we-comefrom
it and that we will return to it. Experiencing landscapes seems to encourage transcendental thoughts of this kind. In contrast, cities strike me more as being about the here and now, and about people.
Cities are the work of human beings. They bring people together; they foster exchange. In cities l am especially aware of the human space, all the housing, cult spaces, spaces for work, trade, politics, power and pleasure, accumulated in great quantity, intimate and public, sometimes invisible and yet present. I’ m aware of the density a city has, for instance
London, which figures in Edgar Allan Poe’s tale, The Man of the Crowd,
where he describes a particular flaneur whose great curiosity and fascination make him follow the trail of the city’s energy, its life, its secrets. Like landscapes, cities are, of course, also repositories of history. But the experience of it is different.