Tag: paris

• 50th year anniversary of Playtime

  This month is the 50th year anniversary of the Jacques Tati film, Playtime. Initially released in December 1967, Playtime is a French comedy that is often considered to be director Tati’s most notable work. Apparently it was commercially unsuccessful at the time of its release. But it has since become recognized, at least by some, as one of the greatest films ever made.

  The film is a satire of modern society. And so it’s also a funny critique on modern architecture and the prevailing ideologies at the time. Watch the trailer below and you’ll very clearly see this relationship: a Frenchman lost in a new, modern Paris. I remember watching one of his earlier movies – Mon Oncle – in one of my undergraduate architecture classes.

  If you can’t see the trailer below, click here:

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrYB8hgyq4s&w=560&h=315]

  2017.12.10

• Drip, subscription platform for artists and creators

  

  Kickstarter has just relaunched a subscription service for artists and creators called Drip. It is an acquisition that Kickstarter made a few years ago and so that’s why it’s a relaunch. Here is the blog post announcement.

  The simplest way to describe Drip is as follows: “Kickstarter is for projects, Drip is for people.” In other words, instead of backing a specific project, you back the human for, say, $10 a month. It’s a tool for people to fund creators so that they have the freedom to make their work.

  Now compare this model to that of the 19th century Salon in Paris. Arguably the greatest art event in the Western world during its prime, getting exhibited at the Salon was basically a right of passage for artists.

  But the Salon had specific criteria for what it considered to be good and acceptable art. Perhaps most famously, 19th century Impressionism – which some would call the first truly modern art movement in painting – was not considered acceptable.

  The Impressionists routinely had their work refused by the Salon, which is why they ended up having to organize their own shows. Good for them.

  So when I see something like Drip, I think about how amazing it is that we now have platforms where artists and creators have the freedom to make what they want to make and the market – instead of a stuffy institution – can decide what is good and worth supporting. 

  Check out Shantell Martin if you’re looking to explore Drip. I recently discovered her work and I’m a fan.

  Image: Coney Art Walls by Shantell Martin

  2017.11.16

• Planning dinner, smart cities, and privacy

  

  This evening I attended the 27th Annual Toronto Planning Dinner. It’s an annual dinner for people in planning and development, put on by the University of Waterloo Planning Alumni of Toronto. Thank you Wood Bull LLP for the invite.

  The keynote speaker was Dr. Anthony Townsend. He is the author of SMART CITIES: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia. I haven’t read it (yet), but his talk offered a preview of it and I think it would be of interest to all of you.

  It deals with many of the topics that we discuss on this blog, one of which is the interrelationship between our physical environment and the networks and software layers that we are now building on top of it.

  These layers have the potential to augment and enhance our cities (maybe make them smarter), but they also have the potential to do us harm. One important issue that Townsend brought up is that of privacy.

  Cities used to enable anonymity. 

  When essayist and art critic Charles Baudelaire wrote about “modernity” in 19th century industrializing Paris, it referred to an ephemeral and fleeting kind of urban environment. Pass someone on the street and you may never see them again. That must have felt sad at the time.

  Today we live in a fish bowl. 

  Networks connect us, check us in, ping us when we are nearby people we know, and help us find people to meet and date. And we already have devices, like Alexa, that spy on us in our homes so that companies can serve us targeted ads. (This is deplorable by the way.)

  Will the city of the future endeavour to do the same as we equip it with more “smarts”?

  I guess that’s why Townsend believes that privacy will define a big part of 21st century urbanism. There’s no doubt that it will be very important.

  2017.11.10

• Photographing architecture studios

  

  Marc Goodwin – who is part of a photography studio called Archmospheres – has an ongoing project where he photographs the studios of architects. 

  He has photographed well known practices such as MAD, Renzo Piano, and David Chipperfield, as well as a number of geographic niches such as Paris architecture studios, Nordic architecture studios, and London architecture studios. 

