[via Reaction [beta])

Note that the currently posted Streets albums may be viewed at the following links: Tokyo, London, Seoul, Gibraltar, Barcelona, Andalusia.

In my recent correspondence:

“I’m confused… You go all the way to Tokyo and spend your time taking pictures of manhole covers and sewer drains? Am I missing something here?”

 * * *

“I didn’t know you like photography. Cool. What made you decide your particular focus?”

* * *

“What also struck me powerfully was how many of your photos were photos I’ve taken, if less artistically. I’m so fascinated by shapes and textures, and of concrete material goods that lead an abstract existence simultaneously.  Picking up on the geometry of the Seoul palace, walls, and pothole covers are all in my repertoire as well. […]

“A word about the architectural symmetry and how it spoke of the power and authority of the monarch. According to Confucian thought (which lives strikingly in Korea even more than in Japan or China), there is Heaven and there is Earth (including humanity), and it is the responsibility of the ruler to put Earth into order according to the divine principles of Heaven. What better way to represent the monarch’s ability to create order than to create symmetrical space?”

It’s time for me to talk a little about this manhole cover fetish fascination…

Lens focus? Interest focus? Nokia made me decide my particular focus, you might say — the pictures are all taken with my cell phone (not so amazing), because it’s there with me. I do take pictures other than streets (!) but I post the streets, because it is something different from the norm.

I am interested by a couple of aspects of “street design”:

(1) There is a conversation that happens on the ground. Sometimes it’s very loud, as in colored signs and lane markings, communicating between the city or an institution and the public. Sometimes it’s subtle, as in spray painted notations by city workers. I like eavesdropping on that conversation, and I’m interested in the communication and “language” that is used; the assumptions made about who is listening, and what they understand.

(2) Different cities have very different patterns and systems for infrastructure access holes — in some places, everything seems modular (a few standard sizes); in other places, everything looks pretty chaotic. Some cities seem to care a lot about the beauty of even the manhole covers; some really don’t. I think that says something about a culture and about feelings about the city.

(3) There’s design at work even on manhole covers — some are beautiful; others ugly. Some are very useful, and identify what’s in them very specifically; others are generic, or nearly so. That’s a form of industrial design that probably has scope for improvement, and seems interesting — identifying who needs to know? (the public? the maintenance workers? other repair people?) what do they need to know? how best to convey the information? what are the risks of making the information known?

Anyway… you’re getting an earful!

Best,

Sarah

Seen in Jerusalem:

I’m sure this has some street significance of which I am not aware. Please, if you know… don’t tell me.

Seen at a crosswalk in Palo Alto, CA:

I don’t quite get it, but I like it.

seen in Jerusalem:

Subverting the subversive.

“they shall beat their swords into plowshares paintbrushes”

Savoring interpretations of the basic outdoor bench in Tokyo’s Ebisu neighborhood: