Topos 100

to po s. no 100

Time

2017

30 THE AL GORE RHYTHM – The former US Vice President on cities in times of the climate crisis

50 WAR AND PEACE – How the 9/11 Memorial encourages the discourse about global memory

TRADITION MEETS MODERNITY – The city of Guangzhou celebrates its multiple layers of time

ISBN 978-3-7667-2343-7

64

Contents

THE BI G P I CTURE

C UR AT E D P R O D U CT S

Page 8

Page 102

O PI NI ON

R E F E R E NC E

Page 10

Page 106

TALE N T VS. M ASTERMI ND

ED I TO R ´S P I C K

Page 12

Page 108

MET ROPOL I S E XP L A I NE D

Page 14 WA R A N D P EAC E

Page 50

BAC KF LI P

Page 110 CITY C LOS E U P

TR AD I TIO N M EETS M O D ER N ITY

Overcoming time and space through photography Page 18

Celebrating history in Guangzhou Page 64

URBAN T IM E FRAM E S

T H E N EW A ES TH ETES

An analysis of cities’ temporalities Page 26

Calling for a departure from rigid designs – a portrait of S2L Page 72

TH E AL G ORE R HY TH M

What keeps the famous climate activist going?

Page 30

ESCA PE P LA N

Page 112 F R O M T H E E D GE S

Page 114 I MP R I NT

Page 113

S L EEPI N G U N D ER TH E C R UC IF I X

How abandoned churches are reused Page 76

IN TO THE W I L D

R EA DY FO R A B S U R D ITY

Detroit: From General Motors to urban wilderness Page 38

Berlin: Building an airport can take a few years or an eternity Page 82

SEISMOGR AP H S OF TI ME

What type of street art are we entitled to today?

Page 44 WAR AND P EACE

Healing wounds at the 9/11 Memorial Page 50

LA N D S CA PE EF F ICACY

Transformation of an airport in Vicenza, Italy Page 88 TH E U LTI MATE D R EA M S CA P E

A story about a never-built Los Angeles Page 94

TIME: FACTS AND FI G URE S

Page 58

C O N TR IB UTO R S

Page 100 CIT Y AS PA L I M P S E S T

Who said cities can’t tell stories?

Page 60

T HE N E W A E S T H ET ES

Page 72

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topos ISSUE 100

Time

City Close Up The city is a matrix that cannot be apprehended in its entirety at once. One cannot visit more than one place at a time. Circumventing this limitation, French architect and photographer Jérémie Dru found a way to perceive the city – in his case Paris, his hometown – from more than just one point of view. He freezes the city’s moments and overlays them. By that, Dru puts the observer between two places and into a dimension where time and space seem to have no meaning at all.

JÉRÉMIE DRU

018

topos ISSUE 100

City of Paris: Light can erase the tangible boundary between the surface and the underground of the city.

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019

Time

030

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The Climate change hangs like Damocles' sword over metropolises around the globe. With torrential rains and floodings occurring almost on a daily basis, the menace has become omnipresent. Al Gore, former Vice President of the USA, has been fighting for many years to raise awareness of the dangers of global warming. As the front man of his own climate initiative he is viewed as one of the most influential non-political figures in the environmental arena. Despite persistent, often scathing criticism, Gore never considered letting go of his mission.

What keeps the man who was once ridiculed as the climate clown going? An encounter.

TANJA BRAEMER

Al Gore Rhythm topos

031

Time

Seismographs Graffiti and street art oscillate in a fleeting space between illegality and establishment, between social criticism and artistic aesthetics. They make the city a gallery of current events, render faรงades into political canvases and turn public spaces into the Agora. In 2010, Banksy proclaimed that graffiti is the art that turbo capitalism had earned. This inevitably raises the question: What type of urban art are we entitled to today? And what can it give to our cities and their residents? A plea.

ANJA KOLLER

of Time 044

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Photo: picture alliance / AP Photo / Kirsty Wigglesworth

London Street Artist Bambi’s work “Lie Lie Land” features a dancing British Premier Minister Theresa May and American President Donald Trump in the pose made famous by the movie “La La Land”.

Time

The aerial photograph, taken after the 9/11 attacks in New York, shows the smoking ruins of Ground Zero and reveals the destruction.

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topos ISSUE 100

War September 11, 2001 is a date that is part of global memory.

Most adults clearly remember where they were when the incomprehensible happened, but for New Yorkers, the tragedy of the attack was very personal, interrupting countless lives and changing the city forever. The 9/11 Memorial encourages a discourse about global memory, individual grief, and political agendas in the urban context.

WOLFRAM HOEFER

and Peace topos

051

Time

The ultimate A new book unveils a Never Built Los Angeles. Far from being a one-dimensional criticism of existing architecture, it instead expresses the potential of the urban sphere. No other metropolis, it seems, is more constantly mobilizing this potential than the City of Angels.

ALEXANDER GUTZMER

Dreamscape 094

topos ISSUE 100

International Marketland from 1959

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