  He also varies the size of the firm. Some of them only have a few people working out of a small streetfront retail space.

  As an architect, you are pretty much required to have a cool studio space. So this is certainly an interesting photography project to take on. The photo at the top of this post is 3xn in Copenhagen.

  Image: Marc Goodwin via Designboom

  2017.02.08

• European cities by rail connectivity

  This is a terrific set of maps published by The Washington Post (2015) using data originally collected and published by Peter Kerpedjiev:

  

  What they show is how far you can travel in a 24 hour period using only trains and brisk walking from a collection of 28 European cities. In a few cases, such as from London to Dublin, a ferry ride is also included.

  Here’s a zoom in on London:

  

  The obvious takeaway is that Western Europe is very well connected, whereas many parts of Eastern Europe are not. Some cities, such as Tallinn (Estonia) and Podgorica (Montenegro) are almost completely disconnected.

  Of course today there’s stiff competition from air travel.

  2016.11.21

• World’s best city brands

  Resonance Consultancy – they do brands and strategies for places and products – has just released a new report called: World’s Best City Brands – A Global Ranking of Place Equity.

  With all of these sorts of rankings, it really depends on the research methodology being used and the rigor in which it is being applied. In this case, they evaluated each city based on “six pillars of equity”:

  1. Place: Perceived quality of a city’s natural and built environment
  2. Product: A city’s key institutions, attraction and infrastructure
  3. Programming: The arts, culture and entertainment in a city
  4. People: Immigration and diversity of a city
  5. Prosperity: Employment, GDP per capita entertainment in a city and corporate head offices
  6. Promotion: Quantity of articles, references of a city and recommendations online

  What’s perhaps unique about this study is that it combines measurable statistics with “visitor perception metrics” – data that they mined from social media. Here’s an excerpt from the methodology page:

  “Our team became interested in the way visitors and citizens themselves influence the identity and perception of cities. Increasingly, they do it through their evaluation of experiences on social media and via the comments, images and reviews they share with family, friends and people around the world. These opinions and attitudes, much more than traditional marketing, influence the way people perceive places today.”

  This is a fascinating shift for city brands and is something that we have discussed before on this blog. All of us are now involved in telling the story of the places in which we live and visit.

  The entire report is well done and worth a read. It’s also a free download (you’ll need to enter your contact info). But below are the top 10 world’s best city brands. Not really any surprises for me. What about for you?

  

  2016.11.08

• Rinse and repeat

  

  Venture capitalist Matt Turck has a post up on his blog that is packed full of information about the New York City tech ecosystem. (He has also written similar posts about Berlin and Paris.)

  His overall thesis is that New York – as a startup/tech hub – is only now starting to catch up to the hype of 4 or 5 years ago. He now refers to NYC as the de facto Number 2 after the Bay Area.

  If you’re interested in all of this, you can go read his full post. But I would like to pull out 2 points. The first is about the “rinse and repeat” cycle that happens over time that allows cities to become substantive startup hubs:

  As any student of emerging tech ecosystems knows, the key dynamic to success is the “rinse and repeat” cycle. You need several waves of successful tech companies to go through the whole cycle of founding, financing, scaling and significant exit.   Post-exit, the hope is that successful founders, employees and investors then contribute back both money and expertise to the next generation of tech startups, a few of which eventually become highly successful themselves and then provide money and expertise to the following generation.

  The trouble is, each successive cycle takes years, because the average successful startup takes 5 to 10 years to get to a large exit.

  One key reason the Silicon Valley has become such a powerful network is that this “rinse and repeat” cycle has been happening there for decades, at least since the 1940s and 1950s (Hewlett Packard), with a real acceleration in the 1970s and 1980s (Apple IPO, founding of Kleiner Perkins, etc).

  I’ve written about this idea before, but didn’t refer to it as “rinse and repeat.” I’m thinking about adopting that terminology going forward.

