Easing of the lockdown is slowly taking place around Germany and already we can see life returning to the streets as shops reopen. The faces masked from all sorts of fabrics participate to the colourful atmosphere and do not seem to bother those who are jubilant to be able to chat again with friends in front of a hair dresser. What a fresh and reassuring feeling to see people around returning to some sort of normality. Many wish this new normality will be different from the consumer and profit driven precedent times but, this will be a long process which I, of course, hope to see. In the meantime one thing seems to be part of this new normality: the Pause.
Movements seem to be decelerated, people walk slowly in order to respect distances to the person in front. They observe their surrounding in order to avoid unexpected proximity. They are forced to halt in front of shops and queue willingly to take their turn in entering the shops. Friends chat in front of a Tobacco shop in order to take news, others sit on steps just to observe the new dynamic. Streets look suddenly full because they actually are more people staying in the space of the streets. Usually we rush in and out of shops and optimize our path to gain the most time possible. This creates a blur of movement where it is impossible to tell how many people are actually present at the same time. Instead, we now savour any intermission as it reassures us that we are not being contaminated. What if taking time was the best barrier gesture?
As we all know, time is money and therefore, no one wants to lose time. This acceleration in our society participates in the ambient hysteria. Many denounce this unsustainable rhyme such as Pierre Rahbi, a permaculture devotee and writer of many essays questioning our society model. He denounces how modernization changed our time scale from the “cosmic” periods of the years, the seasons and the human body to a time measured to the minute where any pause is a loss of profit. This leaves little place to non measurable goods such as sharing of traditions, help, exchange of services and so on. What if this haste is part of the pandemic and taking time to reconnect with our surroundings would be an antidote?
Coming back to the urban space, we can see that this suspension of time translates into new uses in the streets. As they are waiting, people sit on window sides, on steps or on chairs dragged outside. This is how some little details become very valuable. A window sill is the perfect seat to face the street and keep distance to the other customers. A recess in a wall allows to comfortably lean and eat an ice-cream. Some shops exploit this perfectly by installing windows which completely fold to disappear and integrate the window side as a full seat for tables outside. As people become creative, we realize how little options there actually is to sit in the streets. Facades cleverly designed can promote porosity between the inside and outside while offering new features the sidewalk space. Some furtively taken pictures illustrate those new uses all observed in one evening! Therefore, please excuse the blurry hurried shots as they are simply a capture of what you could also see all around you. The question now is how can we promote these interval spaces in order to offer a comfortable use of the streets and space to pause; and breathe…
