is well prepared.
“It has a voice in privately financed projects through urban development contracts – a giving and taking.”
Vienna is a great place to live, in every phase of life. That is because in contrast to other well-situated megapolises, Vienna is affordable. The city government has a say, even playing a central role. It hands out parts of its extensive estate for subsidised social housing to the bidder with the best development concept, as opposed to aiming to maximise profits. So even with rising rents and property prices, there is no dramatic shortage of housing. It also has a voice in privately financed projects through urban development contracts – a giving and taking. As is the case everywhere, students and young creative people are moving to areas with cheaper rents, resulting in urban improvement and gentrification so that other residents have to look elsewhere. But no entire district of Vienna has been replaced as a result, instead they are more strongly mixed. It is easy to travel around Vienna without a car, paid parking is the rule in most areas of the city. In return, the city provides an excellent public transportation network with an annual travelcard costing 365 euros. Cycling is on the rise, thanks to an expansion of the cyclepath network and initiatives such as bike lanes allowing two-directional travel on one-way streets.
Vienna is beautiful. Worth living in and worth loving. Once it starts getting warmer, usually by the end of April, you can find me at the Alte Donau, at the freely accessible wooden boardwalks opposite the Gänsehäufel, Austria’s most visited open air swimming pool. And as soon as the standing water of the Alte Donau gets too warm, I can be in Bad Fischau within 45 minutes; a small historical spa town from imperial times with cold flowing spring water.
“Never static, but never hasty.”
My love for the city centre is more recent. It took a while until the mass of tourists no longer ruined my pleasure in the impressive urban beauty of the Old Town. I used to avoid the city centre and preferred to spend my evenings in the Flex, the WUK or the Arena, the Chelsea, B72 or the Rhiz; with new and wild music, deafening and exciting like life in this otherwise cosy city. In the 90s bars formerly hidden and dispersed relocated to the railway arches near the outer ring road “Gürtel”, with the logic that it is loud and dirty there anyway. One constant are the art house cinemas. The Filmcasino, the Votivkino, the Stadtkino, now in the Künstlerhaus, the Gartenbaukino. Vienna always feels to be slowly in motion. You don’t notice the continuous change during everyday life. Only if you look back you discover how much has changed in the 30 years since my arrival. And this is precisely one of the strengths of this city: never static, but never hasty. Just like life here. In constant adjustment and still always in the right place.
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Friedrich Passler was born and raised in the Puster Valley, South Tyrol. He studied architecture at the TU Vienna as well as at McGill University, Montreal, CA. In 1999 he founded AllesWirdGut together with his fellow students Andreas Marth, Christian Waldner and Herwig Spiegl. AllesWirdGut is an internationally operating architecture and urban planning office based in Vienna and Munich.
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This Metropolis Explained can be find in topos 109.
Mumbai may only be India’s second city in size, but it is without a doubt the subcontinent’s capital of commerce, glamour, and endless aspirations. In many ways, it resembles New York, although the metropolis once called Bombay is, of course, twice as large. By mid-century, the self-declared Maximum City will swell to some 40 million inhabitants: the largest urban space on earth.
The German journalist and author Michael Braun Alexander wrote an articel about Mumbai for the hundredth edition of the Topos magazine, sharing insights into the life in the city, its infrastructure and development. For the last three-and-a-half years, he has divided his time between Berlin and India, where he has worked as a foreign correspondend for Welt am Sonntag and various other publications. He shows his personal impressions of Mumbai.
You find the whole article “Mumbai” by Michael Alexander Braun in the 100th copy of Topos Magazine!
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