  The second is a list of New York-based startups. Matt uses it as an example of how entrepreneurial activity in New York is operating across a broad cross-section of different industries. That’s an important characteristic to identify.

  However, I also thought you might find it valuable to see what startups are out there, particularly if you happen to work in one of the below verticals/horizontals. I certainly went right to the real estate line.

  Fintech: Betterment, IEX, Fundera, Bond, Orchard, Bread
  Health: Oscar, Flatiron Health, ZocDoc, Hometeam, Recombine, Celmatix, BioDigital, ZipDrug
  Education: General Assembly, Schoology, Knewton, Skillshare, Flatiron School, Codecademy
  Real estate: WeWork, HighTower, VTS, Compass, Common, Reonomy
  Enterprise SaaS: InVision, NewsCred, Sprinklr, Namely, JustWorks, Greenhouse, Percolate, Mark43, Movable Ink
  Commerce infrastructure: Bluecore, Custora, Welcome Commerce
  Marketplaces: Kickstarter, Vroom, 1stdibs
  On Demand: Handy, Via, Managed by Q, Hello Alfred
  Food: Blue Apron, Plated, Maple
  IoT/Hardware: littleBits, Canary, Peloton, Shapeways, SOLS, Estimote, Dash, GoTenna, Raden, Ringly, Augury, Drone Racing League
  AR/VR/3D: Sketchfab, Floored

  I was happy to see my friends at Floored in the above list. They are under AR/VR/3D, but they service the real estate industry.

  2016.07.16

• Why Toronto needs a night mayor

  

  Recently I wrote about the first Night Mayor Summit being held in Amsterdam. As part of this, I spoke about Amsterdam’s first night mayor – Mirik Milan.

  Since then (but obviously not because of my post), the idea has seemingly taken off. Below are a couple of excerpts from a recent Guardian article.

  This pragmatic and classically Dutch notion is now being copied across Europe: Toulouse, Zurich, Paris as well as several other Dutch cities have night mayors too.

  This week the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, announced plans for a “Night-Time Commission”, a six-month assessment of how to protect and manage the city’s £66bn night-time economy which is likely to recommend the creation of a “night-time champion” role. 

  Berlin is considering it too, and in April, Amsterdam will host the first global Night Mayors’ Summit.

  Why is this happening? Simple:

  “Late-night people are typically young, educated, creative, entrepreneurial – people you want in your city, and who work in the creative industries and startups you also want. If places like Berlin have flourished, it’s not just because of low rents. It’s because they’re nightlife capitals.”

  So if you’re reading this, Mayor John Tory, now is probably your last chance to make Toronto a North American leader in this regard. 

  It’s great that we are trying to push the Toronto – Waterloo region as a global startup hub, but so is every other major city and region in the world. A focus on startups is so commonplace in today’s economic development strategies, that at this point it almost feels meaningless. What are we going to do to stand out in this competition for the world’s best talent?

  If everyone believes something to be true – such as, there’s value in having a robust startup ecosystem – then it’s no longer innovative. It’s just the way things are. To take it to the next level, we’re going to have to do things that will probably feel uncomfortable at first – particularly for old establishment Toronto.

  I’m not saying that having a night mayor is going to be the silver bullet for our startup ecosystem. There’s no such thing. But I am saying that it should be one component of our larger strategy. 

  Because already there’s a growing number of European cities who have come to this one simple realization: people are drawn to kickass places.

  If you agree with this post, I would encourage you to leave a comment below and also tweet the Mayor of Toronto.

  Image: Berlin nightlife by Tom Stromer

  2016.03.26

• Out of sight, out of mind

  Henry Grabar has an interesting piece in the March 2016 issue of The Atlantic talking about Paris’s ambitious metro expansion. By 2030, and after $25 billion of investment, the Paris system will gain four new lines, 68 stations, and more than 120 miles (192 kilometers) of track. 

  To put this into perspective, this additional track length is roughly equal to Toronto’s entire subway and streetcar network, including all under construction and approved lines.

