Vague Terrain

[Sao Paolo: stop.space diagram]

[Sao Paolo: stop.space maya animation]

[Sao Paolo: stop.space 3d print]

the roads read as rivers, the towers as trees, trees so thick they become a sea, which returns their concrete masses to water. water's transformed dominance is in the Anhangabau River, which once cut a watery swath to the west of the city's original escarpment. it is now covered in concrete and above it runs an urban highway (9 Julho) that emerges and disappears under giant swaths of second ground. between these crevices, and the sheer density of towers which hug the topography, i have never seen anything comparable to the city's panorama, or the maze of walkways, overpasses, underpasses, floating parks and dungeon stairways that saturate areas such as Anhangabau. at the scale of the Cinque Terre, Italy, this climbing, criss-crossing, disappearing acrobatic is one thing; at the scale of a metropolis, quite another. the audacity of such built endeavors is perhaps a response to the brashness of the original landscape, which is nicely exhibited in 19th c. maps at the Patio de Colegio, where the city was founded. with such high highs and low lows, one is always aware of up and down, but rarely of where ground 0 might be. even the buses are topographic: embarkation is flat, but one must ascend via stairs to both the front and the rear of the vehicle. the flow is highly controlled, with an attendee + cash box + magnetic turnstile reader. in like manner, some metro station platforms have metal bars which control the movement of platform traffic, and again, the turnstiles are everywhere. even the trash bins are given consideration in relation to ground; they become elevated metal-mesh containers with legs, quickly filled and subsequently emptied by men who pull enormous 2-wheel carts behind them.

Excerpt from: forty-nine. "White Heaven." (10.03.2007)

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