“Living in a city is notoriously an ambivalent experience. It attracts and repels, but to further complicate the situation of city dwellers, it is the same aspects of city life that attract and repel at times or simultaneously” (Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Love).
Getting started in a new city is never easy. Whether through forced or voluntary migration, adapting to new rhythms, times, social behaviors, or ways of understanding and interacting with the environment is a personal effort that only those who have experienced it can comprehend.
Ana Kinsella’s debut in her book Look Here, published by Daunt Books, accurately tells a young Irish woman’s process of adjustment to the British capital. And how the experience of living in the city – which is the city itself – becomes a story to understand urban and territorial issues and to present the city as the heart of the aesthetic uprising against everyday life.
Book cover for Look Here: on the pleasures of observing the city by Ana Kinsella. Daunt Books
Through personal experience, it is explained from the most banal to the complicated implications of life in the metropolis. And it is that Ana Kinsella’s work, with all its synchronicity and serendipity, is a letter of admiration to London, through an idiosyncratic combination of curious interviews, reminiscences and flânerie, all shaped by that clear and sensitive gaze that characterizes your own style and Are defined.
Academically complex concepts are made very clear through lived experience. For example, questions are raised about otherness – how strange is the stranger in the city?, a concept discussed by philosophers such as Zygmunt Bauman -, aspects of Henri Lefebvre’s production of space or what influences the perception and image of the city, loving it or to hate, as Kevin Lynch pointed out. And for the author, her experiences make walking and crossing the streets of London a sensual experience.
Today, a phenomenon seen in cities around the world is a celebration of not only life, but the return of life after the ravages of the pandemic. But what must every city have to attract new visitors? An obvious feature is that each metropolis is unique; and this attribute is achieved by traversing its streets, which Kinsella writes “move themselves through time”. And not just the story, but also the personal story of each individual.
One of the most beautiful passages in the text is where the importance of walking in Mediterranean cities is explained, considering how urban life puts us in close contact with thousands of strangers and strangers who share the same space. Among the excerpts from the book, the Italian term “passeggiata” is mentioned, which is worth mentioning. Literally translated from the book:
“Passeggiata” is the Italian word denoting the quiet and pleasant walk that takes place in the evening light. It’s a social activity. This is not a health or fitness walk, but an opportunity to see friends and be seen by all. Interactions that normally take place in private homes or at least in semi-private spaces like restaurants or bars are here part of public space. If you find yourself on a busy Italian street just before dinner, you’ll find the locals dressing up for the passeggiata. People use the flattering evening light for the clothes they choose to wear.”
In other words, the walk becomes an act of socialization and becomes one of those urban pleasures that make us part of the city. As an exercise in introspection, the passeggiata materializes in many Spanish cities in the form of a boulevard, main street or promenade. These spaces become signs of local identity and unfortunately also crowds of attraction and tourists.
The walk becomes an act of socialization and becomes one of those urban pleasures that make us part of the city
Just as there are these open and pleasantly designed spaces, there are also mentions of spaces that have disappeared, others that survive, and even others that have grown stronger post-pandemic. The author’s discovery of such kinky spaces as the Coal Drops Yard, known as the new Mecca of London trends, appears in 2018 as a semi-private space near King’s Cross and St Pancras Station. Designed by Heatherwick Studio, this complex was a 19th-century coal warehouse and now houses nearly 10,000 square feet of retail and leisure space. In Seres Urbanos we have already talked about this type of spaces that turn into selected, restrictive and exceptional places. And it is precisely in London that the processes of privatizing space are not coming to an end.
It is important to mention Coal Drops Yard because the author recognizes this place as a place that attracted her for its modern, innovative and cosmopolitan quality, but at the same time she describes it as a spot that hides the conflict and where control , reducing the possibility of social interaction between different.
Reading space through observation and experience, walks and interactions with strangers, social relationships and affective attachments to specific places create our connectedness, desire and affection for the city. Rarely is a specific city written about from a phenomenological point of view. And I think it’s interesting to encourage readings by young aspiring writers explaining the city’s surroundings from observation and experience navigating the city streets. In short, writings that remain a love letter to city life; an ode to urban life.
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