伦敦：不可知的城市

如何理解像伦敦这样的城市?本文将亨利·勒菲弗(Henri Lefebvre)的思想与《不可知的城市》[1]中的实例结合,用以分析研究各种各样的城市问题:如作为社会产物的空间、体现记忆中的具有时代特征的历史建筑、社会特征(如性别、阶级、种族划分和性等)、对城市的切身经历、对资本社会和统治阶级特权的反抗以及所表达的建筑和艺术形式。伦敦这一城市所显示的是一个建造过程,包括博物馆、商业中心、纪念性建筑、酒吧、临时的艺术品和住宅等,以及其中各种各样的空间活动。通过这种分析,我们可以说对伦敦的理解不仅仅是包含一系列的有限的物质,而是还涉及一些不断进化的和可能的未知的领域。

THE UNKNOWN CITY OF LONDON

How does one know a city likeLondon? In this essay, the ideas of Henri Lefebvreare combined with examples from The UnknownCity to explore such diverse issues as: the socialproduction of space; the historical constructionof time through memory, memorialisation,psychoanalysis and secrecy; matters of socialidentity such as gender, class, ethnicity andsexuality; bodily experience of the city and itsresistance to dominant powers of capitalism andpatriarchy; and architectural and other artisticforms of representation. The city of London isshown to be a constructed from a diverse rangeof architectures from museums, malls andmonuments to bars, provisional artworks andhouses, as well as from an equally diverse rangeof spatial practices, from anti-road protests andprostitution to skateboarding and politicalmobilisation. From this analysis, London emergesnot as a finite set of knowable objects, but as anever-evolving and unknowable field ofpossibilities.