I once put an art book together called The Hills That Live At The Ends of Streets about the importance of being able to see the hills and the countryside from within the city's confines. It was a book about vision and lines of sight for the soul, something that whilst living in a city can be forgotten about and left behind in pursuit of other more exciting things. Indeed, way back when I started this blog I did a post called The Telescopic City showing some of these lines of sight (and flight). There is something liberating about seeing the peripheral hills from the city centre, and being able to tap in to that vegetable serenity from within an over-polluted and cacophonous milieu. There is a dream-like quality that engages your soul.
Whitelee Windfarm from Douglas Street
The Kilpatrick Hills from Anniesland Cross and Great Western Road
The hills behind Eaglesham and Newton Mearns from Scott Street
The Kilpatrick Braes from Fulton Street
The
converse however is also true, that when your city becomes so built up
and hemmed in by buildings, you can't see anything anymore except your
own profit-hungry slap-dashed kind. The dream is killed and in its place
you have a concrete and chemical reality that slowly dements and
disembodies you from your own soul. The reason why television in its current
form has taken off so well is the fact that we have given up our own
tele-visual capacity to see beyond that which merely satisfies us. We no
longer gaze into the night sky because we can't (due to light
pollution), we no longer gaze into the hills because we can't (due to
skyscrapers), we no longer gaze into our own souls because we can't (due
to distraction and distortion). But we gaze into TVs like demented lemmings. Another reason why I have never had a television and why Jerry Mander's Four Arguments For the Elimination of Television should be on every school curriculum reading list.
Campsie Fells from Shields Road
Inverclyde Hills from Brand Street
Cathkin Braes from Nithsdale Road
At any rate, since I have documented these lines of sight through the city, a couple of them have already been 'buried alive' by irresponsible and slapdash building. Take the line of sight into the hills behind Neilston from Byres Road. Now, instead of the distant hills, you see into some Chinese student's dorm. Elsewhere, the same story.... more tall buildings, and more complete ignorance as to what they are blocking out by building it in the first place. This is the first rule of architecture: when you build something you destroy something, and not just the land upon which you are building, but these lines of flight for the soul. As such every architect upon presentation of their project should have to articulate not just what (s)he is building but what they are 'un-building' by building. In other words, and this should be the goto question for all technology pushers, what are you preventing by providing this? This, however, is not a question these people want to be asked for it reveals their projects to be as much about destruction and pollution as they are about making and building. It is this imposition of ignorance (by way of focusing only on one side) that we need to be concerned about. Do not let these people make of your city a coffin. A real city should embrace, should dance, with the countryside, and should have flight and sight lines into it. If it doesn't, like London, or Paris, or any number of monstrous conglomerations, it's not a city but a coffin.
So, un-nail that lid and kick those side panels down!
