Publication details
Město jako pěší zážitek
| Title in English | The City as a Walking Experience |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2021 |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Prolonged walking in the landscape is a tool for a different perception of reality. When a person goes for a long time, s/he experiences a synchronization of body and mind, which triggers specific hormonal reactions. These, in connection with the leaching of adrenaline or endorphin, lead to unique experiences not only from nature, but also from the monuments that walkers encounter. Surprisingly, it also changes his/her ability to forge relationships with casual passers-by and the way others perceive him/her. But can thus also occure in a the city? Is it possible to experience a similar transformative experience within the urban ecosystem? Using the example of the three cities I have lived in for a long time - Rome, Moscow and New York - I would like to show in this lecture how much endless walking through the city can fundamentally change our perception of it. My premise will be the fact that the city is to some extent a living organism, created not only by walls and streets, but also by the people who fill its streets every day. It should be recalled that the city is created in a constant tension between the pursuit of structured development, which is supported primarily by political authorities, and the anarchic movement "from below" caused by the inhabitants, who constantly adapt the city to their image. In the lecture, I would like to present the three mentioned ecosystems as places that fundamentally change the walkers and which are at the same time transformed - in imagination and reality - into its image. |