  But the real focus of Grabar’s article was on how this transit investment will really stitch Paris back together:

  “Three of the new lines will run north and east of Paris, through Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest of the 96 departments in France. Among French cities with at least 50,000 people, six of the seven with the highest percentage of foreign-born residents are in Seine-Saint-Denis. Residents of Clichy-sous-Bois, where the riots that swept the region in 2005 began, will for the first time find central Paris within a 45-minute train ride. The town of Saint-Denis, the site of the standoff between police and the terrorists who struck Paris in November, will be home to the project’s largest train station. Designed by the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, the junction is expected to handle 250,000 passengers a day.”

  Below is a map (from the same article) showing the location of Clichy-sous-Bois to the east of Paris and the area reachable within 45 minutes from this suburb, both today and in 2030 when the new metro lines open.

  

  Having traveled to Paris in 2006, shortly after the riots took place, I remember some Parisians telling me that this was not a Paris problem. They told me that this was a problem of the banlieues, but not of Paris. Seeing how separate Clichy-sous-Bois is today, that is probably how it felt to some or most. But based on the above, the Paris region is about to be stitched together.

  What I love about Grabar’s article is this idea that transit and connectivity represent a kind of citizenship for urban residents. And that even today, in our hyper connected world, physical access matters a great deal. Because without it, you might be out of sight, out of mind.

  On that note, here is how the article ends:

  Benoît Quessard, an urban planner for the local government, told me that he sees the expansion as not merely “an economic wager but also a social one.” In this sense, it will test an old Parisian belief about the Métro conferring, beyond convenience, a kind of citizenship on its riders. In 1904, four years after the first line opened, the writer Jules Romains predicted that the system would be a “living, fluid cement that will succeed in holding men together.”

  2016.02.13

• That hustle and bustle

  

  https://500px.com/embed.js

  One of things I love about cities is the hustle and bustle of people. 

  I would rather eat at a busy restaurant than a quiet or dead one. I would rather workout at a busy gym than one with nobody there. And I would rather work in an office or at a coffee shop than work at home by myself. Working at home actually drains me if I do too much of it.

  The reason for that is because I derive a lot of my energy from the outside world. Urban life energizes me. To Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, that is the defining characteristic of an extrovert. I am focused on the “outside world of objects.”

  But because of this, I can’t help but slowdown during the holidays. Once the city dials down and the streets become emptier, my mood actually changes. I don’t feel as energized.

  It’s fascinating to think about the connection that many of us have with urban life. Since the first cities were established there has always been some kind of centralized place, market, or agora (in the case of ancient Greek cities) where people came together to exchange goods and ideas.

  But one of the most interesting turning points for modern urban life, as we know it today, came in 19th century France with poets and writers such as Charles Baudelaire.

  At the time that Baudelaire was active, Paris was undergoing Hussmannization. It was being transformed from a medieval city with cramped narrow streets into a modern metropolis of broad avenues.

  And essential to these new streets and urban spaces was the flâneur. At the time, the flâneur was an important literary and artistic figure. He was a man about town. A man of leisure. An urban explorer in the new modern metropolis.

  Here is how Baudelaire defined the flâneur in his Painter of Modern Life:

  The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.

  One of the central themes at the time was that of anonymity. The modern city had grown to such a scale that a paradox had emerged. Despite all its density and physical proximity, urban life had an isolating effect. It had become easy to just be a number in an ephemeral crowd.

  But fascinating to me is this idea that urban life – with all its ebbs and flows – could bring “immense joy” to the flâneur. In fact, the very definition of a flâneur was someone who did nothing. They weren’t capitalists on the pursuit of new material possessions. Their sole focus was urban life and nothing else.

  And while most of us probably don’t routinely wander around our own cities as tourists without purpose, I suspect that many of us can appreciate the impact that urban life has on us. I know I do. It gives me energy.

  2015.12.27