Spaces of Absence in the European City: Stitching Urban Infrastructure to Contemporary Collective Life

Abstract

This paper examines spaces in the European City that are often defined as peripheral, empty and absent. “Spaces of absence” – as Koolhaas defined them in an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist – can have a stronger presence as a consequence of their history and, like the Berlin wall, generate a unique condition. In an empty city center or on city outskirts they often evolve organically. Focusing on Madrid and Rome, this paper first, proposes to re-visit the significance of Stefano Boeri’s peripheral sites in L’anticitta (or The Anticity), “terrain vague” or waste ground (Ignasi de Sol a-Morales) sites and Marc Aug e’s Non-place(s). Second, it uses the visual essay to contemplate the critical role that these three types of spaces of absence can have in the European city and argues that the very attribute of absence that they contain can, conversely, create urban presence by stitching together urban infrastructure and everyday collective life. Introduction: Spaces of Absence In an interview conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Rem Koolhaas explains that: ARCHITECTURE AND CULTURE Alona Martinez Perez Leicester School of Architecture, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK alona.martinezperez@dmu. ac.uk