City with (No) Ad Signs

Sao Paulo is on the move to become a city with no advertising sign. In the long run, if this city persists, how might it alter the perception of its citizen?

Contrast this with Italo Calvino's image of an industrial city of nothern Italy in the 1960s:

Born and raised in the city, ... [Michelino] had never seen a forest, not even at a distance. ... [Michelino and his brother] walked around the city, illuminated by street lamps, and they saw only houses: not a sign of a forest. ... And so they reached the area where the houses of the city ended and the street turned into a highway.

At the sides of the highway, the children saw the forest: a thick growth of strange trees blocked the view of the plain. Their trunks were very very slender, erect or slanting; and their crowns were flat and outspread, revealing the strangest shapes and the strangest colors when a passing car illuminated them with its headlights. Boughs in the form of a toothpaste tube, a face, cheese, hand, razor, bottle, cow, tire, all dotted with a foliage of letters of the alphabet.

"Hurrah!" Michelino said. "This is the forest!"

...

That evening there was a report that on the superhighway a bunch of kids was knocking down billboards.

From Italo Calvino, "The forest on the superhighway", in "Marcovaldo: or Seasons in the City" p. 36-39.

Navigating Space with Poor Signs (2 of 2)

The city is redundant: it repeats itself so that something will stick in the mind. …
Memory is redundant: it repeats signs so that the city can begin to exist.
Italo Calvino, “Invisible Cities”, Harvest Book, 1974: 19.

Take a look at these series of pictures below. They are taken from the point of view of a passenger car running at 20-30 kilometer per hour. Can you see where RCTI is?

It’s on picture #3, with entrance after the tree.

If you can’t see it, it’s because the building is indistinguishable and the signage is hidden by the tree. If you are driving alone, and you don’t particularly looking for it, slow down considerably, turn your attention from the traffic in front of you, and have 20/20 vision, you will definitely miss it.

And this explains why, after passing the same route from home to the university every week for the past two years, only recently I know exactly where RCTI is.

I have encountered similar problems when looking for particular buildings I’ve never been in Jakarta. Perhaps the advertising agencies got it better than architects. In this immense city maneuverable only by cars, architectural design will have to take into account the speed of the car, the signage system of the building, and the angle of vision of the drivers.

Navigating Space with Poor Signs (1 of 2)

It’s been a while since I passed through Meruya in West Jakarta until the other day when I found that the otherwise straight route now has two additional detours. The first detour enforces vehicles to turn left into a side street right into a housing area and before turning left again to reach the main street. The second detour enforces vehicles to turn left again, makes a U-turn before turning left again to reach the main street. Along with a previously existing detour, now when you passed through the main street, you would have to detour three times with a total distance of a kilometer or two.

I am not going to complain about the shortcut regulations again here. But as I was trying to ignore my growing anxiety of being lost in an unknown area so I wouldn’t lose my orientation towards the main street, it suddenly dawned on me why I dislike detours in Jakarta. It’s because most of them only have one sign pointing towards the direction of the detour, and then no other signs could be found to direct you back to where you want to go in the first place. It wouldn’t be a big deal if the streets are laid out in grid or if you have good sense of orientation. But otherwise, I’m sure you’d agree with me that it’s not easy to navigate ourselves in Jakarta in an unfamiliar area, and especially if there happen to be some detours in the area.

A phrase from Learning from Las Vegas makes perfect sense in relation to this:

“A driver 30 years ago could maintain a sense of orientation in space. At the simple crossroad a little sign with an arrow confirmed what was obvious. One knew where one was. When the crossroads becomes a cloverleaf, one must turn right to turn left, … [but] the driver has no time to ponder paradoxical subtleties within a dangerous, sinuous maze. He or she relies on signs for guidance – enormous signs in vast spaces at high speeds.” [1]

And where are those signs in Jakarta?


Note
[1] Venturi, Scott-Brown & Izenour, "Learning from Las Vegas", MIT Press, 1977:9.

The Profile Image

Finally I found the perfect image for my profile! I came across these set of signs in Cardiff: apparently Dewi is Welsh for David. Coincidence? I think not. It’s just that some society, somewhere got it completely right! :) So if you keep looking for something, somehow, somewhat, somewhere, you will find it.

Learning from Everything

I finally got my own copy of the classic “Learning from Las Vegas” and finished reading it over the break. Here’s an excerpt from the book:

There is a perversity in the learning process: We look backward at history and tradition to go forward; we can also look downward to go upward. And withholding judgment may be used as a tool to make later judgment more sensitive. This is a way of learning from everything.
Venturi, Brown & Izenour, “Learning from Las Vegas”, revised edition, The MIT Press, 1977: 3.

Just for Fun

Take a good look at this photograph.

Yup, you got that right! It’s the new BMW 116i being showcased in front of the main gate to UPH’s campus. If you think that the two image don’t seem to belong together, and the campaign seems a rather early induction for a desired life style, you may want to think again :)