previous | next

Indeed New York overtook and in a sense controverted the predictions. Skyscrapers were piecemeal, sticking out here and there; they did not have the logic, regularity, inexorability of the predictions of Ferris. But one thing they did is upstage the mere paper fantasies of Le Corbusier. On his visit to New York he said, (well he had to didn't he?) "They are too small". Corb might very well be pissed off by the fact that the Americans in their unpurist, curiously ad hoc, even homely way had set a benchmark greater than he Corb had ever set!

The pride in New York peaked in The New York World Fair of 1939. A vast model of the city was on display, encapsulating in 24 minutes the 24 hours of its day. It showed Wallace Harrison, its creator wrote:

"New York as it actually exists—not just a mass of lifeless masonry and steel—but a living, breathing city with a network of iron and copper arteries and veins under the surface to supply vital heat and energy—a city with electrical nerves to control its movements and transmit its thoughts."

For all the extremes of city prognostication in reality, cities go their own way; yes planning intervenes; sometimes it can actually prevail; but it prevails best where its input, though thorough is limited. One of the great triumphs of the nineteenth century was the gridded street plan; true not a novelty then by any means but it really established itself then and was an inspiring and yet controlling guide to the development of the city; in fact it had no inherent agenda for the actual appearance of the city; but it imposed an order at least on two dimensions, an order which may not be visible from a distance. Look at a map of Manhattan and it looks wonderfully logical. Look at a view of Manhattan and it looks a muddle; Ferris and his contemporaries may have wished to rationalise the development of the skyscraper city; certainly Ferriss's Metropolis of the future is fantastically regularised and monolithic. The real thing, Manhattan as it is, very ad hoc; a real muddle for all the uniformity of its plan. it is uneven, random, even, astonishingly given its reputation somewhat low rise in much of its texture.

But the city fantasists have never given up. While there have been many earnest predictions and projects there is, in fact another tradition, and that is the city as 'playful', the city almost as a funfair.

previous | next