It’s not the fact that it is smelly or stuffy, heavens no. It is based on the fact that ever since i started using public transport i instantly noticed the forcing together of people, somewhat like sardines in a can. People become so confined that they are forced to interact with one another in some way or another whether they like it or not.
Rush hour; Every morning and evening i find myself getting court, no matter how hard i try to avoid it. I push my way onto a packed train just to get to and from work on time and am somehow forced to acknowledge the gentleman or the lady in front of me and they too me. In a city as large as this one, it is nice to say hello to someone you don’t know, without it being forced, but purely because you can.
As Londoners, we have become the nation of many races whereby your neighbour would hurry past without even looking at you. I believe that ‘Adrian Forty’ had it right all along. Cities are places full of people who do not and never expect to know each other, and he explored ways at how he could express this architecturally. The thought of designing structures that adopt the principles of public transport by bringing people together and allowing them to acknowledge each other would be a great idea.
One of my favourite restaurants adopts this approach by arranging the seating so that, every time you go there you will sit next to a person or people you do not know and can choose to acknowledge them or not. The fact of the matter is that you have that option.
As Suli Breaks, a London based poet and also a good friend of mine once said in his poem labelled ‘cuz i had a dream’ that although we are so many different cultures we are all one nation.
