It might sounds démodé, in an architectural era dramatically permeated by the Koolhaasian pragmatism, referring to a dinosaur such as Le Corbusier. However, in 1923 LC concived the modern/industrialized city in revolutionary terms: city like transatlantic ships. The transatlantic stood as suitable model for a clean, rational, compact, and unitary concept of city. BUT WHAT IF WE MIRROR THIS CONCEPT?
Modernism failed the challenge to update the old urban order. But what if, meanwhile architects and urbanists were busy to blow-up historic pearls, centrifugate cities, and create urban monsters, what if naval engineers were silently, modestly, and maybe unconsciously working for THE VERY FIRST FULLY IMPLEMENTED ANTI-URBAN UTOPIA?
Indeed, in the last 40 years cruise design evolved in scale as well as in contents. Free assemblage, density, symbolic congestion, surprise, and extra-territoriality are all principles aimed to creating a sexy and fancy floating landscape made of tax-frees, pubs, shopping centers, discos, wellness centers, casinos, conference halls, and so on. TODAY WE FACE A NEW ERA DOMINATED BY CRUISEFERRY INDUSTRY.
Cruiseferries are an important part of the current Baltic Transit Space. Mapping the present sea routes, in fact, will reveal the density of a ferry/cruise/tanker/cargo network linking the most dynamic urban hotspots in the region. Yet Cruiseferry is strongly affecting the local social geography. INHABITANTS, COMMUTERS, CITY USERS, and METROPOLITAN BUSINESSMEN are the social material informing offshore practices. The purposes are different: LEISURE, CHEAP PRICES, TRANSGRESSION, BUSINESS, TOURISM, AND MOBILITY.
The magnitude of this new phenomenon (the Cruiseferries) seems slowly understood and underestimated by local architects and planners. But what if the current spatial organization of inshore metropolises is, insofar, DRIVEN BY THE COMPLEX AND HIGHLY DYNAMIC OFFSHORE NETWORK? And what if ONE DAY CRUISEFERRIES WILL BE STRATEGIC DEVICES SERVING THE BALTIC METROPOLITAN SPACE, making it the very ‘True Europe’?
Our understanding is more than a theoretical speculation. It is an actual blueprint for the future TRANS-NATIONAL METROPOLISES IN EUROPE.
more...
Modernism failed the challenge to update the old urban order. But what if, meanwhile architects and urbanists were busy to blow-up historic pearls, centrifugate cities, and create urban monsters, what if naval engineers were silently, modestly, and maybe unconsciously working for THE VERY FIRST FULLY IMPLEMENTED ANTI-URBAN UTOPIA?
Indeed, in the last 40 years cruise design evolved in scale as well as in contents. Free assemblage, density, symbolic congestion, surprise, and extra-territoriality are all principles aimed to creating a sexy and fancy floating landscape made of tax-frees, pubs, shopping centers, discos, wellness centers, casinos, conference halls, and so on. TODAY WE FACE A NEW ERA DOMINATED BY CRUISEFERRY INDUSTRY.
Cruiseferries are an important part of the current Baltic Transit Space. Mapping the present sea routes, in fact, will reveal the density of a ferry/cruise/tanker/cargo network linking the most dynamic urban hotspots in the region. Yet Cruiseferry is strongly affecting the local social geography. INHABITANTS, COMMUTERS, CITY USERS, and METROPOLITAN BUSINESSMEN are the social material informing offshore practices. The purposes are different: LEISURE, CHEAP PRICES, TRANSGRESSION, BUSINESS, TOURISM, AND MOBILITY.
The magnitude of this new phenomenon (the Cruiseferries) seems slowly understood and underestimated by local architects and planners. But what if the current spatial organization of inshore metropolises is, insofar, DRIVEN BY THE COMPLEX AND HIGHLY DYNAMIC OFFSHORE NETWORK? And what if ONE DAY CRUISEFERRIES WILL BE STRATEGIC DEVICES SERVING THE BALTIC METROPOLITAN SPACE, making it the very ‘True Europe’?
Our understanding is more than a theoretical speculation. It is an actual blueprint for the future TRANS-NATIONAL METROPOLISES IN EUROPE.
more...
