The Atmospheric City explores how people make sense of the feelings they get in and of urban spaces. Based on ethnographic fieldwork of everyday life in Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stockholm, it focuses on the atmospheric power of people, places, and phenomena.
While the predominant focus of current urban planning tends to rest on economic growth, sustainability, or offering housing, transport, and activities to an increasing number of city residents, this book offers a different take, based on recent discussions in the social sciences about how cities feel. It calls attention to the mundane ways in which urban dwellers adapt and adopt their surroundings. It argues that atmospheric cities are characterised by a fundamental porosity that affects how people relate to places. This highlights why some places are sought after while others are avoided. Through concrete examples of people being in and moving through the city, the book shows how people attune and are attuned by designed urban spaces, often at the margins of attention, when they find comfort in the familiar and seek out the unexpected.
This book is aimed at researchers, postgraduates, and practitioners interested in urban design and how people make sense of the feelings it evokes. It will be of interest to those in the fields of urban studies, urban design, planning, architecture urban geography, cultural geography, cultural studies and anthropology.
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
- Introduction
- Attuned relations: The sociality of atmospheres
- Embraced by the city: Feeling the urban environment
- Moving through atmospheres: Mobility and attunement
- Cities of care: Nurturing atmospheres
- The future of the atmospheric city
Towards a porous way of thinking
The life-oriented city
Atmospheric spaces
Attuning to atmospheres
Exploring the atmospheric city
Outline of the book
Chasing resonance
Solitude in the atmospheric city
Being alone together
Dissonant encounters
Quiet and loud: Crowds and atmospheres
Conclusion
Atmospheric design
Feeling the atmospheres of urban design
The affective qualities of things
Environments of atmospheres past
Weathering the atmospheric city
Conclusion
Moved by design
Perceiving through movement
Moving in practice
Moving among others
Conclusion
Care in the atmospheric city
Building care
Atmospheres of care
Zones of comfort
Knowing the city, feeling for the city
Caring for plurality
Conclusion
Bibliography
Biography
Mikkel Bille is Professor of Ethnology at the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen.
Siri Schwabe is Assistant Professor at the Department of People and Technology, Roskilde University.