Books
Postcards from the Suburbs
With the debates on the importance of preserving heritage over and done with, disputes on what was worthy of that pedigree status began. Grand monuments easily made the cut as historical treasures, and then with more effort industrial, modern, and landscaping works qualified. Today we have a broader view of the term, which admits that “other heritage” of less material but equal symbolic value. In this otherness it is acceptable to praise the common and dignify the simplicity of what collective imaginations build.
And perhaps in such exaltation of the ordinary lies the success of this dialogue between Pablo Arboleda, in charge of the brief literary pieces, and Kike Carbajal, responsible for the evocative visual responses. The conversation touches on many subjects, but anonymous architectures on the outskirts are the main theme. Devoid of distinctive features, they find their identity in repeating the usual: red brick and green awnings. In the continuum of dislocated places, anyone can feel at home and spot their childhood squares or the bench across school.
This book will help us enjoy walks in our ‘hoods’ but induce nostalgia. Maybe the interest in saving these territories is just a sign of a growing sense that they are no longer ours. It also stirs up reflections, such as whether the yearning with which we gaze at the ceramic claddings of developmentalist times will resemble the longing that nondescript facades of PAU projects will trigger in us eighty years from now. Or the answer may lie in the ever true saying that any past was better.
