Nomadic City
The concept of the Nomadic City is an attempt to express in an urban form the phenomenon of growing mobility which is overwhelming contemporary society. The lifestyle of a more and more significant number of citizens is based on their continuous movement from one place to another without residing in a stable manner in any of them. They are the "urban nomads", beings equipped with the technological paraphernalia (mobile phones, laptops, electronic agendas...) that allow them to be permanently on the move. Uprooting, mobility, instability - these are the nouns that govern their lives and the urban shapes of the Nomadic City where they live.
The Nomadic City corresponds to a specific type of architecture, the key to which is flexibility. Its forms tend towards being incomplete, open, and non hierarchical, towards merging with the exterior, the dismantling of internal-external limits, the amalgamation of simple elements. The materials that accompany the architectural discourse of the Nomadic City are often interchangeable or even disposable.
In such circumstances the inhabitants cannot link their collective memory with architectural events; they are incapable of generating urban milestones and can only create points of reference where, as occurs in the case of the Atla Building in Shinjuku, Tokyo, a huge video screen attracts citizens seeking information. This is the logic of the Nomadic City, where there is no place for anything tactile or tectonic that recalls the originality, locality, or essential nature of raw materials.
Links
- ParoleDictionary on the contemporary city