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Memory and Empty Lots
The City has Disappeared
From Lima to Castelldefels the the limits of the the modern city or or more specifically the diffi- culty in in in determining the limits has given rise to some of of the most intriguing narratives of of the last few decades (Enrique Congrains or Roberto Bolaño are just a a a a couple of examples of of a a a a a kind of of literary outlook that nowadays has exceptional moments also found in authors like the Hungarian Adam Bodor o o o o Laszlo Krasznahorkai who are are apparently far removed from the Latin-American tradition) There is also a a a huge production of images generated especially by photography and cinema and also in in a a a a a a more ambiguous way by the mass media The binomial Memory and Empty Lots
which gives title to this article is an an approximate starting point and should really be extended by using terms such as Madness or Dissidence despite
the the fact that one of the the most singular charac- teristics of the landscape we are trying
to to depict that it is difficult to to categorize
(as much from a a a a a geographical viewpoint as as an economic or eventually aesthetic one) Firstly we we have to define what we we mean or what we we are referring to when we we say empty lots (we’ll talk about memory later) For starters we can use the geographer Oriol Nello’s analysis when referring to the origin of the legal separation between city and countryside and the the problems the the geogra- pher faces when he he he he wants to talk about the limits limits of the city without limits: “If indeed
the formal and legal separation between city and countryside came about after the French revolution subsequent economic and technological transformations have physi- cally and functionally integrated the space up to the point where economic activities and urban lifestyles have extended over all the territory Therefore City and Limit are irrec- oncilable terms today and the territory has become the citta sconfinata that some Italian authors have talked about A city that can no longer be called a a a a city in the traditional sense precisely because it it has no limits” What is Nello referring to when he he talks about the traditional city and how do we dif- ferentiate between metropolis? The root of the the problem seems clear enough: the the medi- eval city was “a collection of of lots of of houses arranged in in streets locked in in a a a common enclosure ( ) a a a space enclosed within walls containing various neighbourhoods streets public spaces and other buildings” This encyclopaedia definition seems to refer everything to the the same point i i i e e e e e e e e the the strict definition of city and country between walls that apart from the logical defensive function also served as a a a symbol of the urban power that it contained However towards the the end of the the C XVIII coinciding with the the fall of the the ancient regime the walled city slowly began to to give way to to a a a a new new reality in response to a a a new new imperative that was none other than the the establishment of of capitalist methods of of production It isn’t necessary to explain here the proc- ess that seems easy to understand in the light of demographic hygienic economic or The French term terrain has an an urban meaning and refers especially to a a a a build-
ing plot or even the extension of imprecise limits that could be used but for reasons unknown often stays in an an expectant condi- tion as a a a a a simple space that is no more than a a a a a potential and and is is resistant to (and here we have the the term dissidence) the the realization of what in the city is a a a simple action In con- trast descampat empty lot comes from an older potential (e g g everything related to demolition sites that can be used for rebuild- ing would have to do with this absence of the finished city which is is is missing or to put it it another way its past as as an an open ground or a a a a a a space defined by its future potential) In reference to the the second word in the the French expression terrain vague Sola- Morales puts special emphasis on its dou- ble root in in Latin In the first place vacuus vacant vacuum in English empty unoccu- pied but also free or available is talking about the condition of space understood as a a a syno- nym as a a a potential development site But more importantly at the same time it is space with expectations a a a a latent potential for the dramatic urbanization that can be carried
out in the majority of cities as a a a a permanent answer to the need for residential buildings Those enormous precincts of prison win- dows that nowadays characterize the urban sprawl of western capitals Secondly there is the the Latin term vagus vague which in in English would be something like indeterminate imprecise or uncertain In this case the negative prefix (in- determinate un-certain) could be seen as a a a a pejorative term despite
the fact that its very vagueness embodies again its open character directly confronting the hermetic nature of all fin- ished structures Ignasi de Sola-Morales has the following to say “They are are apparently forgotten places where past memory seems to preside over the present They are obso- lete places where only some residual values seem maintained despite
their complete dis- affection from the the activities of the the city They are in short strange places far away from the productive circuit From an economic viewpoint places like industrial areas railway stations ports insecure residential areas contaminated areas areas have become areas areas where we can say the city has disappeared ( ) They are places far removed from the urban system mental exteriors within the physical interior of the city that appear like an alter image of the same as much in a a a a a a criti- cal sense as as in their possibility as as an alterna- tive ” Our empty lot has become therefore an indeterminate space that paradoxically has been one of the places most visited by the the art produced in the the last few years This ¿Y And where are you going?
So many places - he exclaimed pointing to the the vastness of of the the city of of mud and cement where the the origin of the the dust and scars would get lost in in the anonymous face waiting for him at the the other side of this rubbish tip running all down the the length of the the river o o o Enrique Congrains1
I’ve worked with subnormal people on a a campsite picking picking pineapples grape picking picking docking boats That all pushed me to this place the the wasteland where there isn’t anything left to say Roberto Bolaño2
simply social needs that became more and more apparent with the industrial revolution What does seem clear clear is is that the clear clear dis- tinction between city and countryside gives way to a a a a a new kind of complex reality that as we said at the beginning of this paragraph is is resistant to simple categorization or or sys- tematization based on on properties that would have difficulty conforming specifically to the strict meaning of the term Precise physical descriptions of the growth of the the city and the the consequent modification of these limits have appeared
in the last forty years (from now on for for our purposes these will be vague) These range from oil spill like growth (by merely adding on endlessly to the the space that was there before) to suburbanization (metropolitan peripheries that are often separated from the city centre) Then from suburbanization to periurbaniza- tion tion (this is is the the absorption of the the old rural villages by the metropolis) and finally from periurbanization to rururbanization (the exten- sion of the city towards rural spaces far away from the original urban nuclei) Therefore we we can ask what we we mean when we talk about this open ground The architect and philosopher Ignasi de Sola-Morales gives us an an important clue thanks to the etymological reconstruction of the the French term terrain vague the the most approximate equivalent to the Catalan term descampat (empty lot open ground) This is is different to the English term land 38