7 thoughts on “Skateboarding, Space and the City”

1. I’ve ordered my copy, looking forward to it. It’s always fascinating to imagine the view of an environment such as a city through the eyes of a particular subculture, the way they view, adapt, consume and map space.

   I got a sense of what it might be like to be a drug addict when I became temporarily obsessed by Panini trading cards during the Euro 2008 football championships. For a while they were in quite short supply, and not wishing to frequent certain shops too often, I started to form a mental map of the city based on the retail outlets that stocked such goodies, a grid of likelihoods and potentialities. I would go on long mazey journeys seeking out my fix. For a while, London was refigured purely on it’s density of trading card stockists. I’m sure it’s the same for skateboarders.

   (You know you’re in trouble when you start hiding packs of trading cards around the house so your girlfriend doesn’t find out how much time and money you’re spending on them).

2. I think you’ll like it. Your mental map reminds me of Jonathan Raban’s book Soft Cities which I really recommend to you if you haven’t read it. I leant out my copy some time ago and never got it back. The mental map forming of London is a really strong thread in that book as I recall.
   If Football cards is all your girlfriend has to worry about she should be OK!

3. ..i took a few minutes to think why it is that I’m probably not interested in this perspective – beyond the natural bias I have against them being a surfer (why skate when the water is warm and the waves pumping).

   Maybe it’s something to do how overplayed skaters are in the understanding of city. For starters – I would venture to say that they utilize the city in inovative ways but they are an exclusive activity – they don’t add – they replace ‘use’: I wonder how many people are actually happy when the skaters turn up on, I can’t remember ever seeing an audience for the skaters on Southbank in London – and it seemed people were simply relieved when they had gone after coming behind them on the pavement.

   I’ve watched plenty of skaters, watched the movies, kicked a few ollies and even had shared a bowl or two with them on the trick bmx.

   The movies are amazing but the real life drama played out on handrails, stairs, stone seats etc around the city is much more mundane.

   ..need to stop there, back to work

4. Dave,

   Thanks for the comment. I had a few friends who used to skate so guess I was on the fringes of the skater fraternity without ever really being one. Maybe I’m looking at their world in a slightly longing and therefore uncritical way. So the point you make about it being an exclusive activity and even agressive to non skaters did not occur to me and is very well made.

   Skating in of itself has a conciously maintained ant-social attitude to non skaters I think, and the act of skating a city itself you could say makes others just additional hazards for the skater to overcome. Still spatial and city rebellion are good things to learn from.

5. and btw, the comment..

   “not just a post-modern abstract philosophical theory bootstrapped onto architectural thought like so many post-modern theories over the last 20 years”

   is a classic…I’m sure we all have similar misgivings for the hoodwinking and ‘wool over the eyes’ that the academic community has subjected architecture and art students to over the years.

   I’m sure skating can re-interpret the way we experience the city, but skaters grow up and grow out of thrill seeking. The thing that remains, is of course, the friendships skaters made with each other in all those years on the streets – which are then played out in a whole new way – a much more sustainable and amicable way, amongst the urban fabric.

   I notice that tagging has gone crazy in Espoo recently, with Espoo Hardcore hitting a number of buildings along Länsiväylä. Yes, I could appreciate this new urban experience, treat it as a changing urban wallpaper expressing the feelings of restlessness and championship from the cities aspiring creative class…or I can just say that its as artistic as starring at a car crash and it just ruins idyllic city moments (like the quaint yellow cottage on Karhusaari – now completely splashed in clashing tones)

   Banksy can graffiti. He adds. I lived in Shoreditch for 7 years. Banksy was the local hero.

   Espoo Hardcore is pure vanity. It replaces.

   Maybe its like the multi-valence postmodern theory (but instead of taking a ‘reading’ of an aesthetic, take a reading of ‘program’. Any activity which has a single meaning or completely dominant use is a detraction. Things like H&D’s new Madrid gallery, which includes external public (probably skaters too sadly) space on the ground floor, makes for a rich addition to the urban story – even if it’s so small – it’s inclusive. Of course, once the skaters move in, anyone else in there sheltering from the sun, will just have to move on to be able to hear themselves think…

6. Dave,
   Again a great comment. I think we agree on the Espoo tagging I’ve noticed it too, but wasn’t sure if it marked some new esculation in this.
   I do think to expand your points further that you could make a case for comparing the relative lack of true public space or access in Espoo with these behaviours. The best made ‘public space’ around my area is Iso Omena and that is actually completely private. When urban design is just a set of programmed spaces all privatised to a certain extent I guess you will get a backlash.
   H&D’s new Madrid gallery brings an attitude to the city that we should be including in alldevelopments not just the overtly aristic ones.

7. Buildings as Skateparks - lewism