Rhythmanalysis as a tool for understanding shifting urban life and settings exploratory research in brussels and Colombo

Abstract

This paper deals with the transience of urban realities. It posits that urban planning and design practices have been overwhelmingly concerned with permanence, while often underestimating the impact of time on urban reality and complexity. In view of the emergence and multiplication of various forms of ‘temporary urbanism’ (Bishop and Williams, 2012), the authors explore drivers and conditions for this phenomenon and seek to clarify the relevance of this trend for architectural and planning theory and practice. They then present an exploratory urban research project that explicitly takes time into account as a fourth dimension of urban life. Drawing on the theory of rhythm analysis (Lefebvre, 1995[1962], 2004 [1992]) the project adopted a methodological orientation that was not ‘analytic’ in a strictly positivistic or scientific sense of term, but rather sided with the ‘lived experience’ comparable to participant observation in anthropology (Highmore 2005: 150). This approach is illustrated through fieldwork which the main author devised for students of his course in urban anthropology at the LUCA School of Arts in Brussels. The outputs offer a variety of graphic translations that link ‘lived experience’ to the built environment. A preliminary analysis of these case studies is complemented with a thought- experiment that the second author conducted about Colombo.