Today’s cities are mostly accessible. One can even say that there is only one global city, with some parts of this city (for example, Berlin or Paris) only reachable from other parts (New York, São Paulo or Deli) by plane. Thus, the global city structure remains u-topian because communication between its individual parts takes place in air. That affects the cities immensely. Airports begin to be the new city centers—places where you can buy whatever you want, watch movies, etc. Churches are already there. The next steps are adding museums and universities.
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Every urban population believes in having its own collective psychology. One can ridicule this belief, but it has produced a lot of poetry, music and cinema that we are accustomed to valuing. The volume of poems about Parisian air or St. Petersburg’s weather is a sufficient justification for their architecture. However, if we don’t speak about art that is stimulated by a city but about art in the public space, then one should be very careful. The chance that any really good artwork can go though all possible channels that evaluate it is minimal. And, in general, art that is exhibited outside of arts institutions has to additionally identify itself as art. That makes art shown in the public space even more conservative than art shown within the framework of institutions.
(via Tomorrow Museum)