Page 9 - Vertical City

INTRODUCTION 9

correspond to an overactive lifestyle connected well
beyond traditional neighbourhoods require collective
organization and increasingly sophisticated networks.

The direction that this collective organization and
these networks point to is not only controlled by, but
also driven by, the connectivity of the “Web”.

This connectivity is the renaissance of the individual
capable of opposition to the collective and makes it pos-
sible to envisage today’s life in a high-rise building and in
polycentric cities of a nature never experienced before.

High-rise architecture and urbanization in the second
half of the Twentieth century are associated with social
isolation.

The claustrophobic elevator where chatter stops to
the discomfort of all until the doors open at last, the
stairwell landings artificially illuminated and ventilated,
with little view except the few doors to the adjacent
apartments certainly do not provide the conviviality of
the street. And yet, nothing now limits a new way to
look at the circulation routes and the vertical network in
all security and in imitation of the street and the neigh-
borhood to provide sunshine, natural illumination and
ventilation, transparency and views, and some places
here and there along the vertical path of glass-encased
elevators where conversations can take place naturally.

The horizontal networks of a monocentric city,
spreading out in inverse proportion to the density of the

la recherche du ‘home scientifique’”, in La Science et la vie, n°.102,
December 1925, pp.546-556. “Le ‘gratte-ciel’ est, aujourd’hui, l’im-
meuble idéal pour le confort économique et rationnel”.