P.D. Smith's Blog, page 8
October 14, 2011
Sentient City
My review of Sentient City: Ubiquitous Computing, Architecture, and the Future of Urban Space, which appeared in September's Icon magazine, is now online here. It's a fascinating collection of essays and speculations about the city of the future.
As the book's editor Mark Shephard says, we are "on the cusp of a near-future city capable of reflexively monitoring its environment and our behaviour within it, becoming an active agent in the organization of everyday life."
July 23, 2011
Enchanted Ground
Thomas Rowlandson's famous image of Vauxhall Gardens, depicting some of the celebrities of the day who visited the gardens to enjoy the music, fresh air and (as one person put it) the "strumpets". David Coke and Alan Borg have just written a wonderfully illustrated and engaging history of Vauxhall Gardens, which I've reviewed for today's Guardian:
'It must have been a truly magical experience to wander through the gardens at night, along tree-lined gravel walks, with bird-song and music in the air and light from the 20,000 oil-lamps twinkling among the branches (William Wordsworth, who visited aged 18, was struck by the "wilderness of lamps / Dimming the stars"). For 18th-century Londoners, it must have seemed like stepping into a dream world. As Fanny Burney's heroine Evelina says, it was "enchanted ground".'
Read the rest of my review here.
