As the country borders are becoming more and more thin and vague because of imigration , work markets , and the main reason of globalization the city is becoming the new landskape of events and in the same time the generatig engine of events , market economi trough rapid formed networks (real or virtual ) , what seems interesting from my personal expirience as a student in the multifaced city of Amsterdam is the squading fenomenon that is a general fenomenon related not only to the city of Amsterdam , there are squads in a lot of major europeean cities. These squads are semi legal human comunities placed in buildings that are not used dameged of had a former industrial purpose . the inhabitants of thse kind of places are people that ca not affoard a big rent or that are using the palces for a temporary perioud of time .
In the same time what comes into my mind when I think about the squading concept is a manifesto that Rem Koolhaas wrote in his student years at the architectureal asociation in London and that he gave to people on the streets of London ; the manifesto was about the option of living in the city , about the option of chooseing a side where to live . This "manifesto " was related to the project Exodus or the willing captives of our architecture , where conecpts related to the contemporary urban condition where discussed and redesigned in a conceptual and philosophical way . the city is again the subject of anauther event in withc the same archirtect Rem Koolhaas is implied , in a zeithgeist way he put the bases for an exibition held in London called Cities on the Move where the condition of populaton races and immigration is analised .
The connexion that im triing to make is related to a few concepts like immigration adaptability , squads and new urban conditions that are changing in the cities around the world , I do not want to think about presrvation and about architecture but I want to think of the city as the new terryory for war , by that i mean that wars between countryes will dissapear and things will turn inside out in the urban landskape , the police force is becoming more and more militarized and the suburban tissue is becoming a new teritory for ilegal actions .
The cities are dividing in a layerd surfaces with multiple networks that function in one way or the outher .
on a europeean level i think that the most interesting and divided citie as landscape and event is Paris , in paris some maine events took place in the suburban areas and the police used military force against the north african immigrat comunities .
The things are linked because of the new century that is the century of the city and the urban (2/3 of the world population is living in the city ) .
using the postmodern a postmodern lens we can see that on a detailed way things are not so different from one place to the outher we can find the same expectations or the same desiref of the people in two different place in the same time , what is the difference between things is the purpose of the city or the main activity that is generatde trough the people living in that urban area , From a point of view things are not verry different from outher historical periods this is not the first time in human history that we see cities developing around a main activity or with a main target , that is why a smeculative aproca and a scenario like hipotesis is alvays welcomed .
Sometimes history has something to say , as Malcom McCullough associate professor of architecture and design from the university of Michigan( presented in the workshop at witch I had participated last year ) said and presented about the cities , how infrastruture is shaping the city and trough examples like Chicago and New York he explained that infrastructure and history can reshape the city . one interesting exaple was new york that had become in the las few years like a giant global antena for activities ranging from enertaiment ( see MTV headquorters) to shopping , art , and bussnies , the city becoming a ground stone in multiple fields conecerning western civilization . the city itself is a brand that generates new trends and transmites the last waves in al sorts of field including culture . In a Charlie Rose brokast 2003 with tom Tom ford as aguest they talked about the influence of NY in the world and the competition between the city of New York and the the movie industrie from LA that is anauther city that is completley historicaly situatted in the 21 century .
Anauther examople that was shown at the workshop was the example of the city if Chicago that had a major booming period when electricity was introduced in the city and everything changed in a rapid way .
The main ideea is that cityes can be influenced by outher cityes and that some major global industrie can be found in cityes around the world , transforming the citye in a microcosmos for culture enetrtaiment and experiment .