‘This will kill that’; the thought means the book will kill the monument. In these terms the internet will kill the printed word. ‘The city is a discourse, this discourse is truly a language: the city speaks to its inhabitants, we speak to our city, the city where we are, simply by living in it, by wandering through it, by looking at it’. The language of the city can be considered in symbolism; every city has a centre or a solid nucleus, consisting of an empty focal point from which to organise the rest of the city. By viewing the city as a writing, then they who moves about the city becomes the reader. When the urban elements are explored it becomes apparent watercourses create legibility and cities without water face difficulties in adaptation, difficulties in life and coherence. ‘We construct, we make every city a little in the image of a ship, whose every piece was no longer the original piece but which still remained the ship, that is, a set of significations easily readable and recognisable’.
ANDREW MARK HOUSTON 