London Underground (Westminster Station)
Revisiting something that I wrote about years ago.
Public transit stations are places of movement. Travelers not only move between stations, but within stations as well. The many escalators and stairways (and the spaces around them) in London’s Westminster Station are just as mechanical as the trains that whisk commuters from place to place. In many ways, subway stations are even more liminal than airports. They are far more transitory, and are unlikely to have places to sit down. In fact, most aren’t places one really feels a desire to linger in.
Public transit and its development is tied to modernist discourses – including its design. Thus, many subway/underground stations are brutally modernist in their appearance and feel. Built of concrete and steel, they seem other-worldly and inorganic. In fact, many stations look like they’re from outer space. The paths and escalators in Westminster station are not unlike those in Space Mountain at Disneyland. Metal beams and tubes, with large rivets accentuate (and decorate) both places.
SEPTA: Under City Hall
Another example, is a tunnel underneath Philadelphia’s city hall (leading to a SEPTA subway station) that looks like a starship generator room. Although, the blue halo in the picture here is really the sky, the artificial lighting in the tunnel dominates over whatever natural light is present. The hum and flicker of the fluorescent lights seem to take away whatever warmth is coming from the sun.
The coldness of such spaces is the reason why filmmakers have used modernist buildings in dystopian sci-fi movies. One of the more memorable examples of a public transit system being used in the genre is Total Recall (1990). Director Paul Verhoeven used Mexico City’s transit system to create a bleak future in which people would pay to have their memories altered, as a means to escape their mundane lives.
Popularity: 11%
Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport
Located on the Asian side of Istanbul, Turkey the airport has seen increased expansion due to increased domestic and international traffic at Ataturk International Airport (on the European side).
Like my other pictures of airports, neon signs are present at Sabhia Gokcen. They announce to the weary traveler that either hot coffee or cold beer is available before they continue their journey.
Popularity: 26%
Santa Fe in Istanbul
Globalization is a funny thing. It takes on many forms, shapes and symbols. Something, which I have become increasingly interested in is the “Mediterraneanization” of global culture. However, by “Mediterranean,” I mean the Americanized or California interpretation of the climate and culture the Old World Mediterranean.
I couldn’t help but be amused by this cafe in the Yenikoy neighborhood of Istanbul. It’s name and imagery represents a “myth” of the American Southwest – one that is dominated by luxurious living under palm trees and Latin (Spanish) sounding place-names.
Popularity: 31%
Lufthansa Planes at FRA
The Frankfurt Airport is busiest airport by passenger traffic in Germany, and the third busiest in Europe. It is also the ninth busiest worldwide in 2008.
In the works before 1930, it opened in 1936 as the Rhein-Main Airport and Airship Base (the second-largest airport in Germany). Since the 1970s, it has become a major international hub following the construction of several new terminals.
Given its role as a major European hub, FRA is a massive airport. It has two passenger terminals connected by corridors and people movers, along with separate security screenings for passengers traveling between them. In addition two intra-airport travel, FRA is served by train stations for both regional and long-distance travel.
Popularity: 26%
J. Paul Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty museum overlooks West Los Angeles like a citadel – a fortress city – upon a hill. Designed by Richard Meier, it is accessible to the public via a tram that winds its way up Santa Monica Mountains.
Its location and its emphasis on classical "western" art has opened it up to criticism that it is elitist.
Popularity: -5%
Hanford Taoist Temple
In the 19th century, a great number of Chinese immigrants arrived in California to build railroads and work on farms. Throughout California, Chinatowns were set up and the San Joaquin Valley and Fresno was no exception. A community was set up in Hanford as one of many “China Alley”s throughout the United States. As an urban sociologist, I think it is interesting that the segregation of Chinese, as well as other groups throughout American history, represents a xenophobia – a fear of outsiders – that can be seen in the physical landscape.
Next to the Imperial Dynasty restaurant in Hanford is a Taoist Temple. The temple was built in 1893 and is now a small museum documenting the area’s Chinese heritage. The smaller rooms on the first floor house recreate an herbalist’s shop, a kitchen and display gambling devices. The second floor (see left image) is the temple setting.
