deconarch

Initiated in 1997, Nils Norman‘s “Urbanomics Archive” collects and documents defensive design and street furniture becoming more and more used in global cities: anti-urination devices, anti-skateboarding devices, anti-”hanging out”-devices, …  A development which can be observed in particular in anglosaxon regions, yet becoming a trend in European cities as well. A big part of these devices originate in military research.

Watch the Urbanomics Archive Trailer.

A paradox development: while trying to “protect” (rather: control) public space, the same loses its “public” character step by step:  Using private security and cleaning companys, prohibitions and bans supporting the wants and needs of a certain bourgeois groups, the public space becomes more and more secluded and confined. Thus the public spaces loses its function and characteristics making it a proper public space

British artist Nils Norman  (*1966) lives and works in London. (For his CV and bibliography read on here or here)