NEW YORK CITY Experiencing an Orchestration of Space and Time

Abstract

Any trip to any city is a plunge into perplexity. The total shift between environments, the sudden change in daily routine or the difference in time put the simple practice of every day life into question. Displacement and disorientation put away the lazy negligence of daily routine. The unfamiliar situations evoke greater awareness and curiosity to the seemingly normal conditions. More importantly, they also uncover possibilities of a positive change in perspective. Journeys from one place to another or a change of place raise problems about space as much as time. As the world shrinks rapidly due to the technological and communicational progress, and cities are connected in many more ways, the preconception about space and time is exposed and challenged. Usually, understanding of built environments - cities - starts with observation of their spatial form and structure at some point or cross-section in time. There are long-held assumptions that spatial and social structures change slowly, and that what we perceived as cities consists of fixed spatial structures that are inert and long lasting.1 However, another way of looking at the cities is to conceive them as being clusters of “spatial events”, events that take place in time and space. There 42 NEW YORK CITY : Experiencing an Orchestration of Space and Time 2 Ibid. p 1. 3 Careri, Francesco. Walkscape: Walking as an Aesthetic Practice. Barcelona: GG, 2002. may be interactions that lead to clusters and other aggregations, but the dominant way in which these descriptions are characterized are clearly temporal.2 These temporal qualities, whether quantitative or qualitative, are important elements that allow us to think about our built environment in a new light, where emphasis is no longer placed on the static equilibrium but on the dynamics of urban change, where temporal structures are as significant as social and spatial structures, where the physicality of the city is no longer inert. As a result, architecture, infrastructure and urban elements should not be conceived as autonomous entities. They all interact with each other, and should be conceived continuum where one becomes part of another. Engaging the city means moving through these elements in time. Thinking about space is not merely thinking about a container; the composition of volumetric voids defined by finite materials, viewed from a fixed point in space. It also involves movements, multiple viewpoints, inhabitation and time. Consequently, it is also possible to conceive architecture not as a definite object of containment, but as a continuation, a transition or a phase, that liberates the engagement with diversity of space and time in what we refer to as “living” and to respond to the multiple dimensions of what we call “life”. In an attempt to begin to address these issues, a journey to New York City serves as a case study. This paper is a descriptive observation of the experience of being in New York City, viewed as a succession of engagement with activities where space and time are not static entities but dynamic flows that fluctuate, called Mobile Sections. It also serves as a point of departure towards a better understanding of the interactions between spatial and temporal qualities within the built environment - be it architecture, landscape or urban - that we call cities.