Page 46 - Studio International - May 1973

On travelling*

Constant
Travel Sketch 1965
The Hague Gemeentemuseum

Among the buildings that form a city —
buildings of many natures and functions — there
are some which play a very special part. These
buildings, or groups of buildings, have an
atmosphere of their own which deviates from
that of the rest of the city, their function is in a
sense contradictory to the function of the city,
they represent an intrusion on the principle of
the city, they are as it were cities within cities.
These buildings have to do with departures and
arrivals — stations, harbour installations,
airports.
The city, in the usual sense of the word, is a
place to live, a settlement, a habitat, a place
where a number of people have organized their
existence in a community, where they have
created the provisions that such an existence
calls for, where they find that which they need
in order to go on living: work, shelter, transport
facilities, distribution centres for consumer
goods, recreation and possibilities of
development. There are four functions of the
city as defined by Le Corbusier: living, working,
recreation and traffic to and from work. This
characterizes the atmosphere of the modern work, so they give up their sedentary way of life, fluctuating population, the people have no
functional city, the atmosphere of life and work, the old urge to wander resurfaces. intention of staying or settling down: they have
the living-atmosphere of homo faber. Everything Mechanization is not restricted to the arrived and plan to go into the city; or they
in the functional city is directed at production: production processes, it extends equally to are about to leave and have already detached
the factories and offices, the working-class transport, which becomes more and more themeselves from the city's life; they are
dwellings in the suburbs, public transport rapid — in response to the demand for quick prepared for the adventure of the forthcoming
between the residential areas and centres of travel to destinations that are further and trip or they are transit passengers, and are to
work, conveniences like shops, hospitals, clinics, further away. When the holidays start and continue an adventure that started elsewhere.
educational institutions. Everything in these city-dwellers leave their work for a few weeks, The population of an airport is not a community
functional cities is aimed at utility, everything there is a peak in the use of transport. The city is but a heterogenous company of people. All sorts
has to be efficient. The functional city is the deserted by its workers and tourists from other of languages can be heard, Babylonic confusion
most highly developed form of the settlement, cities replace them, tourists who pass through reigns, extraordinary demands on food and
with the highest productivity since Neolithic the city in search of adventure — the modern drink are made, there are people of all races, all
man started to produce his own goods and to nomads. This temporary population makes cultures and every social class. But, most
build the first villages. Since man was forced to different demands on the city from those the important, they are in an unfamiliar situation,
give up his nomadic way of life, the earth has permanent population makes. They require not not at home — they are travellers in a strange
been covered by an increasingly dense blanket of homes but hotels, not places to work but places environment where their usual norms and
constructions. Natural vegetation has had to of entertainment. And their comings and goings standards have lost value, they are displaced and
make way for the living-layer of stone which has are concentrated where normal city-life is least have only each other to turn to. Contacts are
become the new home of the sedentary, working, manifest — where the city opens up to admit the made which, in normal circumstances, would be
human being. The city is — and has been since outside world. more difficult to establish. Conversations are
its invention — specifically a place to stay. Travel is not only increasingly important held between strangers who will never meet
That is why the buildings that have to do because of its growing frequency, but also and again.
with departures, with travelling, are buildings especially because of the ever-greater distances In short, airports play the part of 'social
with a special atmosphere, with a divergent being covered, by increasingly rapid means of space' in a way that has become impossible in
function. Travelling signifies a break in the transport. Therefore the quickest means of the functional city of today. Once it was at the
pattern of everyday life. The traveller abandons transport — the aeroplane — exhibits the greatest annual fair that people could meet, the place
his settlement. He goes to other places, where rise in capacity and use. The airports, usually where contacts were made: the social space for
he is not at home, where he is not sedentary, not situated outside the city centres, are becoming citizens of the world, the 'acculturation zone'
a resident. He resumes, perhaps, the nomadic new centres of activity, an activity that is where the dissemination of culture took place.
existence he led before he was obliged to settle different from the bustle of city life. The Later, the railway stations became the centres
in one fixed place. Travel is increasing in direct atmosphere is not that of people hurrying home, of social intercourse. Even now metropolitan
proportion to the diminution of work. With the shopping for their evening meal, rushing to railway stations are meeting places for those
increase in leisure time the action-radius of work, or of people seeking relaxation and quiet who stand outside the urban community. The
every individual is expanding. As people at the end of the day : no, this atmosphere has a so-called 'guest workers' meet and make contact
become less tied down geographically by their nature all its own. Airports are filled with a with each other in railway stations by
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