Favorite footnotes – part 1

Every scientific book features footnotes. This is also the case for "Bavarity – Coping with Crisis in the Space of Building Culture". In fact, I actually enjoy footnotes. They expand the horizon, they offer room for elaboration and they are fun. This also applies to the footnote in chapter one on "Space as Text" selected for this post. I am fascinated by the notion that the city is a phenomenon that can be "read" like a book. Reading the city opens the door to understanding what is read in a qualified manner. Readers find the following footnote on page 6:

"The notion that cities permit reading them is an invention of 19th century feuilleton writers. It is rooted in the idea that nature and the world itself can be read, similar to a text. The urbanist perspective advanced in this book views the city as a system that is embedded in the natural environment. Its built subsystems and units are represented by architecture. Partial to the urban system, they are conducive to a socio-culturally informed mode of reading. For more on the readability of the city, see Döring (2011, p. 181 ff.)"

The source mentioned in the footnote is: Döring, J. (2011). Urbane Semiologie im Feuilleton: Siegfried Kracauers Stadtlektüren. In D. Hassenpflug, N. Giersig, B. Stratmann (eds.), Stadt lesen. Beiträge zu einer urbanen Hermeneutik (p. 181 ff). Bauhaus-Universität Weimar Verlag.

"Bavarity – Coping with Crisis in the Space of Building Culture" is available from Springer Spektrum and all booksellers.