The occupiers rhetorically capture the architects’ language for themselves

Evidence

This little local paper, published at irregular intervals, is titled The Spirit of the Place. The expression does not come from us, but from the urbanist Nicolas Michelin, who, for several years has been planning the destruction of this neighbourhood. In rousing tones, he asserts that: ‘The spirit of the place is the impression, the air, the atmosphere … […] We must, before building, immerse ourselves in what exists – in the history – of people. This is the foundation of our urbanist occupation. I do not understand people who invent complex systems without considering the existent’ (Le Journal du Palais, 26 September–2 October, 2011). We are the existent, an existent participating in the life of this neighbourhood that we have renamed Lentillères. We will not be fooled by their fine words, and we will defend everything that we have built here, far from their sterile and pre-fabricated urbanist concepts. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 316

Categorization

Category: Craft and Method

• SHARE: The irony of the architect’s rhetoric about ‘the spirit of the place’ being seized and thrown back at him by the squatters is a sharp anecdote for someone in urban studies or activism.