Cityscape Lecture

What a nice pow wow with our architect guest Julian Worrall that was tonight. I felt there was so much to learn from his "Reading Cities" presentation. What a great idea it was to portray the city's urban space using concentric rings starting from the network to the station, plaza, and finally the train car. The transformation of the Japanese train station over the years from having individual persona to the generic box-like schematic, I found, is the same transition made of the modern Tokyoite as well. Today, everything is about efficiency at the cost of individuality. I'm linking today's lecture with the lecture on global media marketing and distribution given by the professor from MIT (his name escaped me) a couple of weeks ago during t-time. If any of you were there, you might remember the discussion drawing similarities between hip-hop musicians and the bushido spirit. Both camps sport attitude. Pride in one's self and representing superiority were outward personality traits shared by both. What happened to that vibrance? Part of that answer may be found in today's lecture on anonymity due to a necessity to create personal privacy in interpersonal public. I see it as a negative personal energy in response to the city's intense positive static energy. A ying/yang sort of thing. Aside from that, I liked picking up the information about how the train created an entire world of media based on the need for interpersonal space. Three to four minute short stories (manga) based on the time between stations is something I wouldn't have put together but is really obvious in hindsight. The personalities of station monuments, their backgrounds, propaganda, spirit, and their connection or disassociation with the people was really interesting as well. Julian Worrall himself seems like a really down to earth type of person who we can all learn a lot from without being afraid of saying the wrong thing. I'm looking forward to the future lectures.