Madrid, Spain. After over a year abroad it was a welcome change of scenery to travel to Madrid. I ascended from the metro station onto a street and enjoyed standing on a pavement. A pavement! This unique urban element between the edge of the road and the walls of the houses that is so hard to find anywhere else in the world. In most parts this strip is no man’s land. Where poverty rules, it is the zone for survival and informal activities. Where luxury dominates it is the zone for uncontrolled parking of oversized cars. Only in a few places like in Europe it is possible to actually walk along the houses of a city without either being run over by cars nor being followed by beggars, and further to be able to look at shop windows, enter directly into a housing or office compound, or sit in a restaurant or café with view of or even on the streets. The border between streets and houses is permeable. This is the simple secret of European urbanity.
I had a few hours to spare before the return flight and went out to see one of the large urban expansion areas of Madrid, Sanchinarro. Along the way out of the city the tram became less and less noisy. The tram was no longer running in the middle of the street, but got its own tracks. Also, the street became wider and the tram no longer produced an echo. Then out in Sanchinarro the tram was silently floating over tracks embedded in green grass. And between the tram and the street there was a hedge, and between the streets and the pavement there was a flowerbed, and between the pavement and the walls of the houses there was yet another strip of greenery. Every element was nicely divided. And on ground floor, the walls were solid, with only a few openings, without functions, without activities on ground floor. There is nothing to do on the streets, except maybe looking after all the annoying greenery.
“Build blocks!” said the mantra of conservative urbanists throughout the 80s and 90s. This would resuscitate the European urbanity. Sanchinarro, however, is all built of blocks, but still no city is created. The blocks are so far apart that they remain objects and do not form a fabric. The parts don’t make a whole. It is an architect’s city, not an urbanist’s. The latter’s secret is easy to find out. Just take the next tram back.