The Fabric of The City.

I declare wars on all icons and finalities, on all histories that would chain me with my own falseness, My own pitiful tears.
I know only moments, and lifetimes that are as moments, and forms that appear with infinite strength, then 'melt into air'.
I am an architect, a constructor of worlds, a sensualist who worships the flesh, the melody, a silhoutte against the darkening sky. I cannot know your name. Nor you can know mine.
Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city.

- Lebbeus Woods, Manifesto

The eloquently lit street, blinded by hindsight, I found my cornea abruptly adjust to the harsh penetrating rays of low, south orbiting late evening sun. Curtain calls on September, days are equally long, equally hot and equally humid. The taxi court stay hidden behind rows of shop houses at its perimeter marking the historic threshold of the part of the town that hasn’t been touched. No, not at least until recently. Walls were being torn down; fences were erected along and across the street.

The chaos is drowning, the back of my shirt is damp, and the sweats are unforgiving. The stench of fish kept for hours ransacked the place like a terrible nightmare. And where I stood was an old man sitting on a cookie tin, leaning against brightly lit wall. A cigarette glued loosely between his lips as he held his lighter up and against the sun, casting a thin faint red strip on his lower eyelids. It was at least half-filled, and yet does not ignite. Clearly, he was more bothered by the fact that the lighter does not it up than the long stretch of roaring vehicles lining up beside him. Across the street was a young child in yellow shirt smartly tucked into his waistline height pants, excitedly engrossed in his partially melting and dripping ice-cream potong. That familiar gusto, just days ago I had the cravings for vanilla ice cream, and soon found myself eagerly devour the whole medium sized box, feeling absolutely satisfied. I missed that.



There’s a unique sense of disposal about this particular place, and if there was a more solid evident of history, it would be this part of the city. These two-story town houses, erected several decades ago used to grace this place picturesquely a striking images of colonial slum. Half of it was lost few years ago. New shops were then built on these blueprints, overshadowed by dark silhouettes of modernism; a large volume of the place’ historic identity was lost in the process, while everything remains the same, clueless and stagnant. The remaining half of it is now being torn down by massive tractors. One particular was left with standing awkwardly, only for the purpose of grid structuring, while the neighboring walls were all being brought down.

The scene ridiculed itself almost as in a war scene. Remnants scatter across the street, sculpted ornaments that used to grace the columns on the five foot way fell to pieces. Shreds of paper are thoroughly visible. Torn and paste, torn and paste over and over again. Blunt, rusty nails bent, thrown, sewerage filled with creased wrappers, paper cups and plastic bags. I marveled at the sheer delight to these rumbles, as if they were raped, over and over again. These are beautiful traces of history lost to the urgency of urbanism.

The city fabric is changing, paradigms are shifting, and the very nature of it would justify the paradox of urbanism. The process of urbanization must run in such to counter urban sprawl. It shall never move parallel or slower than the speed of sprawling. Young city should manifest itself as a testing ground for ideas and avant-garde experiments; it should provide a platform for immaculate urban planning, a loophole for creative solutions. Replacements are not necessary. It’s a static progression. Restoration provides a time-lag advantage for meticulous urban planning. A city’s plan isn’t laid out overnight, and planning shall not be made in haste, or it would suggest otherwise.



And there I stood, unfazed, rather dismayed as I silently weave an ongoing fabric out of the inhabitations and the place’ status quo. It was almost dusk then as the sun is slowly settling in, casting harsh shadows almost tangible, swallowing sharp visible edges, the long lines of vehicle are now gone, dark silhouettes pacing across the street, trespassing the fence to their vehicle. Slams door shut and drove away. Dwellers retreat upon ascending the steep fourteen steps stairs, otherwise loiter around five-foot-way, or behind that covered alley. Street lamps are flickering. The energy, the vibe and the chaos seemed to have gone down with the sun, nevertheless it was engaging.