Visible and invisible information on the streetscape
FC-01x Future Cities (1st Run) - Exercise 1 : "Making the Invisible - Visible"
Uploaded on 2014-12-07 by Ajoarriero
1.- This photo has been taken in Valencia, in the district of Benimaclet. We can see the trace of the tramway railway that is the link between Valencia's northern development and the former town of Benimaclet. There is a signal pointing the maximum speed for the cars at 30km/hour, since Vicente Zaragoza street is thought to give priority to bicycle traffic. We can appreciate the tramway's catenary hanging between high street lights adapted to the tram scale, and not that much to the street scale. 2.- Benimaclet was formerly a small town in Horta Nord surrounded by orchards and farms that supply the city of Valencia. Once the city developed its industry and grew, the farming stopped being the main economic activity. To absorb the growth of Valencia in the north and to connect the city center with the northern neighbourhoods and the beach in the west, a tramway was planned. On the photo we can observe the clash between the existing urban pattern of old Benimaclet and the more recent planning for the infrastructure: we can observe in the right side of the picture how there is still the rest of a former old household that we can easily conclude was built on a different orientation from the main orientation imposed by the tram railway to the newer households. We can add the problem of the parking in the area, as we can observe a saturation of parked cars in such a narrow street section. 3.- To understand the urban development of a city can be both a research matter or a matter of understanding what the physical reality in front of us is telling. In this case, anyone can tell this development and therefore notice the conflicts of shaping a growing city with an agricultural background. It is important to be sensitive to these traces in the cityscape because they determine a part of a collective memory and this is important to construct the character of a space and make a difference within the generic city last decades have given us. [1]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/1417970509922887.jpg