Slow Motion

Abstract

Talk of speed is the companion to the modern project. Ever growing speed seems to be characteristic of the modern life, at least our perspective on this life. There are many examples of the relation between the modern project and high speed. A perhaps limited but obvious example is to be found in the history of architecture and urbanism and the Italian futurists’ affection for the high speed and the low viscosity of the city (Banham 1980). Another example from the history of architecture is the modernist architect’s habit to put a fast car in front of their new buildings photographed to overcome the immobility of the house and its attachment to the place and ground. A superficial glance sees this striving for urban speed as an attitude of limited significance. But understood in relation to the development of the history of city planning, these attitudes and ideas are of great concrete importance and consequence.