Chinese Pagoda
Sites like this are interesting to me, because of the way the spaces (specifically urban spaces) are powerful sites of memory. The people at the Taoist Temple, as well as around the Fresno area, have managed to preserve a history that is often forgotten or ignored by mainstream narratives of the “American” experience.
Also, I think it is interesting that these (local) memories are part of global processes (e.g. labor, migration, etc.). In “contemporary” politics, specifically in regards to U.S-China relations, the historical ties (and fears) of Americans and Chinese people are hardly mentioned. People, cultutres, etc. are not (and cannot) be bound by arbitrary lines on a map. Rather, I think it is more useful and important to think about the complex ways in which we are connected (rather than disconnected).
Popularity: 36%
La Linea
The Tijuana-San Ysidro border crossing is the world’s busiest land border crossing. Over 17 million vehicles and 50 million people entered the United States at the San Ysidro port of entry a year.
Many of the border crossing involve workers commuting and people visiting family members.The traffic at the border crossing reflects the symbiotic relationship between Southern California and Mexico.
This picture was taken a few dozen yards from the San Ysidro border station, yet it took hours for us to cross. In 2007, the U.S. government began passport checks when entering the country from Mexico and Canada. This slowed traffic at the border down to a crawl.
The Fence
La Linea, or the Border, has a history that extends beyond present day conflicts over immigration. Before the United States defeated Mexico for its territory, it was Americans illegally crossing to reap the economic benefits the land had to offer. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, guest worker programs such as the Bracero Program brought thousands of people into the United States to work. This perhaps seems ironic, given recent debates over illegal immigration in national politics. It is often forgotten that borders (or arbitrary delimitations of space) do not reflect real histories and real people. Yet, this symbiosis of both American and Mexican citizens is often forgotten in U.S. debates over “illegal” immigration
At the same time, the fencing off of the border reflects a broader national version of fortification, which is seen throughout what Dear and Leclerc have called a post-border region. In Southern California, where gated communities dominate the local landscape, the border fence almost seems to fit into it – despite its militaristic aesthetics.
Popularity: 42%
Bunker Hill Sidewalk
This was taken near the Los Angeles Central Library. This plaque indicates that the sidewalk across the street from the library (along 5th) is actually privately owned.
This privatization of public space, to create what some have called post-public space, has profound implications on the physical navigation and use of cities. Los Angeles is not alone either in the United States or around the world in this phenomenon. Although often attributed primarily to the rise of neoliberal policies, it is my argument that it merely the contemporary manifestation of of a long-term historical organization of space.
The privatization of “sidewalks” and “street” raises interesting questions about the fabric of urban life. Does the city still belong to the people? Or is now a pure commodity, in which the public has no claim?
Popularity: unranked
Los Angeles Central Library
I like how the private space of the skyscrapers looms over the public space of the library in this picture. Bunker Hill’s “Fortification” as Mike Davis has called it, is stark when looking at the organization of space around the Central Library. Much of the area around the library, including the sidewalks, are technically private space. This includes the airspace, which the near by skyscraper had to acquire the rights to. So the library is a bit of an oasis amidst the privatization of urban space (see other post about the privatization of sidewalks).
As, I’ve written in other posts, the privatization of public space is interesting to me. However, in the case of the LAPL the “publicness” of its space grapples with the outcome of decades of neoliberal policies. Homeless people, many of which are the victims of job outsourcing, cut backs on mental and physical health and shelter closures often find sanctuary at the Central Library. With few options under the hot California sun they frequently flock to the Library.
Popularity: -5%
Los Angeles Union Station
For the past 100 years, Spanish-Colonial Revival has been central to a local mythology that romanticizes the style in architecture and popular culture. Sites such as Union Station in the heart of Los Angeles are excellent examples of the region’s integration of the mythic past into urban development.
Yet, we should not ignore that its reproduction has, like its 18th century incarnation, had colonial dimensions to it. From the plaque by entrance:
“Built in Spanish-Colonial Style on an Indian village and later Chinese town site by Southern Pacific, Santa Fe and Union Pacific Railroads”
Popularity: unranked
