My Kind of Town: Cecil Balmond

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My kind of town breaks out in several places, fragments that I hang around in, feeling the closeness of localities that take me over. Not necessarily in one geography, my kind of place lies scattered across the world – a result of my globetrotting, following the work from wherever it comes. The world may be one’s oyster, but the discovered pearl is in the emotions that gather around a particular square or street corner, promenade or shopping arcade. The vibrancy of these part-cities captures my imagination. I sit for hours in Milan’s Galleria, watching the passers by, perusing the bookshops, or drinking grappa, eyeing the well-heeled coming back from La Scala. It is a primary artery that pumps life into the main square nearby.
But then my mind wanders and the outlines change. The conduit of the Galleria expands to a great square in the heart of Madrid; I find myself at Plaza Mayor. I sit on the north side to catch the sun, downing small cañas of ice-cold San Miguel. I look into the middle of the great rectangle and see the locals and busy tourists cutting across – they don’t see the victims that burned there at the hands of the Inquisitor when Spain blazed with Christian sacrifice of its own making. The Plaza is a force, as is its environs of winding streets crowded with excellent tapas bars – boquerones, gambas, croquetas, pimientos, all downed again with liquid-gold beer. On the Calle Segovia side the small restaurants run well into the night, chased by drunken shouts and songs. Flamenco cries are heard. As square kilometres go, the area centred on the Plaza is an animation hard to beat. This heart of Madrid with veils of ancient deeds hanging over its fabric, food smells and squeezed facades, is part of my town. Flamencos talk of ‘duende’, that indefinable excitement of performance; we have it here in this barrio, the X-factor of place.
But then I visit Milan again, the city given to money and fashion. And in the middle of its sprawl I find the duomo – the great cathedral with ornate facades and roof-topped marble pavement. I walk up in the air on those large flagstones, look at the skylines around me and enjoy a privileged moment to float over the town. I come back then to the square below and follow the sun settling slowly over the facades. The cathedral turns pink. Such an ornate coupling of church and square is too rich really, and perhaps overbearing, but its sense of place is often with me. Not far away the diagonal of the Galleria pumps people into the area – why do I come to these places?
Work drives hard; I spend long hours obsessed with some project, then retreat into privacy or take time out in the country to heal. But in those in-between periods between work and rest something pulls me towards the public place. Not to sightsee but just to be there, observing and partaking in a larger identity of the urban spirit. The bonus is a landmark that stamps its iconic power into the location. Fixed forms and people flow animate such places and those parts of towns become my kind of town. I travel far in them.
I inhabit the circular movements of the colonnades of St Peter’s, the bulging columns and visitor invasions. I am caught in the crush as the pope appears on the balcony – it must mean something, all these people! But I look forward to the final blessing and the release to walk along the colonnades. Bernini’s design unfolds. I trace the rhythms, the criss-cross journeys of visitors against the mighty roundel verticals; in two arcs this theatre of grand design encompasses grandeur and meditation. I walk afterwards to the other gathering place, in front of the Pantheon. I marvel at the architecture: occupying one end of the sloping square is the might of the entrance vestibule and the timeless drum behind. I go in, never tiring of seeing the dome, a span not bettered for 1800 years, and the daring oculus open to the sky. The sun moves around the womb of the building; breathtaking, simple, powerful. Packed eating areas cheer up the side streets leading to the Trevi fountain and, in the opposite direction, to the former chariot ground now called Piazza Navona. Nearby is the Raphael. I stay there. I go up to the roof terrace and view St Peter’s, the dome rears its head. My orbit from Christian to Pagan Rome is a perambulation of only three hours – its sense of history so strong that I push into the Colosseum through its vomitoria to shudder at the grisly amphitheatre. I walk through the scattered stories of the Forum, down the Via Appia, listening to the crosstalk of old Rome haranguing a senator at the Rostra. How alone that stone block looks now, where Cicero once stood. Behind is the backdrop of the Capitoline. On top, the Campidoglio, with Marcus Aurelius on horseback in Michelangelo’s beautiful three-part invention of building and centre-patterned plaza.
The gentle steps descend onto modern Rome to face the long axis of the Corso, running past the Via dei Condotti all the way up to Piazza del Popolo. It is here, in this edge of transforming city, that the threads of history and commerce bring together my kind of town. The old thoroughfare may be ruined, once great buildings a museum for onlookers, but the streets still speak of mysteries and open intrigue. The close packing of dwellings brought juxtapositions that no one planned; and hybrid consequences forged interference and identity among the people. No separateness here, no streamlining by urban designers who see cities as ‘plan’. Instead, the growths of Istanbul, Fez, Kano, London’s east end, the Marais, Djemaa el Fna, are agitations that stitched inseparable barrios, ghettos, quartiers, precincts; and towns. Within the matrix guaranteed by commerce, religion and gossip – social interference – are the kind of localities I visit. I find myself guilty of lingering there, searching out fragments of my town. I can spend hours walking, through Cheapside, Istanbul’s great souk, the streets leading to Place des Vosges, the Calle up to the Mayor. In the tributaries of the Forbidden City of Beijing, the twists and turns of Venice that edge into St Mark’s, streets destined for the focus of centre squares, I don’t look backwards but forwards. My kind of town has this life, but without such old hearts there would be no new spirit.