The Poetry of Construction?
Cities, and the built environment, have often been a muse for many of our greatest writers. Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities comes to mind, as does Ayn Rand’s epic, The Fountainhead, still inspiring today’s youth, and championing the spirit of individuality, through the lense of architecture.
SPUR recently highlighted the biography of Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, Toronto’s poet laureate, and city planning consultant. Municipal Mind: Manifestos for the Creative City provides a vastly different, and refreshing, perspective on the nature of living in a changing city. “There is a paradox in the civic nature,” says Di Ciccio. “The citizen resents densification, yet wants to be seduced to public encounter.” This is the heart of the question we face every day. Ultimately, Di Cicco hits the nail on the head. “There is one essential philosophical criteria for urban design, and it is the notion of “welcome.” We may never be able to say it as eloquently as a poet laureate, or for that matter just a simple poet, but this notion of “welcome,” for our prospective buyers, and existing neighbors, is urban development at its most fundamental.