Climbing the city. Inhabiting verticality outside of comfort bubbles. Issue Volume 11:Issues 1(2018) (2nd January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Brighenti, Andrea Mubi; Pavoni, Andrea
• Is Part Of: Journal of urbanism. Volume 11:Issues 1(2018)
• Page Start: 63
• Page End: 80
• Publication Date: 2018-01-02
• Subjects: Urban theory -- urban climbing -- urban environment -- inhabiting -- bodily urban practice -- object/environment relations -- compositional techniques; City planning -- Periodicals; Sociology, Urban -- Periodicals; Sustainable urban development -- Periodicals; 307.7605
• DOI: 10.1080/17549175.2017.1360377
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1754-9175

Abstract

Abstract: Over the last couple of decades, urban sports have been studied – as well as, in many cases, celebrated – as critical forms of using urban space. Urban climbing, a practice also known as "street bouldering, " "buildering, " "structuring, " and "stegophilia, " has been much explored in this vein. While we acknowledge the importance of bringing to light the political and playful dimensions of the urban spatial experience, in this piece we would like to focus on a slightly different question. We approach it as a powerful means to probe and understand the finest constitution of urban environments and, more amply, urban morphology. By doing so, we wish, on the one hand, to zoom in as closely as possible onto the actual bodily practice of climbing, and, on the other, to attend its methodological implications in terms of a reflection on bodily techniques in the context of a natural history of the city. We describe urban climbing as a peculiar corporeal operation carried out at and, more precisely, on the limits of environmental control. In conclusion, the article suggests that, by highlighting the meaning of inhabiting a vertical open space of a peculiar kind, a close-up study of urban climbing might help to develop contemporary urban theory.