fridaysixpm
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Hacienda Must Be Built
Ever since I went to Manchester I've been meaning to search out this quote. I read it at an exhibition there, on the Hacienda nightclub. Tangentially, the quote is over 140 characters: nice to see there's still a place for blogging.
And you, forgotten, your memories ravaged by all the consternations of two hemispheres, stranded in the Red Cellars of Pali-Kao, without music and without geography, no longer setting out for the hacienda where the roots think of the child and where the wine is finished off with fables from an old almanac. That’s all over. You’ll never see the hacienda. It doesn’t exist.
The hacienda must be built.
All cities are geological. You can’t take three steps without encountering ghosts bearing all the prestige of their legends. We move within a closed landscape whose landmarks constantly draw us toward the past. Certain shifting angles, certain receding perspectives, allow us to glimpse original conceptions of space, but this vision remains fragmentary. It must be sought in the magical locales of fairy tales and surrealist writings: castles, endless walls, little forgotten bars, mammoth caverns, casino mirrors.
-- IVAN CHTCHEGLOV, Formulary for a New Urbanism
